Template talk:Infobox-spell

categories
Shouldn't SLAs belong to category SLAs, rather than All spells? Or are you still working on it? -- &rArr; Cru121 (Contribs • Message • Email ) 01:50, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * Probably. I haven't fully thought this through. I imagine there will be logic that applies to spells and other logic that applies to SLAs, where hybrids like Nimbus of Light use both. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 13:12, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * I'm looking at this. There are differences between the C:Spells and C:SLAs trees that don't seem to make sense, presumably because they were developed at different times. For instance, C:Spells has a subclass C:All spells with no SLA counterpart. Also, the class C:Offensive spells corresponds to two SLA classes, C:Single Target SLAs and C:AoE SLAs. This would seem a convenient time to reconcile the two trees. To spark discussion, I propose:
 * Rename C:Spells to C:Spellcasting.
 * Rename C:All spells to C:Spells.
 * Move all spell categories (C:Artificer spells, C:Buff spells, etc.) under the new C:Spells.
 * Merge C:Spell like abilities and C:SLAs into renamed C:Spell-like abilities.
 * Rename C:Single Target SLAs to C:Single target SLAs and C:AoE SLAs to C:Area of effect SLAs.
 * Split C:Offensive spells into C:Single target spells and C:Area of effect spells (or add as subcategories).
 * Move all subcategories of C:Spell schools to a new subcategory C:Spells by school under C:Spells, and create a corresponding C:SLAs by school.
 * Rename C:Spell descriptors to C:Spells by descriptor and create a corresponding C:SLAs by descriptor.
 * Thoughts? &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 16:03, July 21, 2019 (EDT)
 * Probably a good idea! Probably involves some work editing pages to new categories. That's what I am worried most, I am lazy. --Cru121
 * That's what makes this a convenient opportunity. All or nearly all of the categorization could be performed by Spell. Only the category tree would need to be built by hand, and that shouldn't be too arduous. (I plan to do it, so you can still be lazy. ;) &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 16:57, July 22, 2019 (EDT)


 * A lot of those renames don't make sense. Instead I'd merge  &  into .  Class/type spells should be in subcategories of,  etc which in turn should be subcategories of .  I'm okay with #4 as long as there are proper Redirect categorys in place for the categories you're deprecating.  If you're going to rename  into , then  and  should use the full verbiage as well and be  and  respectively.  I'm okay with splitting #6 as proposed into subcategories of the parent, which should in turn be a subcategory of . I'm also good with #7 except the corresponding category should be in line with everything else and be .  Same with #8 creating . Again, please make proper Redirect categorys in place for the categories you're deprecating/renaming as they're obviously valid search terms since they've been used as the names for years.  &#x1f45f;&thinsp;ShoeMaker (Contribs&thinsp;•&thinsp;Message&thinsp;•&thinsp;Email )&thinsp;&#x1f45f; 12:00, July 22, 2019 (EDT)
 * Thanks for the feedback.
 * Yes, I took it as a given that Redirect categorys would be used appropriately. I'm all for not breaking things.
 * I was originally going to suggest merging &, but then I realized they serve distinct purposes: All of the pages below  are individual spells, while pages below  can be things like Spell Power or Transmutation, which apply to both spells and SLAs. Hence the suggestion to make the top category more generic, with subcategories specific to spells and SLAs, respectively.
 * I wanted to rename to  for clarity, figuring the acronym in the subcategories would then be obvious; following the principle in formal writing that you define an acronym the first time it is used (only). Spelling it out in all the subcategories would seem unwieldy. Given a choice between all acronyms or all spelled-out, I'd go with all acronyms. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 16:57, July 22, 2019 (EDT)

grantedby
Should maybe be allowed for spells. For example, Heal is a bard spell granted by Spellsinger capstone. Or Warlock pacts, etc. What do you think? -- &rArr; Cru121 (Contribs • Message • Email ) 01:52, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * Bother, that's a category I hadn't considered - non-SLA granted spells. Added to my todo list, thanks. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 13:03, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * The way I have it set up now, any of the spell level parameters (artificer, etc.) indicates a spell, while the sla parameter (or granted for backward compatibility) indicates an SLA. A hybrid like Nimbus of Light has both. It seems we'll need another parameter that indicates a spell gained through non-traditional means, perhaps granted spell? &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 13:28, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * Ack, it's worse than that. For perfect elegance, we'd need a way to specify that Heal is a level 6 Bard spell attainable only through the enhancement. I'm open to ideas. (Note that this capacity doesn't exist in the legacy templates.)
 * Or we could settle for "good enough" instead of perfect elegance. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 13:38, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * I implemented a "good enough" solution using the granted spell parameter. Thoughts? &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 14:02, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * The parameter is now called special. It's rather generic, but easier to remember and use, I think. The Heal spell shows how this works. I'd welcome feedback. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 09:23, July 22, 2019 (EDT)
 * Good enough imho. --Cru121
 * &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 16:59, July 22, 2019 (EDT)

epic
T:Spelldescription has an epic parameter, but I haven't found any pages that use it. I'm unclear how it should figure in. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 13:16, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * I might have hacked that one in. Kinda redundant with granted by i guess. It's iirc used eg Burst of Glacial Wrath here.-- &rArr; Cru121 (Contribs • Message • Email ) 14:32, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * Thanks, that explains it. I see why you would have wanted that, given that granted wasn't available.
 * Burst of Glacial Wrath raises another sticky problem. I had kinda hoped that Spell would supersede Feat for spell/SLA feats. Obviously, that won't work when the feat also has a passive component. However, we don't want to duplicate information, either. I'll come back to this. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 15:29, July 20, 2019 (EDT)
 * I think I found a reasonable solution, demonstrated in Burst of Glacial Wrath. Fields in Feat that are redundant with fields in Spell would remain for backward-compatibility, but considered deprecated (and probably removed from the USAGE doc).

NOEDITSECTION
Indeed, I was looking for a way to do that, thanks. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 10:17, July 22, 2019 (EDT)

Mechanics
There seem to be inconsistencies in how various terms are interpreted. For example, SLA and the current iteration of Spell interpret a Target of Foe to mean an individual, and a Target of AoE to mean an area. However, in-game Foe indicates only the type of target, not the cardinality; so that Iceberg, Scorching Ray and Fireball all have a Foe target. Scorching Ray and Fireball both have Directional, so that does not distinguish, either. Indeed, in-game mechanics do not appear to offer any reliable means to distinguish individual from AoE. (Oddly, Mass Suggestion has a Target of Foe, Positional, while Mass Charm Monster has only Foe.) Apparently, the heuristic implemented in SLA and mimicked in Spell is misguided.

We must instead rely on features beyond what are offered in-game. Spell suggests Range and Area, which seem promising. However, the explanations are imprecise, apparently having accrued incrementally over the years. For instance, what is the Range of Cone of Cold, which is anchored at the caster, but extends outwards in a cone? Is it Personal or Standard? Furthermore, only Range is implemented in Spelldescription and SLA, leaving the question of individual vs. AoE unresolved.

A solution would be to refine the definitions of Range and Area, and then implement these definitions in Spell, adding the missing Area field. I will pursue this further in Talk:Spell (later). &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 22:25, July 22, 2019 (EDT)


 * This is DDO, there are inconsistencies and exceptions to unspoken rules everywhere. One option would be to faithfully copy in-game terms and parameters, and in a free description, describe what the spell actually does. If the game does not tell us exact value of a parameter, then we'd have to guess, different editors would use different metrics, etc. DnD terminology is confusing for many, probably even devs. -- &rArr; Cru121 (Contribs • Message • Email ) 02:17, July 23, 2019 (EDT)


 * Understood. I don't always have to be OCD. :) After I wrote the above comment, I realized I could simply get rid of the individual/AoE distinction in the template -- like Spelldescription does now -- and not worry about it. Lazy is good. :) &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 10:38, July 23, 2019 (EDT)