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[Pancaek]

I don't really see why, since it seems that magic is pretty prevalent in the setting. just  people who are naturally born with the ability to use it are rare.

And remember kids, in ye olden days, the plural of wizard was war.

[Pavellius]

I don't really see why, since it seems that magic is pretty prevalent in the setting. just  people who are naturally born with the ability to use it are rare.

Correct. It just simplifies things.

[Pavellius]

Here I have compiled a Rough Draft for the Rules of Magic (with some of my suggestions peppered in):

The Five Schools of Magic (below) are the categories of magic that can be learned at magic academies. "Forbidden Arts" such as Necromancy cannot be learned there, and therefore are not included. Necromancy and such is a lot more blurry about its boundaries.

Conjuration: This school lets you summon beasts, demons, and other fun stuff.

Alteration: This school allows you to alter physical entities to your bidding. Stuff like water breathing, oak flesh, paralysis.

Destruction: in DnD, it's called Evocation. You make fireballs, lightning, flames, that kinda wizardy canon stuff.

Illusion: this school allows you to play with the psyches of the NPCs themselves. Force them to fight one another, or to follow you into battle for some time. Maybe disguise yourself in a veil of magical lies?

Restoration: This school is all about keeping you and your friends alive. Heals, revive, buffs, that good stuff.

There are also different types of spells:

On the fly spellcasting, eg. seeing a troll and just going "lightning bolt, lightning bolt, etc" is the simplest, fastest and most dangerous kind. You can just shoot fire from your fingertips and throw lightning around with abandon. The downside being that it would tire you out pretty quickly and if you roll bad, it backfires. badly. On the fly spellcasting should also be limited by the shools a certain mage knows. Ie. you can't raise the dead as a firemage.

Second would be prepared spellcasting. Where you do a ritual/incantation to produce the desired effect. Takes a long time, but can't backfire on you.

Then something like enchanting. Either passive enchantments on weapons/armor/trinkets, think flaming swords or a ring that produces light if you rub on it. And scrolls/those asian prayer slips. The maker basically performs a ritual/incantion by writing down a spell in magic script, which can then be activated at a later time by a keyword/phrase. Upside is that anyone with the keyword/phrase can use it, downside is that it has to be made in advance. Wizard's tips of the day: don't use common words to lock your scrolls. We all remember Red Johnson and his 30 scrolls of fireball that were locked by the word apple when he went to the marketplace. We had to pay for the fruit stall.

Enchant items or enscribing scrolls would have to be a "ritual spell." (Maybe, instead of rituals prevent backfire, it would drastically reduce the chance)

(Paraphrased from Pancaek, Reply #11:) A spellcasters abilities would be determined by two things:
-Their natural talent, which should not be a school, but rather something specific such as fire or telekinesis
-The subjects that they studied, either the schools/forbidden arts

How player becomes a spellcaster:

The [eighth] son of an [eighth] son is automatically a wizard, and any children born of wizards are also wizards. Swap genders for witches. [Also] people who got granted their powers by gods/dieites/selling their soul etc...

Divine Spells and Alchemy are a whole other topic.

[Pavellius]

How much should you be able to buy for a gold piece? Or a hundred gold pieces?
What do you think, guys?

[Generally me]

Will we have set list of spells that we know or can we use any spell. I personally prefer any, less book keeping.

Also will more difficult spells need a higher roll to successfully do. So you would need a 7 to conjure a fire demon and a 3 to shoot a fire ball or is it standard rtd. Maybe roll to see if you do spell then roll to see how badly you fail/succeed

[The Froggy Ninja]

Not really interested in the game but I really like bardic magic. Like magic is alive and sapient and gets really fricken board just watching for the prerequisites to do stuff. So it decided that if you played special songs to entertain it it would help you out in ways directed by the song but not quite as precise as arcane spells and they become weaker the more often you use the exact same song. So you should write like five different healing songs just in case. The magic reacts more with better songs so writing a quick musical limerick could do some basic healing but a giant balled would like resurrect and rebuild an entire dead empire.