B is for Blue Magic

Greetings my fellow Kenzerites. If you are looking for the post Dave was talking about on the boards, it's the next one down. But feel free to read this one while you're at it.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been playing Final Fantasy V as of late. I'm a big fan of the series as whole, which is why I also am a fan of Retro Phaze. Well, that and its creator is a friend of mine.

Final Fantasy V is notable within the series for introducing the concept of blue magic. Blue magic is based on the concept certain monsters have abilities that can be learned as if they were spells. This is not without risk. For in order to learn these abilities, the mage in question must suffer the effects of the ability, and survive. Blue magic offers advantages that black and white don't have. Attacks of non-elemental, or non-standard elemental type, inflicting status effects not available to other classes, and special defensive abilities. It's a class that would provide an interesting twist to a Retro Phaze game. But there are a few issues that have to be addressed.

First of all, Retro Phaze is based on the Vancian magic system in Final Fantasy I. By the time Final Fantasy II came out, the games switched to a spell point system. In Final Fantasy V, there were still spell levels were still in effect for black, white, time and summon magic, but not for blue magic. So creating a blue magic class would require either assigning levels to certain abilities, or creating a new system just to handle blue magic.

Second, blue magic is learned by suffering it's effects. A blue mage runs the risk of falling in battle from an attack. So we have to come up with a time frame that the mage can be unconscious/dying and still retain the knowledge he has just learned. I believe a good rule of thumb would be one round per three points of Intelligence.

The biggest obstacle would be having to rework the monsters in Retro Phaze to accommodate this new class. This would include adding not only the new abilities, but other attributes such as Strength, Dexterity, even levels for abilities that depend on the target's level of experience. While Retro Phaze's monster section is only eight pages long, it would need expanding to accommodate these changes.

Just as a sample of what I am going on about, here is a small sample of some low level blue (or as I call it, monster) magic.

Level 1 Spells

• GobSmack- Range= 0", Spread = 0", Does 2K1 damage, 4D if the target is the same level as the caster.
• SelfDetonate- Range= 5", Spread= 1", Does damage to the target equal to the caster's remaining hit points.
• SwampSong- Range= 5", Spread= 0", Turns the target into a frog (resistance roll to avoid). This spell also reverses the effect.

Monsters

• Goblin- Level: 1, HD: 1, DF: 7, MV: 5", AT: 1D, Special Ability: -1 to attacks in sunlight, GobSmack once/battle.
• Lesser Bomb Spore- Level 2, HD: 3, DF: 7, MV: 3", AT: 1/2D, Special Ability: SelfDetonate

It's admittedly a work in progress, but it could put a new twist on the game.

Thoughts?