Fate of Io: BRAINSTORM: Eumonetic techniques

BRAINSTORM: Eumonetic techniques

2003/10/12 00:14:57 PDT by Temporal [manager]

Post your ideas for eumonetic techniques here!

Please post your ideas in the following form:

name: The name of the technique.
element: The element of the technique. Most techniques will be between two elements, so please indicate both elements and how far between the technique is.
energy requirement: The amount of energy required for this technique. Don't write an exact number here. Instead, say something like "low" or "high", and describe why.
description: The effects of using the technique. Remember that techniques must have a target, so make sure to describe how the target is affected by the technique.

You may copy the following template to make things easier:

[b]name:[/b]
[b]element:[/b]
[b]energy requirement:[/b]
[b]description:[/b]

To start off, here is the Protean "morph" ability:

name: Morph
element: 100% earth
energy requirement: Fairly high. We don't want Proteans to be able to just go into a battle and morph all their opponents into mice.
description: Morphs the target into the animal which the user is thinking about. The user must be intimately familiar with the animal in order to be able to paint a clear enough picture of it in their head. This pretty much means that the user must have spent many months around the animal. Note that the result will look exactly like the specific animal that the user is familiar with, not simply a member of the species.

I also think we need to give Proteans this technique as well:

name: Revert
element: 80% earth, 20% water
energy requirement: Not very high.
description: Returns a morphed individual to their original form. Unlike with morph, the form is read from the target's mind, not from the user's mind. So, even if you are not familiar with the individual's natural form, you can revert them.

2003/10/12 15:53:29 PDT by nixxin [0/33]
Awards: 1 from Dev

High-Level Dual-Elemental Eumonetic Techniques

name: Firestorm
element: 50% Air, 50% Fire
energy requirement: High
description: Your usual firestorm. Much like FFX's Auron's Tornado Overdrive with the fire at the end, or like FFVI's Merton.

name: Mudslide
element: 50% Water, 50% Earth
energy requirement: High
description: A mudslide. It'll do damage AND do other stuff, like slow down the targets. I don't know how the battle engine is set yet, so I'll change these around for when that happens.

name: Fissure
element: 50% Fire, 50% Earth
energy requirement: High
description: A fissure of magma. Pretty simple, right? It'll probably look like Diablo 2's Fire Wall technique, but a lot cooler.

name: Hurricane
element: 50% Water, 50% Air
energy requirement: High
description: A hurricane with a lot, A LOT of water.

yea...i have an overactive imagination and i like to make these things up. and i know that these techniques are very magical, and we're trying not to have magic, but really...i think we need those spells that EVERY RPG has that totally kicks ass and takes forever to learn.

2003/10/12 16:28:01 PDT by Dev [manager]

Here are some story-related techniques that we know come from the highest spots on the pyramid, but are never actually usable during gameplay.

name: Resurrection
element: 100% water
energy requirement: Extremely high. (In fact, the players will never have enough eumonite to perform this technique.)
description: Brings a deceased being back to full health, regardless of age or state of decay. The target is any matter from a formerly living body; if any portion of the body is absent, this portion is recreated as part of the technique. If the target is living, it is simply restored to full health.

name: Death
element: 100% fire
energy requirement: Extremely high. (Base requirement equivalent to the requirement for Resurrection.)
description: Instantly slays multiple targets, diffusing their life energy to nothing. The energy requirement goes up with the number and health of targeted creatures.

name: Expel
element: 100% wind
energy requirement: Extremely high. (Same as above.)
description: Causes eumonetic energy to move at a higher rate, becoming more volatile and uncontrollable. Eumonite will no longer be able to store energy, and eumonite that is already charged will lose its charge (techniques that have been started with that eumonite will end). Effects that normally shift elemental affinity do so more rapidly. Techniques become less efficient in general. Expel has a radius of effect proportional to the amount of energy used to perform it, but is generally quite large (ie. thousands of miles).

And so does that mean we have....

name: Constrain
element: 100% earth
energy requirement: Extremely high. (Same as above.)
description: Causes eumonetic energy to move at a slower rate, becoming more fluid and controllable. Eumonite essentially becomes more pure, with larger capacity. Techniques powered by eumonite become stronger, and techniques become much more efficient in general. Effects that normally shift elemental affinity do so to a much lesser extent or not at all. Constrain has a radius of effect proportional to the amount of energy used to perform it, but is generally quite large (ie. thousands of miles).

2003/10/12 18:48:55 PDT by Temporal [manager]

Nix xiN: Interesting ideas, but those are all attack techniques. I'm hoping for more techniques with interesting non-attack-based effects... for puzzles and such.

Dev: Hmmmm. I think the ultimate earth technique would be terraform. In fact, I seem to remember having filled in some of the upper levels of the pyramids some time ago, and come up with some interesting ideas... but you subsequently rejected the whole thing because I had assumed that all faces of the pyramid had the same layout.

2003/10/13 10:47:35 PDT by nixxin [0/33]
Edited at 2003/10/13 10:51:08 PDT
Awards: 1 from Dev

name: Combine
element: 70% Earth, 30% Water
energy requirement: Extremely High
description: It's the spell at the end of Chapter 4 when the eumonite has to be combined under one spell (this is the spell). If the player can use this to an extent on a regular basis, maybe we can apply a realistic energy requirement.

and as an opposite..

name: Break
element: 70% Air, 30% Fire
energy requirement: Extremely High
description: To break eumonite (not physically). It'll stabilize eumonitic energy into smaller pieces.

2003/10/13 15:23:03 PDT by Davy boy2000b [0/13]
Edited at 2003/10/13 15:24:51 PDT
Awards: 1 from Dev

name: Gust
element: 100%Wind
energy requirement: Extremely Low
description: This is the lowest of all Wind attacks. It simply picks up nearby debris (pebbles, loose pieces of rough bark) and pummels the enemy/object with it. Could be used to hit only-just-out-of-reach switches with a low sensitivity. The range is extremely small - about 1 metre. The direction of the debris can be independantly moved around the caster for as long as the energy source can hold it, and could be used as a very low fire-shield. Please note that this technique is NOT levitation. It simply causes a current of wind that is only just strong enough to push small debris around at a short range.

I'm not sure if this one is ok or not. If it is, then I'll be making quite a few puzzle-related techniques in the kinda-near future. Please advise.

2003/10/13 17:08:34 PDT by Dev [manager]

Now that you mention it, Temp, I do recall you coming up with those spells. Do you know where they went? I don't remember flat-out rejecting them all, and I'm sure they were at least useful for brainstorming ideas. Anyway, as per the highest-level (known) earth technique, I was just trying to come up with something to oppose Expel the same way Resurrection opposes Death. So, I guess the earth technique doesn't matter so much as what you guys think of how I explained, mechanically, how Expel works.

Also, while I was searching for those old ideas of yours Temp, I came across this forsaken thread; at the bottom of this page is more discussion we'd had earlier about the Morph ability. I had forgotten about the limitation of only being able to morph one creature at a time; should we keep this limitation? Is it redundant with Morph's proposed high-energy requirement? Can we have both? (I'm thinking yes, we can, and should.)

And finally, so as not to post without anything new, here's an example of an old RPG standby I'm pretty sure we won't be able to get by without...

name: Heal
element: 90% water, 10% earth
energy requirement: Somewhat low to moderate.
description: Restores a finite amount of life energy in the targeted creature. If the creature is knocked out, they are brought back to consciousness. Note that the amount of energy restored is never greater than the amount of energy used for this technique (and is almost always noticeably less), so it's impractical to use direct life energy to perform this technique, instead taking water energy from charged eumonite.

2003/10/13 20:58:50 PDT by Temporal [manager]

I like that limitation on morph, but I'm not sure if it fits the eumonetic system. Hmm.

As for heal... there's a problem. What happens when you heal a fire-affinitive? You are then converting water energy into fire energy, which seems like a violation of our laws of eumonetics. Perhaps there should be a heal spell of sorts for each element?

Davy: Try not to worry so much about techniques being useful in battle. Your "gust" technique would probably not be used to directly attack an enemy, but rather to push things around in puzzles. Perhaps in some cases it could be used to push a large object over a ledge and crush something, but in general it would not be an offensive technique.

2003/10/13 22:02:45 PDT by mystik3eb [0/43]

Have a heal for every element like you suggested, Temp. Chrono Cross did that, and I think it's a great idea.

2003/10/13 22:44:56 PDT by Dev [manager]

Hmm. That limitation on morphing may have to be one of those things we just leave to the player's imagination. For instance, maybe the technique requires some form of bond with the eumonetic who performed it, and only one of these bonds can exist at any one time. Or, perhaps, and this is another limitation, that a eumoneticist simply can't perform another technique while anyone has been morphed under their power (how d'ya like that one?).

As for the heal problem: What you said, Temp, suddenly makes a lot of things make a lot of sense. We're saying all creatures are elemental in nature, correct? Well, we're all familiar with how this has worked in FFs, we're simply applying it with simpler levels (yet more interactions) and universally. So, without further ado, I give you...

name: Transfer
element: Corresponds to source's affinity (see description).
energy requirement: Varies from very low to moderate.
description: Moves a relatively small amount of eumonetic energy from one being/location to another being/location. This is not a technique so much as an extention of a eumonetic's inborn ability to channel eumonetic energy. Each element has a corresponding version of this (I'm already seeing these as the larger bottom-most "base" blocks illustrated on each pyramid face), which is used by eumonetics who are most affinitive with that element (though the exact mixture that results is identical to the eumonetic's elemental affinity, of course). This energy can be taken from any willing living being, or from eumonite, and channeled into any living being (willing or not), or into eumonite for storage. (NOTE: Remember that a eumonetic imposes his or her affinity onto whatever technique he or she is using, so if you draw energy from another being or from eumonite that is of non-identical affinity, some of this energy will be lost.)

Example uses of Transfer:

Cade is a high-attack, low-defense fighter, so he might need healing often. One of the eumonetics in the party could transfer their life energy to restore his; the best choice for this would be the eumonetic with an affinity closest to Cade's (as of right now, this happens to be Rheya). Rheya could take her own life energy and transfer it to Cade (losing a little in the process). A better solution may be to take energy that Rheya has transferred from herself to eumonite beforehand and transfer it to Cade (still with some loss) so that she doesn't lose any life energy herself in battle. Even better would be to transfer energy from Cade to eumonite beforehand, so energy that Rheya would transfer to heal him during battle would do so more efficiently (still with very little loss, because someone of a non-identical affinity is transferring, but not as much as the other two solutions.)
Most of the party has been knocked out in a desperate battle against an earth-affinitive monster. Only Dell remains and all eumonite has been sucked dry. As a last-ditch effort, he can transfer some of his life energy to the enemy as a sort of basic "eumonetic punch" to injure it (since Dell is wind-affinitive).
In the middle of a puzzle section, Brooke runs out of charged eumonite and the party needs her to cast Morph. If Brooke isn't healthy enough to use her own life energy, Rheya could transfer energy from her fully charged personal inventory of eumonite to Brooke's (again, with some loss).

I can even see how we might include an "Auto-Transfer" checkbox for each character, which tells the closest affinitive eumonetic in the party to regularly Transfer X amount of energy from that character to this store of eumonite whenever that character has full health (or whatever set of parameters we'd want to give the player control over).