magic system

From: hook
Date: 2001-12-09 11:20:22

drshn made some valid arguments for the magic system so I thought i should post them here.
hmm, casting techniques: "alteration", "control", "creation","destruction", "detection" how do these fit in with the base concept that the caster is effectively manipulating matter at a particle level?
eg. how would you go about manipulating particles to detect something?
it's understandable for alteration, creation and destruction but imo "detection" doesn't fit in unless you're going to manipulate a cubic meter worth of particles to form a sonar ping and a receptor for it.
what i'm getting at is that if magic is manipulation of particles, the only things magic can do is to a) alter, b) create or c) destruct particles
ergo magical effects of type "control" or "detection" should be done by combining those three effects the particle-centered magic system will, if logically pursued, produce fascinatingly idiosyncratic results for example, duplicating an item could be trivial not to mention disintegrating one, In fact, it would be probably tremendously easier to disintegrate a dragon with one tiny destruction spell than to try pummeling it to bits with fifty painstakingly-created fireballs because disintegration would be a very primal-level magical spell whereas a fireball wouldn't

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-01-03 22:47:51
In-Reply-To: 77

The macros are a good idea for general battle tactics, though. (ie. morph wood to iron with spell, hurl block of iron with spell, duck) (for non-mages it wouldn't be as necessary, but something like "jab, jab, spinning slash, backstab with dagger" could be useful)

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-01-03 05:54:38
In-Reply-To: 77

I have a suggestion that may help the synamics of spell-casting.

instead of making magoc the act of controlling matter, how about manipulating energy? Each act, however, should use your own energy in the process. for example, to start a campfire you would have to manipulate heat and use your own energy to concentrate it in one spot (the wood).

creating objects would work in much the same way, although materials would come into play. Creating an iron sword from a block of iron ore would merely involve breaking and reforming the atomic bonds beween atoms, whereas creating the same sword out of a block of wood or a pile of sand, while possible, would involve manipulating sub-atomic bonds and thus need more energy

for the subject of enchantment, it would merely be the transfer of energy to the item. whose energy is transfered and how/when it is released could change as well. for instance, a mage may put some of his energy into a sword to be released (in part or in whole) when it strikes an enemy, also giving the enchantment a possible duration/effectiveness limit (ie. every blow decreases the effectiveness by 5% of the current, thus constantly decreasing, but never quite ending the enchantment). One may also wish to create the sword so that it takes the needed energy from it's weilder, therefore always being effective.....or at least for as long as the fighter is. There should also be ways to extract this energy, creating the possibility of "nodes" as Beregar said

all magic could be explained in this way:

Teleportation -> e=mc2 energy-mass conversion.

Levitation -> energy/force equivalency change in energy is a product of the forch and the distance travelled, thus making it harder for heavier objects

detection -> heat, magnetic and electrical fields generated by our bodies and brains (ie. infrared/heat sensors) (can also be used to target in the dark)

control -> the control of those electrical signals in our minds (must make VERY difficult for sentient beings and only at close distances. also should require loss of control/function in own body and be VERY damaging to self if connection severed by something happening to own body)

woodshaping -> manipulate the vital energies needed for plants to grow

healing -> vital energies, metabolism, creating new limbs, etc. all explainable

I also agree that having a macro-like system would be great, but would likely be hell to code. many spells should need physical components, however, but should have a variety of component combinations and effectivenesses/energy requirements for each way. (eg. to fire a stone that you're carrying at someone should take less energy that lifting one out of the ground under them and firing it upwards at the same speed, because of distance, but would also cause less damage because it would slow down on its way. to cause the same damage, you'd have to take a look at distance from subject (rock) and distance from target, as well as weight and speed of the rock). some components shoul also be interchangeable and have different effects accordingly (eg. launching the stone, launching a piece of apple pie, or launching a sword. the pie would use less energy, the sword would do more damage, but if you put enough energy into launching the pie, you could hit harder and theoretically do as much damage as with the sword.). thus players should also be able to control how much energy is put into a spell, the more energy the put in, the more it disables them afterwards.

Hope this helps

Nahl Shadore
ve4grm@rac.ca

From: beregar
Date: 2001-12-29 15:51:57
In-Reply-To: 77

Remember this, we still have to create complete spells or at least effects for combinations so supposedly players can only do things which we allow them to. Think how much work alone it is going to be to create effects for all kinds of different "balls" like fireball, iceball, stoneball, waterball etc etc. Unless there is some universal way for creation of ice, fire, blah effects, I see this taking veeery long time unless we can create some universal magical "physics" where everything is related to other.

I myself would rather see magic omnipotent and let players to find out solutions how to use it. I would also like to see it more difficult to cause massive effects - perhaps there might be some sort of price to be paid for using magic or high risk blowing yourself to pieces when using "high magic". After all, use of magic should be dangerous.

Perhaps truly massive spells use so much energy that you have to drain power from some sort of "node" or item to cast them. This would make node places valuable for mage type players and encourage people to fight for their control (capture the flag, anyone? :)

As to creation and destruction parts. Perhaps creation just means, as Yorka said, concentrating materia (or excisting particles) into some area and forming a shape from it. I see this more powerful as alteration, but I also see it more slow way to do things.

Since alteration only alters excisting matter and thus it is limited to same volume of particles (meaning: you can not change something bigger or smaller than its original mass), you would need creation to truly create a something new. Only god level magic should really be able to truly create new particles (and only greater gods should be able to do this, otherwise lesser gods could easily create their own worlds).

As to destruction, it is simply weakening the bonds which bind prime particles together and thus "destroying" target when prime particles divide. Only gods should really be able to destroy a prime particles (and greater gods because otherwise any god could destroy the world).

Detection could deal with detecting bonds which tie prime particles together, there has to be some way for them to stay together or otherwise there wouldn't be matter.

Though I see that these have not much actually to do with what we implement in the game.

Beregar Dar'Eldath

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2001-12-11 10:30:40
In-Reply-To: 77

Hmm, well, the magus will have access to "destruction", and the effect is dictated by the target. The intention is, like the current documentation should comprehensively describe, in combining these techniques and targets to form spells. So yes, a correlation between macros and spells is valid and good. Also, I agree that there must be several ways to cast a single spell.

From: NULL
Date: 2001-12-10 19:07:16
In-Reply-To: 77

I think that magic had to be like a science: Tools. The asspirant Magus should have acces (by learning etc...) to basic process (like destruction of the air around the stone to levitate it, or alteration of the stone to fire it, or whatever). And then, he would creat his own spell with a system like maccro, to combinate effects in a sequence. One magus would cast fireball by firing stones on the ground area under the target, one other would just alter the air around the target in fire...

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2001-12-10 15:42:05
In-Reply-To: 77

Actually, I just realized, that if we indeed agree that only gods may create matter, then we must also logically agree that the only thing that mortals can do is move prime matter.

While techniques such as "creation", "detection", "destruction" and "alteration" would be against the entire concept of divinity, they might be understood as convenient shortcuts for the magus to achieve things in his spell casting reportoire. For example, "creation" wouldn't be synonymous with "creating new matter from the void", it would instead mean certain measures and actions in the purpose of "concentrating materia from a certain area to another area so that a seemingly new physical entity is formed". So, "creation" in itself could be divided into many sub-functions and actions. The same could be applied to the other current techniques. Comments?

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2001-12-10 10:46:50
In-Reply-To: 77

Now, the magic system could practically work in any given manner. Whether you need to hurl rocks at enemies in order to make it convincing is of no significant importance, however it is a wonderful topic for discussion, and hence I will join in with a few pointers:

I am very much FOR a system where one would need concrete existing materials to cast spells, like Darshan proposed. That way, one could simply levitate a stone above his head and let it drop. Next, he could try to levitate it and then hurl it at an opponent. While the aspiring magus learns how to achieve that, he could try to turn that rock into something more nasty and repeat the procedure. It would be a wonderful system.

However, the point is that magic has to be, potentially, extremely powerful, and EVERYTHING should be possible to do. In Majik, we WANT players to be out of tune. We WANT them to declare themselves Emperor of Minartan and to cast "Finger of Aluna" over a city that they loathe. And this wouldn't need one to carry wagon-loads of rocks into a dwarven flying apparatus and dropping them on the city while turning them into balls of fire. There are certain alternatives to solve this problem of magic being too minute in it's effiency.

One such solution would be that the truly cataclysmic and awesome stuff would be exclusively a part of priestly magic. This would be an easy solution, but unfortunately it would limit the efficiency of magicians to be real "wussies" compared to them. I would imagine that the only way to somehow tune this system would be to make priestly magic a lot harder to cast, or that it would have severe effects on the caster himself. If this isn't suitable, then we need new suggestions.

From: darshan
Date: 2001-12-09 18:46:32
In-Reply-To: 77

(btw, I'm critiquing this.) What I want is non-omnipotent magic. A magic system which enables ANYTHING (given enough skill/power) is a bane to convincing role-playing. This is why I suggest stripping the magic system to the bare bones.

Reiterational addenda:
I propose we ditch "control", "creation" and "detection" altogether. "Control" and "Detection" because they cannot be seen as primitive operations in the particle-based magic system, and because they are superfluous and redundant as they can be represented with the other primitives if so desired.
As for the removing of the "create" primitive: if players cannot create things by magic, they must use existing matter for their spells - to mould it with the "alteration" primitive. This would be a big step to make the magic system more distinctive and convincing. By depriving players of the ability to create we also further separate the divine and the mortal: only gods will have the power to create (or to grant the power to mortals).
So, if you wanted to cast a fireball at a mean Hilosyph, you would have to find some item (a rock from the ground, maybe?), apply destruction at the air above the stone to vacuum-lift it, apply alteration to turn the rock into a fireball and then re-apply destruction to rocket the fireball at the target. Of course the player wouldn't have to explicitly do all these steps by himself; he would simply cast the spell which consists of these three parts, specifying the target matter and the victim.
God, I hate this message-editor page. I can't even properly review what I've written except by submitting it...

From: beregar
Date: 2002-01-11 14:58:36
In-Reply-To: 77

I think we should have one unified magic system which can be divided to many. That's why I don't like universal component based magic system, it is only a sub-solution.

About component magic, I have always been quite fond of rune magic where you inscribe the runes in your own body. To make fireballs, teleporters and such, you would actually have to inscribe the runes in items or some permanent surface and then activate/throw them. So no mages mumbling words, waving their hands while crushing a pearl. I also call this "craft magic" because the character using it must have artistic and crafting skills.

In runemagic the rune combinations (rune writing) manipulate magical forces and thus components are only used as rune carriers. It would be wiser (and easier) to write fireball runes into a disc than to a ball. Rune magic, more than anything else, is transformative magic thus it is very much limited in physical effects so no charm type spells unless you can write runes to your subject.

Runemagic widens role of a mage a bit since, in essence, he or she must be an artificier, practice fighting and throwing skills (for runeweapons and "firediscs") and also adventure a lot to find new runes. So this could be one form of magic in Majik

Imho all that "prime particle stuff" is useful only for those who really want to research fundamentals of magic. That functionality does not affect as much in creation of spells as do the formulas.

Beregar