Shattered Kingdoms

i must agree with the needs some work. at least a dePetrification spell where the caster of dePetrification has an amount of time to cast it. i also have to agree with a few other posts as so a



olny because of the unawareness of how to block it. that can devastate the newbie like me who has dealt with the omg what just happened side of the spell.

Avoid a powerful sorcerer if you're not prepared. Just like a sorcerer should avoid a powerful melee class if not prepared.

If anything, final strike should be changed. I'm working on my first Sorcerer and can't imagine a time I'd ever use final strike.

Petrification already has negatives- like not being able to get the gear/coin.

I agree, except in the case of cleave. Obviously someone who has dedicated a good amount of time to finding the "sweet spot" in someone's neck should indeed be able to find it again

People usually use that spell for malicious intents and purposes. At least in the past people made throw away Sorc's just to capitalize on the spell on someone they had a grudge with.

Frankly the spell has no place in the game, I see little to no point in a game environment to have such a spell that will more than likely never be used by a character, waste of a spell slot.

OK a few ideas to magic Ive been thinking of for a while.

Add a slow effect to petrification and make depetrify counter it (like haste/slow). Increase bump the kill save for petrification down a little. Making it a three tier save. Success (nothing) part fail (slowed) total fail (stone). 2 or 3 part fails equals stone as well.

Add a second form of art that lets a caster split some(or all depending on balance) of a spells damage onto a body part the same as aim in melee. This would enable casters to stack their damage with melee thus making caster/melee damage tactic more viable. Rather than caster I win spell success fail vs melee bash lock success fail. It wouldnt work for all spells, aiming a fireball or chain lightning doesnt seem practical but there are enough spells it would work with magma, acid blast, maybe even FoD.

The second form of art would make a caster need to make more choices in building a character to remove the risk of newbies creating a failed build for every 3 stats in one form of art you get a single stat in the other. So casters are not completely stretched thin on stat points.

The second form of art would enable there to be more dials to be tweaked as far as magical combat. Art is a fine line to balance it either works or doesn't where the second form of art is tweak-able by percentages. 5 points = 10% damage to a body part could be changed to 8% or 5% depending on how it turns out in use.

As much as I hate the petrification instant kill. Save or die has been around since the creation of the first D&D and has stuck it though till fourth ed. The issue I see with removing save or die spells is sometimes you just cant seem to land a kill and throwing enough save or dies will result in a success eventually. It does help in making sure someone is always at risk of being killed the problem is if someone out skills you to that extent chances are they are going to land a lot more of them than you will.

Thoughts on final strike. Its a lame spell as it stands now. The draw back is bigger than its pay off and makes it designed for trolling not for "normal" play. It also is a high risk of Imm favorite QQ on flag removal or not.
A few ideas I can think of to make it a more playable spell. If it keeps all of its catches, make it have a room effect that lasts for a long time (12 hours real time (reduced in trolling areas like cities/Inns). This could include a magical vortex making the room untravilable or do damage per time in the room and/or be a no magic room.
If you remove the current drawback. Final strike could be a spell that summons a no magic room effect but fixes a huge amount of concentration on the caster that they can not be dismissed rather it runs on a timer (also with a difference between effect vs fatigue effect 20 min spell effect 40 min fatigue effect (so if your able to sit in an inn its the same time)). Thus called final strike because a sorceror with no spells is likely going to die. This would make the spell high risk but high reward. Making it a viable spell to use in cabal warfare fights but a very risky spell to cast while at the same time it is not an "every day" kind of spell.

Petrification actually makes it abundantly easy to get the gear/coin. You win the battle with petrification, then you depetrify while an ally is spamming bash. Since depetrification not only removes all defensive buffs from the target, but also invokes wield lag on the person being depetrified, it's rare to escape getting full-looted after a petrification. If anything I'd argue that it's one of the most reliable ways that a sorc can secure loot.