Reusing Spell Familiarity Bonus.

[SaltedSalmon]

or, creating up classes when there should be none.

I was thinking that a simple(quote unquote) way to make spells more unique than "does X on attack" is having spell familiarity apply to non-attack spells in a unique way which makes choosing the damage you want to deal have out-of-combat(Or in-combat?) implications.

Example.
Lets say we have more support spells which become stronger the higher our familiarity bonus to certain element is.
To be more direct, lets say we're a wizard that knows 5 different Cold damage spells.
Then there's a support spell, Blizzard, which has its duration extended by 5 for every Cold spell you know.
Additionally, although Blizzard doesn't deal damage, its effects are weakened if you're immune to cold, so having cold resistance is now linked not just to resisting damage but allowing you to evade certain local problems.

Note:
I realized somewhere along writing this that it might be a bad idea, but I posted it anyways in case there is something worth salvaging.
I still like the idea of having a 3rd dimension to resisting/using certain elements, but at the same time tying it to resists/immunities just seems like something that will favor tanks.

[Trialist]

Based on your idea, I think that it might be more interesting to have elemental utility spells as opposed to attaching the Affinity Bonus to just random utility spells. For example, if there is a utility spell like "Corrosive Slime" which increases the change of armor degredation which attacking with a HtH/melee attack. It could be an acid spell, giving the +1 affinity to other acid spells, while the spell itself could have a longer duration based on your acid affinity. It's still a utility spell which would be useful on its own, but gives kind of a unique flavor to acid-focused spellcasters that isn't present in other elements.

I guess that's sort of the idea you have? The tricky part would be coming up with useful spells which don't mess up the game in other aspects. Even something as simple as "+5% search chance" from a fire utility spell can end up unlikely due to how search chances are balanced and how good that would be if made available. It does require coming up with seven new utility spells (at least) which would have some sort of practical use, or some logic for why existing spells should be repurposed towards some affinity bonuses. Or both.
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A Quick Brown Fox (Lv.30 Revenant) | Set o Lockpicks (Lv.30 Fallen) | Trialist (Lv.27 Lightspeaker) | Scribalist (new mortal)

[SaltedSalmon]

[Kandarin]

There are a bunch of B5 mechanics that more or less do this.