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[nagual678]

Toady, I'm not sure what you want to do with magic when the time comes, but please implement a subtler system of magic - that means, for the love of god, no robe-wearing, fireball-casting dwarven mages.

How I see magic in DF :

Magic is pretty much very difficult to harness and use effectively and very few persons seem to be able to use a power that even less persons understand - that of changing properties of matter through sheer force of will. Doing so in a manner that will actually be useful for something will take sometimes days of concentration and sweating.

As much as the phenomenon of magic is studied, it doesn't seem that it can really be totally controlled. Sometimes, there are unexpected results.

For instance I can imagine tasteful inclusions of magic for traps, or also maybe adding "very hot/very cold" etc.. properties to metal that you would later use to forge weapons, etc..

Dwarves, after casting an enchantment or other things involved with using their skills, are often very tired and will have to rest for days. Exhaustion is frequent.

Etc..

I'm sure my point is clear. A tasteful and subtle inclusion of magic would be awesome in my opinion as it would fit a lot better in the DF world (at least the DF world i like to imagine) and would be quite more original than the whole firebolt in your face magic you see in fantasy games. In my humble opinion, not including magic altogether is also an option but the kind of magic I described would actually add a lot to the feel of the world.

I'd love to hear what other people think about this.

[ May 26, 2007: Message edited by: nagual678 ]

[Corpze]

I agree with you fully. When magic is implemented I would love to more positive magic like maybe magic that helps crop grow or to survey some what type of rock there is behind the wall for a short distance. In my opinion, we do not need any lighting bolt casting mages that can send out giant cones of fire, as this would just be one more thing for my melee dwarfs to be killed by before they get a hit in.

However, mages should have some active powers, but they should not be able to strike dwarfs down from 15 tiles away. Maybe they could have some large-scale destruction powers, but it would be cool to have the wizard that casts it sacrifice himself as a last ditch effort sort of thing.

[ May 26, 2007: Message edited by: Corpze ]

[Gaulgath]

Yes, I like this. Runecrafting would also seem dwarven and be a more subtle magic. It could enchant weapons and armor, giving them damage bonuses and other advantages.

[ June 17, 2007: Message edited by: Gaulgath ]

[nagual678]

or you could maybe have mages that enter some martial transe or strange mood that would let them actually cast icebolts/etc.. but that would be very rare

[seizer]

One way you could implement magic is to have magic-users act like nobles. For instance, a shaman could randomly create magic totems and gift them to skilled hunters and sometimes cast curses on your enemies (and sometimes on your dwarves). A necromancer might raise your dead dwarfs as corpses, who would be able to do simple tasks but cause very unhappy thoughts to your dwarves.

In general I hope magic will be a very mixed blessing.

[ May 26, 2007: Message edited by: seizer ]

[hactar1]

I think you can get a good sense for the style of magic that they are planning from reading some of Threetoe's stories.  How specifically it is implemented remains to be seen.

[ May 26, 2007: Message edited by: hactar1 ]

[Keilden]

Dwarfs usually distrust magic in general(many games/stories have dwarfs that are magic resistant). Dwarfs instead use runes.

[Toady One]

My views on magic are that people are so particular about it, it should be both customizable and randomizable.  If there's a 'stock' magic at all, it'll probably be fairly subdued, save for certain dangerous things coming to destroy you and your way of life.

[Tamren]

Well that begs the question, how will magic work in Dwarf fortress? Will it tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up or obey scientific priciples.

If you want to make a fireball out of thin air, in the first option the caster would just go "mumble mumble" and POOF the fireball appears.

In the second option the heat would have to come from somewhere. Blasting off a gigantic fireball might leave you standing on a big patch of ice for instance.

Magic should be very powerful but hard to use in equal measure. Its good like that because "magic" is not defined, you could use it to do or create pretty much anything. But if you had everything handed to you on a silver platter it would be rather boring.

No, getting a spell, any spell off successfully should provoke a reaction of "that was SO cool!"

[Grek]

quote:Originally posted by Tamren:
<STRONG>No, getting a spell, any spell off successfully should provoke a reaction of "that was SO cool!"</STRONG>

Agreed. I think you should get a small chance of getting magical things from making items. Chance goes up with quality, but is slim to none unless you get an artifact. Then what it's made from should decide what it does. Silver stuff should kill demons and werewolves, Dragon bone should make fire. A slate earing with goblins in mule bone and dwarfs in tin, the dwarf striking down the goblin should scare goblins.

[ May 27, 2007: Message edited by: Grek ]

[Sean Mirrsen]

Actually, it would make sense for different races to use different kinds of magic. There's the rune magic that Dwarves could use, inscribing runestones made of different materials for different effects. Elves would be 'natural magic users', or sorcerers, they would learn and use magic without any medium. Humans would be 'wizards', who study books and use staves and spellbooks to amplify their powers. Lesser races like kobolds, goblins, and orcs (if any will ever appear in DF) would use shamanic powers with fetishes, totems, etc.

When making items, the chance to get a magic item right off the bat would depend on the innate powers and magic affinity of the maker, but I think it'd be common practice to just have mages/runecrafters to enchant them afterwards.

[Ltheb]

The different races using different magic thing could really be cool. I also like the Noble-like mage idea. What if you combined those two? Like, say, in fortress mode, when you would normally get your first "mage", there is a really high chance he uses dwarven magic, but also a small chance he or she uses some different form of magic, just to mix things up a bit.

Also, would it be possible to implement a random spell generation system? So that a mage starts with a spell, but the nature of the spell is randomized? Perhaps there are transmutation spells that turn X into Y. X & Y could be any random material. so, a dwarf might start with a spell that turns Slate into Obsidian, but another might have a spell that turns Adamantine into Wood. (How useless!) Imagine the humor in adventure mode; Killing the dreaded dark necromancer and looting his spellbook only to find he had 2 spells: Animate Dead Small Mammals, and Summon Small Diorite Rock.

[TakiJap]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>My views on magic are that people are so particular about it, it should be both customizable and randomizable.  If there's a 'stock' magic at all, it'll probably be fairly subdued, save for certain dangerous things coming to destroy you and your way of life.</STRONG>

You should still make the default magic settings represent your personal views of what magic should be.

[Tubal_Cain]

quote: Killing the dreaded dark necromancer and looting his spellbook only to find he had 2 spells: Animate Dead Small Mammals, and Summon Small Diorite Rock.

And then you can raise your dreaded undead rat  swarm.

[ May 27, 2007: Message edited by: Tubal_Cain ]

[Asehujiko]

Long post with my ideas:

I think their should be diffrent types of magic, obtained in different ways and with different effect

Runemaster: A glorified craftsdwarf, able to create runes from "higher" stones and attach them to weapons or other objects for bonuses.
Brimstone rune will cause weapon to do additional fire damage, granite rune improves armor, onyx rune decreases wear on items. Dwarves will obviously like runes that are of the same type as their favorite mineral.

Druid: An elven noble, in order to get him/her you need to have very good relations to the elves and not cut any trees for X seasons. This noble will cast spells on crops and trees to make them grow faster and last longer before they wither. Also he shapeshift trees into furniture without killing them first. Woodcutters and carpenters get unhappy thoughts from seeing him and vica versa. Trading elves love "natural" items but still don't like "unnatural" items. In case of emergency he can animate a tree as warrior to fight during a siege(LOTR style ents). After the battle is over the druid is exhaused and the tree goes back to being a tree.

Shaman: The spiritual version of a medic, shamans(normal dwarf with shamanism job enabled) will try to heal wounded using a variery of herbs(treated dwarves heal in X% of the time needed for normal dwarves, X is lower if the shamans skill is higher) and enables the growing of said herbs, is able to brew special drinks that enhance the abilities of your dwarves and is able to cure insane dwarves by getting rid of the spirits possesing them. In a fight their abilities consist out of some kind of war chant, causing all nearby dwarves to go in a martial trance or enrage and a limited ammount of weapon/armor skill. Can also make special totems that give a bonus to the carrier. Totems go well with runes.

Geomancer: A noble obtained by mining out alot of rock. high master mason and miner to start with, the geomancer features a limited "cave vision" that allows him to see further in the dark then normal dwarves. Also can go in a trance to "see" what lies beyond the rock face. in close range like 4-5 squares away from the wall he is able to pinpoint the exact type of mineral but after that it's limited to descriptions like "stone" "ore" "a mineral" "something unknown" and the readings will become more innacurate(about 20% off) further away from theb geomancer. The geomancer is able to craft special suports that combined with a rune from the runemaster are alot harder to destroy and have a chance to survive a cave in caused by retracting them. In combat the geomancer uses his pickaxe and can generate 1x1 stun+injure cave ins and 3x3 knockdown earthquakes at the cost of a few local boulders.

warmage: A human immgrant noble that will come to your fortress if you are rich enough. During times of peace he will generaly be completely useless, hoarding magic trinkets, runes and gems like no tomorow but when enemies arrive he will take his pile of toys to the battlefield, extract the power out of them and use it against enemies. Comes standard with a runed shortsword, runed shield and a set of plate armor. Can throw fireballs at slightly lower speed then sprits of fire by using red objects and freeze enemies using blue ones etc. The archmage will go uncountious from over-exertion by casting too much and needs more sleep then normal people.

Necromancer: The hardest one to get and keep but also the most potent one. Requirements: 1  succesful fell mood, 100 casualties and the philosopher. Dwarves and outsiders both get unhappy thoughts from seeing him. Upon arriving he will choose 3 dwarves as his acolytes. Acolytes behave like normal dwarves most of the time but when the necromancer needs them they will quit what they are doing and help him. Because of their unhealthy job acolytes and the necromancer wound recovery takes twice as long as normal and they can't be healed by the shaman. However, they don't care about their injuries during their work and contignue to do it no matter how mangled they are. Everybody else will get very unhappy thoughts of seeing them, especialy the shaman. The necromancer can perform a summoning ritual, requiring alot of bones, the presence of his helpers and a target to raise. The ritual is very taxing on the casters and inflicts alot of wounds on them. Depending on what they summon the wounds are more/less severe. The necromancer is also able to do civilian work but wont join the military. The acolytes can join the army but will quit as soon as the necromancer calls them. Summoning rituals cause alot of noise and normal dwarves seeing it will get very unhappy. As soon as you get the necromancer the druid will quit and the elves start a war.

Bone construct: Can be created from bones and a skull. Very dumb and slow hauler. Hardly any damage to summoner.
Skeletal <Type>: Can be created from any remains of the samy type as the target
Dead elephant --> skeletal elephant
Dead dwarf --> skeletal dwarf
Smarter and faster then the construct but more taxing on the summoner
Zombie: summoned the same way as skeleton, alot slower but stronger.
Ghost: Requires nothing to be summoned, invisible scout with stealth detection that can walk through walls(steal this, goblin b*tch). Moderatly taxing on the summoner.
Shade: Advanced version of the ghost, but requires one dead acolyte(if none available, one of the current acolytes will be sacrificed and the necromancer chooses a new one. Can haul items through walls. Very taxing on the summoners.