If you look at what spiritism is capable of in combat it really only offers a bad mana transfer spell and a decent burst damage spell that requires you remain still. Other than that you are able to consume all of your mana to revive somebody or make an ether portal for some misc shenanigans. At best the mana transfer and ether portal are gimmicks and if it weren't for the fact that necromancy used spirits, I doubt anybody would really spec into spiritism unless they just happened to have 100 spare points. The only unique mechanic of spiritism was the ability to banish ghosts, perhaps this could be useful in a siege but was mostly still just a gimmick or a creative means of trolling. Perhaps the main use of spiritism was the ability to have both ether momentum and ether portal for extremely quick travel. Is that really worth all of the effort to get the scrolls and then also the 100 skill points? I can see getting transcendental seance on your necromancer for easier spirit generation(I even did this) but much beyond that is rather underwhelming. It seems like you could do a fair bit with the idea of manipulating somebodies soul, so why do so few spiritism spells interact with the living?
So what can be done about this? Kau seems rather similar to mana in the way that it is tied to the character stats, perhaps make certain spiritism spells able to affect the mana pool of another player. Maybe excess mana damage gives them a debuff or deals a certain proportion of stamina damage. Perhaps you could summon and control spirits in combat similar to the skeletons and mummies of necromancy. Perhaps you can even have limited interactions with the living while in the spirit world. While I did like that spiritism played into its theme more than "heres a buncha damage spells and some vaguely thematic things", most spiritism spells only helped you attack spirits which was not particularly useful. Take for example kau regeneration, it helps you while dead/in the spirit world and little else. The problem is that it effectively helped you while you were next to useless. You might have well as added a spell which stuns you for 5 seconds when cast and buffs your damage during that same duration. Could it have a use? Sure. Is it in any way a good spell or worth paying 4000 gold for? NO.
I think the best way to look at it is to go "why would I take spiritism INSTEAD OF another school of magic?" and there really isnt any reason. It was a support school at best and frankly deserves better.
So what can be done about this? Kau seems rather similar to mana in the way that it is tied to the character stats, perhaps make certain spiritism spells able to affect the mana pool of another player. Maybe excess mana damage gives them a debuff or deals a certain proportion of stamina damage. Perhaps you could summon and control spirits in combat similar to the skeletons and mummies of necromancy. Perhaps you can even have limited interactions with the living while in the spirit world. While I did like that spiritism played into its theme more than "heres a buncha damage spells and some vaguely thematic things", most spiritism spells only helped you attack spirits which was not particularly useful. Take for example kau regeneration, it helps you while dead/in the spirit world and little else. The problem is that it effectively helped you while you were next to useless. You might have well as added a spell which stuns you for 5 seconds when cast and buffs your damage during that same duration. Could it have a use? Sure. Is it in any way a good spell or worth paying 4000 gold for? NO.
I think the best way to look at it is to go "why would I take spiritism INSTEAD OF another school of magic?" and there really isnt any reason. It was a support school at best and frankly deserves better.
