Spell Shuffle is an experimental archetype branch.
The premise of this branch is to provide clear definitions for spell schools so that existing and new spells can be consistently assigned. The current definitions are:
School | Brief summary | Detailed lore |
---|---|---|
Evocation | Spells that create things (physical damage, food, poison, character strengthening) | Evokers can literally make real that which is in their mind's eye. By perfectly imagining an arrow, an evoker can turn that idea into an actual arrow. With practice they can even add inertia to the objects creating dangerous projectiles. They can even use this skill on themselves, temporarily improving their strength, agility or even appearance. Appearances can always be deceiving and most evocations are ephemeral. |
Sorcery | Spells that remove energy (cold spells, draining, paralyzing/slow/fear/confuse) | Sorcerers work magic to debilitate and freeze their opponents. The source of these arts is obscured but shunned arts such as necromancy are known to derive from this school and few feel comfortable discussing its merits in public. When applied directly to the environment, sorcery can drain the very heat out of the air. When applied to others the affects are truly horrifying, recipients can quickly become decrepit and befuddled and even completely unable to move. |
Pyromancy | Spells that add energy (fire, lightning, light) | Pyromancers are specialists in using magic to generate and control energy directly. By carefully weaving magic to contain heat, fire that can melt flesh and bone can be controlled to the detriment of any who would stand in their way. A more subtle application of pyromancy is to use conduct the energy as electricity rather than fire, greatly improving the distance practitioner's destructive urges can be felt. |
Summoning | Spells that call and control monsters (golems, pets, etc) | Summoners do not create things but rather bridge space and time to draw things to them. The summoning school has one of the worst causality rates as those who don't quickly learn the skills to control what they summon soon beckon something they shouldn't. These skills also give summoners the ability to readily move between areas by teleporting or even creating semi-permanent gateways that they and others can navigate through, instantly moving from one area to another. |
Praying | Spells gifted by channeling your gods wishes through prayer |
The branch has been made so that time and consideration can be given to the impact and subsequent balancing of the changes required to rehouse spells. It should not be viewed as a large-scale review of spells in general, for example spells that are already neatly housed are unlikely to be impacted.
This page summarizes the concept and ideas of tweaking spells and spell school reorganization.
Make sure to read the SPELL_SHUFFLE_README if considering using these changes.
Mailing list threads:
External References:
To download via SVN:
svn co https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch/branches/Spell_shuffle
Chose one (1) of the options below between Existing Server or New Server
You can use the svn switch command to switch to the Spell Shuffle directory.
Switch to your existing archetype directory, for instance:
cd /home/<name>/arch.svn
Then enter the following command:
svn switch https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch/branches/Spell_shuffle
The directory will automatically update with the Spell_shuffle changes.
Make sure to recollect to recompile the server to use the Spell_shuffle archetypes.
To use the Spell_shuffle archetypes with a newly setup server only requires a change to one step.
Instead of downloading the Trunk Archetypes, download the Spell_Shuffle archetypes using SVN. Like so:
$ svn co https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/server/trunk server.svn $ svn co https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/maps/trunk maps.svn $ svn co https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch/branches/Spell_shuffle arch.svn
Refer to Compiling the Crossfire Server, starting at SETUP for the rest of the steps.
See the instructions below (Switching Back) to use the Trunk archetypes if you want to go back to that codebase.
To change back to the regular SVN archetypes, make sure you are in the archetype directory, for instance:
cd /home/<name>/arch.svn
Then enter the following command:
svn switch https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch/trunk
The directory will automatically update with the Trunk changes or code base.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to either recollect the archetype or recompile the server again to go back to use the Trunk archetypes
How can you tell which archetype code base you are using?
The command svn info will show you. Check the line of text that starts with URL:
Here's sample output for Trunk:
$ svn info Path: . Working Copy Root Path: /home/<username>/arch.svn URL: https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch/trunk Relative URL: ^/arch/trunk Repository Root: https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code Repository UUID: 282e977c-c81d-0410-88c4-b93c2d0d6712 Revision: 20525 Node Kind: directory Schedule: normal Last Changed Author: sarumatix Last Changed Rev: 20514 Last Changed Date: 2017-09-13 21:11:51 -0500 (Wed, 13 Sep 2017)
Here's sample output for Spell_shuffle:
$ svn info Path: . Working Copy Root Path: /home/<username>/arch.svn URL: https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch/branches/Spell_shuffle Relative URL: ^/arch/branches/Spell_shuffle Repository Root: https://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code Repository UUID: 282e977c-c81d-0410-88c4-b93c2d0d6712 Revision: 20525 Node Kind: directory Schedule: normal Last Changed Author: sarumatix Last Changed Rev: 20525 Last Changed Date: 2017-09-16 01:19:46 -0500 (Sat, 16 Sep 2017)
The following content is manually generated and may not always be up to date with current SVN revision.
- Limit the total number of a spells (and even spell schools) that a player can know at one time (perhaps also associated with player level) so that players must choose their preferred spells. This would make spells at different levels desirable as a player progress but not clog up the players spells at high levels (e.g. small bullet, bullet, large bullet). It also means players have to give more consideration how they want to play than simply learning everything.