Watching a playthrough by HC Bailly, his current game Arcanum has an odd elemental distribution. Each element has one element they deal double damage to and take reduced damage from. There is also another element that they do enhanced damage to (25% or 50%, I forget) but also receive additional damage from. Odd little comparison.
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Arcana , Arcanum is a different game, one that I can't remember how the elements worked in(probably just straight up magic resistance based on tech vs magic aptitude).
edited 6th Nov '11 2:03:44 PM by mahel042
In the quiet of the night, the Neocount of Merentha mused: How long does evolution take, among the damned?
That's about right. There was a bit of "element A opposes element B" for some of the magics, but it was worked into the game by game mechanics based on what the spells actually did.
For example, the strongest Air magic attack spell "Call Winds" would push everything around the caster backwards with a gust of wind. The damage done by the spell was based on how far you got thrown before you hit a wall or other object, and the distance you got thrown was based on weight. So while this spell could seriously damage most creatures in the game, it did almost nothing against creatures based off of stone - like golems and stone spiders. It was also useless against Earth magic users, because they had spells to turn their bodies to stone, and the monsters they summoned were heavy stone type creatures.
They also had this going for White Necromancy vs. Black Necromancy (one makes undead, the other destroys undead), but oddly the Water school of magic doesn't really oppose the Fire school - using Body of Water won't grant you any special immunities against the fireball spell, nor would Body of Fire do anything to stop Squall from bringing on the pain.
Oops, yeah, wrong game, my bad.
@Kuro Bare Hime: They kind of do that in general by giving them a base element, even if they don't use similar attacks. While Golden Sun does give them psynergy based upon their element, Quest 64 does not. The elements represents part of who they are, while their attacks are often related to their environment.
I suppose that for some originality, you could construct a complex elemental RPS web where every element is strong to two others and weak to two others.
But what would happen if Plants and Ice aren't seperate elements? When you only use Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth, you have to go with what makes sense with what you have. I'm not saying that's all not true, but I wasn't referring to elements that... didn't exist.
Also, your last idea works. Pokemon kind has that idea. I think every Type but Normal can deal double damage to something. Then again, Normal is a very special type. I mean, Nonelemental can rarely deal extra damage to anything outside of Bludgeoning in DND.
Quest 64 thread