Idea: New Direct Damage. (in General)

So of the existing DD spells, there are:

Fireball: Powerful, full range, hits all units. Popular.

Cone of Cold: (Potentially) powerful, melee rounds only, hits all units. Second choice.

Magic Missile: Mediocre damage, melee rounds only, hits units sequentially. No clear indication of benefits.

Decay: Damage equal to half of enemy HP, melee rounds, targets first available unit. Random, unreliable.

This is what I think the spells summed up are like, so if you disagree, please don't go all crazy.So my idea, is a NEW DD spell, a Lightning Chain spell. Here's the basic concept:

Comes into play either during the ranged rounds (like Fireball) or only in melee (depending on the damage).

The spell hits the first opposing minion for full damage, than the next minion for a lower % full damage and so forth until all minions are hit, each time the % of damage reducing.

Possible first minion 100%, second minion 75%, third 50%... of damage.

Thoughts?

Sounds like Warcraft III Hero Chain Lightning,

why don't we all go play that when looking for something like this ?

thought: have it better worked out, come with examples of damage at certain spell levels against other spells with similar levels.

Tyra: The whole game is based on tolkien, so why don't we just go read?

Or better yet, maybe I don't play WC3 over this because... oh I don't know... chat, graphics, entirely different game.

Not only that, but Chain Lightning has been around since far before WC3, D&D has had a chain lightning spell since.... First Ed I think?

I like the idea. i don't think he meant to introduce a whole new fleshed out spell, just a new template for a spell to deal damage.

Don't pick on the guy just because he doesn't have an original thought in his brain. At least the spell's concept is different from what we have. As for this game being based on Tolkien, that's not entirely true. A lot of the material in this game draws inspiration from other places, including our spells.

Conductive lightning - Fires round 3 of ranged, hits highest AC minion first, base AC acts as a conductor (you lose that number of + off of magic damage blocking) does splash damage to targets team (but doesn't increase in damage as minions drop) according to level of AC.
Highest AC hit first, to a minor percentage of the first hit.

I like both Carbonize and Novice's ideas!

by the way, MM starts going in the second ranged round, not when melee starts.

i like both ideas as well. the only big new thing(change) i have seen around here is the TSA and i have been here for 4 months

I like these ideas as well. Some kind of DD-spell which also hits all four minions, but differently than Fireball, might shake things up a bit.

With the lightning thing in mind, you could also make one thing more conductive than another. I suggest that you add PR-weight to Novice's AC-idea. For example, a pointy Cornuthaum which sticks out in the field would get hit more heavily. ;)

This would not bode well for my Heavy CoC mage.

I like the idea. I think it would be more fun if it attacked based on DD spell level instead of minion order though. Thus Mages target mages. Ranged weapons can target based on DD spell levels, DX levels, and ST levels. It would be nice to have such an idea extended over to the magic side as well (a DD spell that targets DD level, another for DX and another for ST). Just an extension of this idea.