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[Granite26]

What are you trying to say?

[Align]

I meant "I agree with this man".

[Neonivek]

Magic Missles is a cool enough spell... in concept

You fire swarms of magical projectiles at the enemy and break their bones peice by peice!

Of course... I guess we can make it cooler... but you get the idea.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I agree that magic would be best if its kept rare and powerful.

One idea would be to have God-magic - you build a temple, and conduct rituals and sacrifice items (or animals) for a particular and subtle effect, like increased combat prowess, better trading acumen, bountiful harvets, etc. Sorta like King of Dragon Pass, in a way. It could require a priest noble, sorta like the wizard noble suggested earlier. Or, one of your ordinary dwarves have their god "speak" to them, like a strange mood - build a temple for them, and they'll dedicate it to their god and become a priest of that god.

Wizard magic could work the same way, but with different effects, and its conducted by the wizard himself; you're not asking a god to do it for you. Wizards should be very rare.

Alchemy could be tied to wizardry and to god-magic. It could also cover transfiguration of minerals and metals - iron into gold and all that. It should be more common than the other forms, but its effects are fairly limited - you're just transforming one bar at a time, or making one potion at a time, etc., like any other workshop.

[tigrex]

I think that magic should take advantage of DF's unique properties as much as possible.  No mundane magic missiles should be allowed into the equation.

If and when magic is incorporated, it would be nice to see it meshed into the worldgen parameters.  Some points in the map would have large magical ratings, which flowed along the map like rivers and formed pools where magic is strong.  These areas would be useful to magical beings.  Megabeasts that can cast spells try to take over the area, wizards build towers and empires there, and the fractal generator operates a bit differently in that area, so you can look at the map an identify possible magic spots by irregularities - water flowing uphill, deep chasms, chessboard patterns, etc.  Incredibly magical areas could feature levitating islands, walls of force and neverending rains of magma.

Wizards would count as megabeasts as far as worldgen is concerned.  The more magic areas in the world exist, the more are generated.  Thus, you could have worlds where magic simply does not exist, or exists in such small quantities that it has no affect on the world - there's a single hermit wizard living in a cave.  On the other hand, in magic-rich worlds there would be many powerful wizards performing actions in worldgen.  Setting up towers, influencing or controlling kingdoms, battling each other for ultimate power, changing the landscape (for example blasting a chasm into an enemy's kingdom, resulting in a runined ghost town for adventurers to explore, or diverting rivers to turn desert to jungle.)

I don't want wizards to be playable - science and hard work are dwarves' magic, and I certainly don;t want elves to take the role of magically attuned pests.

If wizards can interact with players at all, it should be to offer quests to adventurers and to occasionally show up at a fort to be pampered by the dwarves in exchange for favors.

[Neonivek]

I want wizards to be playable... but as their own entity seperate from Forts and Adventurers (Yay V2 arcs!!!)

[tigrex]

Ok, I understand you.  My argument is that if magic is player-controlled, then it must be limited, balanced, usable regularly.  That's were magic points, spell levels and fatigue come in ... means of rationing the fun stuff.

I don't want to open the legends screen and read "Urist McWizard killed Elfy McTarget with a Magic Missile".  I want to read "Urist McWizard opens a volcano which spews magma onto Prettyflower, elven retreat." and go vist the smoking wreck later.

[G-Flex]

There are two flavors I'd personally like to see:

1) The ridiculously world-affecting magic people have been mentioning. This should take a lot of resources and a very long time to produce so it isn't in any way commonplace. Granted, this could still result in most cities getting nuked in worldgen at some point.

2) Sort of mundane magic that still takes a lot of resources but affects things in more subtle ways, such as making a floodgate less prone to burning/melting or something. As in, less "+2 to hit" and more fundamental changes to the properties of things.

[Neonivek]

Ok, I understand you.  My argument is that if magic is player-controlled, then it must be limited, balanced, usable regularly.  That's were magic points, spell levels and fatigue come in ... means of rationing the fun stuff.

I don't want to open the legends screen and read "Urist McWizard killed Elfy McTarget with a Magic Missile".  I want to read "Urist McWizard opens a volcano which spews magma onto Prettyflower, elven retreat." and go vist the smoking wreck later.

The problem with this is that it is rediculous... It would be like using Sephiroth's Supernova to open a jar of mayo

There are times when you just want to cast Magic Missles/Fireball/Flamesprey/Freeze/Death instead of causing a thermonuclear explosion against a stray wolf

[Mikademus]

spell costs:

Point system : As simple as mp, or it takes hp, or something else
 - almost any RPG system

Fatigue system : Mana is tiring, just like lifting heavy rocks
 - L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s Recluse books

Component system : the materials costs limit you.  Can't cast 'heal' without using up a hematite...
 - The Ultima games

Ritual System : Spells take time to cast.
 - David Edding's version of Demonology works like this

Recharge : Each spell can only be cast so often.  A spell can only be cast so often.
 - Traditional AD&D magery (4th ed works differently, though)

Free : Given how easy it is to kill someone with a thrown coin, why charge a magician anything for a force bolt?
 - Basically, David Edding's sorcery.

---

There are more potential costs to add to this list.

* Time consumption. Not only ritual magic but all magic that has an assembly or ritual-ish component falls under this.
 - Rituals
 - Invocations
 - Song and/or dance magic (quite akin to ritual, really)
 - Runes

* Sanity. Magic is managing powers of the Beyond, and you use it on peril of your own mind.
 - The Swedish RPG system "Kult" (considered one of the better horror RPG systems) and the Chtulu used this system. H.P. Lovecraft's world in its entirety is a good example of this, and most R.E. Howard's mages seems quite deranged from using their powers.

* Life. You use your own (or steal others') life essence to cast magic, shortening your life (non-replenishable)
 - C.S. Friedmans' Magister Trilogy illustrates this.

* Power of magic itself. Using magic consumes the potency of magic, for the caster or for the world.
 - Tolkien's magic is of this kind, with Gandalf being the prime specimen. (If you don't believe me read more than just the Rings books).

* Stability of creation. Magic is shaping chaos. Using it brings chaos into order (the creation). Disasters may occur, devilish monsters may appear.
 - Old Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians viewed magic partly like this.


Of course, many of these are combinable. Time, sanity, life force, and stability of creation would be an excellent combination both limiting the prevalence of magic while increasing its potency and its consequences.

[Neonivek]

Riddle of Steel also uses Life... Magic not only can injure you, but it can shorten your lifespan by making you age instantly.

The amount your injured by and age depends on how badly you mess up your magic. (Wizards can life a long life if they stay away from difficult spells)

[Granite26]

I was speaking more in terms of implementation details than in flavour.

I like the 'effects on the world outside of the caster system' but it seems a little off.  The 'whole world has a mana pool that gets used up' idea fits with the current 'Humans are going to win, the ages change as more and more of the wierd shit dies out.' genre.  This could be used with a 'ley lines' or that flow system that's going around.  Your ability to use magic depends on your proximity to a flow line, and the magic you use sends reverberations down the lines.  (Draining them, increasing or decreasing elements, etc).

The 'magic areas' that were suggested would fit in nicely, because they would be intersections of the lines.  (The sources would be the high magic, wierd shit areas that roughly correspond to 'frightening', heck, even start the megabeasts out of those, and respawn them until they're destroyed in their lairs.  Megabeasts = Magic, No Megabeasts = no more magic.)

I don't actually think much of this is rational for the game, but it's a neat brainstorm.

[Tormy]

Ya know what I think about magic?

Magic should be difficult, but have massive effects. No petty magic Missiles here- A spell should be a complicated, expensive ritual that creates Chasms, turns entire sieging armies into vermin, or makes ordinary stone turn to gold.

magic should be special.

I cannot quote this hard enough.

Actually that sounds like a ritual, not some ordinary spell. Ordinary spells should not turn an entire army into vermins...

I want wizards to be playable... but as their own entity seperate from Forts and Adventurers (Yay V2 arcs!!!)

IIRC it will be possible later on. Its on the development list, but yeah I doubt that we will see anything like this in v1

[HisMajestyBOB]

Ya know what I think about magic?

Magic should be difficult, but have massive effects. No petty magic Missiles here- A spell should be a complicated, expensive ritual that creates Chasms, turns entire sieging armies into vermin, or makes ordinary stone turn to gold.

magic should be special.

I cannot quote this hard enough.

Actually that sounds like a ritual, not some ordinary spell. Ordinary spells should not turn an entire army into vermins...

Spells should be rituals, in my opinion. None of this D&D style running around throwing fireballs all over the place. Magic should require preparation.

[Tormy]

Ya know what I think about magic?

Magic should be difficult, but have massive effects. No petty magic Missiles here- A spell should be a complicated, expensive ritual that creates Chasms, turns entire sieging armies into vermin, or makes ordinary stone turn to gold.

magic should be special.

I cannot quote this hard enough.

Actually that sounds like a ritual, not some ordinary spell. Ordinary spells should not turn an entire army into vermins...

Spells should be rituals, in my opinion. None of this D&D style running around throwing fireballs all over the place. Magic should require preparation.

Well, I dont see any problems with rituals, it can work perfectly in any fantasy stategy/RPG.
The problem is that it wont make too much sense, if we will have some ungodly effective/strong rituals, but we wont have any basic [low tier] spells/spell system. Ritual is the highest tier in all magic system.