Higher level spells having side effects?

[Golden Circle]

Would it be a good idea if I made higher level spells and skills have side effects (other than higher cost)


For example Fire I would be a regular fire spell, Fire II would be stronger but inaccurate and Fire III would lower the user's magic stat and Fire IV would halve the user's magic, etc. This would make it so that the characters can learn stronger versions of the spells and skills they already have, but the weaker versions wouldn't be completely useless. Would this be a good idea or am I missing something that actually makes this a terrible idea?

 

[Valryia]

The player expects just an normal damage - and cost - increase. Don't confuse your players. Instead, name all the side effect spells differently and practicably. A fire spell with low accuracy is called "Wild Fire" or "Chaos Eruption", etc.

 

[bgillisp]

I think you could pull this off if you made it so that higher level spells added status aliments to the enemy. So maybe Fire I does damage and Fire II does damage + adds the Burn state. The damage could even be the same, making the only benefit of Fire II that it adds Burn, which would make the player choose whether to spend the extra MP to inflict the state too, or save the MP and just do raw damage.

 

[GolfHacker]

I think side effects for spells is a great idea. It has been used in a lot of different RPGs to introduce a level of strategy into the game that make battles much more interesting and fun, in my opinion.


For example, you could have higher level damage spells that have the possibility of adversely impacting allies. For instance, if you're using a side-view battle engine that takes battler position into account, a stronger fire spell may have a wider radius and indiscriminately harm anyone (enemy or ally) that happens to be in the blast radius. Thus, to use stronger spells effectively, the player has to plan ahead a bit to try to keep his party members away from the spell's target as much as possible. Of course, if you're in a desperate situation, you may not have a choice but to cast the spell even if some allies will be caught in the blast.


You could also have some spells that will affect everyone except those with a certain state, or wearing a particular kind of armor, or weak in a particular resistance level. Naturally, you would want to ensure your own party has the right state, item/armor, resistance level before casting the spell, and hope the enemy doesn't have that too. This kind of mechanic should work in any kind of battle system.

 

[Oddball]

I personally love this idea and am emplenting it in my own game to add depth and strategy in combat


for example. i had one skill that i scraped that hit all enemies for decent damage and halved the users deffenses till the end of the turn. however, the player could work around this by equiping armor that made them slow. but wait! they also had a skill that was also scrapped that used agi as the attacking stat and would weaken targets magical attack!


that was back when that class was unrefined in its role