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exotic spells in RPGs.

For discussing role-playing video games, you know, the ones with combat.
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WaterMage
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exotic spells in RPGs.

Post by WaterMage »

:wizard: :wizard: :wizard: :wizard: :wizard:

Fireball, Ice Lance, Lightning Bolt, summon skeleton, I'm not talking about this "generic" spells. I'm talking about :
  • transforming the caster into a toad in Jade Empire
    β–Ί Show Spoiler
  • Claws of the umber hulk from Ravenloft : Strahd possession/Stone prophet which transform caster's hands into a umber hulk claw. In P&P, this spell allow all types of crazy stuff in underdark, to make deadly traps, dig tunnels and so on. In the games, it only gives a very powerful melee attack which can be used against enemies immune to magic.
  • VtMB, Tremere blood magic is a bit exotic.
  • Sacred 1/2(3 is awful) has some interesting spells, daemon has tentacle based spells, dragon mage has shapeshifting and gust of the wind spells.
  • Tainted Grail : The fall Of Avalon -> You can transform bosses into cheese.
  • Is TT but FATAL has some really creepy spells like "warm her corpse"
  • Dark Souls 3 WITH Convergence mod. It adds a lot of cool and unique spells like aeromancy and some cool but not unique magic like cryomancy
  • (...)
Any more for the list?
Last edited by WaterMage on May 30th, 2025, 22:11, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by asf »

iceball
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Post by Oyster Sauce »

I liked this Skyrim mod. You even have to do special quests for each school to unlock the most powerful spells. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16225

Some examples
Alarm: For 120 seconds, alerts you when an enemy crosses the 150 foot perimeter.
Longstride: While concentrating, grants 20% movement speed and 25 carry weight, tripled when out of combat.
Drop Zone: Creates a ring of cushioning magic at the target location. The caster takes no damage when falling into the ring.
Ocato's Recital: Stores the (beneficial self-targeted non-concentration) spell in your left hand and casts it for no cost whenever you enter combat. Up to 3 spells. Empty left hand to reset.
Locate Object: Illuminates the nearest ore vein, gold, container, door, key, soul gem, written text, potion, gem, ingot or equipment of your choice for 20 seconds.
Strength of Earth: Concentrate to deal 40% more attack damage with your other hand. Release after attacking to stagger nearby foes.
Thundering Hooves: For 180 seconds, your mount is X% faster, regenerates Stamina and can swim upwards to run on water. Nearby allies riding a mount within 30 feet also benefit.
Deep Storage: Grants access to an infinite underground storage space.
Entomb: Buries a target permanently, or frees a buried target. Only one victim may be buried at a time.
Fabricate Object: The caster creates a bridge, bed or crafting station of his or her choice. The object disappears after 120 seconds or when entering combat.
Acceleration Rune: Cast on a nearby surface, launches enemies in the direction they are moving.
Hethoth's Grimoire: Creates a hovering spell tome of the (projectile, non-concentration) spell in your left hand. It repeatedly casts the spell in the direction you are facing for 30 seconds.
Milestones: Place up to 5 teleportation anchors and teleport freely between them.

Ghostwalk: Caster is invisible for 10 seconds or until broken, then teleports back to where the spell was cast.
Backlash: Interrupts target spellcaster. If a spell is interrupted, the target is hit by their own offensive spells, while non-offensive spells are cast on you.
Mind Vision: See through the eyes of target creature or humanoid for 10 seconds. Sheathe to cancel.
Thoughtsteal: Equip the spells the target has equipped. Lasts for 120 seconds or until unequipped.
Shadowbond: Caster and target gain invisibility for 20 seconds. When the invisibility is broken, the caster and target swap places.
Enslave the Weak: Forces a hostile humanoid below 20% Health to serve your will permanently until slain. You can only have one slave at a time. Does not work on quest characters.

Slay Living: Kills a living target in melee range with 25% or less remaining health.

Worm Shroud: For X seconds, destroys corpses within 20 feet, improving Restoration spells by 5% for 30 seconds. This effect refreshes and stacks up to 10 times.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

IE game trigger spells were neat
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Post by gerey »

WaterMage wrote: ↑ May 30th, 2025, 22:11
VtMB, Tremere blood magic is a bit exotic.
Thaumaturgy was such a letdown in the game, despite breaking the difficulty in half like a twig. You don't get to do any cool rituals or use the magic in creative ways, it's just basic ***** magic projectiles and shields painted red.

Then again, even though I love Bloodlines 1 to bits, it really dumbed down Clan abilities.

I feel any game that would allow you to use Eldritch magic, as seen in Lovecraft's story, would be pretty weird.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Any spell that allows you to gather information in a non-standard way gets approval from me. Speak with the dead, mindreading in Divinity 2(even has an exotic cost β€” experience!), etc.,

Doesn't count when it's given out for free like BG3 with the speak with the dead amulet, stupid decision
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Post by Norfleet »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 31st, 2025, 00:38
Any spell that allows you to gather information in a non-standard way gets approval from me. Speak with the dead, mindreading in Divinity 2(even has an exotic cost β€” experience!), etc.
Is rubber hose a standard or non-standard way?
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Post by DrSneed »

In Shadow of the Demon Lord you can sew up your enemies assholes with a spell and then make them explode with diarrhea.
Last edited by DrSneed on May 31st, 2025, 12:50, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Vaako »

Souls games had quite a few good ones too like corpse explosion, that turning into an object thing. Any kind of gravity magic which also has blackholes is fun and not used a lot.
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Post by J1M »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 31st, 2025, 00:38
Any spell that allows you to gather information in a non-standard way gets approval from me. Speak with the dead, mindreading in Divinity 2(even has an exotic cost β€” experience!), etc.,

Doesn't count when it's given out for free like BG3 with the speak with the dead amulet, stupid decision
What about psychometry?
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Post by UltraFan123 »

NWN1 had [Time Stop].

It appears that some of the stuff that the NWN games had available has somewhat become "lost tech" since no modern CRPG has something similar to [Time Stop] or the "Quickcast" menu from NWN2.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

Final Fantasy X: one of the Summons is a samurai where each turn you have to select how much (if at all) to pay him and then that will factor into how much damage he deals (along with other considerations such as the dialogue choices you used when you first recruited him). He may or may not be less or more likely to use Zanmato and one shot your enemies, depending on whether you are in a random fight or a boss battle.

Geomancers have spells that change depending on the environment and the weather condition. Heal on sunny days. Grant an evasion effect during mists. Etc.

Heavy Slam ability in Pokemon that deals damage based on how heavy the target is compared to the user. Have fun chunking those tonners.

Archer in Fate games using his Reality Marble to take him and his targetted opponent to a specially created pocket dimension where Archer has the advantage in the duel. Depending upon the game he may have to chant the whole incantation, which may take a while and a lot of skill to do without being attacked and killed.

Gambler themed spells and abilities which have a chance to do something ranging from an incredible attack against your enemy to nearly killing you.
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Post by Manny V »

Warhammer has quite a few fun and interesting spell lores:

Ogre Gut Magic has the caster eating random stuff in order to invoke the spell (eats troll guts to give regeneration to troops, chomping into a brain to cause nightmares to his foes, eating ******* rocks to make the lads tankier)

Greenskins in general. Da Big Waaagh! for orcs being all about smashin, with big green kersplosions and the good ol fashioned Foot of Gork stompin down on da gitz. Da Little Waaagh! for goblins all about being annoying little pests, like making the enemy really itchy, or a spell that makes the lad'z blows go straight for the weak spots in armour and what have you

Tzeentchian magic being all about wacky warpflame **** that mutates or does chaotic, unpredictable stuff, like making the enemy feel revitalised for a moment, before spontaneously combusting or being reduced to a pile of goo. Given he's the god of change and flux incarnate, the world's your oyster with ideas for his spells really
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Post by WaterMage »

Yep. Warhammer Fantasy has quite a few interesting spells; magic is divided into 8 winds, and everything else is a variation of this. Dark magic is corruption of winds; high magic is all 8 working in harmony. Skaven has plague-based magic, Orcs have the power of Waaagh, Ogres have the Great Maw, and Cathay has Yang and Yin spells, which combine 4 winds each.

I still want a WFRP CRPG adaptation where you can use Chamon to screw local economies or Azyr to make predictions and speculate with values to become filthy rich or sell weather services to farmers. WH40k also has interesting stuff. SADLY people adapting it to CRPG don't want cool stuff like Telekiensis.
Vaako wrote: ↑ May 31st, 2025, 02:11
corpse explosion,
D2 is the first game that I know with such spell. It can clear entire screens at high levels.
gerey wrote: ↑ May 30th, 2025, 23:20
Thaumaturgy was such a letdown in the game, despite breaking the difficulty in half like a twig. You don't get to do any cool rituals or use the magic in creative ways, it's just basic ***** magic projectiles and shields painted red.
Partially agreed. Is a letdown if compared to TT. But still great if you see it independently, ie - a uniqye type of magic rarely used(blood)

___________

Thge Elden Ring - Convergence mod has some exotic spell focused classes like the Underworld mage. All about electrified water creating traps

Last edited by WaterMage on May 31st, 2025, 04:44, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Norfleet »

WaterMage wrote: ↑ May 31st, 2025, 04:44
Vaako wrote: ↑ May 31st, 2025, 02:11
corpse explosion,
D2 is the first game that I know with such spell. It can clear entire screens at high levels.
Corpse Explosion dates all the way back to MUDs, before we even HAD graphics. Inspired by this famous incident...

...they gave us a spell for demolishing corpses that would shower the entire area in random gibs and loot from the detonated corpse. It was thus an act of particular amusement to murder a high-level player, take his corpse intact with all the remaining loot, and detonate it in the newbie zone for lulz.
Last edited by Norfleet on May 31st, 2025, 05:50, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Tadeusz »

I like pentagram magic from Dawn of Magic - it allows to create areas with different properties:
- Web pentagram that allows to enter it but doesn't allow to leave;
- Gate pentagram that allows to leave it but doesn't allow to enter (wall around PC basically);
- Pentagram that converts corpses into health;
- Trap pentagram that deals damage to those who was in it when it closed;
Bone magic from there is also somewhat unusual - create a homing skull that bursts into bones on hit doing splash damage to those around the target.
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Post by Dorateen »

The Realms of Arkania series had the "Salother" spell, you could turn an enemy into a toadstool. That was always fun.

Grimoire also has the Mindread spell, very useful for picking information from NPCs.
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Post by Yankee Zulu »

Castnig a demon summoning spell in BG2 had a trick to it. The spell was called 'Gate' iirc and youd better cast Protection from Evil before that otherwise the summoned demon would turn on you.

There were a couple of spells that could reveal map in BG1 and 2. Clairvoyance I think and something else.

Also time stop. Permanent flesh to stone and vice versa. Desintegration. Finger of Death.