Extensive Spell Creation?

[Snakebearer]

How extensive is it really?
I've read a little about it.
Appearantly you can combine an element with different modifiers. Like..
Frost+Range, and you can shoot ice beams or something.
But appearantly there is a third modifier you can apply that adds different modifiers, like increaed range, chance-to-hit or power and stuff like that.

How extensive is this truly, or is it mostly surface?
Will all runes be combineable and usuable? Or will stuff start to be greyed out if it doesn't make sense to combine it?

What happens if I get like.. A buff spell and add the modifier for chance-to-hit on it?
Or increased power on a debuff-spell? Or range on a melee spell? :S

[VladK02]

its mostly surface. the spells themselves are pre-created allready by game designers, finding and plugging one or another symbol just changes the spell from one to another on that list. You have what, 7 schools of magic, and 5 or 6 symbols, so thats like 40-50 spells. When you pick up a new symbol, in effect you are unlocking another spell from the list, basically. No different from finding a magic scroll with a new spell and learning it like in dungeons and dragons games.

The only true modification comes from ability to alter the numerical modifiers on the spells. You can plug in extra range, extra damage, duraiton, play with cooldowns, that sort of thing. Normal fireball deals 30-40 damage? Nuh, huh, stick a damage symbol in it, and suddenly its 50-60 damage. But harder to use determined by Lore.

Another neat thing is your companions learn Lore as they go along, so they can be given smaller spells as well as you progress. So everyone can learn Heal, of various strengths, bascially. The only problem is finding the damn symbol for that school.

[urscary]

If an Accent can't work with the second modifier then it gets grayed out. However you can apply multiple Accents to a single spell but the Lore skill requirement to use it will go through the roof.

[Zak]

It's less complicated than Magika.