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[antymattar]

So I thought I would make a list of carp that I want if we would have magic. This is not a thread about how magic will
work(like leveling).

Attack spells:

Casting a fireball
Casting a freezball
Casting a waterball
Throwing a giant boulder
Lighting bolt
Tranlating an attack
Inflict pain

I wil definatelly ad more but for now I must clean my room.

[Ahra]

knock unconcious

[Max White]

All those are sort of cliche don't you think?

[Ahra]

kinda but its something to do 

[Nikov]

I think the magic of the dwarves is more akin to the magic of the Noldor; they simply make fantastic artifacts with powers that cannot be otherwise explained. I beleive in a DF talk Toady discussed things like artifact beds, favored by gods of the night, that give eternal life so long as you always sleep in them each night, etc.

[Maklak]

Those are things, I wouldn't want.

I'd like dowsing to supplement exploratory mining. It is kinda in theme with dwarfs living underground attuned to minerals.

EDIT: To clarify, I wouldn't like fireball, lightning bolt, and such. It seems to me they would work by assigning a dwarf to "magic" squad, and after a while he would toss fireballs, like those things that crawl out of magma. I have marksdwarfs for that.
Magic has been discussed in these forums more than I care to read, but a few ideas I personally find interesting would be:
a) More interesting artiffacts.
b) Dowsing to reveal some not yet mined areas, look for speciffic ores (present or not, approximate location, maybe revealing a vein, look for hollow areas (wouldn't work well with how revealing caverns works now, it would let spot things in caverns by revealing floor), look for water, look for magma, etc. It would have to be pretty toned down to not obsolete exploratory mining. As a side note pendulums were developed long after 1400 AD, and dowsing sticks were not as good as tools for dowsing. 
c) Improving morale, temporarily bumping skills.
d) Divining sieges / ambushes before they appear on the map.
e) Influencing weather / savagery / evilness of a biome. 
f) Remotely mind controlling hostiles (Overpowered, but could work for HFS).

G) Whatever magic turns out to be in this game, elfs should be better at it than anyone else except megabeasts and HFS. IMO elfs should have some advantage other than "friend of the wild".

[Nikov]

Those are things, I wouldn't want.

The OP or what I said?

[iron_general]

These spells do seem a bit cliché. There are a few threads discussing the matter, if I recalled correctly most stated that they prefered an "artifiact based" magic type or something more subtle and less predictable. In my opinion if spells were so clean cut they would become mundane rather quickly for the player.

[Jeoshua]

If magic is implemented there should be (at least) 2 types:

Artificting - This is what dwarves do.  They create objects of unspeakable power.  Hammers that shoot lightning.  Barrels that are always full of booze.  Doors that kill when you try to pick them (f'n kobolds).

Druidry - This is what elves do.  Through magic, animals, plants, and entities can be made into monsters.  Sort of like creating abominations in other games.  They fight alongside their creators, until their magic runs out and they go rogue.


Humans could do crosses between these two types, and gobbos don't do squat except get obliterated by Urist McCrafter's Artifact Axe that gets +2 for ripping your skin off.

[Neonivek]

All those are sort of cliche don't you think?

Dang Cliches! Why do we do things we like, or that are easy, over and over again?

Why can't we do things that work once?

Though... Of the spell suggestions, and I honestly question the TC's motives as everyone knows how any hint of magic derails suggestions and fireballs have had long fights, the one I question is the Freezball. Translate Attack though is just plain confusing.

[Solace]

I'd also like more indirect magic, since one of the bigger problems I have in a lot of fantasy games is that there's three basic classes:Warrior, close range attack. Archer, ranged attack. Wizard, prettier ranged attack. Game designer wants people to notice the prettier effects, makes wizard stronger than archer.

I mean, we have ranged attackers as it is, so why build in redundancy? I'd be happier with absolutely no fireball/lightning bolt going on... for that matter, no targeted effects at all. The closest to a combat spell I'd like to see would be some sort of area cast thing, better hope your guys aren't over there, or else !!FUN!!. How about an area cast spell that makes food spoil faster? That'd break up a siege pretty well, once the npcs-have-to-eat gets implemented.

[Hyndis]

I think magic may have a place in the game if you work it in with the military screen.

For example, different kinds of magic skills. You could have a dwarf with dabbling fireball but legendary icebolt. On the military screen you could select the kind of magical "weapon" you want them to use, and your dwarves will use that magical "weapon" linked to a skill. Perhaps it could work much like crossbows currently work, except no ammo is used. Rate of fire, accuracy, and damage depends heavily on the skill of the dwarf. You could, in theory, have squads of dwarven wizards bombarding goblins with fireballs at range, much like a fire imp's fireball attack. A lot of the same mechanics could probably be used.

Likewise there could be benevolent magic, such as good old fashioned healing. Such a skill would be very good for a doctor. Alternatively some sort of alchemy, where various plants can be used to creating healing potions/salves, which can be applied to the wounded to speed up healing, fight infection, or even restore nerve damage.

[nil]

I really don't think DF will or should ever have spell-based magic for dwarves.  They should be restricted to magical artifacts and perhaps the sort of pseudo-ecological modification of a given area's sphere associations I've seen some posters (NW_Kohaku, I think?) talk about.  But I also really like the idea of different races having different approaches to magic, and I think the more "traditional spellcasting" mode would be appropriate for humans.  I'm imagining a small number of humans being created as "wizards" during world-gen, physically human but with long lifespans and the ability to gain semi-randomly-generated magical abilities over time.  They could "reproduce" via apprenticeship in the same way night creatures reproduce via "marriage," and take different actions depending on their own religion, personality, and experiences.  Depending on their subsequently world-generated nature, a wizard could show up at your fortress as a representative of a human nation, a free agent, or a semi-megabeast.

[Artanis00]

The funny thing is that explicitly avoiding cliché is also cliché.

I think that for dwarves artifact magic should be prevalent. If there was a way for dwarves to use other magics, it should be restricted to a caste very rare indeed.

Other races should not be limited to artifact magic, so whatever system decided should be flexible on that front.

I'd also like more indirect magic, since one of the bigger problems I have in a lot of fantasy games is that there's three basic classes:Warrior, close range attack. Archer, ranged attack. Wizard, prettier ranged attack. Game designer wants people to notice the prettier effects, makes wizard stronger than archer.

I mean, we have ranged attackers as it is, so why build in redundancy? I'd be happier with absolutely no fireball/lightning bolt going on... for that matter, no targeted effects at all. The closest to a combat spell I'd like to see would be some sort of area cast thing, better hope your guys aren't over there, or else !!FUN!!. How about an area cast spell that makes food spoil faster? That'd break up a siege pretty well, once the npcs-have-to-eat gets implemented.

I find myself agreeing with your reasoning, even though I'd love to see spells like Dragon Slave from Slayers. Magma may solve everything, but sometimes "big, big boom" is much more satisfying.

Aside from attack and debilitating magic, there's also support magic. In a bog-standard RPG these would be things like haste, attack and defense boosts, healing. Healing being the purview of medical skills, this could be limited to accelerating cellular regrowth (but make sure it's not infected first, because bacteria are also cells). Generic attack and defense boosts are bland, so armor boost, sharpness boost, strength boost, etc. Haste is, well, haste... so...

Outside of combat, there's also enchantment, which is very similar to what I imagine artifact magic to function like, so it would probably be a subset of overall enchantment. I think item enchantment would be very elfy, so perhaps one day elves will show up with enchanted cloth that can aid healing, or resist fire, or resists wear.

To satisfy players that like flinging fireballs and frostbolts around, we already have bolts in the game, so an temporary elemental attack enchantment that could be applied to weapons (or, more interestingly, the ammo) could solve that without obsoleting archers. +Fire-enchanted steel bolts+, anyone? (though I think magma-enchanted would be more dwarfy...)

[iron_general]

If magic is implemented there should be (at least) 2 types:

Artificting - This is what dwarves do.  They create objects of unspeakable power.  Hammers that shoot lightning.  Barrels that are always full of booze.  Doors that kill when you try to pick them (f'n kobolds).

Druidry - This is what elves do.  Through magic, animals, plants, and entities can be made into monsters.  Sort of like creating abominations in other games.  They fight alongside their creators, until their magic runs out and they go rogue.

...

In addition to these types I' dlike to see a sort of ceremonial wizardry. Basicly the wizard performs a certain ritual (that might require special artifacts or herbs) to bend events to his/her will. This could create various indirect effects like bonuses to combat rolls for allied soldiers, better harvests or rapide healing. An unskilled wixard might creat the opposite effects of his intent or something completly random, I also believe such a system would be easy to procedurally generate.