Whatever happens with magic in the future I would give a few words of advice. Think about how to introduce any new system very early on. Then start to put the framework in place within the game ready for the introduction. Then develop the system. Not the other way around. Live up to what it says on the web homepage and actually work with the player community. You will never ever get total agreement or please everybody. But at least you can get a good consensus and try to please as many as possible. (Or maybe not even please, but getting even grudging acceptance from the majority will do.)
Bitching and moaning is human nature. Especially about change. (Shops never seem to give you enough.) So only worry about the ones who come up with something constructive. The rest is just noise.
That said here are just a few ideas I had. Some from a while ago that I jotted down but never did anything more with, so they may not be too relevant now or to newly revamped systems. Also not having played properly for some time I may be a bit out-of-date on some workings but what the hell.
I put all this in here as it is mostly relevant to the magic system. Feel free to move it elsewhere if it would be more appropriate. (Or laugh, cry, cuss, etc. etc. )
Books
More use should be made of the books already within the game. Give them a purpose. Make them useful.
Allow reading certain books to give a skill benefit to the character. Read a book on smithing and get an increase in your smith skill. Gains would be minor (1% per book) and limited to once per book per character. Could also add a max increase level, so no more than 20-30% skill increase would be possible through reading books. Make them take a fairly long time to read IG (as with crafting) and count a lot towards the skill learning cap. (To try to prevent too much sitting about clicking books.)
Craft skills books. One for each craftable item. Gives a few hints and tips, but not a full ‘how to make’. Maybe a list of items/tools needed for the item and where they can be traded with npc’s etc. You could even go as far as to make it necessary to read the book before an item will appear in the crafting menu. So crafters have to research new items rather than just suddenly being able to make them.
Background Information books. All the existing background on races, places, creatures, events, etc. in bite sized chunks. If you want people to get to know this stuff then reward them for taking the time to read it. Magic students can be rewarded easily (see below). Can’t think how others could benefit yet but I’m sure there can be a way to reward them too. Maybe increase a fighters dodge skill because he is dodging training to read books……
Magic Information. Details of runes, name, element, what it does, etc. Spell details, name, effect, which skill they use, rough damage guide,etc. but not the rune combo. Info on magic skills. Tips on learning and training. Used to improve teaching skill. (see below). Possibly also could raise magic skills slightly so mages can learn without having to stand about blasting spells around. Again, small gains, long time to read, etc. and capped effectiveness.
Magic Learning Skill
Characters would be given the skill by a dev/Gm when a teacher accepts them as a student. (and informs the GM’s that he is sponsoring the new student.)
Needs to be 100% before a rune can be learnt.
10% gain from reading each background info book. (Max 50% gain from books and not above 90% and each book can only improve the skill once so different ones need to be read).
Teachers can use teaching rune to increase MLS by 20% of their teaching rune skill. Max 80% gain into MLS and not above 90%. Every use of teaching rune uses 100% teachers mana. (so can only be done when mana is at max).
Final 10% can only be gained from a GM/Dev award. Teacher player would apply to a GM for a test for their student player. GM would seek out the character IG and RP a short scene/lesson/whatever. (Not necessarily magic related). If the GM is satisfied with the RP they make the award of skill.
When MLS is at 100% character and teacher would go to a training room. Teacher would activate the room with their teaching rune. Character selects rune to learn and activates that with their MLS. MLS would be zeroed to ‘pay’ for the rune. The character would then gain the rune at 10% of the teachers teaching rune level. Possibly even include an ‘offering’ which has to be bought maybe from an npc merchant. (a scroll perhaps? Could be costed according to the rune you want to learn.)
This would have to be done for each rune.
Teaching Rune Skill
Only awarded by Dev/GM to experienced/proven players.
Improves by use like other skills. Would have to improve moderately quickly at lower levels as it would not get much use.
Teachers can also read background info books or maybe special magic info books to gain skill. But maybe only 1% per book and only use each one once. Plus a max increase through books of say 30%-50%.
Adjustments to the current system could include speeding up skill gain at lower levels, imposing skill limits on very potent spells. (So they would be uncastable below a certain skill level.)
Make very powerful spells require a material component to cast which is used up in the casting. Items could be more or less rare and more or less expensive depending upon the power of the spell. The most powerful spells could require items only available through a quest of some sort.
You could even extend that to all spells needing a material element. Small spells needing very cheap easily obtained items and then work up in cost and rarity for the more powerful spells. Making food might need some grain to cast, ice balls might need uncut bluestones, ice flames a cut bluestone, etc.
This wouldn’t make magic any less potent, but would limit its use. However, it would make training harder/more costly. But if offset by being able to learn from books this might not be so bad. And the skill gain could always be tailored more to offset it too. Casting a really potent spell requiring a quest artifact to cast would be quite an experience for most mages and so would gain a lot of skill. (though you would need a high skill in the first place to be able to cast the spell anyway!)
You could make it so that the smaller spells only need an item until the caster reaches a certain skill level. Then they are good enough to not need the focus of an item to cast the spells. For example the create food spell could require some grain until the mage reaches a skill of 30. After that no grain is needed.
Another possibility would be to make casting any spell require the mage to have an appropriate wand or mage staff in hand. No wand - no spells. (No mages running about wearing 2 shields and still casting magic!)
On another note I think the wands should be one handed items though.
That’s it for now (waits for the big sigh of relief). I will post more if anything else comes to mind.
For now I will sit back and wait for the flaming/moaning/nay-saying.
Thanks for reading. (For those who made it this far
)
Damian
