Elemental Blade

Name:Elemental Blade
Skill or Spell:Spell

Category:Fighter
Class:Spellsword
Type:Normal

Effect:A magical sword of a specified element is conjured in the caster's hand. Effects vary depending on the element of the sword.

Fire: The sword appears to be a magical flame that flows as a sword. The sword causes those hit by it to be set on fire dealing 10 damage per opponent's post turn of the affected after the fire is applied (this effect stacks). This effect lasts 6 of the opponent's post turns or they can take a turn to put out the fire.

Ice: The sword appears to be a cone like structure similar to icicles in shape. The sword causes frostbite wear it hits. If it hits the arms of the opponent then the opponent loses 8 strength and 8 dexterity for attacking and blocking. If it hits the legs of the opponent loses 2ft/sec of speed. If it hits the chest of the opponent they take an extra 20 damage. If it hits the head of the opponent the opponent takes an extra 30 damage. These effects last for 6 of the opponent's post turns.

Lightning: The sword appears to be in the shape of a lightning bolt and pulses electricity. The sword can shoot tiny lightning bolts over a distance of 40ft that deals 200 damage to the target at 10ft then minus 50 damage for every 10ft beyond that. The bolt moves at 210ft/second.

All the swords are medium scaling weapons off of strength.
Action Cost:40 per post turn active
Memory Slots: 15
Patience Required: 60
Word Count to Learn: 2000

I've got one question and then a couple of ideas.

First, the question: The ice version "causes frostbite," but it never specifies here or anywhere else on the site what exactly that does. Unless the frostbite would have some particular effect, it seems that fire is just stronger than ice...? And if the frostbite is intended to have some effect(s), we'll want to quantify them as best we can essentially from the get-go. Maybe a penalty on attacks/blocks with the arm it hits  if it hits an arm, reduced move speed if it hits a leg, temporary inability to use spells if it hits the head, and burst of extra damage if it hits the chest? Or something like that. But we'll need to come up with numbers for each of those if we're going to do that.

That actually included the first idea, but oh well, who needs well-structured posts. The next idea is concerning the lightning. I think that 30 ft/s is a bit slow for the lightning, both from a "wait that's not how electricity works" standpoint and trying to balance it. However, applying the full weapon damage from 30 ft away with a medium damage scaling in strength seems a bit too strong. It seems like the lightning sword would effectively have no base damage, but the ability to deal 2x strength from 30 feet away is pretty strong, so what you would have here is an ability that easily kills low-level foes before they can even get to you, but literally can't hit higher level foes. For the sake of balance, I'd say make it faster (I'd push for probably 6 to 7 times as fast, somewhere around 200 ft/s), maybe even extend the range (just a bit, maybe 35 or 40 feet total? I dunno, that part is far from necessary.), but lower the damage. As far as lowering that damage goes, there are two main options: have a constant by which it lowers the damage (simpler) or have it be inversely proportional to distance (makes more sense, is cooler, probably balances the ability better, but also takes more work).

I'd also like to figure out some way to have this be a living spell, as there are many other elements people might want to add (e.g. earth and air if they're using the Greek pluralist lens (also the Last Airbender), metal and wood if using Chinese, water if they see an important distinction between that and ice, etc.), and it'd be cool to have this continue to grow as an adaptive spell. One of the most powerful parts of this is how well it applies to different situations, and that would make it continue to grow and excel in that regard. 

Okay, enough rambling. That's mostly just food for thought, as I think the skill is pretty much fine as is, but I would like a couple of quick edits before I approve (those edits being: specification of what "frostbite" will do (or, if it's nothing special, then changing the damage so that fire and ice match) and a quick fix on lightning, as I think that one is going to be mostly useless as it currently is). Feel free to post a reply here so that we can all have a conversation of sorts about what you want to do with it. It is, after all, your spell, so there's no need to let us dictate changes, talking about it collectively is probably more likely to lead to a balanced ability that's all-around better and more clear. That said, if you don't want to do that, you can totally PM either of us or both of us to work on it.

That was much longer than I had intended and not nearly as organized, so sorry about that....

Oh Psyre, I knew there was a reason I made you a mod.

I like the suggestions. The stats are mostly made up randomly from looking at other class spells. The actual effects were just made up on the spot since I had no idea what kind of damage and status conditions there were for this. I also planned on expanding this with more elements as well because only 3 elements seems kind of sad.

Hehe, mostly because I'm a huge nerd with no life, but whatever. That's reason enough. 

Okay, the status effects are super nebulous. In a text based game, there are freedoms far beyond what you'll see in most games, so the effects can basically be whatever we want (I kinda want to make some crazy, nonsensical meta effects that make it so people have to type their next 3 posts without the letter i or something like that....), and none are really formalized as of yet. The only ones that kind of are would be a weakening effect and something at least resembling poison (that's on a weapon somewhere, but I don't remember which one, sorry), so we can make these do whatever we want. Do you want to just post a quick reply with what you'd be thinking for edits based on the above suggestions and then I can work with you to tweak it until we're all happy with it?

Hey just popping in to say that on the damage over time on the fire one i think you added you should add a post limit otherwise they will take damage forever.

I think it's a one-time effect as it's currently written..? If not, that's crazy strong and needs to be edited wayyyy down.

I would like the fire sword to actually set the target on fire and it would be damage over time. I thought it would be cool if the ice caused partial paralysis to where it hits as if the body parts were frozen.

Aaaahhhhh gotcha. I totally misunderstood that. I'm relatively convinced that this spell should have several modes that are all of a reasonable power level, but the versatility will ultimately make it extremely powerful. The fact that you're already conjuring up a (relatively powerful) weapon on demand is pretty significant, so having too much DoT would be pretty crazy.

Okay, actually, first things first: let's change the costs on this. 20 memory slots is probably more than is necessary, I think taking that down to 15 or even a bit lower would be okay, but if the swords are doing significant amounts of extra damage, a mere 20 AP per post with them is probably a cost that is way too cheap for that strong an effect. If they even do an extra 50 damage, I think an AP cost of at least 35 per post is more suitable. A fighter that just made it so s/he could use this as quickly as possible would be able to hold it for 12 posts, and if the DoT stacks, that would be absolutely insane. So first, let's fiddle with the cost a bit. I'm almost inclined to say 40 AP per post and then we'll have a little bit more we can do to make the abilities stronger.

For fire doing DoT, I think it stacking would make sense, so what if we made it so that each instance is relatively weak, but they build, and they don't go out until the opponent puts it out (they'll have to use a post to stop, drop, and roll or something, probably)? Each instance will only do, say, 10 damage per turn, but that means that if you're in a drawn-out fight, they'll either have to waste a post putting out the fire or start taking 50 damage a turn. Which is a lot. At 40 AP per post, that would possibly still be slightly overpowered, so maybe each instance will do 7-8 per post? Something like that.

As for the frostbite, I totally agree, I think the arms and legs are easiest for that (arms: whichever arm has been hit is treated as having 10 less strength and 15 less dexterity for the purposes of attacks and blocks (honestly, those numbers are probably too large, but I wanted to give a brief example of what I was thinking) and legs: top sprint speed is slowed by 2ft/sec (I know that probably sounds pretty insignificant, but believe me, that's gonna be huge)). Multiple instances can stack up to a max of, let's say, three times (heck, we could even have a more synergistic interaction between the stacking, where the third time is way stronger, but we'd have tp compensate by weakening the first a bit), so that's gonna be having some major effects. Then though, we have to ask about what happens if they hit the chest or the head. Perhaps just little bursts of extra damage (e.g. first hit on head dies an extra 25, second an extra 35, third and every one thereafter does an extra 50)? Stuff like that. We'll want to get specifics with numbers, as those are easier to tweak than are concepts.

I like the changes for lightning, especially because that makes it so that even a max level character couldn't dodge it, which I think makes sense. No one is gonna be jumping out of the way of a bolt of lightning. The numbers look good to me for now, and it not actually scaling for the ranged attack also makes sense, but it might become obsolete. At strength scores of 200 and above, the sword seems to basically just be worse than a sling. I don't know whether or not the ability itself will be obsolete at that power level (it's entirely possible), but if not, we might want to think about this a bit more. I don't have any clever ideas for it yet, but I'll keep thinking about it.

Ok that definitely helps. I'll change the ice and fire powers to that.

I'd make a max duration for the fire. As is, infinite unless put out is a bit much, so maybe like 5-8ish post turns unless put out sooner? Also, could you specify who's post turn? The way it is right now makes it seem like it's every single post, so either make it every post turn of the affected player, or every post turn of the caster

Ah, as well as a duration for the frostbite, just so no one gets the idea that it lasts forever.

Fire is still a bit too strong, let's say every hit with it starts an instance of burn, which deals 10 damage per post of the affected, and instances stack, but fade separately. 

(e.g.
Turn 1: 
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 damage at start of post
Turn 2:
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 from each instance of burn (total 20)
Turn 3:
A hit B w/ flame
B takes ten from each of 3 instances (total 30)
Turn 4:
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 from each of 4 instances (total 40)
Turn 5:
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 from each of 5 instances (total 50)
Turn 6:
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 from each instance (total 60)
Turn 7:
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 from each of 6 instances (total 60, because the first wore off by now), but uses this action to quench the flames
Turn 8:
A hits B w/ flame blade
B takes 10 from one instance of burn
/e.g.)

Does that make sense? Once that's edited (right now, flame would be super strong), I'll go ahead and approve, but I'd like to keep working on lightning.

Okay, that works for me. I think that when we get a few people circa level 900, we'll probably come back and re-visit this (particularly the lightning), but it has my approval, so it now has the requisite two. Well done! This is a really cool spell that was tricky to try to make, so don't feel bad about it taking so long to finish. Thanks for contributing to the site and helping it be the user-made wonder that it's supposed to be!

Yay, approved. Sorry it took so long to edit, and finalize; the more complicated the spell, the longer it generally takes, as Psyre said. But, nice work, and thanks for being so patient with us both.