Let's discuss Iris Havengard

I'm laughing, because this is exactly why the project died. Too many cooks in the kitchen. The simplest and most dynamic ability is Morph, because every enemy already has a morph pack.

Any ideas for an animation for Metamorph?  Something that's a recolored spell or splice of two spells?  Life3 with a palette change could be nice.

I debated adding Iris to ReCast, but I just don't have the space... I'd have to gut the auction house for string pointers and extra event room.  I'd also have to mash up Morph and Revert into one command to make room for another call, the thought of which is honestly making me a bit queasy.  I'll think about it, but it wouldn't be a swift or punctual adjustment.  ReCast is also out of room for actor graphics; I'd need to replace Sarge , which severely wrinkles the game's opening.

Were I to use her, though, I can promise that she'd be using a single ability like Metamorph or WallChange, but elemental defense is more important in my hack than in a vanilla experience that the original project called for.


So let's discuss Metamorph.  It's got its own fail rate set by monster separate from its cast fail rate (meaning we'd want it to 'always hit' to avoid complicated probability spaces).  It's basically a free Doom when it connects, but most vanilla monsters have the lowest metamorph chance (12.5%).
Were I the one to set up MSword, they'd probably be a bunch of middle-ground "Element2" single-target attacks, which would quickly be outpaced even in the World of Balance.
Looking to other existing mechanics, we've got the Golem effect, which is overpowered if spammable... that's a no-go.  There's Debilitator, but that's only good for bosses.
Perhaps a mana battery (Mantra style, current MP / Party Members as MP Heal)?

Superball?  Wild Magic might be fun; cast a random free spell from the Gogo list perhaps?  But that's just like Rage with a FrenzyBand on.

Can't think of anything else, so I'll leave with this: think smaller.  The more the mechanic can be set up in the editor, the better.