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Why cast spells?


Mumbles

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I'm new to Academagia. I understand (sort of) the difference between Train and Study and even Research. I do not, however, understand when or why I'd want to cast a spell. I looked at the manual and also the You Tube tutorial and didn't find what I was looking for.

 

Help me out, please?

 

_________________________________

 

P.S. This BB questions the spelling of the game. :)

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Mumbles;

 

Spells have a variety of uses, and some can help you achieve the goals that you set. Primarily, Spells increase your Skills, which is most useful when trying to complete difficult Adventures, or certain hard Actions and Abilities (or, for that matter, other Spells!)

 

Let me know if this answers the question. :)

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Are you kidding me? Spells are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Of course you have to cast spell.

 

One: spell provide temporary benefit like locations do. So we can cast spell at certain locations to get both magical benefit and permanent benefit of that location.

 

Two, highlevel magic user can cast spell with great effect. Greater than location's effect for sure. Example, Jokers in the midst can provide +2Charm and +6Practical Jokes. Which are huge.

 

Three spell can be tinkered with, namely add on some phemes to modify magical benefit. This require even higher level, but the benefit is even huger. The joker spell above can provide +4 to Revision if you add 2 revise. meaning you can have 14 Revision for that exam. Can I have a megalomaniac laughter here?

 

HOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH

 

My current exam grade is higher than 100, due to high Study AND high spell. The only blot upon my glorious scholar report is Rhetoric since I havent found much to up it beyond7. Can I have a HOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH for 210 Revision exam grade here? Take that, Zoe!

 

Academy for mages indeed.

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And aother great adventage of spell:

 

Four: adding more subskill to learn. Normally you must wait to discover these subskills in d ue course (study, research, explore...) with a random element built in. Now with a spell you can have that knowledge with full understanding and control. Like the Jokers spell. If you dont have any idea of Practical jokes and dont know how to get it, cast the basic Jokers spell. It will make Practical Jokes appear and you have 2-3 SS in it. Now you can study/learn/train... This is way more in control for your management of skill and training.

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This makes me think of another addition that I think would be good to see; ability to use spells during an adventure. Especially since there's no way to know what kinds of problems/situations you will come up against or what skills you will need for an adventure ahead of time, I think it would be fun to be able to cast a spell to help you deal with a situation within an adventure. I think this would make the collection and specialization of spells more interesting since it wouldn't just be about giving yourself boosts to pass exams but instead about getting tools to help you overcome more obstacles. I realize they already work that way to some degree, but the fact that you have to cast spell as separate action before an adventure takes away a lot of the potential usage

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This makes me think of another addition that I think would be good to see; ability to use spells during an adventure. Especially since there's no way to know what kinds of problems/situations you will come up against or what skills you will need for an adventure ahead of time, I think it would be fun to be able to cast a spell to help you deal with a situation within an adventure. I think this would make the collection and specialization of spells more interesting since it wouldn't just be about giving yourself boosts to pass exams but instead about getting tools to help you overcome more obstacles. I realize they already work that way to some degree, but the fact that you have to cast spell as separate action before an adventure takes away a lot of the potential usage

 

Right now it generally goes like this:

1-Save the game

2-Start the adventure

3-Go as far as you can and note down the skills needed

4- When you fail load the game

5- Cast a spell that increases a required skill

6-Start the adventure

7- Go as far as you can and note down the skills needed

8- If you can finish, save the game

9- If you fail, load the game

 

Rinse, repeat

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Yeah, I get that, doesn't seem like the smoothest method in the world. Would really love it if you could cast in adventure. Even if you have a limit on how many spells are cast during an adventure, so you would have to choose carefully when to use them. Some sort of mechanic like that would be nice.

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Not necessary. Sometimes just change locations is helpful enough.

 

This still requires the same, try-fail-reload mechanic that i think breaks the tempo and mood of the game. With spells during adventure in addition to the existing skillbased choices, it gives a much better pace of obstacle-solution-progress-obstacle-solution-progress, etc. Reloading a game shouldn't be part of the game mechanics. (i understand you don't have to reload, but with the current time constraints it is unrealistic to trial and error adventures without reloading) there would still be preparation and pre-adventure strategy involved, my way just gives more flexibility within adventure.

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Thanks, everyone. After the initial reply, I have attempted to cast them. I think it was Glory (the one my mentor said was easy). I thought it would be useful since I was attempting to get someone new in my clique.

 

I haven't succeeded casting it even after several attempts. (I'm past midterms). I tried adding in phemes on occasion, but those never worked.

 

I wish the Wiki or FAQ or manual addressed spells and locations in more detail. My mentor told me about them ages ago and there's no easy way to go back and find out which encounter with her it was and reread it. Heck, since that sounded like a request, It would be great if I didn't need to back out of my action screen (sorry, don't know what to call it) in order to double-check information on locations and/or NPCs when I need to select one.

 

I'll keep plugging away.

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Highjacking magic, I'm recording my spells :)

 

I've noticed that so far I've got 3 kinds of description (on the 3 first spells...)

 

1) If success on a Finess/Incantation Vs. 5 blablabla

Quite clear here. As far as I get it, I put my Finess + my Incantation (2+6=8 for the sake of the example) and there's some kind of roll, if I get 5 or more, it's cast. 5 being reasonnably low as far as I understand from the levels of some locations (illumination cubicle says 9 is medium hard for instance).

 

2) If success on an Intelligence/Enchant blablabla

Hm... no Vs. here? Does that mean a Vs. 0, so some kind of nearly impossible to fail win (on a 3+4=7 combination for the example)?

 

3) Aganathi's Lamp... gives absolutely no idea on a cast. Automatic win?

 

 

Concerning Phemes then. Let's say I take my first spell. Add a bit of... air, so difficulty 3. Does that make my spell a Finess/Incantation Vs. 5+3 or... what? :)

 

Trying to understand a bit spellcasting. I've tried once near the beginning, didn't work... didn't retry, I think it's time now.

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Erthael;

 

First of all, if you haven't already you may want to download the consolidated Patch 3 + Content Patch 1 file. Content Patch 1 updated almost all the Spell Descriptions and they should be much clearer now.

 

2) I would have to look at the Spell, but if they mention an Attribute and Skill, there is almost certainly a Roll involved.

 

3) For Aganathi's Lamp, the new Description states:

 

"There are no Rolls required; effects last about 6 days."

 

...so, in this case, there is no Roll at all, and thus is an Automatic Success.

 

Regarding Phemes, you have it correct. Phemes can only be applied to Spells with Rolls (specifically: Spells which are Roll only), and their Difficulty is directly added to the Difficulty of the Spell. So if you Spell requires you to make a:

 

Fitness + Incantation vs. 5 Roll

 

...and you add a Pheme of Difficulty 3, it will be come:

 

Fitness + Incantation vs. 8 Roll

 

...in order to succeed, you need to Roll a 9 or above (unless you have some other modifying Effects, of course!)

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Great Answer! :D

 

Concerning 2), most spells are quite unclear in a specific way (Beginner's dispel "requires a bit of intelligence and minimal skill at negation" for example), in which case I've just, under further notice classified them as Easy (cumulation attribute/skill of 5 to try), Medium (cumulation of 7) and Hard (cumulation of 10), but this is arbitrary :).

But then you have something like 6th finger: ""This simple yet elegant spell, cast with a successful Intelligence/enchant Roll, increases one's Enchant and Forge Skill by 2 points each. The effect lasts for a week." Hard to give even a classification level there.

 

 

So Basically a Pheme is directly linked to the same attribute/skill combination as the spell you add it to. Phemes require a certain level of skill in a certain area to be obtain, but can then be used with a whole other set of attribute/skill?

 

I have to say, I don't fully understand the roll system. From the Manual, it feels like it's a simple comparison. If my attribute/skill combination is 7 and the Versus is 6, I win. At the same time, I know that can't be it, as random events also "roll", and with this system you would only have 3 possibilities, that is win, lose or equal. Instead, we have probabilities, I assume there is therefore a random element in the rolls :). The question is then how does the roll system work?

 

Other thing (question bombing, that's what interesting game systems give you :) ): Let's take the wand amplification. Automatic success, gives +4 to my spells for 5 days:

Is it cumulable if I cast it 3 times on my saturday?

This +4 bonus, does it basically translate as adding +4 to my attribute/skill combination when casting a spell?

If I cast it saturday morning, and plan to cast the Wizard's Aid (+2 spell bonus) the same afternoon, will the Wand Amplification already be active to cast the Wizard's Aid? Will the +4 and +2 spell bonus cumulate, in the end (my guess to that one is yes).

 

Again, thanks for the absolutely great support/answers, that's where Indi Games score points, proximity with the players :)

 

 

As a PS: I have the patch/content packs updated, but my savegame for the spells is from before the content pack, so some of these descriptions may have been updated, yes.

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Erthael and mecharm;

 

Rolls do have a random part, based on your Attributes. The only thing you can rely upon is your Skill Level, which is directly added to your Roll. There is a more complete explanation elsewhere, but in short the random value is between 1 and 2x the Attribute.

 

Wand Amplification lasts for 5 Days (I believe), so if you really want to cast a Spell, yes, you can use it over and over. :D

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Laclongguan;

 

These Types determine interactions between extra Phemes in Spells and in Enchantment. The Magnitude tells you how many Phemes of the other Type it will cancel out.

 

In this example, if you added a Water Type Pheme to a Spell as an additional Pheme, and then added a Fire Type Pheme, they would cancel each other. This means the Spell is extra Difficult, without any of the benefits for the additional Phemes.

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Found! :)

 

 

Hm... no quote? I'll give it a try

 

Obvious;

 

Details here are fine. A Roll, at heart, is a random value dependent on your Attribute and a known value based on your Skill.

 

The random portion is equal to a number between 1 and 2x your Attribute. So, if the relevant Attribute is 3, the random portion is 1-6.

 

Your Skill is then directly added to that result, meaning that in our example if the relevant Skill is 5, your 'Roll' could be anything between 6 and 11.

 

There are several other factors involved (and those will remain mysterious for a while yet!), but this is the main part.

 

Bottom of page 3, quite an interesting topic to read really :)

 

 

Ok, I think I get my roll, globally.

 

If I take the Inhuman Timing, that's insight/flawless timing Vs. 6. On a combination of 3/6, I am more or less guaranteed a roll of 7 to 12, thereby quite an automatic success, am I not?

 

If I had my wand amplification on, with the same example as above, I'd be guaranteed a 7 to 12 +4, meaning 11 to 16, right? Making it very doable to add a pheme on a 4 difficulty (11to 16 roll against 6+4= 10 difficulty) or even, if I'm taking chances, another one...

 

Am I completely off course here, or is it basically that? :)

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