You forget whirlpool. I tried to swim 10 times out of a room and had it fail.

Tumble/leap avoids briar walls too...

currents and deluge and needlerain bother me the most

you get moved around at the most inopportune times, its redisulouc

I thought I’d flesh out my previous idea with the orbs.

Here’s what I think the AB list could be:

Waterbourne Survive in the most hostile of waters.
Hailstorm Call down a hailstorm to pummel everyone else.
Flood Soak a location with shallow water.
MinorOrb Summon the minor elemental orb to your side.
Influence Increase your sway over others while surrounded by your orbs.
Deluge Soak a location with deep water.
Stillwater Remove oxygen from the water.
Whirlpool Swirling currents draw people to you.
Dissolve Easily remove an aura of protection around another.
Icefloe Coat your enemies with ice.
Travel Follow your orbs to your target.
Healspring Channel the healing properties of water through your orbs.
MajorOrb Summon the major elemental orb to your side.
NeedleRain Wash away some elemental defenses of your foes.
Turtle Summon a dragon turtle.
Tsunami Wash away your enemies with towering waves.
Currents Swift currents carry people away.
Typhoon Knock down your enemies with massive storms.
Jellies Summon poisonous jellyfish into your waters.
Summon Induce your enemies to follow your orbs.
SupraOrb Summon the supra elemental orb to your side.
Sweetfount The sweet waters heal your ailments.
Staff Summon your elemental staff.
Preserve Freeze your enemies, preserving their corpse for all time.
Flashflood Summon all three orbs at once.
Liquidform Merge with your orbs to take on the form of water.
Maelstrom Unleash the full power of elemental water.

MinorOrb:
Syntax: AQUACAST MINORORB
Power: 1 (any)
Summon the minor orb of pure elemental energy to your side. Once summoned, the orb will circle your form, allowing you to channel elemental effects through it. You may send your orb up to 10 locations away from you, depending on your skill level. You may DISMISS MINORORB to release the elemental energies back to their natural state.

The other orbs will be similar.

The orbs would only be usable on locations which has the particular environemt. I.e. water elemental orbs would only work on a location that has been flooded.

Here’s how I envision this would work.

Each orb works on a separate balance, much like psionics, however, being off orb balance wouldn’t hinder you from attacking or moving. Any skill would be usable on any orb, but as orbs go up in power (minor, major, supra) they get faster.

So, for example, you could repeatedly cast sweetfount through the minor orb, which would affect only the location you are in. Then, you could cast, say, typhoon, through the major orb, and target it on all enemies within the orb’s reach. It would then hit all in that reach with typhoon. Then, you could cast jellies through the supra orb, and jellies would hit all within it’s reach. That would be one round. Once the orbs recover their balances, you could vary what you cast, when, and on who.

Travel would allow the mage to follow the orb to the target, as long as the target is within the orb’s reach.

Summon would be similar, but would work in reverse. Monolith would stop it, and it wouldn’t work across different areas.

So this would still rely on flooded areas, but you don’t need to meld or anything.

I think this could be adapted to the current skills, mostly. For liquidform, I really don’t have any ideas at the moment. Something neat should happen when you’re able to merge with your orbs. And for the trans skill.. again, no ideas.

This is just off the cuff at the moment. Thoughts?

Those are all demesne tweak things, though. Maybe the walls and the currents need to be looked at. I really dislike needlerain, but that's the same boat. Envoys can deal with that stuff later. The big change I would be happiest with is removing summon and wisp and giving some kind of effect independent of demesnes (or terrain, in the case of wisp) in exchange.

Duluge only lasts a couple minutes. Chances are, in mid-combat, most people will forget to put it back up.

Yes, you can crash them.

The problem with that is, anyone with a mage or druid with them would be pretty much immune to the effects. Walk in, change terrain, and you're safe. Also sounds a lot like elemental psionics, which just hurts my brain. Eight different balances (equilibrium, balance, sub, super, id, minor, major, and supra) might be a little much.

Edit: There would also be some rather icky stacking potential from those in like guilds.

You do know that the protection scroll stops needlerain, correct? When you are trying to get to the mage, you can bypass most of the problems that an aqua-demense gives to hinder your advance just by using that. Also, if those do go then mages need to be made a great bit more tanky. Or, perhaps we should just lower the wound damage weapons do so that mages are not then forced to either sip health or apply health to their body 3 to 4 times for every successful attack sequence some of you warriors make on them?

Well, how is flooding now any different? It's the same concept.

As for the balances, yea, that can get messy. Maybe you can stack your effects in the orbs (like investing angels/demons). I dunno. That takes alot of the control from it. The idea in my mind is to have mages actively fight, not just rely on passive effects.

Melding slows it down, in that you can't always break melded rooms. Without melding, nothing would stop instand terrain change.

terrian/saplings

OMFG you'd have to guard your area? NEVER!

There's no "guarding" a one room demesne, trust me here.

Thats right, I'm going to patrol all the rooms in a 10 room radius to make sure that no one walked in and reality checked and changed terrain while I have no demesne watch, which I would assume would no longer work without demesnes.

Ah - but now its less of "guarding demesne" and more of "guarding terrain type". At the present one can meld demesnes in ways to make breaking it very difficult. I know, I've done it - I had a demesne go through delport and then snake into Celest by the harbour and SW entrance and then around the whole city without touching ONCE. I even had a few small geomancers come in and try to break the thing as both ends were one room away from the Pool.

The nice thing about this idea is that you get bonuses in the terrain type and you can insta-move as a mage to others in the terrain. This means you have to actively defend the terrain - and its just as easy to lose terrain as it is to gain it back.

Isn't it like that already?

Like the orb idea, instead of demesne watch it could always be something like aura watch or orb watch.

I've put some random thoughts together and come up with an idea that sort of makes sense:

Limit it to 50 rooms, remove summoning, or have monolith stop it, and keep the weaker demesne effects like duststorm, stonerain, sickening. Then give the more powerful demesne effects as active attacks (or possibly remove them altogether and just give us some new skills) and allow us to take on elemental forms, so while the demesne could be useful for hindering, it won't be essential anymore and the mage won't be screwed over. The idea being that a demesne will be somewhat useful in combat but it would be far from the deciding factor in conflicts, and we would get more active skills to use. Haven't thought up the specifics yet but I'll work on something that wouldn't be overpowered.

I dunno. I always saw mages, everywhere, as being the offensive type. Like, I've yet to see my demesne do anything good for me. Ever. Maybe I just can't use it properly, but still.

Like, maybe, instead of a demesne... oh. I know.

The first skill of a -mancer would be Staff. Not the uber-powerful staff that we get, but like, a basic staff. Then, you get various abilities relating to the staff. Like I'm just gonna toss some out here, as a skill-list.

Staff- Summon a staff

Harden- Focus elemental magic through your staff, making swings with it more lethal.

Elemental Infusion- By infusing the staff with your element, you can either heal with a touch (Aquamancers), or do extra damage (Geomancers).

Call Staff- Call your staff to you from anywhere on the same plane.

Channel Element- By channeling elemental energy through your staff, you blast your opponent with a blast of magical energy.

Staff Shock- By lifting your staff into the air, and focusing more energy through it, you do damage to all your enemies in the room you're in, and the rooms surrounding it.

Staff Defense- Boost your defense by having your staff generate a force-field affecting you.

Staff Throw- Throw your staff like a javelin, and do damage, as well, as breaking the defenses of your enemies (determined randomly).

Animate Staff- Let your staff float next to you, and blast your enemies, leaving your hands free for other spells.

Staff Smash- Do even more damage with your staff, and gain the ability to break bones.

Elemental Form- Turn your staff into a Water Elemental or Earth Elemental that aids you in combat.

Elemental Lens- By flooding a room with the energies of your element, you then focus the element on one person, annihilating them completely.


Then there'd also be these guild-specific skills, relating to the theme of each guild. Like the Geomancers would still get Poison, and uh, Tremors, but on a localized level, while the Aquamancers would get the respective powers that they get.