Ranger new spell idea...

[LanceDiamond]

I had a thought about something like a create projectiles spell that would target a stack of 20 or less projectiles and duplicate them on success or destroy them on failure. Not sure if something like that could be done in such a way that it isn't horribly overpowered where you stand in town and fill your house with bolts of death or whatever. Maybe have the spell success based on your dungeon level vs the level of the projectile - so if you find a high level projectile all you could do with it in town is destroy it... Success rate - I dunno, 50/50 seems flippy - better seems overpowered and lower seems pointless so bad idea?

Maybe a silly idea - new to rangers and not wanting to make them overpowered but some sort of spell like this would make sense imho. If I could think of how to not make it too overpowered I might mess with coding it. Thoughts?

[Donald Jonker]

Well, rangers already have the branding spell, which puts an elemental brand on a stack of ammo of your choosing. Standard ammo is always available in town, so that isn't a problem. But in 3.1.x, ego ammo is somewhat rare, so perhaps the idea isn't all that misguided. Just not sure that rangers need all that much of a helping hand w/r/t damage output.

Steamband has devices that create ammo, and makes that ammo unsaleable in town in order to balance it. But standard ammo is somewhat rare and expensive in that variant.

[PaulBlay]

Originally Posted by LanceDiamond

Thoughts?

OK there are some tricky points here.

1. It can become a 'money mine'. I suggest that any pile of missiles targeted by this spell be made "100% discount" (in other words, unsellable).

2. I suggest a sharp cut-off (e.g. 100% failure when power of missiles is too high.) Give an appropriate warning message as well "These missiles are beyond your power to duplicate."

3. I suggest testing vs character level, not vs dungeon level reached.

4. Rather than double or nothing I would suggest 1d4 destroyed on failure, 2d6 created on success (or similar).

Overall I like the idea but it could very easily break game balance completely. How powerful missiles can be for a X level ranger to duplicate would have to be very carefully examined. I would suggest "Handy missiles can be duplicated, really nice missiles can't" as a general aim. In other words the day-to-day fighting could be done with magically generated missiles but you should always want a nice found bunch of ego arrows for a difficult opponent.

[EDIT] In fact I would also suggest that rangers shouldn't be the only class able to cast this (but rangers should have some sort of bonuses to the process).

[buzzkill]

Rangers should have the class ability to create {average} or crude (+0,-x) arrows from trees in the wilderness. This quantity and time it takes would be based on CL. Rather than a separate command, it could happen by default when resting. Of course, it wouldn't work out very well in V (no wilderness).

[PaulBlay]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Of course, it wouldn't work out very well in V (no wilderness).

Quite.

Rangers should have the class ability to create {average} or crude (+0,-x) arrows from trees in the wilderness. This quantity and time it takes would be based on CL. Rather than a separate command, it could happen by default when resting.

How about having rarer trees, found in more dangerous areas, produce better quality arrows?

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by PaulBlay

How about having rarer trees, found in more dangerous areas, produce better quality arrows?

Are there such things?

I just kind of threw that out there for the heck of it. Once somebody decides to implement it, then I'll start hashing out the details. Maybe Nick will pick it up .

[Nick]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Are there such things?

I just kind of threw that out there for the heck of it. Once somebody decides to implement it, then I'll start hashing out the details. Maybe Nick will pick it up .

Well, I do have different types of trees... now I'm going to have to think about this, damn you .

[Daniel Fishman]

Surely the difficult part of making arrows is the arrowtips rather than the shafts?

[Atarlost]

Actually, I think you can make arrows without heads. They won't do near as much damage, though. Decent quality arrowheads, though, don't break on use. You can collect and reuse them without limit as long as you have the opportunity to pick them up.

[PaulBlay]

Originally Posted by Daniel Fishman

Surely the difficult part of making arrows is the arrowtips rather than the shafts?

I think it's a little late in the day to start bringing up realism. But if you want to go down that route, then I hope you've made enough arrows yourself to throw around "surely"s like that.