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[Szkeptik]

I know there have been a lot of thread sike this before, though I haven't seen many of them. I just wanted to post my take on how a magic system could work.

So basicly it would consist of tow sides. There would be Mages and Priests.

Mages would channel elemetal powers that are not from a blessing of a god, but come from the users' ability to cast magic. Mages would have two attributes that would factor in on magic use. These would be "Magic User" and "Magic Focuser". These two skills would go from Dabbling to Legendary like any other.

Magic User would denote the Dwarfs ability to conjure and channel magic. This would decide how many charges a magic artifact has for him to use. More on this later.

Magic Focuser would be an ability to actually direct the spell he is using so it hits where he aims. The higher this skill the less spells will burn out or strike the wrong spot. 

The Mage himself could not preform any magic,  but would need a staff or other magical artifact to do so. At the moment of their creation, artifacts would have a certain amount of magic in them available for use. Say, 1000 magic points as an example. The higher the Magic User skill the less points it takes for the mage to use the artifact once. So, for a Novice, it would take 150 points to cast a spell, for a Legendary one it would only take 30. An artifact would always be dedicated for one type of spell, ie. a Staff of Fireball could only have the Fireball spell.
Once the staff runs out of magic points it is just a useless piece of whatever it's made of. The higher quality the staff the more points it starts with.

Staffs would be the general source of magic for your Mages. You would have to make the staff out of whatever material you wish, and encrust it with a gem. Certain gems would have certain magical powers dependent on how they were cut. For example, a Ruby cut a certain way and encrusted in a staff would give you a Staff of Fireball, while a ruby cut a different way would yield a Staff of Fire protection.

Artifacts created during moods might hold somekind of magical power regardless if and what gems they might contain. The worth of the artifact decreases as you use up it's magical power.

Elemental magics would be primarily Destructive or Protective magics. Destructives would be either area of effect hitters that deal relatively low damage, but do so on multiple targets, or large damage dealers that target a single square. These would burn, freeze, slow, knock back, stun, petrify or otherwise damage your enemies. Protective magics would give your friendlies resitance against one of the previously mentioned effects.


Priests would be dwarves who are devout worshippers of a deity. You would need to designate a temple for them and make an altar. Priests would pray to the deity for it's favor and in return the temple would receive Blessing "points" from the God. Depending on their personality and sphere some gods might want blood sacrifice, others material sacrifice such as burning wood at the altar or offering wine, gold etc.

Priests wouldn't need any traits for their magic, only their devotion to their God. The more dwarves you have regularly praying in your temple, the faster you receive Blessing points from the God. the drawback of this would be that large Sects would start mandating suff much like Nobles do and the bigger they become the more their desires grow.

When you have enough Blessing Points in your temple, the God would mandate the making of an Artifact, specifically. For example the God of Light would tell you to make an Iron Crown encrusted with a Large, star cut Sapphire. If you manage to make such an arifact and place it at the altar, the God will imbue it with power. This Artifact could then be used by any Dwarf who is a devout worshipper of the deity, and it's power would come from the God in question, through the altar it was made on, using the Blessing points your temple has. As long as the altar stands and your dwarves are praying and giving offerings to it, the Artifact will not run out of power. The more worshipers you have the more artifacts you can construct (1 artifact at 10 worshipers, 2 at 25 etc.)
The spell the artifact can cast is dependent on the sphere and personality of the God. If we stay with the previous example, the God of Light would give you an artifact that can cast spells such as Turn Undead, Clense water, Remove disease, Remove curse, etc. Each God would have a collection of possible spells defined by their sphere and an artifact would get a random selection of these depending on the quality of the artifact. I'm thinking 2-3 spells per artifact. Higher quality artifacts would have a higher chance of getting better, more powerful spells. All artifacts of the same God would draw from the same blessing pool.

Some spell ideas I have:
Note that this is not a complete list and these are all just preliminary ideas and a lot of balancing would be required, also they are not meant to be the same difficulty to cast. Many of these would require saving throws from the caster or the target and the extent of their effects are dependent on the quality of the artifact/staff used.

Turn Undead: In an area around the caster, all undead make a saving throw. All who fail it die instantly. If they fail it real bad they turn against their previous masters or each other and die when there are no enemies left.

Protective spirit: Cast on the coffin (resting corpse) of a dead Dwarf, the spirit of the defender is bound to that place and will rise if any enemies come near, to defend the honored dead and their belongings. Spirits can only be hurt by certain materials or magics(?).

Remove Curse: Pretty straightforward. Saving throw required.

Remove Disease: Also self explanatory. Cannot cure physical wounds but can cure rot/infection. Saving throw required.

Clense water: Makes murky/muddy/stale into fresh drinking water. Cannot desalinate water.

Calm Animal: Calms enraged wild animals and war animals stop fighting for a certain time. Saving throw required.

Calm Entity: Makes weak enemies stop fighting for a certain time. Ends tantrums. Saving throw req.

Banish Demon. Demon makes saving throw. Win- nothing, Fail- knockback and damage, Fail bad- stun and cripple.

Calm Forgotten: Saving throw Win- Nothing, Fail- stop fighting for a time, Fail bad- Flee back to the darkness.

Holy Light: Make Dark areas into Light areas for a set amount of time.

Darkness: Opposite of the previous.

Summon Demon: A Demon is summoned to your side to fight for you for a set amount of time

Create undead: A fallen friend or foe is brought back as a zombie or skeleton. The sight of an undead friend would probably upset dwarves though.

Restless Guardian: Same as Protective Spirit, but the defender will rise as an undead warrior, then lay back to rest when foes are gone.

Master of the Wild: Animals in an area will be enraged and fight for you.

Bestow Minor Curse: Curse an enemy with lowered stats.

Bestow Curse: Curse an enemy with greatly lowered stats and possibly other ill effects.

Bestow Major Curse: Cripple an enemy with deadly effects.

Transmute ore: Make a targeted bar of metal ore into a more precious one. Iron->Gold, Gold-> Steel etc.

Soften stone: Make an area of solid stone as easy to clear as soil.

Blessing minor/major: Raise attributes of friendly targets for x amount of time.

Elemental Shield: Provides protection against the element the target is hit by first after being cast.

These are all just off the top of my head. Note that these are all God given spells. Mages use staffs made by you and are either destructive or protective, usually elemental type magics.

[peskyninja]

I preffer procedural generated spells/chants/whatever.
This chant removes/destroys/change/teleport/... objects/creatures made of Xmat.
It could use some poetry and lore with it too.

[Szkeptik]

All these spells are just suggestions. I'm more interested about peoples thoughts on the system itself. Procedurally generated spells would fit into the games' profile better, but that would open up the possibilities for some pretty overpowered, useless or nonsensical spells.

[Neonivek]

We well even when we DO have proceedural spells you will have to have templates to hold them in.

[peskyninja]

Just make procedural templates 

[Neonivek]

Just make procedural templates 

But then we are back to needing templates for those procedural templates.

[thisisjimmy]

I think this suggestion is well thought out and would be a cool magic system.  My main concern is that having to track which staffs are low on spell points might be a pain.  You wouldn't want your mage to run out of spell points in the middle of a battle.

[ravaught]

I think that while this magic system is well thought out, it is not suitable for DF. Let me expand on that a bit though so that the criticism has some meat to it.

First and foremost, your system implies that you should have direct control over what piece of equipment a particular mage/priest has equipped. This, more than anything, flies in the face of DF design. In DF, while there appears to be micro-management, what you actually have is very detailed macro-management. While it is possible (IIRC) to assign a specific weapon or item to a dwarf, it would be unnecessarily tedious involving much working through the military menus for a single change.

Secondly, I do not like that your priest/mages have no innate magic. When coupled with your creation process for making wands and staves and such, you come up with a few odd problems.

• Are all gem encrusted items magical?
• Do magical items have to be created by a mage?
• If an item runs out of charges, is it useless, can the mage recharge the item, or does it have to be recrafted?
• If it is useless, as you implied, then the system becomes a vast waste of materials.
• If it can be recharged by the mage, then your mage must have some innate magical ability and the whole thing falls apart.
• If it has to be recrafted, is the original item destroyed, or reused?
• If the item is destroyed, then you are reducing your magic system to what basically amounts to new ranged ammunition with special modifiers.
• If the item is reused, how exactly is it recharged, and what materials are consumed in the process?

Like I said, I see that what you have is a good magic system for some game, but not necessarily for THIS game.

Regards,
Tony

[Szkeptik]

You bring up some good points.

First and foremost, your system implies that you should have direct control over what piece of equipment a particular mage/priest has equipped. This, more than anything, flies in the face of DF design.

I agree that with the Mage part you would have to do an excessive amount of micromanaging if there are no extra menus added for it, but I think with the addition of a screen that is kind of like the squad screen is now, but only showing the dwarves with at least some magic skill it would be entirely possible to designate who you want to carry which magical equipment. Once assigned the dwarf would suspend his normal duties and would become more of an on-duty soldier like entity who would just idle around until you order him somewhere. Much like you can do with squads now.

Are all gem encrusted items magical?
Do magical items have to be created by a mage?

Only a few valuable gems would be useful, and you would have to first make a staff to encrust it with. Mages could only use staffs, any other gemmed item would just be an item, except some mood-created artifacts. Since making the staff itself would be easy, finding the suitable gem should be hard. I think a normal gem setter could make it, and the staff would only be useful in the hands of a magic user.

If an item runs out of charges, is it useless, can the mage recharge the item, or does it have to be recrafted?

I thought about the rechargability, but I think unless it's done in some very expensive way it would become way too overpowered. I think you would have to use a second precious gem of the same type to recharge it maybe. Since the rest of the staff would be worthless material (wood/iron etc.) switching out the gem would almost be like making a completely new staff.

If it is useless, as you implied, then the system becomes a vast waste of materials.

I don't really understand this problem. Do you mean spending a precious gem for a staff that has limited amount of uses? I think that's fair price for such a weapon. I never imagined you would have 60 wizards or such. I thought about 2-3 backing up your army. By the same logic ballista heads are also a waste of resources. You shoot them and they're gone.

If it can be recharged by the mage, then your mage must have some innate magical ability and the whole thing falls apart.

I think making the staff shouldn't require a magic user, only the use of it. If it has to be recharged, switching out the gem for a new one of the same type could be done by the gem setter as well.

If it has to be recrafted, is the original item destroyed, or reused?

Answered it in a previous quote. The item remains the same, the used gem is basically lost, a new one is put in its place.

If the item is destroyed, then you are reducing your magic system to what basically amounts to new ranged ammunition with special modifiers.

Keep in mind that this is just one half of the magic system. The spells a mage casts are for doing damage or protecting from damage, so basically it is meant to be a new ranged weapon with special modifiers.

I think this suggestion is well thought out and would be a cool magic system.  My main concern is that having to track which staffs are low on spell points might be a pain.  You wouldn't want your mage to run out of spell points in the middle of a battle.

I didn't think of this before, but I think it would be normal if a mage would hold on to his staff for as long as it has juice, and take it to be recharged, only switching it to something different when ordered.
PS. The new magic screen i talked about in the first half of my reply could also list all the available magic staffs and their current amount of points. Also, since they would work by consuming precious gems you would want to squeeze out every last bit of power you can before you throw away the gem (lost at recharge even if there was still points in it).

[Megaman_zx]

i don't like the two magic skills... it would be to easy for an adventurer to just make a macro and get to legendary really quickly... the staff thing is a nice way to stop this, but if you want to make a character who starts out as a mage, then you would first have to get him to find a staff with no other redeeming abilities making mages a challenge class for most adventurers, and impossible for noobs. I think there should be one spellcasting related stat... maybe willpower... that you can give your hero in the beginning as opposed to strength, then force the mage to find spells, by asking around about rumors of mysterious tablets lost in libraries, which would take time, but wouldn't put themin any particular harm, then once they know a spell they can use it until they pass out or whatever form mana loss.

[Helgoland]

Just make procedural templates 

But then we are back to needing templates for those procedural templates.

You must construct additional templates!