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I would go with something like:

"The target's attack, defense, magic, and magic attributes get worse each round the spell is in effect."

Me liking simple words. Is good words, not?

Do they stay reduced after it's done, though? I don't think that's currently clear.

I would think it goes back to normal after 10 rounds.

However, I do think my previous idea may be only the second best. Here is how I would describe it:

Rowina's Sanity

One target becomes as sane, serene and balanced as Rowina herself. With maybe just a little Schizophrenia added to the mix. A normal person cannot cope with this, and temporarily looses some strength, dexterity, speed and magical attributes each round while the spell is in effect.

Have we been introduced to Rowena? Else I'm afraid the pun is lost on us for now

+nitpickers will have fun with that description too ;p

Yes after the effects fades out they go back to normal, otherwise would be really a "cheat skill" I've tweaked already the reduction, because was too powerful! I might also reduce the duration, or reduce the amount of attributes (maybe lower only attack/defense). In practice even with enemies 2-3 levels higher (which in this game are very powerful) with this skill you could defeat them rather easily

Rowinda is in the character intro somewhere in the forum (maybe in the art thread?)

To give you an idea of Rowinda's personality, here's a brilliant solution to explore an abandoned and possibly cursed cave later in the story: she knows what she is doing!

ok my first skill point goes into permanently turning enemies into bats, fuck your madness spell! :D

I have two questions regarding the "time limit":
source

In SOTW I'm thinking how to do that, currently I have the idea that there's a fixed amount of grinding you can do, using a sort of turn system like in PS. Since there are main key events in the plot, for example from the day that Morran is sick to the next major plot point, there can be 5 days in which the player can grind / do quests. There are random encounter or places you can visit that repeats, but I can stop them from popping up again until a day/turn has passed for example, thus limiting the amount of grinding you are allowed

OK, so I have say 10 days or turns or whatever until the next plot point becomes active, like some baddies arrive, the gladiator games start, or like in above example someone falls ill.
1) Will the plot quests have variable length, like: search in the wrong position, a day is wasted, search in the right position, next step in the plot? If so, what will keep an unlucky gamer from wasting all days, the old plotline not yet finished and the event for the next plotline gets triggered?
2) Assuming there are 10 days left until the next plot event, will it be possible to skip until then (not go grinding/exploring)?

BTW: Generally speaking, which value will grinding have if the enemies level to match the party? None, as far as I can see. So why include it?

Those are good questions
1) the main plot quests will have fixed points, after the time has passed you won't be able to go around grinding. Example:
day0 - game start, you get quest to save your father
day0 to 10 - you can roam freely, start sidequests (most sidequests will just happen continuously, so like one will consume 1 day, another 2 days, and so on, but will be rather simple)
on day10 you need to advance to the next plot event. However, most sidequests would still be available until the next season.
day 11 to 15 - save your siblings from dingirrans, but you can still do any unfinished sidequests available, etc
So it would be REALLY strange (if not impossible) to run out of time to do sidequests. If someone waited for all the first part days and started them the last day, then yes. But then you can't call yourself a RPG gamer
Instead, there can be small random event like encounter a wild animal, etc, that aren't really quests, but similar to Loren's city tasks. Doing each of those will advance time, so you can't do 100 of those tasks to reach level 30 in the first chapter.
And yes, you can go back to your home and rest to advance +1 days
2) well, is not entirely true, surely auto-leveling enemies solve a lot of problems, but as your party levels up and get new skills, they WILL become gradually more powerful since they have access to more special attacks/spells that will help solve more situations. Also, is a bit lame if you reach level 15 in first season and then you have 15 more level for the remaining 3 season. In general I want to control more the player progression, at least for levels. PS1 combat worked much better than Loren in term of balancing for various reasons but one of them is because more or less I would know which level you could be at point X of the story

How exactly should we think of a season? As an expansion or another chapter of the game? 'cause I think that unless a player waits until all four seasons are out, every new season will feel like an expansion anyway. That's how avid fans and beta testers will experience it.

This means you need something else in place than just level pacing. Let's say there are three good skills: A, B and C. In season one I can only get enough skill points to combine two of them, however in the next season I can get all three and that's awesome and all but it doesn't feel very new when I've been playing games with AB, AC and BC for months, a year? If you look at WoW for example the level cap for the original game was 60, first expansion 70, then 80, 85, 90, next stop 100. Even though we can only get a few more levels with each expansion those levels give our characters things we couldn't get before; new skills available only at those higher levels (and old ones redesigned). Also the glyph system which lets you customize existing skills. If we take Draco's Blizzard as an example, a glyph could increase its damage but remove the freeze chance, or the opposite. Or if you like the idea of glyphs being unanimous buffs to skills they could reduce mana cost or delay. But you can only have so many glyphs.

My point is, I hope you understand that levels are just numbers, and it's entirely within your power to decide how meaningful each level is to the character. Instead of analing about giving us 7½ level per season so we hit 30 nice and smooth in the last one

Or if you're planning to actually not release the game until all four seasons are tested and done then I guess we have to suck it up as beta testers