RPG in quotes because i played tons of survival games with way more RPG on it than D3.
Diablo 1 -> Monks(hellfire) are deadlier unarmed and sorcerers learns and improve at spellcasting by reading tomes
Diablo 2 -> No monks but spells scale with how much you invested into a particular skill
Diablo 3 -> Your golem strength and your unarmed attacks 100% determined by the size and sharpness of your axe.
Other games
Dark Souls -> You need a catalyst BUT is not a big and sharp axe and it scale with your character attributes
Baldurâs Gate 1/2 -> Spell scales with your level and you need scroll to learn (NOTE Âș1)
DarkStone, FATE: Undiscovered Realms, etc-> Same system of D1.
TES III : Morrowind -> Learning the spell from masters on the mages guild and increasing your skill by using reduces the chance of failing to cast the spell
Gothic 1 -> Finding a master willing to teach magical circles to you and getting magical runes.
Gothic 3 -> Having enough ancient knowledge and paying for someone to teach or learning from a shrine(note Âș2)
Note 1 : BG 1/2 system seems similar to Diablo, but is different. Your mages, has only a chance to learn a specific spell a and there are int requirements.
Note 2 : Due the fact that Xardas destroyed rune magic on G3, the game uses a different magical system. Other RPGâs tries to make the spellcasting a part of the world and not any BS that the developer wanna.
Magic in D3 is the most nonsensical thing ever. And i donât say âhur dur magic needs to be realisticâ, only that the games mechanics needs to fit the game lore. Magic leading to insanity on The Call of Cutchullu makes perfectly sense. The same system of sanity for a high fantasy game where magic is mundane like baldurâs gate wouldât make any sense.
Certain skills in D4 will need specific weapons to be used, like the Barbarians skills Bash, Hammer of the Ancients and Upheaval requiring a Bludgeoning Weapon, while other Barbarian skills that cause bleed, require a sharp weapon like an axe or a sword.
Something like that could also have worked in D3 in regards to spells (and minions), where you need a wand, a stave or a specific kind of magic weapon (rune dagger, rune sword) to cast a spell (or at least to improve the spell).
Same for Monk Skills:
If you wanna use e.g. Way of the Hundred Fists, you have to use Fist Weapons, or Tempest Rush requires you to use a Battle Staff (or it automatically equips these.
A Demon Hunterâs Stafe ability could require you to have two 1handed crossbows equipped (or also automatically equips them when you use the skill).
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Beyond that, it makes perfect sense if the weapon damage of a wand or staff increases the damage of a spell, like a Fireball or Summoned Skeletons, because if the wand/staff is filled/infused with a lot of (powerful) magic energy (which translates into weapon damage in this case), then of course it can increases the power of your Fireball and your Summoned Minions.
But I agree that an axe should not do that, either by spells requiring specific weapons to be casted, or by not increasing the power of a spell.
Every final fantasy game and pretty much every JRPG your skills are amplified by your weapon and gear. There are literally 100s of other games where your weapon/gear determine how strong your spells are. D3 is not unique in that regard.
He is not complaining about that weapons increase your damage, he is complaining about that a non-magical weapon like a 2handed axe is improving the power of a magic spell like Fireball.
But you have the same thing in those games. Weapons and other gear increases physical or magical attacks. Just becasue the sharp axe example was used doesnât meant it cannot be magical also.
Point being if you went weaponless in those games, your spells would hit like wet noodles.
Perfectly fine by me. Unless you want some higher level items to be useless compare to some lower level ones depending on what stats they rolled (so much for loot hunt). If you want Diablo3 to have some kind of âspell powerâ stat that scales with level/item level, it will accomplish the same result as it is now with âdps/weapon dmg rangeâ. Only difference will be that spell caster/int user wonât be able to use str/dex weapons (if they have no better options) in that case. And of course, vice versa.
But your framing is not entirely correct either. Necros will rather use normal TragâOulâs Fang than some ancient weapon that has higher dps. So âmagic powerâ does come into play in D3 also.
Not truth. The final fantasy 1 had spell damage completely separed from weapon damage.
the earlier JRPGâs was far better than âandrogynous teenagers with oversizes unpratical swords saving the world NÂș 548646841365â. Even visual novels has more narrative character building than modern FF games and even survival games has more mechanical character building than modern FF games.
That is great. Situational gearing and gear enhancing your character >>> gear being your character.
Thatâs why I said practically and not every. And it matters not what themes earlier JRPGs had. There were still plenty of swords, daggers, maces and what not that increased/amplified magical damage.
I think this is a great system and I hope it extends to all classes. Original LOTR wizard also always needed a staff to cast spells. Gameplay wise this makes types of weapons matter.
Anyway, all classes should need and desire weapons. That is just good game design.
Iâd go for all weapons having two dmg types at the same time though.
Kinetic dmg, and spell dmg. An axe might have high kinetic dmg and low spell dmg on average, etc.
Once in a while, it is nice to see a âcaster axeâ etc. however. Can always give us some âloreâ reason as to why the great sorceress of the past âFirbalsin Urfaceâ decided to use an axe instead of a wand.
Yes, itâs bad that nigh 100% of your damage comes from your weapon in D3.
No, itâs not a catastrophe if your weapon improves some of your spell performance. After all, a sharp axe increasing your spellâs effectiveness makes just as much sense as your +2 fuzzy slippers doing it.
Well, it is immersion breaking to an overly large degree imo.
But why or how is the axe doing that? By the sharpness of its blade? How would that work?
The pants could have +2 to Fireball on them, which is a magic effect, so it would makes sense for them increasing your Fireball and if this affix would even spawn on an axe, than it also would make sense to increase the Fireball damage via this, however, not through the sharpness of its blade.
That ship has long since sailed for Diablo 3 anyway, and we already know that Diablo 4 will return to spells having a base damage of their own,
Beyond that, every character should be scaling up with gear. They can always make weapons come with a spell damage or magic attack stat that boosts it up a bit.
Wrong. Not all classes. If you class doesnât use a weapon, a weapon shouldât be a requirement. Axe barbarians shouldât need ammo because bowzons need nor corpses because a lot of necro skills needs it.
I rather see wands boosting casting speed and increasing skill level.
Did you know? The journey is a huge part of the game.
Anyway, i was reading the Book âthe dying earthâ by jack vance and OMG. Magic in that book works EXACTLY like on D&D and never felt âartificialâ, with a lot of D&D spells on it, like Prismatic Ray.
That would be a form of scaling up with gear, though after Diablo 2 I would be very careful about handing out skill level increases.
Itâd also be a bit hard on balance since casting speed is multiplicative on your damage while spell damage is additive.
Gear should be important and generally required, but they also need to be careful with multiplicative damage bonuses so as to not start turning the game back into Diablo 3 level of numbers.