Most avid BOE fans know of the “Special Spells” originally used in Stareye’s Spy’s Quest, and copied by at least a dozen other scenarios since then. Essentially, they’re used by powerful enemy NPCs to Weaken/Slow/Damage/Web etc... the party. Personally, I’ve never found them overwhelmingly effective, and I’ve felt they’re often been overused in scenarios. Of course, that didn’t stop me from having the Seraphim employ them to kick your party’s behinds in Falling Stars...
I propose bringing the concept of Special Spells to the next level — allowing the party to utilize them. Through the use of Special Items, scenario designers can utilize special spells to spruce up and individualize their scenarios, allowing them to accomplish one of the long soft after BOE functions — the ability to customize spells.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do with specials, so you are, in essence, somewhat limited. Some suggestions and things to keep in mind:
- Special Items cannot be used while in combat. This is quite an unfortunate limitation, as it severely handicaps any combat based PC Special Spells.
- Special Items are used instantaneously. They don’t take up any time, hostile creatures will not respond after the use of a special item. So, if you give the party a “Bless All” special item, and they use it at the first sign of danger prior to entering combat, it won’t hurt them.
- Make sure to give the spells a cost. Unlike normal spells, unless you intervene, the party will be able to cast the spell infinitely, and whenever they desire. Some suggestions:
- Give the Special Spell a cost — such as draining the party’s health or spell points
- Make the Special Spell available to be used only once every 1000 (or whatever) moves
- Give the Special Spell charges, after X number of uses, it disappears forever
The ‘Affect PC’ Nodes are an obvious choice for PC Special Spells. Some other ideas:
- One Time Place Town Encounters as a type of summoning spell. The advantage is a greater ability to control the monsters summoned, and in addition you could give the summoned monsters personalities. The downside, however, is fairly large. First, the summoned monsters would stay around forever (although you could correct this with a timer and destroy monster node). Second, you’d have to place the same one-time encounter in every town. Finally, the one-time encounter would have to be in a fixed position. In many towns, this would make summoning in certain areas (which the player would not know about) pointless.
- Change Terrain (and its cousins, Change Rectangle Terrain, Transform Terrain, etc...) Could be used as a more powerful or vital “Unlock” spell. Perhaps a “de-toxify” spell that changes all nearby swamp into non-poisonous variety. See Lamentations for an example.
- Explosion on Space. You could use this as a much stronger “Shockwave” spell (give it a high radius), but there’s a BIG downside. Everytime this special (or any special) kills a creature, BOE displays an error message. It’s not fatal, but it is a fairly large aesthetic bug.
- Move Party. You could use this as a teleport spell, to get the party back to the dungeon entrance. The only problem is, you’d have to do a LOT of customizing your towns and dungeons to make it work.
- Destroy Monster. Use as a specific town-wide destruction type. Maybe a “Turn Undead” spell that destroys all Skeletons and Zombies within the town. See Falling Stars for an example.
Finally, I would suggest the best use for these special spells is that of rewards for the party. Every player can get every super-duper item he or she wants in most scenarios. Rewarding players with special spells helps give your scenario a unique feel, and gives the player a greater incentive to complete the mission.
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