"Logical" Spellcasting

[Oyster Sauce]

This post made me think of the entangling roots spell that druids had in WoW. They could only cast it outside, which is a cool idea in theory, but in practice they could use it on a pool of lava outside but not in an underground grotto full of plants.

Dodging a sword blow is significantly harder. And getting hit once is enough if you don’t have any armor.

And I'm saying we can breed(incl. genetic engineering) someone to have superhuman reflexes right now, but we can't breed someone to call down lightning bolts from the sky on demand(which would require external devices)

Why would it need to come from the sky?

Are there any games with a focus on spellcasters needing to tailor their strategy to the environment around them? For example, did the caster bother learning niche spells that work underwater where fireballs will simply fizzle out? Are lightning spells extra powerful during storms but useless underground?

[J1M]

This post made me think of the entangling roots spell that druids had in WoW. They could only cast it outside, which is a cool idea in theory, but in practice they could use it on a pool of lava outside but not in an underground grotto full of plants.

And I'm saying we can breed(incl. genetic engineering) someone to have superhuman reflexes right now, but we can't breed someone to call down lightning bolts from the sky on demand(which would require external devices)

Why would it need to come from the sky?

Are there any games with a focus on spellcasters needing to tailor their strategy to the environment around them? For example, did the caster bother learning niche spells that work underwater where fireballs will simply fizzle out? Are lightning spells extra powerful during storms but useless underground?

Not that I'm aware of, but I would love to play one. I elaborated on my own ideas about geomancers in another thread: Games that spotlight terrain bonuses

[Cipher]

This post made me think of the entangling roots spell that druids had in WoW. They could only cast it outside, which is a cool idea in theory, but in practice they could use it on a pool of lava outside but not in an underground grotto full of plants.

And I'm saying we can breed(incl. genetic engineering) someone to have superhuman reflexes right now, but we can't breed someone to call down lightning bolts from the sky on demand(which would require external devices)

Why would it need to come from the sky?

Are there any games with a focus on spellcasters needing to tailor their strategy to the environment around them? For example, did the caster bother learning niche spells that work underwater where fireballs will simply fizzle out? Are lightning spells extra powerful during storms but useless underground?

Not exactly, but the Divinity: Original Sin games had somewhat intuitive interactions, gas can be exploded by fire. Burning gets doused by water. Lighting affects all wet objects. Mewgenics also has some nice interactions with the environment in a similar fashion and goes even further than the OS games. Not as much as you mentioned but closer. During a snow storm, water spells that normally create puddles do so, but the water gets frozen, instead. During a firestorm, bombs that normally would take a few turns to activate explode as soon as they are placed. Stuff like that.

I wish more games would do stuff like that and go even further, like what you mention.