Spell effects: Soultrap

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lgromanowski
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Spell effects: Soultrap

Post by lgromanowski »

Star-Demon wrote: So, I'm testing out Soultrap, and I notice that if you do AE Soultrap, you can only tag one target with it at a time - it doesn't function like other AE spells.

"Your spell did not get a target"

Should it?





Personally, I think it should. Enchanting on your own is so painful.
sir_herrbatka wrote: IMHO yes. I don't like the way soultrap works.
silentthief wrote: MW did allow for multiple targets in an area effect. But there were times when you would get that message (like if you didn't have an empty soul gem for example).

ST
Star-Demon wrote:
silentthief wrote:MW did allow for multiple targets in an area effect. But there were times when you would get that message (like if you didn't have an empty soul gem for example).

ST
When I tried it, I definitely had enough soulgems to take the three guys it hit.
Greendogo wrote: So we're agreed that an AOE Soultrap spell cast at three soul-carrying creatures should allow for the storage of those souls in three appropriate soul gems?

I believe one caveat should be that the more creatures that are entrapped by the spells AOE, the higher the resulting magika-cost should be. Perhaps the first creature trapped by the spells AOE should be included in the magika-cost of the spell, but each additional soul captured cost the same amount of magika. If you don't end up capturing the souls, then there is no additional cost beyond the original cost of casting the spell.

For example: If you have 73 magika and cast the area of effect spell on three rats and the spell has a magika cost of 30 points, then you pay 30 points upfront. You now have 43 magika points left. You kill one rat and trap the soul. Then you kill another rat under the influence of the spell and you are sapped of 30 more mana, but you saved time by not needing to cast the spell again. You get that soul and have 13 magika points left. Then you kill the last rat, but since you do not have the needed 30 points in order to pay the upkeep, you do not capture the last soul.

One alteration you could make on the last soul, when you have only 13 points remaining, is to make the chance that you'll capture the last soul the ratio of your available magika points over the required magika points. So you would have a chance of 43% of capturing the last soul. Whether or not the last 13 points is used up if capturing fails is another detail.

Once all your magika is used up, the spell wouldn't cancel, because you could still drink a restore magika potion. The spell would just run out from the original casting, or the timer could restart every time you pay the upkeep by capturing a soul. I like the last idea the best, because it is an interesting spell chain.

Edit:When you have to pay upkeep on the second creature killed after casting the original spell, killing them and capturing their soul, and thus paying upkeep, could behave the same as casting the AOE soultrap spell again and again sending out and entrapping more creatures so that you could keep the spell going long after casting it the first time without actually casting it. I think that'd be fun.
silentthief wrote: I think that we should not stray from the original too much. But I also think there should be a one and only one soul given per creature hit, regardless of how many different soul traps hit that target creature.

ST
Greendogo wrote: Does vanilla morrowind give multiple souls if you hit a creature with more than one soul trap spell? I didn't think it did. I wouldn't want that either, it would be game breaking.

Of course, I agree with you about my "chain soultrap" idea upon further reflection. But I also think you should be able to hit multiple targets for an area-of-effect soultrap spell or there should be no area-of-effect soultrap spell at all.
silentthief wrote: In regular unmodded MW, If you cast the SAME spell, it would not. But if you used a series of spells like:

soultrap1
soultrap2
ect
ect

or a spell and enchanted item, then you would get more than one soulgem filled off one target.

ST
Ruarl wrote: Hey pleased to meet you all.

One thing on the the subject. If I understand the current spell effects system in MW correctly then multiple enchant ID's stack on top of each other. Like Silentthief said:
ID1-soultrap
ID2-soultrap
ect.
Thus allowing the Character to receive multiple souls from a single Creature.

Also Vanilla MW stacks spell magnitudes on top of each other. If you cast two different Fortify Speed +20 then the resulting effect is Fortify Speed +40. The second Fortify Speed is calculated from the current Speed attribute (Base +20). IMO this should have been calculated from the base Speed attribute from the get go. This function alone made the enchanting system in MW unbalancing, where tales of uber enchanted items is common. (Intelligence +1000 anyone? :D )

One thing I would like to have coded into OpenMW is the ability to configure how spell/enchant/potion effects are handled:

1)Change the system to track spell/enchant/potion effects rather then spell/enchant/potion ID's (Or both) (So the system will be able to see that there is already a Soul trap Effect active on a creature.)

2)If spell effect Magnitude is calculated from the base value or current value. (Toggle on/off with GMST?)

3)If Identical Spell Effects Duration stack or not. (Invisibility(10 sec) + Invisibility(10 sec) = Invisibility(20 sec)) (Toggle on/off with GMST?)

I'm unfamiliar with MW scripts so perhaps this can be done via the CS, but I feel that it should be included within the system. Perhaps toggled off by default for the vanilla feel.

Ruarl

PS. Hope some of my ideas will benefit the project in the long run.
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