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[Hobgobwin]

I recall in one fantasy setting, I think it was Warhammer Fantasy? the dwarves would only use item-based magic going off that first post because if they grew too powerful in using magic in general, they would slowly turn to stone, a dwarf who has reached a level of wizardly power equal to or greater than say, Gandalf, would become a new decoration where s/he stood.

And miscasting would be REALLY disastrous, the better the wizard and the worse the miscast, stuff like an entire city would suddenly teleport to the sun or something equally bad. Weaker wizards had lesser effects when they miscast, like turning blue or something.

[Mikademus]

I recall in one fantasy setting, I think it was Warhammer Fantasy? the dwarves would only use item-based magic going off that first post because if they grew too powerful in using magic in general, they would slowly turn to stone, a dwarf who has reached a level of wizardly power equal to or greater than say, Gandalf, would become a new decoration where s/he stood.

And miscasting would be REALLY disastrous, the better the wizard and the worse the miscast, stuff like an entire city would suddenly teleport to the sun or something equally bad. Weaker wizards had lesser effects when they miscast, like turning blue or something.

Ooooo! I fully endorse this! However, it will probably not be included because it will be too hairy to implement.

[Tormy]

I recall in one fantasy setting, I think it was Warhammer Fantasy? the dwarves would only use item-based magic going off that first post because if they grew too powerful in using magic in general, they would slowly turn to stone, a dwarf who has reached a level of wizardly power equal to or greater than say, Gandalf, would become a new decoration where s/he stood.

And miscasting would be REALLY disastrous, the better the wizard and the worse the miscast, stuff like an entire city would suddenly teleport to the sun or something equally bad. Weaker wizards had lesser effects when they miscast, like turning blue or something.

That sounds pretty epic...obviously if we gonna have high magic [even if not in the vanilla game, but if it will be supported so that modders can add a magic system even if they want], diversity & specialized magery for all races is a must have. [Some examles: Dwarves - rune magic, spells/rituals related to the earth; Elves - nature magic etc.]

[irmo]

That sounds pretty epic...obviously if we gonna have high magic [even if not in the vanilla game, but if it will be supported so that modders can add a magic system even if they want], diversity & specialized magery for all races is a must have. [Some examles: Dwarves - rune magic, spells/rituals related to the earth; Elves - nature magic etc.]

How are you going to mod in an entire magic system? Embed a scripting language?

[Tormy]

That sounds pretty epic...obviously if we gonna have high magic [even if not in the vanilla game, but if it will be supported so that modders can add a magic system even if they want], diversity & specialized magery for all races is a must have. [Some examles: Dwarves - rune magic, spells/rituals related to the earth; Elves - nature magic etc.]

How are you going to mod in an entire magic system? Embed a scripting language?

It can be doable with editing the raws, if we will have the appropriate tags. Good example: Dominions 3. You can easily edit/create spells in that game and all you gotta do is editing some "raw" files. 

[Granite26]

If you do the rules generic enough, you should be able to create a unique flavor and genre of magic for every one of dozens of races.

All you need to do is seperate power generation from effects.

D&D wizards get fixed power per day and research effects,  sorcerers get fixed power per day and effects are based on magical knowledge (level)

Rune Magic (and item magic in general) is a special effect class (embue) that targets items.  (Code-wise, what's the difference between forging a magic blade and engraving a blade with a magic rune?)

Blood and Sacrifice magic has researchable effects and power generation through sacrifice.

Divine?  power is given by the gods

That Warhammer thing?  power is gained at the cost of stonification, or taint, or whatever.  Fatigue for MP is good here too.

The dumb simplest way to do it is mana points into a pool for effects.  If the system supports race/class based systems for generating it.  The hard part is whether you can store MP up or must dump straight into an effect cost.

Finally, you just need tags to figure out who can do what.

[Neonivek]

Well Granite how about spells tax your mental stability

The less mental stability you have the harder it is to cast spells... Your tired enough you can fail a spell or suffer mental problems from insanity, catatonia, and mental breakdown... Or perhaps brain damage.

You don't have to be sane to cast spells but eventually you will suffer enough that they are unable to function at all.

In Red Steel casting spells was harmless unless you did so incorrectly, in which case your character suffers injuries and ages a set of years (You can effectively age to death as a wizard). You had to balance between powerful spells and safe spells. There was a Manapool which regenerated over time however you could summon up more mana yourself at anytime at the cost of years of your lifespan and the more powerful versions of summoning up mana also injures you. (Which you HAD to do... it regenerated Slowly so it was pathetically easy to run out of magic... which you could be out for days)

On that line it would be interesting if Spells actually were physically charged as well as mentally charged.

[Granite26]

That Warhammer thing?  power is gained at the cost of stonification, or taint, or whatever.  Fatigue for MP is good here too.

Generate MP by taking fatigue damage or mental damage or whatever.

Fatigue is already in the game.  Not sure about sanity, but it should be easy to generate MP by gaining an unhappy thought...

[n2]

That Warhammer thing?  power is gained at the cost of stonification, or taint, or whatever.  Fatigue for MP is good here too.

Generate MP by taking fatigue damage or mental damage or whatever.

Fatigue is already in the game.  Not sure about sanity, but it should be easy to generate MP by gaining an unhappy thought...

That goes in direction of "power of happiness" which is so absurd. Hippie mages, wtf? They smoke grass to replenish mana and strike at enemies with a mighty hammer of lulz.

OK i can imagine that as one of the schools of magic, the most bizarre one.
edit: and their magic books are actually ridiculous stories about how retarded dwarves can be. They read them aloud, and enemies fall down and ROFL. Immunity: not having sense of humor. Allies are resistant, as they heard these lulz many times already.

[Neonivek]

It is somewhat interesting... Going slowly more and more depressed until they up and commit suicide

Id like a system that can carry over to Adventure mode more easily... I doubt depression will mean too much... though it would be interesting.

[Jude]

I like the low-magic world of DF right now. Really there's no magic, just creatures that we usually consider "magical." But they don't really appear to do anything magical.

Whatever Toady decides to do will be good, I'm sure. But I'm liking the idea of wizards and magic being a rare thing - a wizard as a noble is a great idea, since he'd actually be useful.

[Neonivek]

I like the low-magic world of DF right now. Really there's no magic, just creatures that we usually consider "magical." But they don't really appear to do anything magical.

Whatever Toady decides to do will be good, I'm sure. But I'm liking the idea of wizards and magic being a rare thing - a wizard as a noble is a great idea, since he'd actually be useful.

Well there is a lot of magic in Dwarf Fortress right now... If Zombies, Skeletons, and Dragons have something to say about it. (Let us not forget about Ironmen, Bronze collosus, and Armor Peircing hallow point Rifles Crossbows)

Anyhow, Toady has already said that he plans on allowing magic not only to flow place to place (Actually that part may not be true, as I am unsure) but that magic can not be existant in some gens

[Tormy]

Whatever Toady decides to do will be good, I'm sure. But I'm liking the idea of wizards and magic being a rare thing - a wizard as a noble is a great idea, since he'd actually be useful.

Don't look at magic from the dwarf perspective. Look at this from a modding perspective for example. What if you would like to mod in a race what is very weak physically and even "technologically", but they are excellent in the arts of magic? Having one or more races like that would be pretty epic.
Oh and not to mention, that magic would absolutely enchance the gameworld. The possibilies would be endless. All races or even the various entities [necromancers, wandering wizards etc.] could have access to very different kind of spells, rituals etc. 

[eerr]

spells shouldn't be devastating enough to kill a fortress.

unless used in a certain way, such as portal to the dining hall allowing the goblins in
pulling the lever remotely, to unlease the dwarves lava
making a dwarf go temporarily insane, to cause a tantrum spiral

in other words, spells should only be powerful when used strategically.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Toady has already started implimenting a regent-based magic system. Look at the things which the game allows:

- fliud coatings on objects and creatures
- elemental attack types
- items with fixed temperatures
- creature extracts (poison)
- ability to create items with wild specific heats

It's not too much of a stretch to say that it'll be possible to go get an extract from some poisonous creature, go kill a frost giant or something and get permanently freezing bones, go kill some creature that has a fixed temperature leather that's at room temperature, and go get some good steel, and you can make a (temporarily poisoned until the extract wears off) steel sword encrusted with freezing bone with a temperature safe hilt. Or to at least create temperature-safe gloves to compliment the sword.

Or:

create a quiver out of freezing leather with bone arrows which have a stupidly low specific heat and low ignite point - and voila - freezing AND exploding on impact arrows.

The difficulty of gathering the regeants without destroying them or your dwarves offsets the power of the magic quite nicely, as well. Not to mention figuring out how to safely handle such objects once created.

You people talking about mana and related things are totally missing this potential aspect of magic.