Thread: Vancian Magic?

ArcturusV said I can't think of A lot that were aimed towards some status attack use. I can think of about 3 I think that were effected by Level 5 Death in some of them. Though not normal status effects. Manipulate is something else entirely, though it only showed up in what, one game? Two if you count the Mediator in FFT. Both of which I had somewhere near about 20 effectiveness. In fact the only FF game I can think of where status effects routinely worked, and were in fact useful was the one that no one counts anyway. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, wehre the Dragon Claw weapon became a one hit death tool on about 90 of the game's enemies, roughly 75 of the time. The other example of one I can think of being routinely effective and useful was Final Fantasy Four's Virus spell. But that wasn't a Status effect in the game's consideration, no way to cure it, no way to stop it. Just steadily ticked down on your HP and did a good deal of damage. Course if I go by that I could also add in Reflect being one of the useful ones, as yes, there are some bosses that come to mind where the use of Reflect was needed to win. But even outside of Final Fantasy games, the trend holds true. Say the Lufia series. Magic was basically equatable to physical attack damage for the most part. The status effects only had about a 15 chance of working. You were better off hacking, slashing, and in the second one, using IP moves. Of course as you advanced int he game your spells became even more useless, about 23rds through even the high level spells just didnt' give you enough bang for the buck unless you are exploiting a specific weakness. Which most enemeis didn't have. It's actually quite interesting. In a high level DD campaign you can easily run a team of 5 wizards and they would blast thier way through most problems no problem at all. Excepting the stupid group I ran once that though the graveyard would be a safe place to rest and recover spells during an Undead scenario, rather than the holy temple under siege but still holding off the undead. In the original Final Fantasy you could run a team of four White Mages and succeed. But you can't run a team of four black mages. About hte only MP system I've played though where you could go All Magi and still succeed was Arcanum. Just watch that Black Necromancy rip your enemies in half. I certainly couldn't do the all Black Mage team in other FF games like Five, X-2, Tactics Possible exception if using Summoners or Calculators, without running out of gas long before I finished a dungeonarea and found myself helpless. Or at the very least without going through the maximum number of restorative items I could buy. Click to expand... Which is why I want to make it so that you can rest and recover your MP inbetween battles, whether it's MP or Vancian. Of course, that does alter the dungeon flow, but in a good way. I never liked how in a lot of RPGs you'll hold back with your spellcasters on the little things so you can spread their usefulness... and then recover right before a boss and have a completely different 'flow'. Final Fantasy Tactics isn't quite what I'm going for, as I would like spellcasters to be close to or all the way 'spent' around the end of every battle, kinda like in Shining Force.