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[Leatra]

It could take a long time to cast the spell
It could have a cooldown
It could require some materials like bones for fixing broken bones and such

Making healing spells cause infection seems like a huge penalty to me. If I'm going to use a healing spell, I would use it to cure infections.

[Neonivek]

The balance is against a traditional medical system.

But does it need to be balanced in respect to that? Creatures in this have super fast regeneration, perfect but slow regeneration, or have no need for medicine. Those completely unbalance it on its own.

Heck does Healing have to contradict this? Perhaps you still have to set bones or else it heals wrong.

As well if magic is rare then you would want a field doctor to keep your wounded team mates alive... and the magic healer back at the base protected.

It could take a long time to cast the spell

It could just super speed up the regeneration rate of an individual. That would give VERY useful healing ability that cannot be replaced... without making ordinary healing useless... if it is that important.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The balance is against a traditional medical system.

But does it need to be balanced in respect to that? Creatures in this have super fast regeneration, perfect but slow regeneration, or have no need for medicine. Those completely unbalance it on its own.

Mind clarifying this bit?

Heck does Healing have to contradict this? Perhaps you still have to set bones or else it heals wrong.

As well if magic is rare then you would want a field doctor to keep your wounded team mates alive... and the magic healer back at the base protected.

It could take a long time to cast the spell

It could just super speed up the regeneration rate of an individual. That would give VERY useful healing ability that cannot be replaced... without making ordinary healing useless... if it is that important.

Those are all good ways to not have magic replace current healing methods.

[Azated]

I think a good way to limit magic would be a Wizard noble that arrives once you've fought and killed a necromancer of sufficient power. They're a one time deal and make massively ridiculous and highly specific demands and mandates, such as fifty pairs of troll fur socks or a masterwork candy shortsword, all deposited into his personal super valuable storage room.

In order for them to cast a spell, they have to be ecstatic and have no mandates currently active. After casting a spell, their happiness is reduced to near suicidal levels, so unless you keep an eye on them you'll have a tantruming wizard blowing holes in your magma reservoir.

[pisskop]

Fortress ending micromanagement-requiring wizard who can blow through rocks and walls?  Sign me up plz.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think a good way to limit magic would be a Wizard noble that arrives once you've fought and killed a necromancer of sufficient power. They're a one time deal and make massively ridiculous and highly specific demands and mandates, such as fifty pairs of troll fur socks or a masterwork candy shortsword, all deposited into his personal super valuable storage room.

In order for them to cast a spell, they have to be ecstatic and have no mandates currently active. After casting a spell, their happiness is reduced to near suicidal levels, so unless you keep an eye on them you'll have a tantruming wizard blowing holes in your magma reservoir.

That's absurd. Only one wizard will ever come? They demand absurd items? They only help the fortress that feeds them and gives them absurd stuff, if they're ultra-happy, and of course alive, and they get depressed if they have to lift a magic finger to help? You need to kill another magician to get him to come? Once one comes, and dies, no more ever will come to your fortress? Sounds like an absurd gamey unit, and unless the spells he casts are huge game-changers he's not worth keeping.

Better ideas similar to yours:
Wizards only immigrate if they want to, and only cast spells if they think it's in their best interest. Payment and keeping the fortress that feeds, clothes, and houses them interested in doing so are valid reasons.
Wizards are territorial; if one isn't the other's apprentice, expect magical duels and such if you don't keep them separated.
Wizards will leave if they aren't kept happy enough. Having to cast lots of spells can lead to unhappiness. Another potential consequence is a tantruming wizard.
Wizards will make demands like any noble, which may lead to issues noted above if they feel  they aren't getting the respect they deserve.
Wizards won't immigrate just anywhere; if you haven't done some big deed, and your living conditions aren't first-rate, your best hope is to get a bunch of magical stuff, such as rare herbs or spellbooks of another magician.
Wizards do not have god-like power. Magic is limited to only a few types per wizard and is never costless.

[Deimos56]

Wizards won't immigrate just anywhere; if you haven't done some big deed, and your living conditions aren't first-rate, your best hope is to get a bunch of magical stuff, such as rare herbs or spellbooks of another magician.

On top of this, those with the potential to become a wizard (Other than the varieties of magic learned through Secrets) could be relatively rare, kind of like the new X-Com's psionics.

I like the idea of healing magic only increasing the rate at which things heal - maybe increasing the rate significantly more (and with much less risk of infection or something) if a doctor already cleaned and treated the injury.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wizards won't immigrate just anywhere; if you haven't done some big deed, and your living conditions aren't first-rate, your best hope is to get a bunch of magical stuff, such as rare herbs or spellbooks of another magician.

On top of this, those with the potential to become a wizard (Other than the varieties of magic learned through Secrets) could be relatively rare, kind of like the new X-Com's psionics.

I like the idea of healing magic only increasing the rate at which things heal - maybe increasing the rate significantly more (and with much less risk of infection or something) if a doctor already cleaned and treated the injury.

Both of those sound good, but I'd like it if healing magic could, say, heal lost limbs and severed nerves and such.

[Deimos56]

Wizards won't immigrate just anywhere; if you haven't done some big deed, and your living conditions aren't first-rate, your best hope is to get a bunch of magical stuff, such as rare herbs or spellbooks of another magician.

On top of this, those with the potential to become a wizard (Other than the varieties of magic learned through Secrets) could be relatively rare, kind of like the new X-Com's psionics.

I like the idea of healing magic only increasing the rate at which things heal - maybe increasing the rate significantly more (and with much less risk of infection or something) if a doctor already cleaned and treated the injury.

Both of those sound good, but I'd like it if healing magic could, say, heal lost limbs and severed nerves and such.

Yeah, that would be nice too. Probably the more severe injuries should be where you start seeing steep costs and stuff...

Maybe both the healer and healee end up extremely hungry afterwards, and the healee ends up somewhat traumatized (I'm reasonably sure feeling a limb suddenly regrow would be kind of traumatic.), and it requires either special materials, or, if regular magic requires reagents, somewhat more powerful ones.

...As a mildly disturbing thought, what do you suppose screwing up would entail with this kind of thing?

[Neonivek]

If we are talking about the Wizard Entity... then there needs to be no balance for their healing. They are simply a near godlike wizard.

[NAV]

Screwing up could maybe transfer the injuries onto the healer.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If we are talking about the Wizard Entity... then there needs to be no balance for their healing. They are simply a near godlike wizard.

We aren't. Any kind of expensive, godlike wizard is going to either be a a game breaker or completely useless.

[Telgin]

I admit I haven't read much of Threetoe's work, so I'm not familiar with that, but I think having magic be costly enough to use would be balancing enough.  If it takes a lot of some resource to use healing magic, whether to heal a cut or restore a severed limb or torn lower spinal nerve, then you're likely only going to use it for things that traditional healing can't fix.

That's what I'd prefer to see anyway.  Healing magic can fix the same things that traditional healing can fix, and more (severed limbs or other permanent injuries, maybe even death), but the cost to use it is high enough that you'd only ever bother with things that your other doctors couldn't just fix.  Having healing magic just speed up healing would trivialize other healing methods, unless it was something applied after the fact and only worked if the dwarf had been tended to already.

What the resource to use magic ends up being is the thing that is hard to determine.  If magic ends up getting tied to deities, then it could come in the form of sacrifices, but if it's based on value it's too easy to make a few stacks of *crundle tallow roast* and fix up anything.  That would require a lot of rebalancing on the trading side of things, as well as fleshing out deities.

With the way that necromancers work now, it seems likely that we'll see magic on an individual wizard scale, which is more difficult to balance.  I think I could live with wizards requiring nice rooms and making demands and mandates, but that doesn't feel like enough of a limit.  You need a constant resource requirement, I think, and mandates don't really cover that.  Having individual cooldowns on their healing ability helps, but that may not be enough either, unless they can only heal like once per game month, but that ends up causing situations where the wizard heals Urist McScratched when you want him to heal Urist McBloodFountainTheGushing.  If he can heal permanent injuries and deaths, then it's only delaying the inevitable before everyone is back to full power, so you might as well not make it take so long.

I don't know, I think maybe it's just too early to really guess how this should be done.  There are a lot of systems this could be based on that would benefit a lot from further refinement or fleshing out, such as trade (value) and deities (as a source of the magic).

[Neonivek]

I don't picture the all powerful wizard entities ever joining your fort.

They are the sort of things you play as (wizard mode) then as something you have in your fortress.

[BoredVirulence]

Balance, especially in regards to magic is always different.
I have a tendency to ramble, feel free to skip.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I assume magic will be related to some sort of a skill(or better yet, skills), unlike necromancy currently. There should be a cooldown proportional to the difficulty of the spell to the user. Every spell should have a chance to backfire, but this can't be too severe otherwise training anyone in magic would be to difficult. I'd also suggest having some "new" resource attached to each dwarf which also limits magic use (say, mana). Low "mana" would have side effects, severe hunger and thirst, perhaps a chance to go unconscious. Perhaps mana should regenerate very slowly, but certain reagents regenerate it faster. Also certain reagents could increase capacity, and maybe decrease chance of backfire.

Deities should be able to help, but their assistance shouldn't be required. Maybe sacrificing (stuff they like), building alters(rooms) and decorating alters with things they like could provide bonuses. Maybe the deity provides useful items (should always be at a loss), help regenerate mana, or maybe improve someone's magic skill. Say there is a deity of gems and bloodshed. If you made an alter, decorated it with gems and other nice stuff(gems providing the biggest bonus), and regularly sacrificed a goblin, gems (cease to exist, not decorate), and maybe a dwarf every year or so, you could potentially get a few magical reagents(if there were a variety and some were only useful for certain things this could be even better [Maybe different reagents regenerate mana based on the level of the associated skill, dragon bones working well with necromancers, firesnake extract for pyromancy or whatever, etc] ), maybe the deity would improve mana regeneration moderately for a period of time, or we could also see related items (such as a unique gem; we'd get better stuff out of a deity of war)

Magic skill(s) should also be very difficult and slow to raise. There should be a way to enable apprentices to specialize in a particular sect of magic, although it shouldn't be required (although a non-specialist wizard could be very old before he has high skills).

Perhaps enchantments should be like artifacts? Moods create them. This way we lose the ability to weaponize them. Perhaps we should be able to weaponize "lame" enchantments, but good ones are the result of moods (like a talking firesword of burning, that burns the hands of those who touch it and aren't its "friend")

And all of the options discussed enable us to balance it properly, but it also complicates balancing.

As far as healing is concerned, there should be a number of options. Maybe a very simple spell increases regeneration, the injury still needs treatment but recovery times are reduced. A backfired spell might create an infection and complicate the scenario. Then we have more advanced spells that can perhaps mend a bone, heal without surgery, etc. But these spells require high level wizards before they are safe enough to try, cost a lot of mana, and only fix one issue, a broken bone or a gash or brain swelling. And one of these spells backfiring would probably further injure the victim, maybe a failed mending of a broken leg could rip the leg off and create severe gashes on the lower body and other leg. Perhaps we should see backfired high level spells reduce attributes and skills of the victim. These advanced spells would require a team of high level wizards before they could replace a hospital. Plus you would likely need a ton of reagents to keep a steady supply of mana. Although with proper resources, yes a long lived fortress could replace the surgeons. But it would be a waste of resources.