Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Masterwork DF => Topic started by: c0mplex on May 11, 2015, 05:17:15 pm
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For a while now, I have been interested in the magic system here in Masterwork, and overall I am not sure of what to think. I have only had limited use of magic users in game due to numerous factors; dwarves needing a lot of time and rare resources, humans needing their own things to somehow buy spells, warlocks having a very complicated system requiring a lot more materials than dwarves, never playing orcs, and not knowing what to do with succubi.
I did try to mess with magic users in adventure mode but found issues. Lich golems turning hostile to me; water/fire mages destroying their own equipment; air mages unable to fly; having no access to magic equipment; unable to learn new spells due to not having the workshops needed; and so on.
So I would like to ask if anyone else has had the ability to test out the magic system for the different races, and give their opinions about which mages are actually good or usable and which ones are flawed or unusable.
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I've used the dwarf and kobold magic systems myself, and have read a good amount about the orc and warlock ones. I didn't know humans or succubi had any magic though. Orc and dwarf magic works pretty similiarly where you get workshops with reactions that transform the worker into a new caste that has some new abilities, and then you can have them equip some items to give them access to a few more abilities. Kobolds have workshops that turn kobolds into either a witch who has a few weak spells, or a witcher who has a few similar weak spells. Then they also have druids who turn into bears and fight. Warlocks have a bunch of libraries that can teach warlocks all sorts of spells. There's a lot of spells of a lot of different types, and it's the most flexible type as rather than get preset upgrades, they learn any spell from it. Also Masterwork really isn't meant for adventurer mode. You can try it, but nothing really works very well.
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Orcs also have something similar to what you described as the warlock system (learning spells a la carte) although you must dreamwalk or raid to acquire the grimoires. Only if you get a rare drop from raids can you build the library and write them from scratch.
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Yeah, humans are supposed to be able to "purchase" magical spells from warlock stalls, but I never actually was able to test it. They also have access to a hero caste purchased from the tavern that has a few water mage spells. Succubi are supposed to be able to learn spells and gain mage castes but I realized that there are things about their race that seems unfinished and doesn't match up with their manual so I stopped messing with them.
And yeah, MW Adventure mode seems very weird. I mostly used it to test out the different dwarf mage castes.
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All the magic castes are intended for fortress-mode, the magic you can and should use in adv-mode is the one you get from slabs/secrets. You cant start with them, but you can find them.
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While I do appreciate the replies, none really answer my questions very well. Can anyone tell me, from experience, which magic systems work, which ones are broken (in an inherently flawed and or does not work sort of way), and explain which mage castes are actually usable (as in, they can properly be taught spells and use them without being liable to kill/harm themselves and other friendlies around them).
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I'm no modder but from what I can tell, Toady's game-engine wasn't really designed for magic to be working at the scale Masterwork pushes it to; that arc is probably a few years off from now. So technically all the non-vanilla magic could be called "broken", simply because none of the individual AIs know how to deal with it and so will sometimes cast spells or drink potions that don't make any sense for the situation.
It's just a matter of preparing for the worst: fire-proofing around fire magic, cold-proofing around ice magic, heavy armoring for dust magic, etc.
That being said, the only issues I've ever had was getting specific weapons/armors improved with specific enchantments or poisons; since that requires setting and resetting a complicated chain of stockpiles while most other magic types at worst just require the use of a few manager orders.
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The most broken magic you can get in game is necromancy, which is surprisingly vanilla. It's adv mode only though.
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Orcish magic is all working as designed, as far as I know. Some of the runic-ammo spells, and the blizzard aoe staff can teamkill. All the spells that can be learned permanently are safe-ish by orcish standards. You can probably kill other orcs with Frostskalds' arsenal if you apply yourself to it (but i think most of the reports of bad teamkills are rune ammo or blizzard staff without precautions)
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I'm no modder but from what I can tell, Toady's game-engine wasn't really designed for magic to be working at the scale Masterwork pushes it to; that arc is probably a few years off from now.
Ohoho, I don't think so. I'd say that arc is within the next two years. The artifacts release (three or four big releases from now) will bring a nice upheaval in interactions, from the most recent FOTF post.
Also, Toady's game-engine wasn't really designed for magic to be working at any scale past fireballs, squids inking, spitting, vampirism, werebeasts, cat head bumps, cat tongue-cleaning and necromancy, heh. I've personally had to hack it really friggin hard just to get simple DBZ crap working as I like it.
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The magic stuff in Fortmode actually works quite well, it's just not designed for adv-mode. The sideeffects like friendly fire or unfriendly undeads (if you raise corpses of invaders) is intentional.