.hack//SIGN-Ups

[Lithp]

Edit: Holy shit, this post turned out longer than I expected.

Well, the way it worked in the games was that weapons & armor sometimes had spells. Through SP (skill points), you would cast those spells. The elements of the classes refer to what they can get through this method. You could switch out equipment to access other spells if your currently equipped piece didn't have them, so it was advisable to carry a few weapons & a few armors & such at one time.

All of these rules also applied to abilities that weren't magic in nature. IE, Long Arms had a lot of attacks that made them slash at the enemy's feet or spin their spear. These could be either non-elemental or one of the elements that the Long Arm could use.

In addition to that, there were scrolls. They were 1 time use, but they allowed anyone to cast any kind of spell. As long as there was a scroll for it, which there weren't for some summons.

So, to answer your question, a spell would be exclusive to a Wavemaster if it only came on a staff. In general, what that means is that they can cast all elements.

As I recall, there were some weapons that would sometimes hit with a certain element when used. The elements work like this:

Water<->Fire
Thunder<->Darkness
Earth<->Wood

There were also the Repth spells, which were used for healing, buff spells, & debuff spells. The attack spells were sorted into categories:

Rom spells whirled around & hit a few enemies (if they were clustered together) multiple times for small damage. Most of the hits would usually connect, too.

Zot spells would emerge below the enemy, typically doing a few hits to some enemies (if they were clustered together) for larger damage. Their accuracy was so-so.

Kruz spells involved things converging on the enemy. They were fairly dependable, but not as powerful.

Don spells involved dropping things on the enemy & were largely shit. They'd only hit one enemy & they weren't terribly accurate or powerful.

Summon spells summoned a monster that did a single blast with perfect accuracy & relatively large damage. Naturally, these cost the most SP.

What I'm thinking of doing is changing the categories to a more forum-friendly arrangement. So, you could decide the best spell type to use based on the situation. So, for instance, say you cast Gan (Earth) Zot. Maybe, in addition to being an attack, those rocks will stay as an obstacle. I think it's a fairly sound idea.

I really do not like the idea of having spells linked to weapons, because that feels overly complicated to me. I also don't like having them be scrolls, because that ruins the point of a scroll. In the game, books installed data onto a character, so I'll probably have spell learning work that way.

I'm not really sure about elemental equipment, attack abilities, or equipment abilities (shit like critical hit or half damage) yet.

Once I figure things out, I'll post them somewhere. Maybe in the OP of this thread.