View source for Post:Magic 3.0 Overview - 7/13/2010 - 19:45:27

{{Post
|a=DR-ARMIFER
|t=Magic 3.0 Overview
|d=7/13/2010 7:45:27 PM
|n=12104
|f=Abilities, Skills and Magic (4) \ Magic - Suggestions, Discussions and Thoughts (16)
|c=m
|p=RULES OF THE THREAD

1) The appropriate place to respond to this post is in the Magic - Suggestions, Discussions and Thoughts topic under the Abilities, Skills and Magic category.<br />
2) A certain degree of guild-based discussion is inevitable, but it is NOT the focus of this thread. Individual guilds should only be brought up as examples of a global issue or question. If you have a question about a particular guild, take it to the appropriate guild category.<br />
3) Keep hysteria under check. If you are unclear about something, post a question instead of a declarative statement.


MAGIC SKILLS

The {{PRel|Magic skillset}} will, like all other skillsets, see significant change. Like the Lore skillset, it will see both some skills merging together and others splitting apart. The following is the list of skills for the revised skillset. This is a complete list as development currently stands. Sneer quoted skills will be discussed in more detail below.

[[MU]] Exclusive Skills:<br />
"Ur-Magic," {{PRel|Attunement skill|Attunement}}, {{PRel|Sorcery skill|Sorcery}}

[[NMU]] Exclusive Skills:<br />
"Ur-NotMagic"

General Skills:<br />
{{PRel|Arcana skill|Arcana}}, {{PRel|Augmentation skill|Augmentation}}, {{PRel|Debilitation skill|Debilitation}}, {{PRel|Utility skill|Utility}}, {{PRel|Warding skill|Warding}}, "Targeted Magic"

"Ur-Magic" refers to Arcane Magic, Elemental Magic, etc.<br />
"Ur-NotMagic" will be the equivalent skill for NMU supernatural systems. Names have not been finalized.<br />
"Targeted Magic" will be renamed for NMU conceptual compatibility.<br />

--
A Brief Digression on Ur Skills:

I will not go into too much detail, but some explanation of what Ur skills are is required to understand the new skill layout.

What we refer to as Ur skills are skills that represent broad-based competency in a field that is defined by specialty skills. For instance, you will gain specialty experience in shooting a crossbow, but at the same time slowly pick up a basic competency in all ranged weapons through the "Ur-Ranged" skill (Ranged Mastery) which applies if you decide to pick up a bow instead.

The Skill Formerly Known As Primary Magic will take the role as the Ur skill of magic. A vague but hopefully helpful analogy is that it will work for magic sort of like Musical Theory does for Bards. While there are quite a few details that could be covered, this is outside the scope of this post and deserves a thread of its own, I only digress here to give you some sense of the layout of the revised skillset.
--

A rough breakdown of the revised Magic skills:

"Ur-Magic" and "Ur-NotMagic" are described in the digression above.<br />
Arcana functions as it currently does. "Targeted Magic" will continue to do what it does, but also take its place as one of the specialty magic skills (below).

Attunement is a merger skill of Harness Ability and Power Perception, reflecting the depth of your character's mana attunement and subsequently his raw ability to both manipulate and perceive mana-based phenomena. "Magical perception" tests will rely on both Attunement and Arcana.

Sorcery is a support skill, like Attunement, which makes it easier to cast spells outside your realm and less dangerous.

Augmentation, Debilitation, "Targeted Magic," Utility, and Warding are specialty magic skills which take the role that PM used to have. Each general spell type is trained independently and relies on this independent skill (or the Ur skill, if necessary) to successfully cast. Augmentation covers abilities that provide skill and stat buffs. Debilitation covers statistic contest abilities. "Targeted Magic" covers damaging abilities. Warding covers defense abilities (both physical and supernatural). Utility covers beneficial abilities that are not otherwise categorized.

These are common to both MUs and NMUs -- as Roars, Khri, and related systems are updated to the new skill based paradigm, each will test and teach the appropriate skill.


SPELL SLOTS AND MAGICAL TECHNIQUES

There will be major changes in how you acquire and spend spell slots. The immediate difference will be that you're gonna get more of them.

We are not prepared to release a new spell slot schedule yet, but there are two general points we can talk about. First, that your number of spell slots will increase dramatically -- somewhere in the neighborhood of doubling over 150 circles. Second, that spell slot acquisition will be skillset based: Primes more than Secondaries more than Terts. However, the difference between Tertiary and Primary spell slot growth will be substantially smaller than it is now.

You're getting more slots because you'll have more to spend them on.

First, the cost of a spell will now be variable, with an average cost of 2 spell slots per spell. Some spells will still cost less, a rare few will cost more. The rule of thumb will be that a spell costs one slot per each meaningful, discrete effect that it has. However, this is only a rule of thumb and the spell slot cost may vary from this for particularly useful or niche spells.

Second, we are introducing a system of "feats" or "techniques" into the magic system. For the cost of a spell slot, you may modify the way you cast spells or otherwise interact with the spell system in some way. This can include anything from quantitative improvements in your performance (a technique to see mana better, or prepare spells faster) to opening up a new abilities (such as having a chance to recognize the preparation of spells you do not know).

Some techniques will be given to characters automatic based on their guild. For example, the Necromancers will immediately gain access to alternate spell preparations, while Warrior Mages will get something TM-ish. Magic Primaries will start with two techniques and Secondaries with one. Beyond that, there is no guild restrictions: any guild can learn any magical technique, as long as they pay for it.

This will introduce a new dynamic into how you decide to spend spell slots, between how much you wish to focus your character on learning new spells versus becoming an overall more competent magician. You won't be able to do it all, though the skillset-based distribution means that Magic Secondaries and Primaries will ultimately have more leeway to play around with magical techniques.


SPELL ATTRIBUTES

The nature of spells and their attributes will not be changing quite as drastically as the items we already touched upon, but there will be some noteworthy changes.

First, you will gain finer control over how your mana is applied to qualities in the spell. Spells will have three defined attributes: Potency, Duration, and Integrity. Potency refers to the raw power of the effect: how much a skill buff is worth, how damaging a TM spell is, etc. Duration should be self-explanatory. Integrity is a "meta" stat, referring to how well your spell can pierce magical defenses and resist dispellation.

You will have the ability to "stance" between these three attributes, assigning more or less of your mana value to them (for example, you can elect to have 80% of your mana's potency applied in exchange for 120% of its value to duration). For spells that lack variable potency (Moongate) or duration (most TM spells), only the ratio of the relevant attributes applies.

Spells will also be broken down into three categories: battle spells, normal spells, and ritual spells.

Battle spells are designed for casting in the middle of combat. They prepare rapidly, have costs that do not assume the use of magical tools or support, and relatively short durations (if they have any duration at all). Note that these are not necessarily offensive spells, though many of them will be. An "emergency" beneficial spell or one designed along the premise of being able to activate it now qualities.

Ritual spells are the conceptual opposite. They have long preparation times and are very difficult (if not impossible in some cases) to snap cast. The mana cost is likewise exorbitant, requiring the use of cambrinth and other tools for most magicians to successfully cast. However, the duration of these spells will be very impressive.

Normal spells fall between the two. They will benefit from ritual tools but are designed so that many magicians can just snap through it at need. Preparation time will be about what you're used to now.

Finally, held mana and Bardic enchantes will be seeing some change.

The enchante system will be fully integrated into the magic system, so that there is literally no difference between writing an enchante and writing a spell. Held mana spells as a concept are being merged into this, producing a new spell type we call cyclic spells.

On the whole of it, Bards will be more familiar with cyclic spells than anyone else. When you elect to cast a cyclic spell, it has its effect for as long as you maintain it. It will maintain itself either through mana you are directly holding, mana held in cambrinth, or directly out of your attunement (with appropriate technique).

You may only have a single cyclic spell active at a time, though you may cast other spells freely while maintaining it -- so long as you can keep up with the cumulative costs.


TIERS AND SPELL TREES

A more subtle but still important change will occur with how spell trees are designed.

Tier as a direct determinant of how much a spell costs or how powerful it can be is going away. You will still be able to see the spirit of the tier rule in play -- it makes sense to give you the easiest spells to cast first -- but a spell of any level of complexity can have whatever requirements are appropriate.

Along with that, our revised system for handling spell requirements allows for much more complex logic than in the past, including such things as "If you have one of these three spells" or "X number of spells from the Y book." Together, the stage is set for a significant change in how we arrange spell trees.

Instead of tier, there will be four levels of spell difficulty: introductory, basic, advanced, and esoteric spells. You can roughly think of them as Tier 1 through 4 in spell difficulty terms, though they have special implications for the spell tree.

Introductory spells are your selection of 1st circle spells. Each guild will start with a relatively small selection of spells available at 1st circle, at maximum one per spell book, to avoid overwhelming a new player. They are extremely easy for the relevant guild to cast (again, 1st circle spells here), but are treated as Basic spells for everyone else.

After that comes Basic and Advanced spells, which are going to have substantially more fluid requirements. The goal is to create something more like 'spell clouds' rather than 'spell trees,' where once you have gained the core Introductory and Basic spells of the spellbook, you are then free to pick among the bulk of the spellbook.

Esoteric spells, in addition to being the hardest to cast, will be a return to the old spell tree form. These are the spells that thematically require a specific and perhaps elaborate line of spells to learn, at the end of the new spell tree.

-[[Armifer]]{{PRel|Magic 3.0| }}
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