Spell system

[StevenGann]

Whether it is magic, magicka, mana, or the Force, most RPGs include some form of magic. TRPG needs this. The simplest way would be a command that applies Buffs to yourself or a specified monster. We'd need to expend the Buff class a bit. To prevent making the Buff class too big and general, there should be a Spell class added. Perhaps with the following fields:

• Mana cost. With a Mana field added to the Player class, spells could be cast only if the caster has enough "mana".
• Buffs effected. A Buff object addings buffs or debuffs as needed.
• Health, health regeneration, mana regeneration, etc. so that spells could effect these values also.
• Lifetime. Many spells would probably hold their effects for a short time. With a lifetime that decreases with every step, spells could be cast to wear off after certain turns. Temporarily increasing health regen, or strength, or other stats would make simple, common spells, especially at the expense of other stats.

That leaves the mechanic of how spells are made available to the player, and how they are cast. Many RPGs handle this by having a secondary sort of inventory containing spells. A spellbook of some kind. Alternatively, spells could be physical objects such as scrolls or tomes in the regular inventory. I'd love to see some extension to the parser that allows players to devise their own unique spells by typing in long and convoluted strings or phrases, but that's somewhat out of the scope of TRPG for now.