Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Source Magic Reactivity: Speculation Thread

Okay... so we know that "source magic" (re: elemental magic) is a big part of the combat in Divinity: Original Sin, and we know what the reactivity of elemental spells will (or should) provide a great deal of depth to the combat systems.

But at this point, we don't really know much about just how reactive the magic systems will be aside from a few (very intriguing) examples.

For example, we know you can create puddles with a rain spell, which can then be frozen with an ice spell (creating a barrier to movement) or electrified with a lightning spell (creating a trap field).

But what other kinds of source magic reactivity might be cool to see in the game? Let's speculate!

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(O) If a fireball (or other fire spell) impacts over water (or if a rain spell is used on fiery ground), it creates a layer of steam over the water area, which decreases the accuracy of any ranged attack going through it, as well as any melee attack where either of the units involved is inside the steam. Steam would only last 1-2 turns.

(O) I think this is actually already in the current, pre-alpha build of the game, but if it isn't... characters who are wet should receive less damage from fire spells, more damage from lightning spells.

(O) Ice wall spells should be (significantly) stronger if cast over water.

(O) Same-element spells should be able to double up... I.E. if you've set a portion of the ground on fire with that one spell, and then toss a fireball on top of the burning ground... the fireball should either deal additional damage, or have a larger explosive radius.

(O) This may be a bad idea... but how about "dual" casting? Single spells (think "ultimate spells") with complementary elemental attributes? Like, for example, you couldn't do a spell of fire and water, because those two elements are opposed... but what about water and lightning? (I.E. a thunderstorm w/ random lightning strikes that deal damage and/or stun random units). Or mix water and ice to make a hail spell (random damage + decreased accuracy) or a snowfall spell (which would decrease accuracy--low visibility--as well as movement).

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Well, those are the ideas I have at the moment. I'm not entirely certain how the different elements will play off each other, but I think there's a lot of potential in the system Larian has created here. What kind of magic reactivity are you all expecting to see, or hoping to see?

Stuff like using wind spells to fan the flames of a fire surface has been brought up before. A lot of this stuff has yet to be implemented. Either that or they haven't shown it to us (yet).

Keep in mind that they can't just spill the beans on everything yet. They have to hype this game until November lmao.

But yeah! I like some of your ideas like the steam decreasing ranged combat accuracy and the ultimate spell thingy...Cool stuff.

Very advanced healing spells. From Sword of Lies (Divine Divinity) the healers from Aleroth couldn't connect with the source, thus preventing them from performing their duties. They were only able to heal flesh wounds, something like poison was incurable.

This game appears to be where the use of magic actually begins. Sword of Lies and DKS had the source "broken" where magic was very limited. I honestly thought that is what this thread was about, talking about what happened to the source and how or if the source will ever be usable again after the events of DKS.

I tossed this idea around a bit. Water and earth spells make a mud surface, slows players down.

Personally, I love wind elemental magic, so I'm very curious about how that's implemented.

Also, earth elemental magic has a lot of potential: minor quakes and tremors, throwing boulders, encasing enemies in earth, earth walls, etc.

Then of course you could combine wind and earth: sand storms, dust vortices, yum!

Wind could decrease the accuracy of ranged attacks. It could also increase the chances of slipping on ice. Rain + wind would decrease accuracy a lot and make ice very slippery.

Yeah earth spells are cool. Create a quicksand surface that traps the enemy for a couple of turns until they work their way out, wall them off with boulders, etc.

Many many possibilities.

I seem to remember a pretty powerful 'earthquake' spell in Beyond Divinity. A similar spell in D:OS could cause enemies to fall over, stun them, etc.

I guess we could have a look at Magicka for some inspirations. It had a pretty elaborate magic system, letting you freely combine eight elements for different effects.

Love the magic system they are putting in, however on the flip side to the OP's post is the monsters magical ability and how smart they plan the enemy combat AI to be.

I can see even on easy mode, this being a very difficult game combat wise unless they balance the AI with a fine tooth comb.

I can see for an example, you being surrounded by monsters so you cast rain and an ice wall to halt their advance while you get into position yourself, then some wise guy caster decides to cast earthquake, breaking down your ice wall and knocking you off balance causing you to lose turns while the monsters advance on you.

This could potentially make anticipating the next move difficult. Unless they name the mob "Orc water mage" You should be able to guess what they will do, but if they have access to the same combos the player does, then after say the Orc mage casts rain, your not sure what it will do next. Do you scramble for a dry spot to avoid electrical damage or cast ice confident to trap them in their own spell if they don't cast an ice spell themselves.

Love the system and can't wait to play with it myself in November but the more I think about it, the more complicated it sounds, haha.

I don't think they should label enemies like that. Having enemies reveal their type w/ their first attack would be one way to "equalize" the initiative roll.

Anyway, some other ideas:

(O) "Big" spells that take time to cast--i.e., your character would spend a full turn "casting." This would make the character extremely vulnerable to elemental damage of the opposite type. I.E., if you're casting a "meteor" (fire) spell, you'd take 200% damage from water-based spells. Something like that.

(O) Inherent Elemental Weaknesses. For simple units who can only cast a single element of Source Magic, it would be simple. Something like taking 150% damage from opposite-element attacks. But for special units (PCs and special--boss?--enemies) your elemental weakness would shift depending on what spells you cast. So, for example, if you cast a fire spell, you will be especially vulnerable to water-based attacks UNTIL you cast a non-fire spell, in which case you would then be vulnerable to whatever its opposing element is.

This has some nice potential to incentivize advanced tactics. For example, if you're fighting against a fire mage, you could do extra damage with a water spell... but casting a water spell would leave you vulnerable to recieving extra damage, yourself. To make your magic count, you'd have to try using complementary spells to increase the effect of your fire magics. For example, you could cast a "summon wind" spell (that would increase the area-of-effect/damage/duration of fire magic) and an "earth wall" spell to shield your caster from enemy magics before unleasing your fireball. Things like that.

(O) This is kind of tied to the above... but if the magic system is going to revolve around using opposing elements, there should also be complementary elements. I've touched on this before, I think (w/ the dual-casting idea). Basically, you'd be able to increase the elemental power of Y-element magics by using X-element magic. Things like that.

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Well, I had some other ideas, but I've actually gotta run out now, so I'll post 'em later if I can remember 'em.

I think I had some idea for spell combinations, but I don't remember where I posted them earlier.

Gust of Wind A cone emanating from the caster that knocks down enemies.

Ejecta Barrier - Rips a fissure in the earth and hurls a constant stream of rocks out.

It would work like the Ice Wall spell in that you click to place one end and move the mouse to place the other end. Enemies can pass through the barrier, but they take Earth or Crushing damage.

It could be combined with other spells. If it passes through a fire surface, it shoots out flaming rocks, and fire damage is added.

If it passes through a water surface, Ejecta Barrier is cancelled (the water fills the crack).

If Gust of Wind is cast across part of an Ejecta Barrier, the barrier is dispelled, but the gust sends a shotgun-like blast of rocks along the gust's trajectory.

Hm... I like the Ejecta Barrier spell, but it seems a bit overpowered. A constant stream of upward-flying rock & material would require a lot of focus. Something like that would have to be limited to a fairly short period of time, and/or require the caster to keep casting it every turn for it to remain active (i.e. if you cast it, it lasts for takes 1 turn to cast and is active for 3 turns, and you can't use your caster--to move or cast other spells--until the spell duration ends.

Either that, or break the concept up into two different spells. I think for an earth-wall type spell, just a wall of rock would work better. To incorporate some elements of your idea into it, it could be "destroyed" by attacking it (like Ice Wall)... but doing so risks falling rocks that do damage. Which could be dual-cast (as per my earlier idea) w/ water to create a mud-wall... that can be destroyed much easier, but leaves a pool of mud once it's destroyed that's hard to pass through.

Then, for the more raw, offensive aspect... basically just an underground explosion. "Eruption." Rock & dirt gets blasted upward, doing small area-of-effect damage (similar function to fireball, but more damage and smallar AoE). Dual-casting with fire would yield a magma eruption, which does heavy damage to one target, and results in a bunch of ash in the air that diminshes visibility for the rest of the turn and the next turn. W/ wind would decrease damage, increase base AoE. With water would do very little damage w/ no AoE, but create a mud-field.

...God, I love speculating about this.

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Anyway, the rest of my ideas I didn't have time to post before:

(O) Evaporate--remove moisture from an area. Used to stop rain and clear puddles... but can also be used to weaken enemies. Combined with fire, it acts like a "poison", slowly weakening the enemy more and more each turn w/ a random chance of spontaneously combusting that increases with each turn.

(O) Wind Avatar--generates wind around the caster, greatly improving speed and granting additional AP. Combined with fire, it increases attack & damages the caster slightly.

(O) Water Avatar--manipulates the fluid in a living being. Can be cast on ally to slightly increase all stats; can be cast on enemies to slightly decrease all stats. A basic buff/debuff spell. Leaves characters--both enemy and ally--weak to fire-element and strong to ice-element (i.e. increased blood-flow, higher internal body temperature).

(O) Lightning Avatar--generates a massive static charge around the ally or enemy character, which has a random chance of hitting random nearby characters for three turns. Chance of ability activating & range of ability increases with each turn, but damage decreases. Static shock only occurs once.

(O) Atlas' Catapult--a heavy Earth-spell that fires an enormous rock up into the air, which hits the ground the next turn for massive area-of-effect damage. It has an accuracy-modifier, so it may or may not land where it's supposed to--player can dual-cast with wind to increase accuracy; enemies can use wind magic to decrease accuracy. So if you use it against powerful wind-mages, you may find it falling on you instead of the enemy. Could be dual-cast w/ fire for increased AoE; could be dual-cast w/ lighning to generate a single massive thunderbolt on a random enemy within the rock's falling area.

(O) Dragon Fire--special dual-cast spell of wind + fire... breathe out a cone of flame incinerating everything within it. Decreases caster AP in half for rest of combat.

(O) Stone Skin--special dual-cast spell of water + earth... covers the caster in stone and mud. Greatly increases defense, but greatly reduces speed/mobility.

(O) Black Water--special dual-cast spell of water + earth... creates an "eruption" of oil on the battlelfield. Like a puddle, but can be set on fire w/ fire magic (for much more damage than regular fire spell).

(O) Shredder--special dual-cast spell of wind + earth. A bunch of jagged rocks (like shards of obsidian) spin around the caster in a circular motion (like that one D&D spell). They deal damage to anything near the caster, and have a random chance of deflecting attacks (ranged & melee).

(O) Blizzard--special dual-cast spell of wind + water. Generates snowfall that decreases accuracy of all units; creates snow field that greatly reduces speed of all units on top of it.

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Regarding the "special" field ideas--like magma as a super-fire, snow as a super-water... you'd have to use snow to get rid of lava and vice versa (rain wouldn't put out molten rock, after all). Additionally, getting rid of a field wouldn't remove it from the map, just downgrade it. So, for example, if enemy creates a field of snow, the player would have to cast a lava-type special spell to melt it... but once the snow is gone, there's a pool of water instead.

Sure sure, Ejecta Barrier might be overpowered. I didn't say it does a lot of damage, just that it does damage to enemies crossing over, but there's lots of room to tweak it. Maybe the idea of Channeling spells could work.

I like some of those other ideas. Evaporate is a good counterpart to Make it Rain, those spells should have exactly the opposite magnitudes and effects.

A lot of these require dual-casting. How would that work... oh, right. If you can assign a spell to left-click and right click and click them together... I think that would be neat. Maybe hide most of the combinations and keep them secret until you actually cast them the first time. The manual could have a tip on one or two of them (and note that casting Make it Rain and Evaporate at the same time does nothing), and encourage the player to experiment.

Dual-casting would cost a lot more mana though, since it's two spells at once, but there might be a Talent or Trait to reduce the cost a bit.

(O) Fine grain - Turn ordinary soil into fine sand, slowing pcs and critters moving through it. And if lots of water gets into it, as by certain spells or a melted ice elemental, then fine sand/silt turns into quicksand.

In Divinity 1, Source magic was exclusively associated with the healing spring. I think Divinity 2 : Flames of Vengeance also had a passing mention of a healing spring in Source Square that the healers couldn't reach.

Therefore, some kind of healing, possibly associated with the water element should be in the game. Maybe a moderate-to-high level "Healing Rain" spell which is great for healing you... but it also heals everything else around you too. (I think healing does not damage undead in the Divinity series, so this would also heal undead.)

Great idea, Stabbey!

Source magic was mostly (only?) important in Divine Divinity w/ regard to the healing crystals, so it might be cool to incorporate those into the game somehow. Three methods I can think of off the top of my head:

1) The player could actually be responsible for finding/constructing the healing spring from DD.

2) The player could manufacture healing crystals in-combat, expending 100% of mana for an item that can fully restores health and mana to entire party & cures all status elements. (...Which might be a bit overpowered... maybe it could result in a permanent decrease of stats? I.E. if you cast it, you lose all of your mana for the battle, AND permanently lose 1 point of INT).

3) Healing stones must be found/used in certain quests, along with things like Magic Mirrors. That quest line was really cool in DD, and indicated a world of cool quests & non-combat "puzzle" style mechanics that (to my great sorrow) never materialized.

I think that the game should come out first and then it'll be open for updating/dlc etc

I also think that you should make your own game.

It's not quite reactivity, but I think I'll talk about the Elementals in the game.

Right now - according to the pre-alpha videos - the Elementals can gain experience and level up. I don't think that's a good idea, because they're fragile, disposable, and only gain XP for things killed in the moments while they're up. You also may not want to use them in every single fight for mana-conservation reasons. That will lead to Elementals who will be quite under-levelled compared to the party. If they can't hit the enemy because of a level difference, that's also a problem.

I also don't think you should increase their level by putting your own skill points into "Summon X Elemental", like in Beyond Divinity. That's taking a skill point that could be much more useful for a PC and giving it to the fragile elemental, basically crippling one party member's abilities to get a summon of questionable usefulness and limited duration.

I think Elementals should automatically level up alongside the player, as they did in Divinity 2. That will let them be able to take and deal out hits without being one-shot killed or whiffing with every swing.


If you do it that way, then what good is the "Summon X Elemental" skill? I've got an idea for that as well. I am assuming skills will max out at 5 points.

Rank 1 will just let you summon an elemental.
Rank 2 will increase the base HP/MP of the elemental by some percentage, and giving it one selected skill from its element to use on its turn.
Each subsequent point up until the max of 5 will further increase its HP/MP and grant it additional skills.

A maxed out Elemental will have quite a bit more HP and MP (say, 50% more), and it will have up to 4 skills it can use. Let's say that it can only learn skills that the summoner has learned, but for balance reasons, we can have its skills be less powerful than the summoner's skills.

Thoughts?