Game Mechanics and New Skills feature - Phantasy Calradia mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Why do spells make me un-equip weapons or shields?

Different spells and spell types when used take up one of your four weapon slots. Depending on the type of spell it is depends on which weapon slot it uses. When choosing a thrown spell to cast it will take over your 2nd weapon slot in your inventory. The Shield spell will take the 3rd weapon slot, and the Magical weapon summons *like the Cleric's Spiritual Hammer* will take the fourth slot.

This means that a wizard will have 3 slots to put weapon or other items into their equipment if they only use thrown spells. Depending on the different variations of spells you like to use will determine how many slots of weapons you will have available. A high level wizard that uses thrown spells, shield summoning, and weapon conjuring, will only have their first slot available as a personal weapon of choice, but they will be able to throw magic spells, conjure magic weapons, and summon a shield to supplement this. You can mix and match to your liking and as you acquire new abilities, or to the variation of battles. One siege you may want to use a heavy board shield rather than summoning a shield so as to conserve mana!Party Morale and Good vs. Evil

In Phantasy the party morale system has been slightly changed to better suit the heavily D&D inspired world. With the addition of new factions and races a form of role-playing was done to reform the party morale system to best indicate a form of alignment. If you have a group of Blazing Hand troops, a faction solely dedicated to the destruction of the undead and demons, then it would make sense that harboring any undead or demons would heavily affect the party's morale. Below is a list indicating which factions and units, when mixed, can cause party morale problems.

• Elves and Drow do not like each other
• Elves and Orcs do not like each other
• Dwarves and Drow do not like each other
• Dwarves and Orcs do not like each other
• Mages and Dark Mages do not like each other
• The living (except for evil troops) do not like the undead *evil troops are orcs, drows, demons and mummies*
• Dark Mages will help you control the undead and increase morale
• Constructs (i.e. Golems) will not be affected by demons or undead.

What are these red notifications at the bottom left about Unholy Knights, Orcs, and etc. assembling for?

These are red armies which are bands of units that appear on the map, sort of like high level bandits with better loot! The "red armies" do scale a little bit. They have a minimum and maximum number for each troop type that scales automatically with the character level, so they should get bigger and tougher the more the main character grows. They are all, except for the undead army and the unholy knights, of the outlaw faction so relations with the outlaws may suffer, but that isn't usually a big deal. The other two parties are members of the free undead faction, same as all free roaming undead. They are another kind of outlaw, except they will be hostile towards other outlaws.

There are no special rewards except the treasures every encounter may carry, that is, not only equipment, but for instance unholy knights and greedy dwarves may carry gems that are quite valuable. These "red armies" will spawn throughout the world, and if you notice the notification it can give you an idea of where to look!

How did the orcs get so many units? Each vassal has almost 2000 or more!

The "horde event" is supposed to happen only once after a week of game time, it will strengthen the orcs considerably and it should make them powerful enough to get some Sarranid and Khergit towns or castles. All other factions get a troop boost after a game day, not as large as the orc one, but it will help them survive in case they go to war against a native faction.

Every month for the first game year, all fantasy factions will get reinforcements, that is an additional troops boost, but not very large, as long as their capital town remains theirs.

Game Mechanics/Skills explanation:

The link below is a post made by guspav detailing how magic , necromancy, stealth (sneak attacks), the entertain skill, and cleric powers (now faith) work.

EDIT: Some of the information on that page may not be updated yet. Instead a spoiler underneath "An in-depth look" will detail the rework of magic/faith.

Forums.taleworlds.com

NEW! Faith Skill: Faith is a newly added skill for all the clerics (and your player!). The skill will be a representation of what level "divine" abilities the cleric/paladin is able to cast. There are now 4 cleric/paladin skills usable in the prayer book. *The spoiler directly underneath will give the mechanics behind how the flame strike divine spell works, and the spoiler underneath the "An in-depth look" will explain all the new mechanics of Faith and Magic spells.

Right now you need a faith level of 5+ to cast Flame Strike (this also applies for all cleric npcs). The level of your faith skill and the armor of your enemy are factored in when determining damage by faith*8 - armor score. The flame strikes will cast every once in a while, the check is every 25 seconds, but first there's a 1d8 roll and on a 1-3 result it fires. This is all subject to change as testing progresses. Be EXTREMELY CAREFUL when you have 5 faith skill. The casting animation of the spell causes you to raise your shield and sword which leaves you vulnerable to attack especially missile fire which will get you killed quickly in sieges.

An in-depth look at the new mage/cleric magic system using Spell Books/Prayer Books respectively.

Mage spells (dependent on magic power):

For magic to work you'll now need three things: at least 1 point in magic power, a spell book, and a scroll containing a spell (or, in the case of mages, just the first two). If you choose in the beginning to become a mage apprentice you'll get a spell book and the knowledge of the magic missile spell (sort of like it was before). Spell books are just items sitting in the inventory, but spell casting will be impossible without them. Spell books will store spells learned from scrolls (just like in D&D) , so once you get a spell book and a new scroll, you need to open the camp menu and choose the write scroll option. Once you do that, the spell will be activated in the spell book and the scroll will be lost. Some spells might not be learned if your magic power isn't enough, so they do have a minimum spell power requirement to learn.

While in battle, the spell book can be activated via the "B" key and closed by either choosing a spell or pressing the "V" key. Once the spell book is activated a list of known spells will be displayed in a menu in which you'll be able to choose any of your known spells. Clicking on any of your known spells will automatically equip it and subtract an amount of magic points to your magic points total (displayed as a blue bar). Weapon inventory slots 2 and 3 are reserved for magic usage, so mages may only equip items in the first and last weapons slots. Slot 2 is used for thrown spells like fireball or magic missile and slot 3 is for the shield spell (new). Spell ammo has been radically altered so it changes accordingly to the amount of magic points you have. For example, fireball uses up 20 magic points and you get 10 magic points for every point you invest in magic power, so a mage with a magic power score of 6 (and therefore 60 magic points), will be able to throw 3 fireballs before running out of magic. Magic missile has been modified. Every few magic power levels another magic missile will be created while firing for a total of 5 with a magic power score of 10. Magic missile is still the cheapest spell and with this modification it will be far more useful than before. The new shield spell equips a magical shield on weapon slot 3, it is not very durable, but it can be created as many times as needed, so long as there are some magic points left to cover the cost. NPCs will equip spells via a script instead of using the item slots, so for them only the first weapon slot will be fixed, the other 3 will be equipped with spells. So far from the companions, only Rasreira and Aedan may cast mage spells. NPC mages will also use spell points and will have different spells equipped depending on their magic power score. Magic points regenerate over time. Every 4 seconds you recover one magic point, so it is perfectly viable, to throw a couple of big cost spells and then start throwing cheap ones.

Cleric spells

Cleric spells and the prayer book work similarly to mage spells, but there is one very big difference: While cleric spells are fewer, they are learned automatically and do not require spell books or scrolls. For a cleric player to cast cleric spells he/she will only need a holy or unholy symbol in his/her inventory.

In battle the prayer book is opened by pressing the "N" key and it is closed by either choosing a spell or pressing the "V" key.

Current cleric spells are: Heal, Turn Undead and Flame Strike.

Heal and Flame Strike use up prayer points (represented by the white bar) and work identically to magic points. Turn Undead may be used at any faith level and without cost, but is influenced by the faith score so a higher faith will produce far more successful turn/destroy undead attempts. While Turn Undead doesn't cost any faith points, its cool down time is 2 minutes. Turn undead may only be used while on foot.

There is one more spell that appears in the prayer book and that is the Lay on Hands spell. That one is reserved only for paladin characters and depends on the honor score. You'll need at least a honor score of 5 and the amount healed (for paladin only) will be the same as the honor score, so in the beginning it won't be very useful, but can help the paladin patch up a little bit without faith point cost. Lay on Hands uses the same cool down time and variable as Turn Undead so you can either Turn Undead or Lay on Hands once every 2 minutes.

NEW! Unicorn Regeneration: Unicorns now give a slow regeneration to the rider's and a much larger one to themselves. This is effective on the player and the Dokohan Koldoff Alliance's Unicorn Riders.

Necromancy Shadow Summoning: Shadows in Phantasy are summoned by having a level 8 necromancy skill and a base hp above 50. AKA 51+!!

Becoming A Lich/Undead: What's that necromancer? Summoning undead and having to eat just not your style? Don't worry, Phantasy's got you covered. Get 8 or more necromancy skill then look in the camp for the option called Lichdom. It will give you a list of items to acquire for Lichdom: a mithril bar, an azure gem, a dawn gem, a royal gem, a scroll of vampiric bolt, and 50000 denars. After you gather the items you'll get the option of finally becoming a powerful Lich!

Here's a list of Pros/Cons to the Lich!

Pros

• They are immune to charm and chaos spells
• They don't need food (need to verify that)
• They have a fear aura around them that will make weak enemies run away immediately
• They get a 3 bonus in Intelligence (mundane troubles of mortals don't bother then anymore and thus are more focused)
• They look badass as evil warlords

Cons

• They get a 3 penalty in Charisma and a 2 penalty in Agility (they are walking corpses so they aren't pleasant to look at and they are stiffer than living beings)
• Most factions will consider them abominations and will try to destroy them on sight
• They can be turned/destroyed by high level clerics
• White bolts will damage them.

Enhance Magic: How it works and the various Enhance Magic Sets! (Direct quote from Guspav)

Each of these numbers adds itself proportionately to the magic power skill score on every spell formula. If any other armor and helmets are worn (ones that are not enhance magic) the score, to either the robe factor or the hat factor, will become 0. If by adding both robe and hat factor the result is 0, there will be a -5 penalty to the multiplier (Multiplier being one of the numbers that helps determine your spell damage by "amplifying" the power of the spell), so in theory you could wear metal armor and a wizard's hat or a wizard's robe and a metal helmet, but the bonuses you'll get will be significantly lower. If you get the -5 penalty, the spell's total magic power will be seriously lowered and could make some spells nearly useless. There are no magic enhancing boots or gauntlets. These do not factor into the magic damage multiplier mentioned before.

Specific Spells:

Magic missile: practically a "sidearm spell"with a lot of ammo. It does low damage, but is quick to fire and isn't affected by spell power or spell resistance, it IS affected by power throw though. It can be fired over long distances and can also be used on horseback.

Fireball: Has an area of effect damage of 7 meters and also causes direct hit damage which is affected by power throw. Area damage is calculated using magic power vs magic resistance + armor value. It is a bit slow to cast and has good range, but cannot be used on horseback.

Black bolt: is an interesting spell that causes damage to a single target. Living creatures might also become panicked if they fail a check when hit by the bolt. Damage is caused almost exclusively by the magic power vs magic defense score, armor also comes into play.

Lightning Bolt: Has an area of effect of 3 meters, but causes a large amount of damage. Like fireball direct hits are affected by power throw and area of effect damage is calculated similarly.

White bolt: it works like Diablo's holy bolt. It basically heals living creatures and damages undead in an area of 2 meters. It doesn't matter whether the targets are friends or foes, they will always be affected, so it's possible to destroy one's own undead or heal one's enemies with this (major reason why no AI controlled troops is equipped with it).

Vampiric bolt: it's a dark fire bat that will only hit single targets, difficult to aim and with moderate range. It will cause damage based on the magic power score and will also recover the caster 10 hp if it hits.

Hellish bolt: this one is used only by Drow priestesses and mummy priests (so far). It is basically a good throwing weapon with a funky shape and some sound, doesn't do anything else.

Charm person: As you may suspect, this one will try to convert a single living enemy (no undead or golems) to your team for the duration of the battle only. Success depends again on power and resistance.

Flame arrow: It's a very powerful single target spell. It has the largest damage multiplier and can be used on horseback, but unlike most other single target spells it's ammo is more limited. Power and resistance also affect it.

Acid arrow: Direct hit spell. When a creature is struck, it has a chance of dealing acid damage (the more magic defense of the victim, the less likely). Acid damage will deal 1 hp of damage per second for 20 seconds, it doesn't matter what armor the victim is wearing. The spell will also affect horses.

Darkness: Direct hit spell. If a creature is struck with darkness, it will have it's ranged accuracy greatly reduced for a few seconds. It has also the chance of spreading to nearby troops and darkening them as well. Whether it works or not also depends on the magic defense of the victim.

Haste: Will double the speed of the caster and all nearby troops. The effect will last for a minute. If a slow spell is cast on a hasted troop, both effects will be canceled (in theory).

Slow: Area of effect spell. When thrown at enemies, it has a chance of making them move at half speed. Resistance to the spell depends on the magic defense of the victim.

Magical Weapon: Summons a sword made of pure magic to the 4th weapon slot. The sword is quite good as a melee weapon (much better than most staffs).

Charge Staff: Charges a mage's staff with magical energy that drains 4 magic points after each strike. The strike damage will be increased depending on both the staff and the wielder's magic power score. It replaces the former "kill mode" of all staffs. Only mage staffs will be affected except the Necromancer's Staff and the Shaman Staff.

Dispel: Removes all effects, both good and bad from the caster and surrounding troops regardless of teams.

Shield: Literally what it says, it gives the user a magic shield that drains mana to block attacks!

Specific Faith Abilities/Spells:

Spiritual Hammer: This spell will summon a magical hammer to be either thrown or used in melee. The melee and thrown modes are switched by the usual "X" key. Please note that if you only can afford one hammer, you won't be able to throw it, so you'll need at least 30 faith points. Once you throw a hammer another 15 faith points will be subtracted from your faith points bar.

Harm: The reversed heal spell will cause damage based on the faith skill to enemies around the caster in a 3 meter radius.

Bless: Will increase the melee damage by a percentage (e.g. 150%) based on the faith skill of the caster.

Curse: The reversed Bless spell will cause enemies around the caster to decrease their attack damage by a percentage (e.g 50%). The spell's power depends on the faith skill of the caster.

Bravery: Will render every allied troop around the caster immune to fear effects.

Terror: Will attempt to make nearby enemy troops run away. Undead and constructs are immune to the effect. Resistance to fear is calculated using the victim's level, thus a higher level victim will be much harder to frighten than a lower one.

Why aren't my spells doing damage?
If you keep hitting 0's on heavily armored people when you have high intelligence and high magic power then a couple things are happening. First, the damage shown in the chat log is how much the actual throw itself is causing which can be negated by armor, but the damage from the lightning/fire of the AoE will be done and not shown. This creates the illusion that your spells are doing nothing to heavily armored units. In reality, the damage from the lightning/fire is much more significant than the landing spell-throw so focus more on how many people you can get inside your AoE before throwing rather than the damage counter at the bottom.

New/Magical Items: These include several D&D based weapons along with new armor pieces. Some of the weapons include Dagger of Throwing, Arquebus, Adamantium weapons, Maul of the Titans, Drow Weaponry (Scythe, Glaive, and more!), Dwarven Thrower, Elven blades/bows, and staffs. To obtain the magical items head for the Four Ways Inn (below Dhirim) and look for the shady Drow named Tardareth. Tardareth keeps several magical items in stock at a time! Visit him often to check for various magical items.

NEW ITEMS LIST!

Suminagashi has done a great compiling a post with a large variety of the enchanted weapons found at four ways inn, and a couple other ones. A link to his post is below! The list also includes the price of each item, AND a screenshot of each detailing stats!

Forums.taleworlds.com

Thanks to guspav for a description on each spell, information on the "horde event"/"red armies", and the in depth look at skill mechanics.