Armifer asked us to post here, so here you go. One more spell suggestion:

Oversight
Book: Illusion
Allows the mage to create an illusion of herself within her shop, so that she can monitor for customers, answer questions, and return if more physical help is needed.


-- Player of Eyuve

<Sort of a Shadewatch Mirror except specifically for shops? I like the idea as long as it's not something that allows your shop to be open outside of normal hours.

Oooh, I just had a thought!

I'd love something that you could cast on your shop that would put a 'bell' that customers could 'ring' for customer service and it would alert you with some sort of signal!

--

In memory of Lisa/Martee. Passed 6/17/2013. A friend. A sister.

I feel like this has been lost in a lot of these suggestions, so I'm just going to repost the trader spellbooks:

Traders are going to acquire a magical facet, utilizing their tertiary access to mana to be able to move effectively engage in combat and enhance their abilities as a salesperson. Traders attune to Lunar mana, which remains relatively unchanged from how Moon Mages use it. Unlike all other forms of mana, Lunar mana varies over time instead of location. Every spot on Elanthia has the same Lunar mana available to it, but that amount may be different five minutes later. Advanced Lunar mana users gain additional power from the sun and planets. In addition, each book is attuned to the moons in different ways, which means that available mana varies from book to book.

Traders will possess three spellbooks:

Fabrication (Katamba + Yavash)

Fabrication allows Traders to create physical effects. These spells produce and shape a crystalline substance of magical origin, similiar to the material some enchanters produce but very short lived. This book serves as the backbone of Trader combat magic, producing deadly darts and sturdy barriers.

Illusion (Xibar + Yavash)

Traders have an unusual knack for creating illusions, focusing on life-like replicas of people or objects. Unlike the "illusions" of the Moon Mages, which tend to become substantial or even take on alien life, Traders practice what we'd conventionally call illusions: insubstantial images formed by light. This book serves a primarily defensive purpose, though underhanded Traders may find it useful outside of combat.

Illusion magic is largely moon dependent. A light-giving moon (Xibar or Yavash) needs to be up for most of the spells to work. For reasons that can only be described as occult, sunlight does not qualify.

Negotiation (Katamba + Xibar)

Broadly, Negotiation is a spellbook of "tweaking" situations. Typically this takes the form of small but elaborate psychic compulsions, such as making a deal appear better than it should. Strangely, some spells go beyond the psychic and affect the Trader in a way that can only be described as providing good luck... though for some reason, those particular spells have been known to make Moon Mages upset. This book is primarily for beneficial out-of-combat spells.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

Well, I'm guessing that some form of Mirror Image will appear in our spells.

Retina Overload: Creates a bright flash in front of target's eyes. Produces those bright spots in our vision that we all have seen. Offensive and defensive debilitation.

Highlight defects: Using magic and appraisal skills, the trader highlights the weak and damaged parts of opponents armor. Damage increasing spell as trader aims more for these highlighted parts.

Abison/Rystien

>The Negotiation book makes me hesitate. I don't see many spells for it. The only way I see expanding this book is infringing on MM prediction system.

Perhaps bonuses or means for expanding on Trading, as a way to interact with shopkeepers? Debilitation in the form of Charms/Intimidation?

>>Sort of a Shadewatch Mirror except specifically for shops?

Yes, exactly, only there would be a visible illusion of the Trader in the shop, so customers could see he/she is there and initiate questions.

So since the discussion is here now, I thought I'd post a summary of my suggestions from the Trader folder.

FABRICATION

- Spells to create crystals. Lodge shards in enemies, create a cage around yourself or enemies, create a crystal shield, reflexively summon panes of crystal revolving around you to block blows. Imprison enemies in a layer of crystal, or hinder them with sheets that encase arms or legs.
- Meta-spells to improve the above spells. Increase the chance of crystals shattering into shards when interacted with (e.g., shield slamming with crystal shield, enemy attacking crystal cage). Shatter all crystal effects at will, or set a timer on them to detonate later for greater damage. Infuse crystals with lunar energy for extra damage (Xibar = cold, Yavash = fire, Katamba = puncture).
- Crafting enhancements. Reinforce tools, increasing speed and durability. Increase workability of materials.

ILLUSION

- Defensive illusions. Blur yourself to become harder to hit, create duplicates of yourself to become nearly impossible to hit (but you cannot attack or you ruin the effect), create phantom foes to take up engagement slots around you (e.g., so you could fight just one enemy).
- Debilitating illusions. Make yourself appear larger and more dangerous, causing AOE fear/immobilization. Overwhelm a single enemy with a flood of images, stunning.
- Illusory presence. Use an illusory version of yourself to communicate with a distant shop, teleporting the item bought to your hand (can only bond a certain number of shops to visit). Create an illusion of yourself in your shop that others can see and interact with, for answering questions etc.

NEGOTIATION

- Tweaking situations. Use psychic abilities to increase perception and remove oneself from thieves' planning, creating a good chance for steal attempts to fail (with large cooldown for the thief). Increase Charisma and Trading, increase Int and Tactics.
- Psychic defense. Turn Mind/Charm spells back on their caster.
- Psychic probing (for impurities). Increase Appraisal and clarify individual gems and/or gem pouches. Should improve quality of materials for jewelry-making, artistry, possibly enchanting.
- Strange luck. Increase creature loot, boost three skills at random (or two in one skillset), boost any one skill of choice (but can align a skill only once per day), adjust random rolls to be more likely to succeed.

You can find the full list in these two posts. They might be useful for thinking of spell names, and they describe in more detail how the effects fit into the theme.

http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Traders/Guild%20Suggestions/view/1252

http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Traders/Guild%20Suggestions/view/1255


-- Player of Eyuve

Reposting some spell suggestions I made from last year here.

Trader Spell Suggestions:

Name: Color Logic

Description: This spell sets a color temporarily on a crafted item after observing a celestial body. Each celestial body has their own color associated with it. However, having the technique and a hobby or career in the appropriate discipline allows you to create a permanent color on the crafted item.

Prerequisite: Level 20

Name: Disguise

Description: This spell enfolds you in a colorful disguise after observing a celestial body. Each celestial body has their own color associated with it.

Note: I'd hook this into the shifting system for coloration. For example: if you cast xibar upon yourself you would have blue hair, blue eyes, blue-veined skin, etc.

Prerequisite: Color Logic


Name: Diversion

Description: This spell creates a clone of yourself and guards you from hostile actions based upon your own defensive capabilities. You will find over time you will suffer a concentration drain as long as the spell is in force.

Prerequisite: Disguise

Name: Army of One

Description: This spell creates a clone of yourself based on your offensive and defensive capabilities and attacks any opponent at melee with you. You can create as many as needed but you will suffer a concentration drain as long as you have the spell in force.

Prerequisite: Diversion

Name: Army of Many

Description: This spell creates a clone of your entire group based on each person's offensive and defensive capabilities and attacks any opponent at melee with you and your group. You can only create one per person as this creates a severe drain on your concentration.

Prerequisite: Army of One

NOTE: All of the above were suggested on 6/19/2012

From Uncon 2013

Name: Blurred Vision
Description:
Trader casts a cocoon around target blurring the target's ability to cast spells on the Trader. Target's ability to cast/target spell at Trader is reduced by 40% and the spell might hit up/down or right/left of intended body part, etc.

Example:

Trader casts BV at target. If target loses contest, trader might receive a glancing blow, a hit, or entirely miss.

Charm vs willpower
Debilitation/tm

Name: Hands of Fate
Description: Trader casts spell on self or target. Creates a crystalline three sided die in their hands. As they throw the die it tumbles to the ground before self or target’s feet with Welkin/Raven/Raccoon face up. The target/self receives a blessing, neutral or curse on all lore skills while in effect.
Welkin = Divyaush/good/bonus
Raven = Kertigen/neutral/?
Raccoon = Zachriedek/bad or curse
Charm vs willpower
Utility

>>Any spells that are a boon to Trading, Appraisal, Teaching or Scholarship are going to be avoided with a passion. With the exception of "maybe" getting be gem pouch prices, you'd be hard to find a trader thinking it is worth it to bonus any of these skills.

i'd like to reiterate this.
boosting trading or appraisal is totally useless. Gem prices max out at pretty low, and increasing these skills would have no effect on prices.
Teach and scholarship? why would you want to boost these anyways?

I'm under the impression that trader magic is to bring the guild to the standard of all other guilds. Letting us physically compete with other guilds.

From my perspective, trader magic is to traders combat as swords is to barbarian combat.

>>boosting trading or appraisal is totally useless. Gem prices max out at pretty low, and increasing these skills would have no effect on prices.

I wouldn't bank the apparently uselessness of a skill on how it works in one specific mechanic. Maybe Trading will matter more in craft payouts. Maybe it might have a bigger influence in the next iteration of the commodity market, etc.

>>I'm under the impression that trader magic is to bring the guild to the standard of all other guilds. Letting us physically compete with other guilds.

While I'm sure Traders will get some nice magic things to do in combat, I wouldn't necessarily expect magic to make or break combat viability for the Trader guild. I'd expect Traders a lot more prone to outside-combat lore and survival boosting spells, and anything combat-based may be more about defensive improvements than offensive ones.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I came up with a Warding/Utility type spell idea last night.

Alarm. The mage casts a wide and invisible barrier around herself, which notifies her when passed through by those hidden or invisible. (I.e. the mage gets a notice if someone tries to stalk her, steal from her, or possibly even just passes through the area she's in. Maybe anonymous to preserve Perception skill value.)

I'm not sure how useful this would be without spot effect (see Eye of Kertigen complaints). Maybe a 1 slot spell, in the same book or prereq tree as whatever replaces Speculate Paranoia. I would personally use it just to know when to get out of dodge.

Also, for what it's worth, from the spells I suggested earlier, these are the ones I would consider at least potentially Warding or Utility:

Warding: Blur (maybe), Brittle Cage, Diamond Shield, Refraction, Deflection, Phantom Foe (maybe).

Utility: Illusory Visit, Clarify, Hnogsarn Frath, Structural Integrity, Malleate, Universal Fortune, Infuse, Phantom Foe (maybe), Oversight. Also Sellaport from that other person's suggestion list.

Full spell lists here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Traders/Guild%20Suggestions/view/1252

and here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Traders/Guild%20Suggestions/view/1255

I hope some others come up with some ideas. I'm really curious to see what we end up with anyway!


-- Player of Eyuve

>>I've basically already crawled through all the suggested Trader spells and pulled out the ones I think have potential so, unfortunately, linking old lists isn't terribly useful at this point.

That's great. I figured you had. But sometimes it's hard to tell with these brilliant forums... And I saw we had a new guy to the discussion too.

Anyway I'm glad my suggestions provided some modicum of help. :)

Another few Warding ideas for you since you asked specifically for them.

Crystal Thorns. Fabrication. Adds spikes to the mage's armor and shield, so that enemies who hit him automatically take damage.

Fragment. Negotiation. Creates a psychic barrier around the mage that causes incoming debilitation spells to split. Some may only take partial effect (e.g., a spell that debilitates two skills might only affect one, a stun may be half duration). Maybe combine it with my Refraction idea, which reflects hostile debilitations onto their caster.

Lucky Step. Negotiation/Luck. Reduces damage, mainly from critical hits.

Also, I've been hesitant to suggest ideas that would tie into systems that aren't created yet (e.g. the planned commodities system, a potential smuggling system). But I would hope that you'd leave some room to add more for those when they come out.

Finally, I was thinking about what someone said about how Traders should be good at defense. Just keep in mind that they are already defense heavy, and magic/weapons tert. If I were playing a Trader, I would badly want an ability to increase some of my offensive capability.


-- Player of Eyuve

>>That's more of a TM spell than a Warding spell.

Bah, I'm not a WM player -- don't expect me to remember Ring of Spears! Also for serious, Warding spells are hard. There aren't that many things to ward against. Poison/disease is one that hasn't been explored, but that's more of a Life thing. Maybe warding against... bad predictions? Ambushes? Market crashes? (kidding)

>>Utility is the other area I'm really struggling with.

I thought I gave a pretty big list of these. I take it too many of my ideas weren't liked or feasible? I too struggle to suggest anything else. Illusions seem like they should have a lot of utility to them, but it's difficult to come up with ones that work mechanically.

>>Remote Viewing

Personally I'm a huge fan of this as a MM, and would love to see some on the Trader list. I couldn't really think of any that were different from my good old MM favorites though, other than Oversight. Maybe there could be a strong illusory presence available even outside of shops? So that you could actually interact with objects in two areas?

>>See in the dark

Just a note, but I love TS for its use in mining, and Traders tend to like being crafty and possibly gathery. Again, can't just port over TS, but maybe something else that helps with Outdoorsmanship or the specific difficulties of new gathering (lumberjacking, sigil gathering)?

>>ESP

This is kind of fascinating actually. It would be pretty awesome if the mage got access to other PCs' MYCHAR commands -- but of course this is limited to what others are willing to project. I also in the past tentatively thought it would be fun to have a LIE verb that replaces SAY, so ESP could detect lies also. You could also consider hiding PONDER outputs except via ESP. For what it's worth, I would take this as a cheap spell (much like Aura of Tongues).

>>*Theoretically extremely limited forms of Teleporation could be used by a non-Moon Mage, though it doesn't cleanly fit into any of the Trader spellbooks and these forms wouldn't be useful for travel.

Well, if they're useful for something, why not? What kind of effects are we talking about here?

As for other areas that seem Lunar but aren't already listed, the one that springs to mind for me is Gravity. I realize we already have an (unreachable) mana type for this, but does that mean we couldn't do gravity-type effects? Of course, many of the obvious ones already have homes elsewhere (Burden, Ease Burden, YS). And magnetism is seen a little bit in Magnetic Ballista. Maybe a spell that pushes/pulls enemies to various engagement ranges? Something that pulls enemies to the ground? Floats deaders?


-- Player of Eyuve

>>Bah, I'm not a WM player -- don't expect me to remember Ring of Spears!

If it does damage it's TM or TM hybrid.

>>I thought I gave a pretty big list of these.

You did, and there's a smattering that are on the short list, though unfortunately a lot of them that made it past the initial cuts for lore or mechanical space are now facing the problem of either being to close to spells from other guilds or being mechanically dubious in their implementation (Not just your ideas, this is a problem for some of mine as well).

>>Remote Viewing

I'm fairly sure we'll see some form of remote viewing in the spellbook. If it's the one I've currently got planned (Which is a little out there) remains to be seen.

>>Just a note, but I love TS for its use in mining, and Traders tend to like being crafty and possibly gathery.

I wasn't speaking to the Outdoorsmanship nature of TS - I can't see traders getting a see in the dark + outdoorsmanship spell both because it would be a direct clone of TS (And we don't really want direct clones of any spells) and because TS isn't exactly winning any awards for good design - the outdoorsmanship bonus was a conversion of the foraging at night penalty being removed by the spell, which was removed from the foraging system after the spell was released, which was mostly there in the first place because "See in the dark" wasn't worth a spell slot.

>>It would be pretty awesome if the mage got access to other PCs' MYCHAR commands. You could also consider hiding PONDER outputs except via ESP.

That's not going to happen.

>>I also in the past tentatively thought it would be fun to have a LIE verb that replaces SAY, so ESP could detect lies also. For what it's worth, I would take this as a cheap spell (much like Aura of Tongues).

You say that now, but historically pure RP spells like this tend to do very, very, poorly and need a lot of extra support built up around them. Most of the realm of ESP we're willing to play with, I think, is already covered by thoughtcast - and even then you already have hirelings to deliver messages.

>>>>*Theoretically extremely limited forms of Teleporation could be used by a non-Moon Mage, though it doesn't cleanly fit into any of the Trader spellbooks and these forms wouldn't be useful for travel.

>>Well, if they're useful for something, why not? What kind of effects are we talking about here?

Mostly because we're not sure that's something we want Traders to do even if the lore says they potentially could. The primary example is that you don't need a moon to teleport something if you don't care what state the target arrives in (aka: partial displacement), which is neither an effect that fits in the trader theme or is something they're really in need of. Think of it like this: the area of teleportation magic is slightly broader than the area of Moon Mage magic, but we're not sure that little sliver outside the Moon Mage circle overlaps with the Trader circle.

>>As for other areas that seem Lunar but aren't already listed, the one that springs to mind for me is Gravity. I realize we already have an (unreachable) mana type for this, but does that mean we couldn't do gravity-type effects?

That is what this means, yes. It's possible a sorcery type deal could reach into the gravity range, but it's not something we've explored yet. Also, magnetism is the area of Elemental Magic.

>>I too would like a spell that allowed traders to see in the dark: utility.

Ah, but would you actually spend a spell slot on it and not feel like the spell underperformed? We fell for this once with TS when players said they'd spend a spell slot to see in the dark and the answer was a resounding "No, they wouldn't".

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

What about a moonblade like spell that creates speedy crafting tools?

---

Don't forget to vote:

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

>>Ah, but would you actually spend a spell slot on it and not feel like the spell underperformed? We fell for this once with TS when players said they'd spend a spell slot to see in the dark and the answer was a resounding "No, they wouldn't".

See in the Dark + perception and or Stealing defense on the other hand sounds right up their alley.

Samsaren

I see shield conjuring as a thematically appropriate utility spell. Plus, moonshield sounds cool, especially if the shield's appearance changes if cast at specific moons and/or constellations (e.g. shield with a raven on it or something).

It's easy to forget sometimes that traders are armor secondary.

Random suggestions from the peanut gallery...

*Spell to temporarily increase the durability of an item.
*Spell that gives them a temporary general worn bag with either huge size and moderate weight reduction(ie items in it don't add to their encumbrance) or moderate size and total weight reduction. Might be useful when they have auctions or need to move product around.
*Spell that lets them buy one more of an item that is sold out at a store. You'd have to put in safeguards to keep it from being abused but I'd think this would be quite popular.

_____________________________________________________________
Caution: may scream about HUGE DRAMATIC AMAZING SIGNIFICANT loss

<<Ah, but would you actually spend a spell slot on it and not feel like the spell underperformed? We fell for this once with TS when players said they'd spend a spell slot to see in the dark and the answer was a resounding "No, they wouldn't".>>

I would. I've spent a similar "slot" in the thieves for their khri "see in the dark" ability, and quested as a ranger <in TF> for the "see in the dark" ability there. My prime MM doesn't have it because she didn't have a spell slot open prior to 3.0 preview. But under the new system once spell-choosing goes live she'll definitely pick up TS.


<<If I can't cast thunderclap, you can't summon the dark lord of the abyss to devour the flesh of the innocent>>

>>*Spell that gives them a temporary general worn bag with either huge size and moderate weight reduction(ie items in it don't add to their encumbrance) or moderate size and total weight reduction.

>>Disintegrate a crafted item down into its base components/materials/decorative slag?

I like these two a lot.

Also if we do fabrication of large-scale stuff like looms, I'd like to see at least a cantrip that would allow for a fancy-looking illusory banquet hall for those impromptu high class parties.

>>You say that now, but historically pure RP spells like this tend to do very, very, poorly and need a lot of extra support built up around them.

True. But if it's not a prereq for anything, and it doesn't take a lot of dev time, there's no real harm in putting it out there for people who want it.

Personally I would take it -- well, maybe not just for detect lies. Perhaps it could be used to passively eavesdrop on Thief signing? Anyway, I'm not married to the idea, but I do want to encourage the occasional neat little RP spell.


-- Player of Eyuve

>>You say that now, but historically pure RP spells like this tend to do very, very, poorly and need a lot of extra support built up around them.
>True. But if it's not a prereq for anything, and it doesn't take a lot of dev time, there's no real harm in putting it out there for people who want it.
>Personally I would take it -- well, maybe not just for detect lies. Perhaps it could be used to passively eavesdrop on Thief signing?

Enhanced perceptions - Allows Dark-Sight, can focus on adjacent rooms to look/listen, and if not looking into the next room bonuses perception.

I'd take that on any of my dudes, but I tend to hunt in the dark a fair bit.

Samsaren