ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I was just wondering how hard it would be to implement 'channeling' spells.

To clarify what I mean: A channeling spell is a spell that can be maintained for several turns, but can be interrupted by the player before lasting the full duration. While the player maintains the spell there can be a penalty, for example you cannot move and/or cannot cast spells and/or cannot attack.

In most real time game worlds, any action by the player usually ends the channeling. That means the player can just move to end it. This is however a turn based game.

I think it would make sense to have an interface window popup where you can see "player is channeling spell x" with the option of "stop channeling" or "end turn". It would be like a 'channeling menu' of all the spells you are channeling at the time. Depending on the penalty of the channeled spell, the window would also display "while channeling you cannot take any other actions" or for example "while channeling you cannot move" or "You cannot cast any other spells while channeling this spell (skill that use mana/vim/stamina/...)".

It would also be nice to have a progress bar for all the channeling spells. The player can at any turn stop channeling by pressing the appropriate button. If the player cannot act, he can still end his turn by pressing the end turn button in the channeling menu.

I can imagine for example a damaging skill that does 50 damage each turn, and an additional 50 damage each turn it is in effect while channeling this spell. Suppose the spell can be channeled for an additional 5 turns. During this time, the player cannot move or take any other actions. The spell would do 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 (total=1050 dmg).

There would be other possibilities, for example, a stone armor skill. While channeling this spell, the player becomes immune to critical hits, stun and knockback, and gets +30% resistance to all but the player cannot move while channeling this spell (you can cast spells or attack). At any time you can stop channeling the spell, you can move again but you loose the armor bonus.

Your thoughts?

I used something similar to this for Gather the Threads (you'll have to manually unlock Paradox Mages too check it out or look at the lua).

Basically Gather is a timed effect like stealth or lightning speed that breaks when you do anything other then move. If you added a break on move to it (which can be done in Actor, Body of Stone breaks on move but it's also a sustain that prevents movement, teleporting however will end your Body of Stone spell) then you basically have a channeled effect that stops as soon as you choose to move. Pressing 5 will not break such effects so there's really no need for a pop up (assuming most players know what 5 does that is).

In other words, setting up a spell that breaks when you do something (like lightning speed or stealth) and also breaks when you move would create a suitable channeled spell effect.

ah interesting, thanks for that comment