ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Someone has helpfully outlined how combat damage works in Tome, and in particular, how the features of armour, armour piercing, accuracy, defence, damage and resistances all contribute tot he final outcome.

I think a parallel system is required for spell damage, because in contrast, spell damage only takes into account resistances as far as I can ascertain. This is why so much effort goes into resistances later in the game in particular, when more and more spell casters through stuff at you, and most characters have found ways to deal with combat attacks.

So I suggest we develop the concepts of spell defence and spell armour, and spell penetration even perhaps as well. This would allow more variety in character building, lead to new talents and new ways to boost spell defence.

This does not have to be too difficult. Defence is simply DEX plus items. Spell defence could simply be MAG plus items.

I have also always found it strange that a casting class that specialises in a type of damage rarely can resist that damage. So corruptors can be killed by corruptors, orc wyrmics by orc wyrmics, etc.

Having a stat based spell defence would naturally start to remedy this.

I'll comment on spell armor.

There's a couple of effects like this already in the game though they're quite rare and limited in scope. They're also quite powerful, especially against dots and map effects (like luminous horror searing light and corrosive vapors).

Energy Decomposition is a 30% hardiness spell armor sustain.

Anti-Magic Shield is basically a 100% hardiness spell-armor effect (that costs equilibrium when it's used and fails once an equilibrium check is failed).

Mind-slayer Shields are spell-armor effects against specific elements.

I'm thinking of a generic mechanism for everyone. So spellcasters can get armour and defence, and I think all characters should get a type of spell defence.