Magic system idea(s)

[Staglord]

Since the accouncement the fire have been going on which type of system where where to be used on magic. So far I have only seen people saying what not to do (altough I am sure some people have made suggestions), and mentioned a lot of old RPG (BG1+2 etc) and how they liked the TBS since the game will work in RT I really got to thinking that a Vancian system would not work in the same way, it might though. My point is, isn't there anew way between the CD and Vancian system that would work in the world of P:E. Maybe even one that would make sense when looking at the lore (souls etc)

 

I made this thread as a way for people to come up with ideas (hopefully new once) that would be cool, or mechanically interesting in the game. This is NOT a thread made for people to look back on BG, PST, or dragon age and tell why they liked or didn't like it. There a plenty of posts for that on the forum. Hope this did not come out to strong since I myself really really love the good old IE games!!

 

Well back to topic. Since the games lore is based in souls i was thinking of a system where mages or priests for that matter gained power by using their soul. An example:

 

I throw magic missle and for every use I charge up my souls potensial power, when charged up enough I can use it to throw a fireball.

This could be made a latter system , so each tier gives access to new more powerfull spells. This could also be working a long a with a "mana" system so the wizard would not be able to spam MM to much and there by get the higher tier spells to quickly. I know this does not make mages any less a ranger with pretty arrows but that issue is completly different in my opinion. That is spell design and how spells and/or rituals work

 

As Saywer mentioned in an other post 4E had a system where the combat spells worked withing the same system as the toher abilities whereas speak with dead and such spells worked outside of that system. In that way a wizard was never ill prepared he just had to prepare when needed.

This could even work as a seperate "skill" system just like non combat skill not would interfere with combat skill when it came to resrouce or CD. So the mage would end up with 2 lists of spells on for comba and one for none combat.

 

I look forwward to eha all the idea people can come up with for i KNOW there a creative people out there! Thye might even hire you ding it!

 

P.S. danm i cannot wait for this game

[DukeC]

Well, this is not a new idea but this is how I would like to see the magic system:

 

To cast a spell it costs mana. The more powerful spell, the more mana it costs. This will give you a tactical choice when to use high costs spells. Spells doesn't need to be memorized before combat. Every spell you know should be availible (either you learn new spells by choice when leveling up or by bying/finding/stealing books). I don't want to go into detail about how fast and how mana should be regained, but some kind of timer is nessecary for this system.

 

I really want to see a balanced and fun attack/defence magic system. Like a rock paper scissors game. Just spamming fireballs and using you mage as an artillery is not fun. I found some magic battles in BG2 really fun.

[Staglord]

I know the idea isn't new per say or is not ground breaking, I mainly used it as an example on how a system could look.

 

The important thing is that the ideas presented here should work within the frame of a RTwP system and not TBwB since that is not the direction the game is going.

What made them fun then? Was it variation? The system (Vancian)? OR was it the spells? Maybe it was the setup, the way meatshields where put infront before you could get to them. maybe a combo of these.

 

Depending on the answer the Vancian spell system or TB is not a necessity.

[DukeC]

Yes, the setup with meatshields was good. That way you can have a mage duel at the same time fighters have their duel. I found the mage duels most fun and tactical. The vancian system is ok, but I agree with Josh that it's less tactical and more luck that you have the right spells availble. A mana system or a cool down system (which I'm less fan of) has nothing to do with luck.

[Osvir]

The Soul and Magic hmm...

 

It sounds odd, the thought of casting Magic to...

 

I throw magic missle and for every use I charge up my souls potensial power, when charged up enough I can use it to throw a fireball.

 

So basically I have the spell to cast Magic Missile, by throwing 3 Magic Missiles I unlock the ability to cast 1 Fireball. If I choose to throw the Fireball all of my spells are reset and I'm back at only Magic Missile?? It could work.

 

The weird thing is that I feel that Magic stems from the Soul, not the other way around. Though just as such I feel that the Soul is Magical in itself (I'm spiritualistic). When I think about the word "Soul" I think about "Singing", "Dancing", "Laughing", "Writing", "Drawing" and so on and so forth.

 

Incantation Magic = Singing

Ritualistic Magic = Dancing, Drawing (Tattoo's on the body, scrolls)

Pure Magic = Laughing, Loving (Stay away from a Wild Mage laughing! Just saying)

 

For the sake of it, this is the one I enjoy the most.

 

Incantation/Singing:

Drawing upon the Soul you sing to get in tune with Energy and can cast Magic.

 

Mechanically I don't know how, because I can sing abundantly as much as I want. My voice will get hoarse after a while unless I replenish with simple water. Well that is unless you have like "You can throw X many spells per in-game day, regardless of the level of it (Unless High powered Apocalyptic Magic which can only be cast when certain circumstances have been met)".

 

This is a link to my general idea of it. The Soul that I write about in there is simply a "draft" a "sketch", improvised writing out of the top of my head to make my post more interesting:

http://forums.obsidi...c/#entry1221644

 

EDIT: I'm unsure how if I feel about the Soul being an important Lore mechanic or an actual gameplay mechanic...

2nd EDIT: xD because with the Soul I start to think "Where does the Soul come from?" and that's Einstein mathematics. Energy.

 

So we've got Magic stems from the Soul, which stems from Energy. Which in itself stems from Magic, which stems from the Soul, which stems from Energy. I can go on forever. Energy is Abundant, constant, every moment every second, every blink. Like pictures, frames. This is all spiritualistic gibberish.

 

That's the jist though, why I think there should be some regeneration to Magic. Some constant flow as to how and why I gain the power to cast spells.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Osvir

[rjshae]

Perhaps (evil?) rituals should be made available, which could be spells that involve drawing upon the souls of others. It takes longer to cast a soul ritual since the target is presumably at least somewhat resistant, but rituals can be much more powerful than a normal spell since they drain the entire soul rather than drawing upon a small amount of the caster's soul. The sacrificial soul would need to be helpless and it would require a special apparatus to drain the target's soul (such as a pentacle, unique materials, and a custom blade).

 

Not normally for use by a kind-natured person, of course.

[Osvir]

Perhaps (evil?) rituals should be made available, which could be spells that involve drawing upon the souls of others. It takes longer to cast a soul ritual since the target is presumably at least somewhat resistant, but rituals can be much more powerful than a normal spell since they drain the entire soul rather than drawing upon a small amount of the caster's soul. The sacrificial soul would need to be helpless and it would require a special apparatus to drain the target's soul (such as a pentacle, unique materials, and a custom blade).

 

Not normally for use by a kind-natured person, of course.

 

ool ("Oooh"ing out loud)

 

EDIT: Wouldn't that be Ciphers though?

Edited October 5, 2012 by Osvir

[Shadowless]

Well since I doubt Vancian is going to be in (NOOOOO!) and I don't really like the idea of mana (spam potions moar!) My next favorite would be the sorcerer type casting of bg2 (this is not Vancian and some silly people need to learn that) where you have a set limit of each level spell you can cast but you are not forced to memorize your spells. If you get into very desperate situations where you need to cast beyond that limit you should be able to but with risk. When you go beyond your regular casting "cap" magic should start to become poisonous, which can add very interesting possibilities.

 

Temporary insanity, stat loss, spells not doing exactly what they should (casting a heal for instance taking away your life and transferring it to the target instead of just healing the target) hell maybe you have one of those souls with many mixed and as you go beyond the limits a "shadow" double is created that tries to murder you for control of the body or even the extra use of magic pushes you too far beyond your limits all your magical protections just go poof. The list just goes on and on.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Shadowless

[Kaz]

Here’s another idea for the spell casting system. I use the term "mana" for clarity, but it could be called anything.

 

Absorbing fallen souls. Think picking up ammunition from dead enemies.

 

1. You are able to replenish mana points by absorbing souls from your dead enemies. You may also replenish all mana points by resting at an inn.

2. Spell level is replaced with mana cost (magic missile costs 1 mana, haste costs 3)

3. Your mana pool equals the total spell slots of a traditional mage (In 2nd edition a 5th lvl mage could cast 4 1st level spells, 2 2nd and 1 3rd, this would equate to (4x1) + (2x2) + (1x3) = 11 total mana points)

 

You shouldn’t be able to collect souls from every single enemy, (One goblin should not equal one magic missile) but you might be able to recover more souls/mana from fallen mages, or stronger souls.

 

Still interested? Read on..

 

After a few battles you will gain a sense for how much mana you’ll be able to replenish from the next encounter by looking at the enemy composition. You can then make an informed decision on how much mana is worth spending, if at all. The vancian system promotes strategy/planning by forcing you to make spell choices in advance... however, it is impossible to scout an entire dungeon or city ahead of time. It is thus unreasonable to expect the player to make intelligent choices so far in advance. In the old system players often end up speccing for very generic encounters, or flat out guessing. The model I’m proposing abstracts the spell choice but retains the strategy involved in managing your mana supply.

 

From a devs perspective it’s easier to design levels because you have a fairly good idea of what the spell caster is capable of within a dungeon(simply count the potential souls that can “drop”). Retainable mana points have a hard cap based on caster level, so a player will not be able to grind until he absorbs 99 mana and start blasting fireballs everywhere.

 

Some obvious questions that came up while writing this..

What if you are stuck in a dungeon, and aren’t able to progress without additional mana?

Potions are one option, but mana potion drops should be very rare and high prices in stores. If you are out of potions you deserve to make the trek back to town. An alternative might be a very slow mana regeneration. (I’m talking 10min per 1 point slow)

 

How will souls/mana get distributed if multiple casters are present in the group?

This needs to be thought through carefully. The best way I feel is to make the player decide which caster’s mana pool to replenish. This may sound like it discourages taking multiple casters because the total magical output would be the same as having one mage. While this is true, having multiple casters would grant you more spell options, and the ability to cast multiple spells at once. This would also introduce another level of strategy, do I give mana to the cleric for healing? Or re-arm the mage for more firepower?

 

You won’t be seeing a ton of spell casting with this model, at least in the early levels. But I feel that makes every spell count more and allows adventuring parties to decent into deep dungeons without the need for a rest mechanic.

Thanks for reading!

[Osvir]

@Kaz:

Great idea/speculation/suggestion ;D

 

Avellone said something about "Souls traveling from being to being", this sound like the real deal. Fits very nicely with this too:

 

My suggestion would be to not base it on fatigue or sleep. Instead, tie the magic limitations to backlash. You could have subtle affects that merely bend the laws of reality; these would be less powerful but more readily available, the kind of stuff your mage can do on a small scale to help out in battle while still keeping the 'big guns' for the more dangerous foes. Then you would have overt effects which outright break the laws of reality, doing impossible things - turning someone to stone, a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky, etc; This stuff would cause a build up of negative forces in the mage which have to be safely vented or else it causes some deleterous effect. Venting would be done through meditation, with each hour eliminating one unit of buildup. Of course, this process couldn't be interrupted without consequence, so while you could do it anywhere, if some hostile force happened upon the caster his companions would have to protect him or risk the process backfiring spectacularly, even worse than the mage pushing themselves with lots of buildup.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Osvir