Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Difference between spells and skills ?

Technically, how do spells and skills differ ? Do they work the same way , that is, a requirment, and a cooldown ?
If so, is that normal, or ok ?
I believe they work the same, if so, I am probably gonna be ranting soon.

Spells are skills. Period. This is ridiculous. Should call them skills, that required int instead of str, or air elemental instead of way of the warrior. But in game, both behave exactly the same.

Well, in D:OS, it seems that spells are a kind of skill. I think there's nothing wrong with that. As I've played previous Divinity games, I have to say I like this new approach. In the old system, you need mana to cast spells which is how you'd differentiate them from a skill. While that's all great, it makes it harder in a classless based system. I think the action point approach works out well.

Unless I am mistaken: It is possible to cast a spell using a spell scroll, but not so for skills. A skill usually/sometimes has a certain requirement like a weapon equipped (such as a staff for the staff of magus). I guess for higher levels the APs needed for spells will be affected by a mage's intelligence but not the skills.

Would kinda make spells unique if you could create scrolls from spells. As for int, if only spells AP benefit from greater int, and not also greater dex or speed benefit to skills, that could be nice. I still don't see such a difference between them. I understand some people can be satisfied with this no brainer, but this is another example of shallow system.

Spells are simply skills that are magical and thus are cold spells for fluff purpose. They benefit from intelligence instead of dexterity or strength. I don't see why you regard this as a shallow system. I doesn't take depth away from the game and it isn't unrealistic (after all it's about magic so you can do what you please and not alter the amount of realism you get).

Of course you don't. This game is almost perfect anyways. I just wished it could feel different when I use spells than when I use skills, that's all. No big deal. Like going into a supermarket that sells only oreos. Its great, but it can be dissapointing when you expect a little more.

Just curious, could you provide an example of how you would make the two fundamentally different? While I don't see any particular reason why they should function different, game mechanics-wise, I neither would have a problem if they did.

Personally I think that stat dependence and general theme/appearance is sufficient to distinguish the two, and having them work on the same resource (AP) instead of having a separate resource such as mana specifically for spells allows for greater balance between the different playstyles.

I'm just not sure why you would choose to use the word 'shallow'. Making the spells work in a mechanically different fashion wouldn't necessarily add gameplay 'depth', tacking on additional requirements for spells would simply give the illusion of complexity without actually contributing to the gameplay.

While I understand that having this objection doesn't necessarily mean you have an alternative in mind, if you could give an example of what you mean maybe we'd be able to understand you a little better.