Server Announcement Magic's First Major Balancing Round

Lore Team Magic Update of 04/23

Introduction:


Heya guys!
It has been a few months since the magic plugin was released and through continuous observation and listening to you guys,
specific changes were made and magic is now a little different from what you might be used to.
Not only did we update the various wiki pages for the magic and spells, but we also included a small change to the magic plugin!

Plugin update:


First of all; a significant change is coming to the magic plugin!

In the old system, you are all used to, a caster would do /cast [spell] and they would get a casting value which would decide if the spell
was going to be a success or a failed cast. If the cast was a fail, the spell ended but if the cast was successful, the plugin would roll another
secondary D20 intelligence that would determine if the cast was; a success, a critical success, or a critical failure.

In the new system, critical failure has been removed from the secondary success D20 intelligence roll.
This means that upon using /cast [spell] and hitting the casting value of the spell, the plugin will now only roll for success or critical success!
This, however, does not mean the critical failure has disappeared entirely. In the new system, if the caster does not meet the required casting value of the spell,
the plugin will roll a D20 intelligence and based on the outcome, the spell will be a failure or a critical failure!
This will be the end of critical failures on casting values of 20 or above and all of that. It will also make magic a lot more reliable.

Wiki updates:


The plugin is not the only thing that changed for magic, oh no!
The team has been working tirelessly on magic balancing and recently our trusted manager Twisted#8229 has finished a bunch of balancing.
Without further ado, here are the various changes made to the magic plugin:

Status Effects: Link​

Added "Bleeding" status effect.
Added "Frozen" status effect.
Added "Stunned" status effect.
Added "Paralyzed" status effect.

Pyromancy: Link​

1. Fixed several grammer / spelling issues.
2. Fixed some wording issues (turns when it means rounds, etc).
3. Fixed formatting for AOE spells.
4. Boosted Blazing Tempo to have a 3-meter speed boost rather than D3, and made its duration D2+1 rather than 3 rounds. Also made the crit success duration D3+2 rounds. The spell is a low DC and only serves to boost movement, providing nothing else. Let it shine. 5. Made Flame Arrow's range 10 meters, dealing 2 damage. Also made it behave differently depending on if it was used in a bow or crossbow, providing unique playstyles based on preference. Bow makes the damage D3, and Crossbow lets the arrow apply burning. Also changed the crit to make 2 arrows, and allowed ally sharing. This makes it a noteworthy alternative to Fireball for single target attacking at closer range.
6. Drastically boosted pyrotic pulse's knockback. Instead of making the knockback grossly powerful, I also added 1 damage to the spell. .
7. Made Blazing Arsenal deal D2 damage per its 3 swings, so its standard max damage is on par with a standard sword. Removed the burning effect. To balance, I made the sword's effect different from applying burning. Instead, it now can be used to further punish burning players, by making the damage of the burning effect's duration happen sooner. Burst damage!
8. Made Fireball's base damage 2D2. Also made the AOE damage rounded up. This is balanced because on a crit fail, this means the caster would take more damage more often because of this increased damage. To further balance, I changed the crit success to add a +1 to the base roll of the spell.
9. Made Rejuvenating Flames' crit failure different to be less confusing to the average player. Now it lowers spell defence drastically.
10. Made Wall of Flames' width 2 meters longer to make it more difficult to simply walk around it and avoid the big damage that the spell needs such a high DC for. Also means more targets in a straight line might be targeted.
11. Made Spirit Phoenix deal 2D3 damage. To balance, I raised the crit-fail damage to D3.
12. Made Flame Cyclone last for D3+2 rounds instead of D5 rounds. Also, to balance how severely underpowered it was, we gave it a larger AOE of 5x5x10 and D2 damage + Burning effect once leaving the cyclone. Also made its movement 6 meters in a straight line down a chosen direction or 8 with crit success. With the additive damage of staying in the spell for a longer duration.
13. Made Flame Behemoth a glass cannon, a summon for fewer rounds (2-3) with less HP (10) but with a +6 in Strength and Intelligence and 2 very powerful attacks. Added a one-time limit to Flame Breath's uses per cast. In addition made its crit fail to do a minimum of 4 damage out of 6, and made its crit success also remove the limit to uses of flame breath. Also added a new attack: Burning Blight, which deals 4 base damage to a single target within 30 meters, but gains +1 damage for every burning effect the beast consumes within said 30 meters for that attack. Aside from burning entities, open sources of flame count as 1 burning effect while large burning areas count as 2. Burning Blight is also limited to once per cast unless crit success.
14. Made Flaming Familiar also grant the caster +1 damage against burning targets. Since it is a summon, also gave it a small amount of HP.
15. Made Smothering Dome's break status happen with 5+ damage instead of 6+, so it is slightly easier to break. It has no cap to the amount of damage it can absorb in total, so being able to absorb multiple axe strikes or sword swings for potentially D2+20 or something absurd should be easier to overcome for weapons that can deal something as high as 5 damage.
16. Made Smite deal 3D2 damage in the 3x3 area, as well as blind targets via the heat of the sun for 1 round. Boosted its crit success for similar purposes. Made its crit failure much more clear. The high damage is balanced due to the many limitations (daytime, outside, etc).
17. Made Blinding Strike deal sword's worth of damage on top of the stun. Made the crit success last for an additional round.
18. Made Fiery Mirror last a minimum of 2 rounds.
19. Made the effects of Regulus Protection far more numerous and powerful. Adjusted its crit values fittingly.
20. Added a blinding effect to the sun spear, and adjusted the crit values fittingly.
21. Boosted Rays of Ignos' damage.
22. Gave the Solarmancy ult more range, more damage to further away targets via burning, and many other effects.
23. Made the magma shield spell apply a slow and counterattack measure, instead of being a slightly worse flame sword with a broken crit success.
24. Buffed Ring of Fire's damage slightly as well as its duration.
25. Added a mention of being unable to follow targets within the Darkened Skies.
26. Changed Blazing Bolts to have 1 damage and 1 round burning per bolt (up to a max of 8 dmg), with the chance to summon 2D2 bolts. Now, if 3 or more bolts hit the same target, they take the burn damage immediately. This way Blazing Bolts is a lot like a ranged version of Blazing Arsenal, as it provides excellent burst damage if the target is burning. In this case, even more so if the caster has the target burning prior to this spell.
27. Made molten soil's damage proc 2 damage per 2 meters moved in the molten zone. This makes for a potential max of 4 damage if the target moves out of the area from the centre, or 8 damage if they move across the entire zone. Also strengthened the slow to -3 meters.
28. Made flaming panolopy last for 2D2 rounds, and grant a +4 to defence. To balance I increased the crit values. (it only does 1 thing, so let it shine).
29. Made smouldering rain cover a 12-meter area to balance for its weak damage. Now it is a weak damaging AOE in a vast area rather than being weak AND small.
30. Hugeley increased the amount of Meteors summoned by Meteoric Barrage (now it is 6-12 summoned). Also made the base damage of each fireball 4. Also added a meteorite pinning mechanic negating movement. The ability to destroy buildings and even hit targets inside of buildings by cratering through roofs. To balance, I made the spell require LM supervision and only used it once a week since this is literally the ONLY ultimate spell that did not require it due to how weak it originally was.
31. Updated Brilliant Radiance ability. Condensing it and clarifying things.
32. Updated Running Hot ability. It has some extra usage now.
33. Allowed Ignis Enlightenment to affect items made of fire, allowing it to combo with blazing arsenal. Also made its low-level state do a minimum of 2 damage so it is always a tactical improvement.

Aeromancy: Link​

1. Fixed several grammer / spelling issues.
2. Fixed some wording issues (turns when it means rounds, etc).
3. Fixed formatting for AOE spells (whoever wrote it constantly confused the placement for length and width. It is Length x Width, not Width x Length).
4. Boosted Wind Tunnel's crit success to be a balanced and more imposing boost.
5. Boosted Guiding Winds' crit success in a similar fashion to Wind Tunnel.
6. Buffed Aero Whip enormously (it is a 16 dc spell to either bind for 1-2 turns or have a significantly worse crossbow... COME ON)
7. Buffed Aether Palm's first use so it does 6 meters knockback instead of 5 meters. Also allowed it to push targets in any of the polar 4 directions (forward, back, left, right). That way the second use is not necessary to mention, and it provides more versatility for such a high DC spell.
8. Specified Apex Tornado's range.
9. Made Moonlit Veil last for D3+3 rounds, so it can make the most use of its effect for a lvl 2 spell that requires 2 rounds to fulfil a small heal.
10. Made Judgement apply a slow as well as damage.
11. Basically it still works like the old version but it cannot kill the target and the target can try to wake up at the start of their turn. To balance, I buffed the healing (it heals for more over a short span of sleep) and healing is now affected by crit success.
12. Made Crescent Slash last indefinitely so long as the caster is near their tear, provided a slowing effect to non-voidal targets of the weapon and removed the red-lines preventing the burning from harming Necromancers and Hemomancers, so Lunarmancers can continue being the anti-voidal powers of Eden. I also made the crit success increase the slow, and apply the base slow to voidal creatures for a diverse negative effect.
13. Gave the base Hallowed Grounds cast a duration so it does not last indefinitely as a void mage kill zone that they cannot enter if they were outside of or run outside of. It is a massive area that deals stable damage per round, it should not be indefinite at the base. To balance I made the damage proc at the start of any void mage's turn so the damage affects any void mages within consistently and is almost guaranteed to deal some damage. I also made the indefinite version possible, but only outside of CRP via a lengthy ritual at night that is LM supervised. Also specified in redlines is that if the land or item is destroyed, so are the effects of the spell.
14. Made Lunar Doppelganger require a 3 to hit the spellcaster.
15. Made Wrath of the Moon deal D5+3 damage to living beings, so it has no chance to deal weak damage as a lvl 5 DC 20 spell. Also added a more powerful variant if a shard is used against a voidal entity. Also also, made the crit success summon the max amount of shards rather than the "+10 range".
16. Added a redline to Spark preventing it from stun-locking.
17. Increased the targeting range of Thunder Cloud Prison to be worthy of a level 16 spell.
18. Adjusted Lightning Strike's Crit failure to be more severe (to balance the potential 2-3 round stun on top of 6 max total damage). Also specified are rules to prevent "shock-locking" a player.
19. Buffed Tempest Form's critical success so it is always an improvement. Also specified "all defense rolls" as saving rolls so the 15 DC is worthwhile.
20. Fixed a bug of making the range of Thunderous Roar "D15" rather than 15. It hits both allies and enemies, thus the big AOE is balanced.
21. Buffed the minimum damage to additional targets via Chain Lightning.
22. Made the damage of the crit success Calling of the Storm 2d2 rather than D5.
23. Removed the movement limiting red lines for Cloud ability, and gave it a float function so the mage can gloat over ground-level traps or effects. Also specified the cloud as a mount so it cannot combo with other mounts.
24. Removed the limitation of Tempestmancer's initiative boost. Also added a benefit of a big movement speed boost to their first movement phase in CRP, so they have more to benefit from.
25. Gave wind familiar the option to block a small amount of knockback instead of health, for versatility.

Aquamancy: Link​

1. Fixed several grammer / spelling issues.
2. Fixed some wording issues (turns when it means rounds, etc).
3. Fixed formatting for AOE spells.
4. Buffed Liquid Lasso.
5. Made Spring of Life far more potent; it lasts 3 rounds instead of D3 so its healing always lasts a while, its healing procs at the end of creatures' turns instead of every round and the crit success makes creatures heal D2+1 HP when they first enter the spring.
6. Fixed Condensed Water to be a damage booster rather than completely different from its original purpose, and made its crit success actually enhance the purpose of the spell
7. Made a way for Steed of the Tides to enhance already present mounts so it is not limited to mount-less players.
8. Made Impact Bubbles able to target 4-6 targets rather than 3-5.
9. Made Boiling Point deal its damage on impact as well as for the duration. Also made the damage proc at the start of the target's turn.
10. Made Misty Form's duration 2D2 instead of D4, and made the movement bonus on crit an actual value (+6 meters).
11. Made Like Two Drops of Water last 4 rounds.
12. Made the damage proc for Aros Manifestation at the start of enemy turns.
13. Made Ice Maiden's Kiss's crit success D3+1 rounds instead of D4 rounds.
14. Gave icy tundra an additional movement boost effect so it is worthwhile for its 14 DC, also buffed the crit success significantly.
15. Made solid frost far more diverse and potent (the spears now also freeze movement for 1 round, the wielded option is now a trident that when thrown also does the freeze movement effect, the caster can equip allies with these wielded tridents).
16. Made the Wall of Ice shatter upon being destroyed so it deals damage to all close enough to it except the caster.
17. Completely reworked Cloud Weaving.
18. Gave Frost Sanctuary a set amount of health, and many other effects to make it more diverse.
19. Made Permafrost deal 2 damage instead of 1 damage per round frozen, and also fixed its crit success.
20. Better defined Wave Rider's trapped effect, and made the movement buff of crit success more potent.
21. Buffed Flash Flood's area, knockback, damage, and added an anti-movement effect.
22. Buffed Sea Serpent's Snap to affect an area around the caster and deal more damage.
23. Completely reworked Tangled Tentacles.
24. Majorly buffed Tortoise Scales' boost, at the cost of a slow and made it last like usual indefinite weapons.
25. Reworked Animalistic Assault. Added unique poison mechanic.
26. Made Voco Aquatis stronger.
27. Tweaked tide call's effects to be more diverse, and buffed crit success. (edited)
28. Specified and slightly enhanced Aquatic Blessing.
29. Tweaked icy mould's cooldown and max damage resist. Also specified is the ability is a free reaction, not an action.

Geomancy: Link​

1. Fixed several grammer / spelling issues.
2. Fixed some wording issues (turns when it means rounds, etc).
3. Fixed formatting for AOE spells.
4. Boosted Mending's AOE to fit a 15 DC.
5. Added a new function to Liquify via plating the caster to increase defense until taking 3 damage. Furthermore, I expanded upon the lockpick creation function, since lockpicks are the 1 guaranteed lore-master supervised item and a cast of this spell should reward the player for taking the time out of their day to create keys. Basically, the spell can now create multiple lock picks per cooldown if the caster is holding an ingot for the cast, all depending on what the supervising LM decides based on the success roll given. A critical success grants the maximum possible amount of lockpicks.
6. Increased the area of Seismic spikes to 8x5 rather than 5x3. It is a level 3 spell and should feel a bit bigger in scope, and its crit success being a root mechanic negates any guarantee of max damage. To balance, I nerfed its damage.
7. Specified Spirit of Kor's movement speed (it was implied that it moves).
8. Buffed Petrifying Hands by increasing its duration to match such a high DC. It is a touch spell that deals no damage and only serves to momentarily disarm or slow foes based on success, it should not be incredibly difficult to cast. The critical failure and crit success were changed to match this.
9. Buffed Craftsman's friends' shield health to be a minimum of 5 so the caster always benefits from its success. Also buffed its overall strength to a base +2 and a +3 on crit success. It is a transformation with equal drawbacks to its benefits in the form of disabling spell casts and halving movement.
10. Made Geotic Grasp's crit effect slightly stronger (D3+1 instead of D4).
11. Boosted Stones of Anguish's base damage to D3+1, so it feels more impactful and does more than a single sword slash worth of damage for a 16 DC spell.
12. Specified a range for living soil.
13. Buffed the crit fail of Strangle Roots.
14. Gave Animal Control the ability to summon a familiar instead, so it always has CRP use. Also made it able to control rare mobs for its duration, since this is a very niche ability and the player should be rewarded for their efforts in more difficult scenarios, especially with its higher DC and such.
15. Buffed Rose Vines' damage proc to every 4 meters (a spell that already slows targets by a heavy 4-meter debuff should not heavily depend on foes to move a long distance within the roses to deal weak d2 damage, it defeats the entire purpose of dealing damage per meters moved.
16. Allowed Healing Blossom to target 1 additional person, and removed the red lines. The player should be able to capitalize off of their healing potential as much as they can since healing is a core Biomancy mechanic. To ensure it was not overpowered, I made it so targeting the same target with multiple heals only heals 1 additional HP after the second heal, making the maximum possible healing amount on a single target 5 HP and the minimum 3 HP if they do not choose to spread it out.
17. Balanced Kor's Expansion. The range is now 20 meters, and the damage is now D5+3. Also made its critical success helpful in CRP to the caster and their party. 18. Changed Petromancy's ability.

Hemomancy: Link​

1. Fixed several grammer / spelling issues.
2. Fixed some wording issues (turns when it means rounds, etc).
3. Fixed formatting for AOE spells.
4. Made Blood Splatter an optional cost so more blood charge mechanics may be implemented.
5. Specified that the Sanguine Brand's secondary "1 OOC day" duration is meant for outside of CRP.
6. Added this tidbit to Blood Seed for the flavour of roleplay: "A Lunarmancer can cleanse the target space of the blood seed to end its duration early."
7. Buffed Blood Bolt's slow to be 2 meters. Also added a way to enhance the spell via a Sanguine Relic Charge.
8. Heavily condensed the description for crackling skin.
9. Improved the critical failure effect to something more fitting for a spell such as the Blood Weapon. The changed crit fail still deals the same amount of total damage as the original crit fail effect.
10. Made the Blood Garden spell require Sanguine Relic Charges to balance its near unstoppable widespread movement disabling power & low but widespread damage within the duration. Also increased its range to balance the multiple blood relic charges.
11. Buffed Life Leech slightly. It is a short-range lvl 1 spell that does barely any damage and self-heals a minor amount. To balance, I changed the critical success effect to instead offer 1 additional healing rather than more damage.
12. Condensed the text for Summon Darkness. Also buffed its AOE by exactly 1 meter to be slightly more imposing with its use in CRP.
13. Fixed household to work as the description mentions, giving summons their own turns and positioning preferences. The smaller summons from this spell move faster. Also fixed some slight errors such as the Rat not dealing more damage than the weaker bat summon.
14. Fixed a major formatting issue of the House of Night spells constantly mentioning "- House of Night" in their level tab.
15. Buffed Bloody Siphon appropriately. Mainly increased its AOE so it can damage and gain HP easier, and make it not a guarantee for foes to leave the area in 1 turn. Also, to balance I made it cost a blood relic charge which ultimately further spreads the mechanic as I am attempting to do with many spells. Also refined the damage proccing of the spell to at the start of the enemy's turn, so it actually performs its purpose rather than allowing most to easily escape it before the round ends.
16. Specified the True Form spell is immune to melee attacks, not physical attacks. Also, made True Form's duration several rounds shorter (min 4 rounds, max 8 rounds) and require 2 blood charges. The spell now lasts the max duration with a crit success.
17. Added an enhanced feature to Strengthen Muscles, where if the caster spends a blood relic charge they can gain an additional +1 strength, an additional +2 climbing range, and make the duration last a minimum of 2 rounds. This further spreads the blood charge mechanic and makes the spell more of a viable choice.
18. Made Bestial Ground Claws reach 1 meter further just for the sake of impactfulness. Also removed the redline of "cannot cause permanent damage with this". By default no spell really does.
19. Made the Beastkin Howl act like an actual summon, and specified the damage of its attacks as well as its movement range. Also, renamed the "helper" to Lycan-thrall so it sounds better.
20. Specified that Regeneration's healing happens at the end of the caster's turn per round.
21. Made the True Beast have full mundane resistance to halve incoming damage. I also made it cost 2 blood charges instead of 1 as it is now on par with True Form.
22. Decreased Greedy Blood Collector's casting value. For balance, I reduced the max duration by 1 round.
23. Removed the limit of Bloodless' damage multiplier, but made all charges over the first 2 add less damage.
24. Specified the blood relic cost for Vitality Link in red lines.
25. Buffed Heir of Blood to be comparable to the strength of the other level 5 hemomancy spells. It now lasts d4+4 rounds, and when the caster uses the spell's unique movement method their relic gains a charge. Due to the vast yet AOE-limited movement of the spell, and how it focuses purely on defensive elements such as saving rolls, positioning, and now resource management, I'm leaving it without any blood relic charges required since it already has a once every OOC week limit.
26. Put a limit on the number of Blood Familiars the ability can create.
27. Fixed Crimson Eyes.
28. Further specified details about Protective Coat.
29. Improved/clarified Blood Flames' effect.

Necromancy: Link​

1. Fixed a whole lot of grammer / spelling issues.
2. Fixed some wording issues (turns when it means rounds, etc).
3. Blight to have a duration of 1 round (proccing twice on the caster's turn), and fixed the escape condition to 11+ instead of 10+. Also fixed the crit success so the damage is instead 2d2 instead of a "crit".
4. Buffed & specified Lesser Reanimation. The summons act like guard dogs circling the caster and can be used as melee attacks via neutral D20 rolls each.
5. Edited Skeletal Grasps's text. It kept mentioning being centred around the caster when it is meant to be a ranged spell with a 3x3 radius.
6. Increased the critical success of the Wall of Death. Originally it was set to stay for the max rounds out of d2+1, but that's just a 50/50 chance by default so it felt weak to have a crit success do nothing but essentially rig a coin flip for a lvl 3 spell.
7. Made Spectral weapon work just like other weapon spells, lasting as long as the mage is near their tear. To balance I nerfed the effect duration to 1 round instead of 3 rounds, but had it so that if an additional attack connects the duration is refreshed if it was about to end. I also changed critical failure and critical success.
8. Made reanimate dead have an actual purpose besides "aesthetic butler".
9. Fixed the formatting of Arise's minion stat spread. Also gave these minions gear as they are called "soldiers". Now they are versatile for most circumstances.
10. Made the Spectral Steed spell specify that if a horse corpse is reanimated it may last beyond the duration.
11. Gave the Banshee a placement of floating above/near the caster, and a roll + damage for its claw attack.
12. Simplified and buffed the rotting dance.
13. Boosted the critical success of Bone-Chilling but made it different since this is a lvl 1 spell.
14. Reworded something about the Exoskeleton spell's health, clarifying that the health is what does not block ranged or magic attacks.
15. Reworked Rigor Mortis to be an AOE. Also Fixed all of the unnecessary descriptions.
16. Clarified some details for Death Scythe.
17. Made Death's Embrace better, befitting of a level 4 spell.
18. Made Death Manifestation have more "oomf". Soulless casting and immortality for duration are very good, but the "blight" effect is underwhelming based on the original details. So I improved upon that to make the form feel more satisfying.
19. Added detail to the Soul Destined ability about recalling past memories and self-sustain, to give the ability more function than just an aesthetic.

Additional edits for all voidal mages:​

1. Specified the max amount of charges per Hemomancer level in Hemomancy progressions for any players to know.
2. Specified the same for souls in Necromancy.
3. Made the amount of total "spell resources" for voidal magics vary more heavily based on void mage level and how easily one can replenish charges. At max level, a Hemomancer has 6 total charges, while a Necromancer has 10 total charges. The difference being a Soul is far more difficult to come across and more difficult to obtain while blood is available in spades and Hemomancers have many upon many abilities and spells to obtain them even in mid-CRP.

Conclusion:


That will be all the changes currently to the magic system, if you find any errors or wish to point out certain things, make sure to open a ticket
in our support discord so the lore team might be able to assist you! Thank you for reading this extensive post and we hope you enjoy the update!
​

- Lore Team Management
H00ds#9016
Twisted#8229
Fredolator#8428​