Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

If I remember correctly, magic was one of the most fun aspects of the original Armok

Where would it be without the ability to blow people up, Teleport their organs out, or turn their brains into mighty weapons?

[Mikademus]

If I remember correctly, magic was one of the most fun aspects of the original Armok

Where would it be without the ability to blow people up, Teleport their organs out, or turn their brains into mighty weapons?

Oooo, that sounds so... Dwarf Fortress! Can I have it in my game now?!

PS. I am serious, not sarcastic. It sounds fun and DF in a nutshell.

[Granite26]

If by real wizards, you mean a system where "magic points" are used up to case spells, you may or may not be right anyway; I have no idea if Toady wants to go that direction. However, historically, the concept of magic users having a pool of mana to use is a recent concept. Spellcasters would:

have some innate magic ability such as divining or abnormally great strength;
find ways of using other items' innate magic such as by potion brewing or artifice;
have special powers granted by higher powers - usually a deity.

I find the concept of having a mana pool to be archaic for this game in the same way that having a hit point pool is. However, the ritual idea is great - and matches up very well with the "higher powers" concept.

Hate to break it to you, but there ARE hitpoints in the game, they just aren't exposed.  It's a digital game.  Personally, I'd imagine a magical reserves stat that would become worn, taxed and exhausted very similar to the damage system for limbs (At least the apearences, what with the limbs system really being hitpoints wrapped in pretty text)

As far as magic system...  I mean entities that have inate abilities that aren't entirely reagent based.  Yes that means Raaztlin throwing fireballs, but it also means any sort of magic that isn't literally using the physics system and non-standard physics qualities for special items. 

[Mikademus]

Reading the post above this one I just remembered that in some interpretations magic burns calories. So the more and increasingly powerful magic is used the hungrier (or faint) the user becomes (see f.i. L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s Recluse books, or the "Slayers" animation - Lina Inverse can really wolf it down!)

So if a magic user had an outstandingly ravenous appetite (s)he could really be the end of the castle by causing starvation or thirst, which would be very much in line with the DF style of posing challenges to the player! For further fun, let a mage issue demands on when he wants to eat or drink!

[Neonivek]

There are a ton of hitpoints in the game Granite which is very interesting.

How do you harm universal hitpoints?

"Kill" spells that just cause people to die could harm the universal hitpoints.

By Universal hitpoints I am refering to the reason why someone with their heart, arms, legs, and every organ could be ripped out but they could still be alive.

Actually it could be Blood... Is blood the universal hitpoint?

[Granite26]

Reading the post above this one I just remembered that in some interpretations magic burns calories. So the more and increasingly powerful magic is used the hungrier (or faint) the user becomes (see f.i. L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s Recluse books, or the "Slayers" animation - Lina Inverse can really wolf it down!)

So if a magic user had an outstandingly ravenous appetite (s)he could really be the end of the castle by causing starvation or thirst, which would be very much in line with the DF style of posing challenges to the player! For further fun, let a mage issue demands on when he wants to eat or drink!

I don't think MP should ever be exposed to the player (OK, maybe in a raw DnD mod you'd get MP for just waking up), but it's a useful transfer medium.  Exactly like power is in DF.  Windmills and Waterwheels.  When the time comes, it'll be relatively simple to put in capstans or chemical batteries or nuclear reactors or magma steam turbines, because all they have to do is output power.  Then any power users are completely independent, whether it's a bridge or a millstone or a pump. (and 'power' can be balanced in the game by adjusting consumption or production or taking out some buildings)

[Mikademus]

Well, not only would it be a good game balancing mechanism (== adding more ways for your fortress to implode disastrously) but it also has great opportunities for the dark kind of DF humour we all adore!

Your mage weaved his "homing 'sploding kittens" magic, obliterating a goblin raiding party, then appropriates the food stores in a horrible-to-behold 1-week frenzied eating binge consuiming most of what you have while winter draws nearer and the desperate dwarves bang the door.

MP is never displayed, or perhaps even needed?, but the more magic is used the more a strain will be put on your fortress resources. And of course, if over-taxed the mage will faint and die since he can't feed himself if gone too far.

[Tormy]

There are a ton of hitpoints in the game Granite which is very interesting.

How do you harm universal hitpoints?

"Kill" spells that just cause people to die could harm the universal hitpoints.

By Universal hitpoints I am refering to the reason why someone with their heart, arms, legs, and every organ could be ripped out but they could still be alive.

Actually it could be Blood... Is blood the universal hitpoint?

Well yeah, I am not sure that how could the various "damage" spells work in DF. We have "hitpoints" in DF, it's just not displayed.
Very basic example: The mage throws a fireball at Urist McNoobdwarf, and the fireball hits the left arm of the dwarf. What will happen? The left arm of the dwarf will be completely useless, or the outer layers [skin, fat etc.] of the given arm will be burned, but the dwarf will be able to use that arm regardless?
The situation is quite simple if we talk about damage calculation and melee weapons...but spells are very different. Most of the damage spells should have different effects on the target. Ice Bolt - Fireball - Acid Splash...just a few examples.

[Neonivek]

I know we have hitpoints what I meant was... what hitpoints does someone have beyond bodyparts?

I am starting to think that it is basically Blood and Vitals. You go until either your blood is gone or your Vital is destroyed (such as your head or whole body)

[Granite26]

In that kind of situation, the magic is in the creation (creating the fireball) not in attack.  The damage could be the same as a molotov cocktail.

[Tormy]

I know we have hitpoints what I meant was... what hitpoints does someone have beyond bodyparts?

I am starting to think that it is basically Blood and Vitals. You go until either your blood is gone or your Vital is destroyed (such as your head or whole body)

Well yeah, let's take a look at the human arm for example. Basic arm structure: Bones, veins, muscles, fat, skin. Now if a fireball would hit the arm, the skin would be burned obviously + fat/muscles/veins would be damaged. If an ice bolt would hit the arm, the skin would be damaged and perhaps the veins, and the arm itself would be useless because it is frozen. Acid could even damage the bones however. I think that everything would be possible to code in, but it would be kinda complicated, since all creatures have a different body structure.
Also a specific fireball wouldn't cause the same damage on the arm of a human, and on the arm of a troll obviously.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Hate to break it to you, but there ARE hitpoints in the game, they just aren't exposed.  It's a digital game. 

Yes, I realize that. I was referring to the concept of a character's entire bodily health represented by a single HP meter.

I just had an interesting idea for magic: how about adding a tag to body parts to specify that they are used specifically to implement magic (or specific kinds of magic)? This way it may be easier to tie in calorie use to magic, and you could get some pretty quirky ways some beings might cast spells: twitching one's nose like in Bewitched, waving arms, blinking, or maybe just pure thought if it's tied to a brain. Or even an ethereal magic body part, which wouldn't be vulnerable to physical damage but could be harmed by another magic user with specific spells?

Say, for example, you want humans to rarely be spellcasters. You design the tag something like this: [MAGIC:1:100], where the body then has some body part which has a 1 in 100 chance of having a working [MAGIC:x:x] tag - otherwise the part is severed upon birth. Attach the tag to an [ETHEREAL] "arm," which the person wouldn't normally miss anyway, as without magic it's virtually useless. Viola, an easy way to tie in rare magical ability to a creature's body. Then, simply using the "arm" magically uses calories and makes one tired just like all other intense actions like physical combat and pumping. There's no odd exception coding to add (except the spells themselves). Yes, this still makes a kind of "mana pool," but just like with physical skills, it's divided up a bit to make things more interesting: in order to use magic, the creature must both have calories to use (not be exhausted), and have that ethereal "arm" in working condition. Just as physical combat requires a body part with which to strike or grapple or whatever the opponent, or [STANCE] parts to move around easily, or [FLYER] parts to fly.

And other creatures could have magic tags tied to other odd parts of one's body: you could put a specific magic tag [PETRIFY_ON_SIGHT] on a creature's head, for example, to create a Medusa with the ability to petrify opponents. Pretty much exactly like the game works now, just with more tags added. I guess the [MAGIC:x:x] tag would be somewhat unique, as we'd want that one to imply that the creature must learn magic rather than having an innate usable ability right away.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Or a slight refinement of the system above:

Make [ETHEREAL] a body part tag, and make [MAGIC:x:x] a creature tag, so it is possible to define it similarly to how attacks are defined: done with a specific bodypart type or token, for specific (or generalized, however the magic system goes) effect.

[Granite26]

It sounds like we've got three broad stroke types of magic.

Magic based entirely upon the physical properties of items.

Magic based on giving critters special abilities they use at will

Magic used by intelligent creatures weaving the fabric of the universe (Runes, Artifact Magic, Power of Prayer, D&D style wizards, potions, psionics, whatever)

am I missing anything?

[Silverionmox]

I'd say:
- magical properties of materials i.e. alternative laws of physics (potions, )
- magical properties of specific creatures i.e. alternative laws of genetics (fire imps can live in magma, psionics)
- magical properties of specific objects, arising from their shape (pentagrams, hexagrams)
- magicial arising from a sequence of actions (rituals)
- belief shapes reality (power of prayer, Discworld gods)
- words shape reality (runes, rabbi Löw's golem, toady programming DF)
- interference of magical beings in a nonmagical world (artifact magic, d&d divine magic, summoning demons)
- effects arising from the structure of the universe (eg. d&d worldview: summoning creatures from other planes)

Of course, several or all of these are typically mixed up in such a way that they're indistinguishable. A typical property of magic though, is that it has to be just right, or it won't work at all.