Offhand Treatise for Wand/Spellsword Builds

[scarlet sage]

I recently had the idea of gaining some bonus to spells of a specific school of magic provided that you have an appropriate treatise in your offhand as you cast the spell. This would be relevant to spellcasting builds that use wands or one-handed weapons.

I think that the main drawback for such a mechanic would be that you're not using your offhand for a shield or other weapon, and you also can't use a staff and gain this treatise benefit. It would also necessitate that treatises have some kind of durability or limit to the number of uses they have.

I think there are a fair few questions that come with this idea. Availability, scaling, and durability.

Availability - I think that this should be a tier 2 or 3 passive magic mastery skill, or require having tier 2 or 3 sorcery or magic mastery skills unlocked to work. I'm aware that there is no space left at tier 2 in Magic Mastery, and it makes me question whether this idea would work at all. Treatises would also need to be read before any benefit can be gained from them as well.

Scaling - I think that the tier of the used treatise compared to the tier of sorcery skill used should impact offhand treatise effectiveness. For example, a tier 1 sorcery skill would get a major increase in effectiveness as a result of a tier 4 offhand treatise. At the same time, a treatise of a lower tier than the cast spell would have no effect on the spell or its cooldown. I think the main benefits should be a linear decrease to backfire chance and cooldowns, and an increase to accuracy.

Durability - holding a treatise in your offhand in the heat of battle obviously puts it squarely in the path of danger. It would also mean the devs would need to go to the trouble of deciding how much durability a treatise a player finds in a dungeon has. I think that a given treatise of a specific tier and type should only give a limited amount of uses, and should be exorbitantly expensive to repair. It just makes sense in a setting where even literacy is reserved for the wealthy.

This idea would be a big hassle to implement, and the more I think about it the more I doubt it'll go anywhere. I do think it would be very cool to play as a spellsword wielding a book and sword, dancing between enemies and slinging spells.

There is also a case for a penalty to experience gain while using an offhand treatise - conceptually, you're relying on your notes and textbooks more as opposed to getting a more intuitive feel for the magic.

Draft idea (tiers and schools unimportant, just trying to get point across)

Tier 3 Electromancy Treatise
Durability: 95/100

If a treatise is at 50% or less durability, it is as effective as a treatise of one tier lower. If a tier 1 treatise is at 50% or less durability, it provides no benefit.

If a treatise is at 25% or less durability, it provides no benefit, and needs to be repaired or replaced.

While in offhand, grants the following benefits to Electromancy spells of tier 3 or lower. Spells of tier 2 or lower also gain this benefit one additional time per tier below the tier of this treatise.

Backfire chance -3%
Accuracy +3%
Gains 10% chance to reduce the cooldown of a different spell of the same or lower tier by 1.

Also grants a +5% penalty to Experience Gain while held in offhand. This does not stack.

I think I would want this to provide enough benefit to be worthwhile for the players and for the devs, but also don't wanna give it outlandishly powerful abilities etc

I specifically think the cooldown chance should provide multiple chances to reduce some cooldowns by 1, at 10% per chance. So, specifically not 20% or 30% chance to reduce a cooldown at higher tiers.

[scarlet sage]

Oh yeah and I also had an idea for material components to spells. Its mainly to provide some use for metals beyond finding em in dungeons and selling them off.

If you have a stone of the specified type in your offhand when you cast a spell of a specific school, the spell consumes the stone and gets a buff. The stones are tiered much like treatises, and only grant benefits to stones of a lower or equal tier. I do think it should be limited to metals that take one slot, and that it should be limited to lower-tier spells.

Electromancy
T1 Copper Nugget / T2 Copper Ingot / T3 Glass Shards
Pyromancy
T1 Gold Nugget / T2 Gold bits / T3 Gold Earrings
Geomancy
T1 Iron Nugget / T2 Iron Ingot / T3 Horseshoe or Bird Buckle
Acranistics
T1 Silver Nugget / T2 Silver Clasp or Cup / T3 Silver Talisman or Earrings
Venomancy (speculation)
T1 Crawler Mandibles / T2 Crawler Eye / T3 Rockeater gland

Bonuses apply strictly to the spell cast that consumes the stone.

Tier 1 Bonus
-10% Spell Energy Cost
Tier 2 Bonus
-10% Cooldown Duration
Tier 3 Bonus
-15% Spell Energy Cost
-10% Cooldown Duration

I imagine the material component thing is probably going to interact more with enchantments and would thus not be a thing for spells.

[scarlet sage]

Did some sketches of example builds on the bus. In my defence it was bumpy as heck

[crude helm]

I think its highly unlikely that they'd give all that a chance. maybe something straightforward like, just the equip a treaty offhand and just give magical stats depending on treaty lvl part.

or maybe,just maybe we can cast a BASIC SKILL "Energy Infuse" and infuse the wand,staff or treaty with Energy and in exchange for Energy we can use those for a light source for a limited time or maybe thats how we benefit from treaty offhand buffs for a limited time, would be cool.

also maybe depending on the treaty magic that is used to infuse the mainhand, they'd get extra magical damage according to the treaty element or a stat boost IDK. I like spellblades.

I like the grimoire concept as a weapon but ill bet that's not gonna happen. even the offhand idea too. my "devs said no" senses are already tingling.

anyways I like how the book sprites ingame look, but I still think they can be improved like how they improved monster sprites to be nastier. interesting idea though👍

[stiff vale]

Woah🤌🏻🤌🏻

[scarlet sage]

yeah fairrr, i am of the same opinion. It's a cool idea, but it's a lot of work and the devs are unlikely to pick it up