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[Deboche]

this idea is not fully developed, I didn't plan the whole thing out beforehand. It's not about how magic feels, like kohaku says, rather about trying to make it emulate reality and have that be the basis of it all, not just a dressing but the way it works and the way it appears in a society and evolves when you generate a new world.

things like being too powerful because you can be a magic user and wear armor or ridiculous handicaps are not good arguments. If you pick up any book on energy work whether it's kundalini or tantra and sometimes any book on any meditation, it'll tell you to wear loose clothing and preferably none at all. All these are details, I didn't really think it through but it would be easy to come up with and balance out.

as for not solving any problems and the mechanics, I must admit it's not thought out either. I don't know exactly how you'd end up casting a spell or what it would entail. You'd obviously need to sort through several different traditions, grimoires and so on and pick and choose something that would make sense with the game. Chaos magick sigil casting wouldn't make any sense for this game, a shaman going into a trance and walking through the wilderness looking for meaningful objects might.

Finally, playing to DF's strengths. It makes no sense to discuss this unless the argument just before this one were sorted out.

I really think this is the way to go as far as magic is concerned. I'll admit most of Kohaku's arguments have begun to make sense to me but it all comes down to the specifics. I guess I could try to think up the mechanics by reading the books, saying this works this doesn't and planning everything but I'm not really willing to do that

so anyway sorry for wasting everybody's time

[Dunamisdeos]

so anyway sorry for wasting everybody's time

Hey now, I think magic in DF is a really good idea. This is what the forums are all about, is bouncing an idea around, and maybe changing it for the better. No time wasted here IMO.

It is a long standing counterbalance to prohibit wearing armor while casting certain (usually combat) magic, and it certainly works. It would be really nice to throw around some other ideas in-thread for some more novel ideas as far as balance goes.

Didn't mean to seem like i was poopin' on your idea, Deboche.  What I really meant was, "This is a really complex idea, and it could just as easily mess things up horribly as contribute a lot to the game, but let's continue to discuss".

DF is a resource-material based game. Meaning that everything requires some kind of gatherable material in one way or another. Any magic system should rely on the same general mechanics of collect-a-resource-use-it-for-X, so as to keep it feeling congruous. Personally, I like the idea of a secret involving the learning of magic, or schools of magic thereof, and having them rely on gathered/processed resources per cast. For instance, Urist McWizardbeard reads a slab of Nature Magic. He can now grow trees and summon a bear or some such, but it requires some sort of potion to grow a tree, or maybe some ground rock crystal for the bear. A further balance could be the hard requirement of a focus (such as a staff or wand), and maybe a component pouch (it could function like a quiver). If necromancy were worked into this system, it would be another school of magic, and could possibly balance necromancers into something that required a [SPELL:COMPONENT:X] per cast of zombie.

As far as religions go, perhaps magic could require religion, and the focus could be required to be of the Mcwizardbeard's religion?

[Neonivek]

If you pick up any book on energy work whether it's kundalini or tantra and sometimes any book on any meditation, it'll tell you to wear loose clothing and preferably none at all. All these are details, I didn't really think it through but it would be easy to come up with and balance out

Yes but once again as I brought to the attention before that these "magicians" (or in this case religious practitioners) are not soldiers and if they are the rituals themselves are not made to be played in the midst of battle.

A lot of these clothing requirements occur because of outright utility or appearance and that there are rituals that are the opposite that "require" armor.

The penelty for armor wearing during "religious-esk" magic rituals is that you are wearing big bulky armor in a long and ardious ritual. Adding a layer of superfluousness that doesn't need to be there. Assuming of course that there isn't an outright dress requirement or atire, in which case there is a ritual "uniform", which could even be a costume.

So rituals with clothing requirements should have what you need to wear right in the description as well the physical aspect of the ritual should be listed too, so if you have to do extreme yoga and you decided to wear chainmail... you are probably going to fail (though why you would wear Chainmail being a ritualist is beyond me... who is going to attack you?)

Aside in spoilers completely unimportant to the conversation, so you are free to ignore.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The issue with armor in my own oppinion is that there is no issue and it is imagined. In the same way that the game doesn't prevent an archer, a role that in fiction is steriotypically done by someone in no armor or leather at the lightest, from using plate, and that the "reason not to use armor" should stem from both the method and uses of magic as well as the penelty of wearing armor in and of itself (in that being a wizard you probably want the ability to run should someone actually managed to get around your spells). It is something that never needed balancing and that the perception of it needing balancing comes from the steriotypical image of a wizard and the idea that magic "must" be overpowered.

The first doesn't make sense when you understand the context of the wizard which is that for the most part they are non-combatants and especially not warriors and thus their lack of armor stems not from the inability to do so. The second in that magic doesn't have to be overpowered and that something as "powerful" as a fireball is not very strong when you don't give it HP damage, this is of course ignoring the "Wizard Entity" and similar allpowerful magic users, but they are not part of this.

There are more issues, for example I've seen people try to invent ways to stop wizards from weilding weapons (Which Dwarf Fortress already balances by making weapon training splits really disadvantageous) but those are better for a topic that specifically deals with them