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[Neonivek]

Personally it would be interesting if there was a Body and Mana system in place at the same time

Magical creatures or creatures with large bastions of magical might can easily cast magic (Like Demons) because they have a well of mana to tap into.

Elves, Humans, and the like don't or they may have to develop it.

[Dakk]

My views tend to conflict with most forum goers cause I sorta view adventurer sorta merging with other modes later on, with adventurer skills and all that. Merging as in being able to do 95% of the stuff you can do in any other modes as an adventurer, not an actual fusion of all modes, but giving you the option to switch between them on the fly depending on the conditions.
I just like to imagine playing around in wizard mode, and switching to direct control of my wizard, controlling him like an adventurer, go out, and come back to my tower later with some stolen artifacts.

[dragnar]

Forgot to mention earlier: Dakk your avatar is awesome

also is seems to me that even if wizard mode and adventurer mode merge, there would still have to be some sort of distinction between the two, otherwise adventurer mode would become way too easy, and the wizard's power isn't quite as awe-inspiring if any adventurer can gain it.

Maybe there could be some mechanism by which adventurers become wizards: finding an ancient tome of magic, retiring in a library for a hundred years, or something similar.

[Randall Octagonapus]

I believe that only humans should be able to do "Harry Potter magic"
dwarves should make runes and artifacts that have magical properties
maybee wizards should have thier own secret soceities and the average person shouldnt even know that they exist

[Bricks]

Two things I am strictly against:

-The word "mana" anywhere.  Mana in a game that is totally devoid of a hitpoints counter would be very disappointing.  Especially when you ask your wizard to cast a spell, and he responds in horror:  "But good noble, I need to recharge my mana!"  There are other factors, such as hunger, thirst, and exhaustion already in game, and there could be the notion of drawing power from different sources.  Perhaps you draw power from your fingers, and they become colder and less responsive to the point where they have become arthritic and aged.  And then there are spirits, gods, and naturally magical places that could influence your resilience.

-Hardcoded magical roles.  There should be no fixed notion of a runecarver, or a druid, or a necromancer, or a prophet, or a priest.  Instead these roles should be defined via the raws.  Sure, in the vanilla game, it would be great if dwarves had runecarvers, and elves had druids, and goblins had necromancers, but it would totally screw over mods.  It would also kill the fascinating notion of randomly-generated magical entities, so when your fort does receive that wizard, s/he could be talented in magic involving night and storms, or death and forests, or lust, or laws, etc.

[Luke_Prowler]

I wonder: Where do Shamans fall in this kind of system?

[Bricks]

I wonder: Where do Shamans fall in this kind of system?

I guess it depends on what you call a shaman.  A healer?  A spiritual leader?  A tribal leader?  They would make for good leaders for entities like the animal people.

[alfie275]

I think a unified power word system with different access methods would work well.

There would be a RAW file containing words and effects.

Humans are gifted at verbally using the words, which leads to a more direct and immidiate effect, whilst dwarves carve these into artifacts, creating a more general, long term effect, elves use gestures, meaning they cannot use truenames as well, so they have less direct but can use magic when gagged. Kobolds use a witchcraft type, wherby an ingredient has a word associated with it, and goblins have rituals which are a combination of all of these but requiring large numbers.

With written power words, they might share influence with the history engraved.

Artifact example:
This is a masterwork sword, all craftdwarfship is of the highest quality.
On the blade is a spirit of fire and a goblin, the spirit of fire is striking down the goblin, this relates to the killing of Evilgobbo the goblin by McFire the spirit of fire in 103. There are magic runes engraved on the blade, they read "burn goblin victim".

In verbal there would be 4 main types of words , verbs, nouns, adjectives, and words like "then" and "and".
A few of the possible combinations:
"Verb Noun" "Verb Adjective Noun" "Adjective Verb Noun".
Actual examples:
"Burn dead goblin", "push goblin towards SoF" , "turn my hand to butter".
Verbal would require knowledge of a word before the player types it, typing random stuff would have a random effect. Players might do quests for power words, or become an apprentice to a wizard, performing one quest for "away" or "towards" but perhaps must slay 20 dragons for the word "kill".

The hardest part of implementing these would be to make a dictionary of effects, but the community could help there a bit, such as grouping similar such as "flame" "fire" and "inferno", or "kill" and "death", then toady would code in the types and make words with different amounts of power in a certain type.

[wilsonns]

Magic should be a skill, but, you can buy it in the embark, so you can activate skill and start "sparring", the dwarf should keek studying some years to achieve the dabbling level, then, after he got to that level, up the skill level should be easy.
The skill level determines the success rate to cast a spell.
Other idea, is to do not have editable spells in the raws, but ingame made spells, the dwarves creates the spells itself(but some effects, spheres, damage and other atrributtes should be editable, and them fused to form a new spell), write in books, teach his aprenticces and use it to take over the world

[GlyphGryph]

Most of the types of magic I like are already in DF, but I figure I'd try to define the magical concepts I support - generally something a bit differentthan what people talk about here. The sort of magic that exists, for example, in LOTR. Magic thats... subtle. Old. Powerful, but enigmatic. There are no "spells". Err... I have a lot of trouble putting it into words.

Okay, how about this - magic isn't something you do, its something you make. You know that building things in a certain way will allow to to craft something that does something when around something else - the possibility of guided magic takes time, effort, but they have...  durability. Magic, once created, lasts for a long time. In a way, it comes alive, because its not just something you make, its also the living resource that your crafting things from. And being magic, it sort of twists reality around it. Its effects take time, they are often subtle, but they are always powerful.

So in that vein, I think a few magical "concepts" are appropriate -

Animism - calling on the spirits of creatures rocks and concepts to aid or hinder. These spirits are fickle - they must be pleased. They will only help you if the proper traditions and offering occur, and if they feel like it. Dealing with them improperly can easily lead to their wrath. Included in this would be the concept of ancestor veneration and worship, with powerful spirits in life having subtle influences on descendents that show proper respect.

Wild Magic - Magical places and areas, especially old ones, where magic congregates, resulting in strange occurances. These forces are beyond the control of individuals, and will likely be covered by spheres, but I believe you should be able to have an impact - certain things you do should make it more attractive to certain types of wild magic. Places that have seen much in the way of death, for example, attract this. So that fortress thats fallen ten times and been reclaimed may start to see odd stuff as its spheres shift or multiple spheres start to overlap by being pulled towards it.

Magical creations - from the charms of the humans to the great works of the dwarves, this is like a scaled down version of wild magic. You build items and hope that magic is attracted to it. Doing it in a place strong with the same sort of Wild Magic is of course more likely to be effective. Forge your brace of necromancy in the volcano at the center of the lands of the undead, that youve primed by throwing a hundred prisoners into. As the death magic gathers around, you strike the final blow and the bracelet is forged. The death magic swirls around it, imbuing it, and you seal it in. The item is complete, and you take it away - but you still don't know for sure what it does.
Does it slowly rot the user, eventually causing them to rise as undead?
Does it, instead, make corpses close to the item hear the calling of unlife and wake hungry, hostile even to the bearer?
Or perhaps it is just cursed, sure to doom whoever holds it, and every victim becomes bound to it, their spirit forever traveling with it, bound up with the death magic?

THAT is the sort of magic I'd like to see, though obviously it would be incredibly hard to do.

[Vester]

Magic should be a skill, but, you can buy it in the embark, so you can activate skill and start "sparring", the dwarf should keek studying some years to achieve the dabbling level, then, after he got to that level, up the skill level should be easy.
The skill level determines the success rate to cast a spell.
Other idea, is to do not have editable spells in the raws, but ingame made spells, the dwarves creates the spells itself(but some effects, spheres, damage and other atrributtes should be editable, and them fused to form a new spell), write in books, teach his aprenticces and use it to take over the world

What right-thinking king would send a wizard out into the middle of nowhere with only six other dwarves as escort? Magic as a skill would feel less like the fiendishly complex and lovingly made DF we've come to know and more like "LOL IS IT LIEK WORLD OF WARCRAFT".

[Neonivek]

Mana has a place in a game without hitpoints though as I said I think that legitimately magical creatures should have mana while those that don't may need other methods of casting spells or tap into their stamina (and become exhausted/Injured/Old).

Effectively what that means is that ordinary people can only get tired in three ways: Physically, Mentally, and Emotionally

When someone is physically tired the body is repairing muscle tissue and sending nutriance.

A creature with a Mana pool effectively has a Fourth. This gets tired as magic is used up.

Depending on the creature using a mana pool (I like using the term pool) could even kill them as they could be reliant on it to live.

Effectively a Mana pool represents having magic or laylines condensed inside a creature that they can tap into in the same way the body stores energy for you to tap into. It isn't JUST a game mechanic.

[alfie275]

I think a power word system would be best in that it would be the easiest to implement, whilst allowing the greatest range of ways of accessing them.

Notice in my post I mentioned quests as method of gaining words, this means you can have "flashy" and direct spells, whilst meaning that you do not need to hardcode them because the player makes them up to fit the situation.

A gesture user with his arms cut off might move over to verbal, or a dwarf born into a family of runecrafters only to find he is dyslexic would change over to other magic, which might make the parents disapointed a bit.

[Neonivek]

My only problem with power word system is that they are overly simplistic and in many ways very boring.

[Little Pandemonium]

Interesting
There's should be a new entry for magic source
Great Deity : A magical creature that are willing to share their magic to the ones that are willing to pay some prices