Neverwinter Nights 2: NWN 2: MotB RPG Vault Interview Part 2

RPG Vault has posted Part 2 of their recent interview with Lead Designer/Producer Kevin Saunders. The interview covers a huge amount of territory including spells:

Jonric: What kinds of additions and changes are you making to the magic system, and what considerations led you to do so?

Kevin Saunders: The most obvious change is the addition of over 50 new spells. We selected the ones we did primarily to flesh out the NWN2 spell list, adding more to the classes and schools of magic that we felt were a bit light. We implemented a number of mass spells to make it easier to buff or heal the entire party. We favored high-level spells, including six epic ones, since Mask is an epic-level campaign, and NWN2 already had a strong foundation of low-level spells. Of course, we added a slew of new spell special effects to use, and for the community to modify for their own creations.

One cool improvement we made was to the spell chant system. By spell chant, I mean the incantation the characters speak when casting a spell. In NWN2, we had a series of spell chants that varied by school of magic and by power grade. For Mask, we greatly expanded on this. First, we made separate chants for each arcane and divine spell so that you can tell them apart. We also made it possible for different creatures in the game to use different voices. So, each spell-casting companion speaks the chant in its own voice, and enemies also sound different from the PC voices. This system can easily be expanded upon by the community, so people can make up their own spell chants.

The new spirit energy system I mentioned previously is a bit like its own magic system, but it in no way takes away from the core D&D magic system. It does make your use of spells in combat more strategic, however. Resting isn't "free" in Mask, so you'll want to more carefully manage what spells you cast, and when.

And, of course, we've refined many of the NWN2 spells. Through one of the updates, we implemented many spell fixes from community member rpgplayer1.