View source for Post:Nostalgia - 10/28/2011 - 00:13

{{Post
|a=HAPLO82
|t=Nostalgia
|d=10/28/2011 12:13 AM CDT
|n=1505
|f=Abilities, Skills and Magic \ Magic - Suggestions, Discussions and Thoughts
|c=m
|p=I was using the wayback machine to dig up some info for elanthipedia. I came across this gem and I figured I would share.


Greets,

There's far too many posts for me to respond individually (114 since last I looked :P), but one thing I think needs to be cleared up is the spell process. It seems there's still a lot of confusion about what is actually happening when you cast a spell. I'm also in a warped mood right now, so it's time for an example. How unlike me!

Let's say you want to cast a spell at the death monkey accidentally released by that poor newbie who just opened up the monkey barrel trap. The first thing, obviously, is to prepare the spell. Completely mental, your actions here indicate a personal (or guild, or sect, etc) focus in preparing yourself to channel mana into a coherent spell display. No mana has been harnessed at this point, you're doing exactly what the verb indicates -- preparing the spell.

You feel fully prepared to cast your spell, but unfortunately it's too late, and the death monkey has torn your head off and is playing basketball with it. So you curse a bit, write a quick post asking, "WHERE THE HELL IS REZZ!?!?," depart, then start all over again. This time, you're fully preppared because he's beating the snot out of someone else.

You cast. At this point, the spell pattern forms, and you channel in the needed mana. This is still all mental. The success of doing this is based on your magic skills. If you fail at this, your spell backfires (or worse, the mana isn't compatiable and it blows your arms off, though this only really happens with sorceries, necromancies, and mixing mana types (and that also goes beyond what we're discussing here)).

Let's say you don't backfire, which means you have successfully created the spell pattern. It is at this stage that the death monkey's magic resistance affects your spell pattern, causing the mana to return to its natural state, and the spell pattern collapses before it can do anything. Then the death monkey beats the living crap out of you again, does a victory dance, and you depart and run back in for round three.

Rinse, repeat. This time, you try a targeted spell. The death monkey can not resist your spell pattern, because that's forming near you, but he CAN resist the targeted pattern forming near him. He does, and it only causes the spell to miss, not collapse. So you decide that you'll use the Jello Manipulation spell, Jello Juggernaut, because you can cast it really high to get around the death monkey's ungodly magic resistance.

You cast it. The jello juggernaut hurtles toward the death monkey, a grim Cosby-esque laughter ringing through the air. You have successfully prepared, cast, and overcome magic resistance at this point, but the spell process is still not over.

It is at this point that the spell effect must be resolved. This is where contested checks would come into play. The size and power of the spell pattern was determined with the initial cast, before anything else. The efficiency of the spell effect, however, may be dependant on entirely different things, varying with the individual spell. For contested spells, that's your stats. The efficiency of the pattern has to come from some basis, and so, according to the spell type, it is drawn from the caster's statistics. Of course, some spells may draw on other completely different factors, but we're focusing on contested spells lately.

In the case of Jello Juggernaut, it relies on the caster's ability to "hit" with the spell and the target's ability to get the heck out of the way. It's not as precise as a targeted spell (obviously, if you've ever thrown jello at someone) so that makes Jello Juggernaut Spell vs Agility.

So let me explain... no, wait, there is no time. Let me summarize:

Prepare your spell and wait/decide to cast,<br />
Cast<br />
Primary Magic/Harness determines if you succeed, how "big" the spell is<br />
Magic resistance of applicable target(s), if any, modifies the spell<br />
Spell effect, be it contested or otherwise<br />
The key here is simply to not confuse spell casting success, spell resistance, spell effect/contesting, and the overall result of the spell (eg, did it do what you wanted it to do).

As for the death monkey, the Jello Juggernaut didn't do jack to it because... well, I mean, they call them death monkeys, not fluffy kitten monkeys or little schoolgirl monkeys, so it's pretty much out of your league. Your solution to dealing with the death monkey...

[[Rigby]] just left.

(Posted 9/5/02)

-[[Coralin]]
|sub=Magic Theory
}}