Quote:if you have a system where there are raw forces around you all the time and while casting you manipulate them and create some sort of effect, then doing that is a spell, and doing it again and again is what spells are there for.
That is correct, but why create situations that require one set of actions to be done over and over ? This is good for action/arcade/h&s games , but i would like to see something different in games that call themselves RPG and allow you to play as a mage.
At the very LEAST, maybe make not a total-custom spell, but a custom macros that would do the same set of actions ? If you really want to do that - you could. If not - you still have your individual actions.
Quote:How about summoning a creature you've already made contact with?
Could be good, but i am, personally, an adept of total randomness in everything. >:D
Quote:You can't just rely on a PC to react a certain way just because a character looks different.
True, but PC doesnt have to react differently. The game social system will take care of that. Suppose that you got beaten out of your home and have to sleep on the street - you havent changed at all, but after a while you will look like a bum and high-class people will avoid you like plague, while various "undesirable" elements of the society will try to befriend of use you.
Quote:If you change it without their explicit permission, then they may react negatively towards the game.
It doesnt matter in the slightest, as long as it doesnt happen every half and hour. Mostly it will depend on the overall game image. What comes to mind are vampiric quests in TES and sides changing in Chrono Cross.
Quote:For example lets assume there is a spell "Lightning Bolt". Normally a mage that knows this spell can cast it at will, but that takes 10 seconds to do. However, the mage can perform a ritual which takes 30 seconds to perform, but then allows them to cast the lighting bolt once for each time the ritual is performed (up to a limit) in only 2 seconds.
This is actually implemented in ADoM. You can cast from spellbooks, which is long and costly but infinite, or you can learn the certain amount of spells from the book, thus degrading it, but cast quickly and cheaply.