The main problem is that combat takes almost no time, and is unpredictable,
although for objects this is not a problem. For spells they would have to
be 'continuous' spells; spending a number of mana a turn on a 'warning'
spell could give that stack a chance of an initiative advantage in the
first combat found, say.
I rather like the idea of battle 'objects'. It opens the possibility of
going on a mini-quest to get the ingredients, and creates something
to hide, lie about and fight over.
My main reason to suggest enhancing the current spell-lists with combat
is a desire to make 'magician' a better career. At the moment there seem
few skills that can be used to make money or to make the mage's services
desirable to someone else. This does seem a weakness - although I've seen
few enough 'advanced' spells to make is possible I've missed some good
ones we have already!
I'm not proposing any 'zap-whole-army' kind of magic; rather lots
of 'service' spells where we can make potions, spells and objects
to enhance other skills.
This is not to say I don't like Rich's recent proposal - I was just
wondering if the above scheme had been considered, and discarded
for any reason.
Chris Yearsley
cmy@cs.keele.ac.uk