This is what I would call low hope, low priority on the suggestion scale, but it would ne nice to see.
Layo currently has a great set of alternate spell animations. Some of the bioware animations missed the boat for roleplaying servers though if you ask me. Somehow anything that causes instant death by means other then a cleaving axe yields a 'soul ripping' animation. The ghost flying upward is super cool looking and sounding, but in a roleplaying sense, shouts necromancy. Illusion spells such as phantasmal killer and weird cause instant death. And bioware gave them the soul ripping animation. Mostly because it's cool looking. But it's not necromancy, just as a 280 damage crit o' instant death is not necromancy and doesn't have a soul being torn from the falling corpse.
This isn't a big deal except that instant death spells have been inadvertantly lumped together as necromancy. Dwarves get ornery when you cast weird, and people get called necromancers. When in fact, many of them have abstained entirely from that school of magic altogether to create a character that is against the dark arts. And so suddenly, to be a non-necromancer, you are not allowed to do anything that would kill something instantly. Finger of death, phantasmal killer... same evil act right? "But you're scaring it to death... how evil!". Well... if their were an animation for the heads and arms of things to fly through the air as you cleaved your way through a crowd with that greataxe and do mild bludgeoning damage to everyone in the vicinity, you'd probably look grittier too.
Again, some would argue that it is the same thing. But... they're wrong. It's not their fault, it's just that they've seen it over and over again for 5 years and it's formed their philosophy. If weird and phantasmal killer had been given the stun, confusion, or even fear animation before dropping dead, I think they'd be viewed in a manner closer to what d&d had in mind when they created all the spell schools, their counter schools, and character design in general.
Just a thought. Scrap the soul rip and put in a different target animation on death. I think it'd improve variation amongst mages and perceptions people roleplay.
