Eye Spy (707)
Another Suggestion by GM Solli
Posted by Nilven as part of an announcement on Sorcery changes.
(Sorcerer Discussion Board / January 30, 2003)
707 - This spell will be overhauled quite a bit. So far what's in the works is a removal of the ten minute capped duration, the ability to LOOK at people and items, the ability to LOOK IN/UNDER/BEHIND/ON objects, the ability to read the descriptions off of items, the ability to INSPECT the items of a person, Morse code via blinking and wing flapping, and whatever RP suggestions I can get. The eye will also be appropriately named based off the eye color of the player. This isn't a high priority, but it'll make it in time for mandatory reallocation unless I get hit by a bus. I've done quite a bit of coding on it already.
Suggestions by Eredhen, January 27, 2003
Casting verbs:Suggestions by Parfyon, January 27, 2003
TELL EYE LOOK AT <person>
(Sends you the person's appearance, visible health, perhaps shortened
version of their inventory? (Maybe just the short form of their items'
descriptions? Trying to keep the imperfect style of the spell.))
2nd person: something to the effect of "A floating eye slowly circles
about you, showing only a blank stare to meet your gaze."
3rd person: something to the effect of "A floating eye drifts around
Soandso."
TELL EYE LOOK AT <object>
(Gives the object's description. Not sure how to preserve the imperfect
vision aspect of the spell with this one.)
3rd person: something to the effect of "A floating eye is momentarily
fixated with <the object>."
TELL EYE WATCH
(Imperfect surveillance - transmits room entrances and exits for players
and creatures, deaths, resurrections, clouds, and other significant changes in
the spiritual or elemental balance of the area.)
3rd person: Intermittently sees "A floating eye drifts about, staring
intently at all that occurs." OR "A floating eye weaves through the
area casting a sharp glare at everything it passes." and so on.
TELL EYE HIDE
(Attempts to hide the eye. My two cents is that area hiding effects should
be at least doubled and the influence of the caster's Hiding skill at least
halved.)
1st person: You position your floating eye out of sight. OR You are unable
to conceal your floating eye.
3rd person: Duh, doesn't see anything.
It should be possible to hide the eye and then instruct it to watch. Of
course, there would be no 3rd person scripts in that event. Also, telling the
eye to look at a person or object should remove it from hiding. Requiring it to
get up close and unconcealed supports the imperfect vision idea nicely.
Suggestion by GM Solli, January 28, 2003
>For everyone requesting messaging when you
look at someone, don't you think that would get a little annoying, especially if
you're looking at a lot of people
How about if the messaging only appeared to the person being looked at, since
the eye is focused on them? No room messaging for any of the looks/inspects.
Solli, out of his element
Update by Eredhen, January 28, 2003
>For everyone requesting messaging when you look at someone, don't you think that would get a little annoying, especially if you're looking at a lot of people? Even more so with items, I'd think. - NilvenSuggestions by Querthose, January 28, 2003
I'd like to see the eye do a couple of fluff
actions:
tell eye to glare <player>
"The floating eye glares at you menacingly"
tell eye to stare <player>
"The floating eye stares at you intently, much to your discomfort"
tell eye to inspect Querthose's harness
"The floating eye hovers next to your finely spun dark spidersilk harness
for a moment and quickly floats away"
tell eye to cry
"A murky tear drips from the floating eye, landing on the ground with a
soft "plop""
tell eye to dance
"The floating eye begins to move lazily around the room in circles, you
would almost swear it's trying to dance with you!"
Querthose('s Player)
Suggestions by Hadiar, January 28, 2003
I really like the idea of having different
appendages for Eye Spy. It would let us add our own little personal touches,
instead of every Sorcerer having the obligatory "floating eyeball."
How about a frog-legged eyeball? Or a stilt-legged eyeball? Or a bouncing
eyeball? A four-legged eyeball? An insect-winged eyeball? A finned eyeball?
As for another possible mechanic, how about the ability to make the iris glow
momentarily? One of the guild tricks proposed for the Sorcerer guild I was most
looking forward to was the ability to make our eye glow in any color. Would it
be possible to retain some of that idea and apply it to eye spy? Much like:
tell eye to glow <color>
The iris in a floating eyeball suddenly flashes a bright <color>, and
quickly returns to normal.
Perhaps an illusion for eye spy, also. Since you can't cast 405 at an eye and
see who it belongs to (I don't believe you can, anyway... not sure if I've ever
tried,) like you can with a familiar, how about a way to wrap an image of
yourself around the eyeball? Example:
tell eye to illusion
Wisps of ether emenate from a floating eyeball, slowly coalescing into the shape
of Hadiar, before dissipating on the wind.
Another idea I had is a bit masochistic, but how about a self-destruct? Or an
illusionary self-destruct? Not sure if this would actually destroy the eye or
not?
tell eye to explode
A floating eyeball begins to quiver violentally before exploding in a shower of
blood and gore.
The eye also needs to the ability to follow someone. And maybe some cutesy
tricks, like loops and lazy-eight's.
Oh, and my final request. Please make it clear whether this spell is simply an
illusion or not. If it's an illusion, there's no reason we should actually incur
an injury if the spell's duration should expire with the eyeball in a different
room. A severe stun, perhaps. But not an actual missing eye.
Another Suggestion by GM Solli, January 28, 2003
>tell eye to explode
A floating eyeball begins to quiver violentally before exploding in a
shower of blood and gore.
How about combining that with return? The people in the eye's room see an
explosion, but that's just an illusion - actually, it's zipping back to your
socket.
Solli
A Suggestion by Tarakan, February 2, 2003
GM Nilven,
I'm not sure why you've worked so hard on Eye Spy (707) when most of us would
have preferred our precious GM coding resources invested elsewhere, but given
that's where your energy currently is, please consider the following suggestions
for its final version:
1. Make hiding much harder when an eye is in the room.
2. Add a synergistic benefit for joined sorcerers utilizing 717 when each has
707 active.
3. Increase the powers/functions of the eye with additional ranks of sorcery
known.
4. Make the eye vulnerable to a 717 attack and to both the elemental and
spiritual dispell spells (but with bonuses in warding against each).
5. Make stealing much easier to spot but equally easy to actually perform
against someone using an eye in the room
One of SGM Warden's ultimate goals from the critter perspective is to have
groups with synergistic attack bonuses; it only makes sense that players start
getting such benefits too. While a herd of sorcerers benefits defensively from
being in a group, one would think that there should be some means to
interconnect our powers to create a benefit greater than any single sorcerer
could produce. Perhaps again this would be a good idea for a guild power, but it
also seems worthwhile to explore a benefit to 707 and 717.
Tarakan
From Changes to Existing Spells
under the GSIV preview pages
707 Eye Spy
This spell will receive an overhaul and have many new roleplaying options added
to it. Not only will the eye popped out be the color of your actual eye, it will
also have many new verbs to use with TELL EYE TO. Some of the new verbs
are LOOK IN/UNDER/BEHIND/ON, INSPECT, READ, REVOLVE, HOVER, STARE
<person>, CRY, ROLL, BLIND, SNEEZE, and more!