Base of system for Magic and Skills

Hello to all
In my first post, I shared my vision of the mechanics in the construction of buildings.
Magic is another topic on which I want to share my vision.
Everything is connected and this is the reason to touch and skills
To keep things clear, I will explain the basis and hence can make different variations.
Firstly, it is important to know what the magic is.
Magic is nothing more than learning how to use energy surrounding you.
To concentrate and channel in the direction you want.
It's just knowledge.
Just as if to American Indian who lives somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon, you start a fire with a cigarette lighter, he will believe that you do magic. Because what he will see is that from your fingers out fire. You know that this is not a magic, but in the eyes of the Indian, it is.
So we must accept that magic is nothing more than a knowledge of the energies that are around us.
Beginner starting to get to know the energies first starts with exercises that allow them to feel.
One such thing is meditation.
Once he has learned to feel he should start watching them to understand their essence.
At that moment he realized that he was dealing not just with one energy, but with a few different energies.
The difference between this energy is that they are bound to different elements, and the nature of each of them is different.
What are the elements? Naturally pairs of opposites, sky and earth, fire and water.
Earth or nature or matter whatever you want to call.
Sky or wind or spirit could also call it as you will, is the complete opposite of the earth.
Fire and its varieties, it makes no sense I cover them, all of you very well know them.
Тhe same goes for the opposite of fire - water.
If these four elements we deploy them on a cross, you will notice that each one of them as a neighbor of the other two and can interact whit them and make variations.
Here comes a moment that seems to be missing in many places.
These polarities are not in two-dimensional cross, they are in three-dimensional cross with other two elements pieces (roughly elements because they are not).
These elements are life and death.
Life can interact with all four natural elements, as well as death itself.
This creates new combinations of interactions and the formation of possible variations in control of energies.
How come in this scheme of interaction, different characters?
In pure matter are all using only the power of this element - for example Druids. They are dealing with animals and plants.
In the pure air are all using only this type of energy - for example bards and those who control wind and spirit.
In the pure fire are those who use the element of fire - you know who they are.
Same goes for water.
Relate to life those who heal and revive through their inner strength.
Аnd death belong to those who come into contact with all creatures from the underworld and cause diseases and disabilities.
But since nothing is final in nature always have interaction with neighbors.
What happens when a combination?
One Necromancer, contact with the dead and acts on them to control them. At the same time acts on the elements of matter.
He calls the soul of a dead man and then subject then closes it materially dead body to serve him. As a result we get a zombie. Or provide tack soul to skeleton respectively receive a living skeleton. Death benefit and air it closes disembodied soul in shell and get Ghost or Banshee or whatever you call it.
Other fluctuation. Control of the air and death was obtained mana drain. Death and water makes HP drain and etc.
The opposite option is the healer. He full mana and HP in the body, can also call as assistant Angel or some energy (light) being. Also a variant of healing can be a herbalist, who knows very well the matter and use various herbs to make a magic potion that can cure or poison or explode etc.
Variations between different energy becomes very much.
I can`t see reason, all the elements can not be learned. Simple spells will be formed only by elements that are not opposed.
If you examine all the elements you will be wizard. Therefore the study of life or death makes you a warlock or sorcerer.
Each element can beat his opposite if the power of knowledge of a given element is stronger. With equal force, the two elements are offset from one another.
Аccordingly, the better someone knows a violent energy, the more sophisticated and complex spells of a given element he will control.
Мage can be an expert in fire and at the same time is a beginner in the earth's magic and mid-level magic in the air.
Magic is neither good nor bad. She is magic. The way we use it may be good or bad.
If a Necromancer uses his magic to curse thugs who attack peaceful village, his magic is bad for a gang but is good for the residents of the village. And vice versa respectively. If the healer heals bandits, it's healing abilities are good for criminals but are bad for the people of the village.
The next milestone in the magic level of mastery of an element.
When somebody can`t manage an item well enough, he needs auxiliary tools.
Such auxiliary are speaking a certain sound/words combinations that support its vibration control of that power, as well as certain actions with hands and drawing figures/symbols on air, that help control.
When enhancing control over an element, the wizard don`t need to use different auxiliary helps. First drop actions with hands, then no need of saying certain sounds.
Also, the strength with which a control element to influence the time it takes to make the spell. Initially, there is a chance the magic did not happen. This chance is lowered to moment of always gets and then starts to decrease time to make magic.
Accordingly, combining the knowledge of an elemental energy with skill using swords will provide the necessary qualities for certain knight. As a sample - Holy knight and Dread knight.
Barbarian will need to know all the weapons class - blades, axes and blunts, but if he add the fire element, he will be able to add "rage" as self buff.
Accordingly, there should be limit in the study of a certain number of skill in order not to occur that eventually, all can do everything.
Writing of scrolls can be done by magicians, but never scroll not supposed to be equal in strength to the power of knowing element/spell of the wizard who wrote the scroll.
If you enjoyed this basis as principles variations for different combination of skills from different professions are spectacular.
Example, a tailor who knows the element of fire will create a robe that gives the character who wear it, protection from the given element or blacksmith who controls the element of fire will add extra fire effect when craft the weapon. Arrows whit freezing effect or boots whit speed maybe.
Sample healer who revived with help of the power of the light will need Spirit speak skill to make contact with the dead in order to bring it back to life by light. At the same time Necromancer need the same skill to make contact with the souls of the dead to obey them and lock them in material body.
Unlike healer, herbalist will not be able to communicate with the dead, so will not be able to summon spiritual beings to be in service.
Main part of each invocation of the spirit that can be granted whit elemental body to serve, will be the ability of spirit speak. Fire and spirit rapping will create fire elemental, respectively, water, air and earth (golem) elementals from the other elements.
The options are enormously and give many opportunities for role-playing and uniqueness of character that someone develops.
Details regarding the use of an element or a combination of two, three or four for a spell I can add later.
Incidentally should not interfere in this system chaos and order. These are concepts that have global significance and can be used elsewhere but not in the simple system of magic and skills. All systems are only a small piece of chaos and order.
I hope the vision that I have been understandable and you liked it.

Regards
Lorix Cursedbone

 

I think this is an interesting approach to magic Lorix. I don't see why this wouldn't be considered for ideas at the least. The four elements have commonly been tied to the cardinal directions in the past, and could lead to 'magic' interpretations for the ancient standing stones found littered around the old world. Considering the virtue system and magic system will certainly be different in New Britannia than what any of us are accustomed to, I think this could easily be used as a 'new' system that somehow transformed from the old ways.

 

I wonder if the lore of the place will affect the idea behind magic. Tracy Hickman has certainly developed ideas in his novels as to where magic "comes from." Although I don't think anywhere he's written a whole "system." Yet another place where it would good to have some lore!

 

I like how Dragonlance had the White, Red, and Black robed mages based upon the moons. They had to pass a strict test that would result in death if you failed. There were also normal mages that never joined one of the robed mages (probably because they feared the test). Their lives were short though because the robed mages would kill these renegades usually.

With the type of story they are writing it seems fitting that the powers of magic be tied to the celestial bodies in some way. maybe there could be different ways to harness the magical ether using scientific methods as well. Also there could be some that use the earth and forests to harness magical energies.

 

Dragonlance's problem was that the robes were signifying alignment basically with White and Black being good and evil respectively which IMO was just plain stupid. And when you talk about science and magic mixing you basically open the floodgates for logic errors.

When it comes to magick, I usually follow that there's no types of magical energy, but only raw magick that is transformed into power or abilities by its wielders. Using what they know, they transform this raw energy into multiple types depending on the spell cast. Pyromancers would turn it into a hot flame, healers a soothing curative, and so on and so forth.

My personal idea is one that's been mentioned in DnD all the way from DnD Classic. There are just people who are in tune with the magical force (Mana for the best term, though Ultima has it as "Ether") more than others and therefore can use it at their beck and call to cast spells. To use a good example, though not a good series, the Star Wars prequels brought in the idea of midichlorians which allow one to be more in tune with the force if they have a high amount.

NOW, there's also the concept of Ki (or Qi, or Chi in chinese myth). Whereas magick uses the natural mana that flows through the universe, Martial arts uses Ki which is a type of spiritual energy generated naturally by the body. Ki, unlike mana, is limited and increases not by training oneself to open their body to higher amounts, but rather by actually increasing the amount you have through exercise and meditation. While a warrior type might not he able to use magic, he might be able to use Ki abilities such as a healing touch or burning fist. Fist of the North star is a great (And very NSFW thanks to excessive violence) example of what Ki can do when used by an expert fighter.

 

One thing I have always found interesting in the Ultima series was the magic book system, in which the player had to find a magic scroll to translate to his magic book. Then he would have to use reagents, which limited the number of spells he could cast. I have a suggestion for magic system that is similar to that, but more interesting in my opinion. As I have understood so far, craft skills will be learned by recipes in SotA. Magic should be the same! Some recipes could be purchased, others learned in specific magic schools, and others as quest rewards. There could be common spells, uncommon spells, rare spells, and lost spells. Powerful wizards would be known by the number of very rare spells they know.

I personally don't like the magic point (MP) system, just because 99% of the games use it. The spell limits could be relied on the reagent and stamina consumption. Thus, the sorcerer would have to consume his expensive reagents, and even with a huge stock of reagents in the bag he would not be able to cast 30 spells in one minute. More powerful high level spells could require rarer and more expensive reagents. Strange reagents, like the caster's own blood could also be a kind of reagents, which would cause damage.

Some spells could be forbidden inside towns (like open lock, invisibility, or lethal spells). Some spells could be considered evil and thus stain the caster's social status even if cast in the wilderness, like summon demon.

If there would be a success check for magic cast, I would like to see it related to the number of times the sorcerer has tried to cast that spell. The more he tries, the higher would be his chance of success, and the power of the spell. This system could use a S-curve model of learning. In the first time he tries to cast a new spell, he will have a high probability of failing. As he practices that spell, the probability rises. Although the chance of success always rises, it will never get a 100% probability. He always spends reagents when he practices. Therefore it would be very costly to master a powerful spell.

There could be a progressive curve model for the spell effect as well. The spell could have an effect expectation number "E". When he is unskilled in that spell the power P would be 50% of E (P = 0.5*E). This regulation number could rise every time he gets a success. For example, first success P1 = 0.50*E, second success P2 = 0.53*E, P3 = 0.56 * E, ... , P36 = 1.00*E, P37 = 1.02*E, ... , P97 = 1.67*E, P98 = 1.675*E, ... . The effects increase forever, but less and less, asymptotically.

 

I think of something like this, if we take the example of fire spells.
Initially, you can light a candle or wooden sticks with a low success rate.
After the success rate starts to rise, only then, you can start training to do fireballs.
At the beginning of the fireballs will fail, but the more often you make will have more success which will lead to the ability to make a lot of fireballs at once. Maximum will be reached at which, instead of your hands to leave one or more fireballs, over certain regions of the sky will pour "Meteor Rain" or "Storm of lava."
By learning the fireballs is logical to begin to make and fire protection. Early fire protection would be something like a fireball which orbits the caster, then the number of fireballs will increase until it will be something like a fiery bubble around the caster. Also, this fire protection can be done on any other or on all in certain areas.
How strong is the magician who does magic, the greater will be its effect. Naturally, for a shorter time and with fewer excipients. Something like that.

 

ENCHANTER SKILL SET:

I'm hoping that they have a similar magic system to Ultima. however since there was a change in how magic works to some degree because of the cataclysm, I hope they utilize some kind of system that uses the Ultima system, but has the option to append it with the use of focuses. This would not necessarily be science, but more like the science of "spell craft". It would be for somebody who wants to focus on magic as a primary art.

For example a wand or a rod could act as a focusing agent to help channel magical energies like a lighting rod effect. That could result in casting spells faster. ANOTHER OPTION is having those items be used as a storing item to precast spells and reduce spell failure. You wouldn't need this skill to be a grandmaster mage, but if you are a master mage, and a master enchanter you are just more focused on magic than other people who only have the mage skill set. So it could differentiate between a warror mage, or a taimer mage that have other skills as their main skill set. Whereas a mage would want to learn potions, and enchanting etc etc to fill out their skill set.

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STORING SPELLS option:
Instead of just a focusing agent another way for them to look at it is using a wand or rod to be able to store spells that you premix the reagents and charge the rod/wand with your spells to prepare them in advance. It would result in faster casting times or maybe just reduce spell failure or whatever.

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BUILDING PERSONALIZED WANDS & RODS:
Perhapse a mage shop could sell various types of pieces of wands and rods, so somebody who is skilled in wand enchaining could assemble their own unique wands and rods for enchanting (which doesn't have to be a crafting skill but an adventuring skill). The mages could then sell charged wands if they want or use the items themselves, but either way the better the rod the more it will glow and shimmer with power. The highest level wands/rods could even have periodic lighting effects surround it as you walk through town. I think that would look cool for a mage. Gandalf had a scepter to focus his magic, and there are many depictions of wizards using wands as a focus.

I think SotA could adapt this type of thing in their own unique way and tie it into the fact that the magic system changed and focusing agents might be necessary for attaining the most "stable" form of magery.

 

I disagree. Science is merely the study of available phenomena. If magic suddenly started working in the real world, tomorrow, all over the world: The religious fanatics would all label it as either a sign from their deity or as a blasphemous abomination. The philosophical "pseudoscience" fanatics would try to make the new events fit their personal worldview of what magic should be. But the TRUE scientists would face the new data, and begin recording cause and effect, researching ways to measure and categorize. Fast forward a few years, and yes, a great many people would have done stupid and destructive things for dumb reasons, but any true scientists who had not gotten themselves blown up or murdered would be busily compiling and seeking to comprehend what would amount to magical grimoires/compendiums, they would likely be collaborating as the chance arose, and from them would come magical science.

Logic errors only appear to result from magic/science mixes when the audience assumes that it knows what the magic would have done, and believes the author is wrong. Since magic by definition is not something evident in our understanding of how the world DOES work, any real magic, powerful enough to affect the world perceptibly, as the magic in SotA, and indeed all ultima games, is likely to be, would defy OUR current understanding of how the world works. It's not a logic error, it's new information. It wouldn't be the first time that science was forced to abandon dozens of previously held beliefs in the face of new information, which has led to some of our most useful and widespread tools.

 

Remember the Lyceum at Moonglow? This is where the greatest mages in Ultima history came to study all kinds of things. Mages were the "scientists" of Ultima. The were the most educated, and logical of all other character types. Moonglow's population was mostly mages.

Moonglow was the city that embodied the virtue of Honesty. Honesty was made up of the principle of Truth. Mages gathered there because their vocation required the gathering of wisdom and understanding. Though magic was able to be manipulated in many different ways, it had a structure and logic to it.

So science does indeed go hand in hand with Ultima type magic.

Check this out: http://www.uoguide.com/Moonglow

 

Lots of people say magic and mean superstition. To a wizard, magic is understanding the way the world works, and requires demonstrability. To an unknowledgeable observer it is unexplainable and bizarre.

 

But while we the fans, current and soon to be players of Ultima games, find magic fantastical and extraordinary, the citizens of Britannia would have grown up with such phenomena, and further with the inherited stories and wisdom of their elders. To them, magic would not be such a heinous thing.

 

Hmmm.

Speaking of Moonglow, scientists, and magic --- remember that card that came in Ultima VI that asked people to write to Origin with the idea that they could be put as a character in the next game? I was 10 years old at the time, and I sent in pictures of me and my brother and said that it would be cool if we were both at Moonglow, and one of us was a scientist, while the other was a mage.



Not quite what I had in mind, but my name is Brian, and the twin of the pair that's interested in science is named Brion.

Anyway, to put this subject in some real world perspective, "magic" historically referred to things that were said to work, but where nobody could explain how they worked in terms of direct, physical causes. When something could be explained through physical causes, it was no longer consdiered magic. So a bunch of things under the category "magic" actually were later understood scientifically, and no longer considered magic, even as other things in that category became dismissed as superstition. So magic and science did go side-by-side until a certain point in history. Pliny records a number of things that were said to be true by magi, while he also recorded a lot of scientific facts and things known by experiment.

Of course, if every single superstition the magi believed in was true, magic probably would defy attempts at reductive explanations and couldn't ever be fully be reconciled with science. It could be explained, but not through mechanical, physical causes. That's probably why "chaos" is at the center of the magic wheel, is because magic in the game represents chaotic forces in the universe that can't be reduced to cause-and-effect, while science and technology in the game represents "order." Technology can be produced by instructions and recipes; its predictable and democratic, and ordered. Magic requires personal artistry, and so chaotic.

Fantasy magic and science working side-by-side like that reminds me of Princess Bubblegum in Adventure Time: