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[Dakk]

I'd love if the player had as much power over magic as he haves over other aspects of the game (IE fortress design). You could design a spell in-game, as a wizard, to freeze someone simply be designating the spell to lower the temperature in an area of a few tiles by -1000, and such. Then you design what words, gesture or item will be used to activate the effect.

The power world system would rather easy to implement also, just add in a magic language, each word having a certain power, and let the player combine them to cast spells. I think it wound't make a nice magic system by itself, but you could use it to cast direct effect spells only, while you'd use a different system to, say, craft a magical object, create a structure to channel magic, create/summon a create, rituals, etc. Magic in DF should fit DF, as in being very very complex, flexible and sandboxy.

[Hummingbird]

Magic in DF should fit DF, as in being very very complex, flexible and sandboxy.

THIS.  The goal ultimately should be that people will be discussing creating a magic spell much like they now discuss designing megaprojects or Dwarven Engineering.  These spells, however, have to be created from much more simple components, like how fortresses are created from components as rudimentary as gears, screw pumps, walls, doors, etc (though maybe not quite as simple). 

Putting together functional magical components like tools, consumed objects, or actions (e.g. staves, wands, runes, engraved symbols, enchantments, blood sacrifices, or hand gestures) to create spells would allow a system where one can complete relatively ordinary tasks like heating up a chilly castle, or stretch their creativity, painstakingly putting complex arrays of magic components together into a spell that, if properly designed, will torch all invaders outside the walls.  Such intricate spells will carry a greater chance for spectacular failure: for instance, tracing out that pentagram with the wrong kind of sand may cause the torching spell to take effect inside the castle instead.

[dragnar]

Perhaps the Wizard mode characters could create spells, which could later be used by weaker magic-users in fortress/adventurer mode. These spells could be used as the components of even more complicated spells like the previous post suggested.
For example, a wizard creates a spell to cool an area, you could then link this spell to pressure plates to freeze anything that steps on them, or linked to a staff to drop blocks of ice on enemies.

I really liked the magic system in armok 1, though it was vastly overpowered it had the potential to be extremely flexible, DF wll hopefully eventually allow wizard's to pull of things like winston's last miscast.

[jseah]

DF wll hopefully eventually allow wizard's to pull of things like winston's last miscast.

That's hilarious.  And sad at the same time. 

This is an engraving of Winston, High Archmage, the II.  Winston is casting a spell. 
Winston is suffering a mishap.  The spell is now used by adventurers to cook.  The spell is known as winston's last miscast

[dragnar]

Actually Winston's last miscast is a spell from armok 1, it's a teleport spell that targets only part of a creature.

[jseah]

Ah... I think I see where the pain comes in there...

And perhaps how it got it's name.  =)

[dragnar]

though it was vastly overpowered

winston's last miscast, target: enemy's heart/neck/entire lower body

Oddly they survived the heart one... sorta(massive internal bleeding and instant loss of consciousness but not actually dead).

[Neonivek]

It wasn't overpowered in the sense that there were no enemies to my knowledge.

[dragnar]

there were, they were just really rare, my fist attempt at playing spawned me next to a dragon.

[amjh]

Idea:

Spells are created by somewhat unpredictable process. Type of magic can be affected, but any real control needs skill. The spells are then stored somewhere, possibly soul. There is a skill for predicting their effects. Carrying too many spells simultaneously can cause them to "escape" and be cast at random. Spells have variable stability; instable spells can change randomly while stored and are more likely to self-cast.
It would be possible to simply cast a spell without storing it, but it would be unsafe because you wouldn't know what spell it is.
Magical items would be created similiarry, but instable magic items would be considered failed and eventually self-destruct. Dwarfes have natural ability to "force" magic items they create to be more stable.
Idea of this system is to make magic unpredictable without making its use luck-based; you won't know what spells you get, but you can affect them, and you know what spells you are casting.

[alfie275]

I don't think that is such a good idea, could get frustrating easily. You could always mod something like that in later but it should not be the vanilla way.