Magic Systems

Magic systems - yeah, I shouldn’t stop everything and write a completely new magic system, especially a complex one.

But here’s the idea anyway. Maybe someday I’ll elaborate.

I’ve had an idea for years to break magic up into core components and modifiers. A core component would be the ‘gist’ of a spell - a core might be say Bolt, or Animate, or Teleport. These would then be modified by all manner of modification words/runes that shape, change, or otherwise enhance the core.

A wizard wouldn’t just learn Teleport as a single spell all in one go. They’d start with the core concept of Teleportation. At first they’d only be able to blink a small object out of existence and back.

Adding a modifier would require greater skill and wisdom and ability to handle power - adding two or more would get more difficult and more dangerous. So, for example, Teleport might get a ‘range’ word - we’ll call it Near for now, but we’ll come up with something cooler later - So your caster could, at some greater effort, teleport something to a near distance. A second modifier might involve size - default would be something quite small, but a word or two might get you up to something the size of a halfling, or eventually a human. Then, by casting Teleport-Near-Medium, one could teleport across the room. Add a little more work and you can make spells that are the equivalent of ‘blink’ or ‘dimension door.’

Adding more and more modifiers would allow crazier and crazier magic - what if your spellcaster works their way up to really large sizes or long ranges? What if they learn a modifier for duration?

Working with something like ‘Bolt’ would add elemental or energy words - fire bolt, ice bolt, etc - and also, depending on your caster type, things like necrotic bolt or maybe if you’re creative, teleport bolt. Again, Bolt could be modified with range, duration, and shape words - blast, cone, line, you name it. This is the path to your ‘fireball’ type magic, and also a lot of other interesting effects besides.

Once you get a lexicon of cores and modifiers, you start being able to create magic that isn’t in a rulebook already. What if you learn a wall but you add necrotic power to it, and animate it? What is that? What if you add force to your light spell? There’s a lot of potential.

Downside - making spells is a long and involved process using this system. A caster would be able to make up their own spells, and every caster could specialize in the areas they prefer (a lightning focused mage who hits single targets at very long range, versus a fire mage who likes area of effect, and so on and so forth). But making a spell on the fly would be very time consuming. A caster would probably fall back on their ‘bread and butter’ spells that they use all the time … which maybe wouldn’t be bad for an RPG.

Where this system might really shine is a game where a computer could help with all the magic … this is basically coding for wizards anyway.

Well, someday! Meanwhile … more editing!

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