How do you design your magic?

[Samven]

Here's a question that I've been discussing with my mates a fair bit and thought I'd pose to you guys; how do you like to do your magic spells? Is it just a simple progression of Fire 1 > Fire 2 > Fire 3? Do you have one single-target spell and one area-targetting spell? Do you give them states or debuffing effects? How do you set them up? I ask this exclusively of magic rather than physical skills as most people I know seem to make them more varied. You'd think it'd be the other way round, given how varied magic could be, but I try not to think about it.

So, to put my own examples down, for my first game, I went down a simple "power increments" approach for the first two levelsbut made it so that the strongest spells were actually double-elemental. So, Water and Dark got a Level 3 spell, Fire and Earth, etc. It was my attempt at adding a bit more strategy into things. Maybe it didn't work as well as I'd thought, but I learned from it.

For my current one, though, I'm trying to make each spell do something different so that they can all reasonably used even late into the game. So, for example, one Earth spell is a sudden burst of energy and doesn't detract from speed or require any turns to cast, but a later-learnt one does require some time to charge up but damages all enemies and inflicts a state that makes them more vulnerable to magic. "Stronger" variants I'm trying to reserve for sidequest-learnable spells. Of course, since this is a rather tricky thing to do compared to just raising power with each level, it also means my actors have a smaller movepool than in my earlier work to avoid overlap between them (which I can be a bit obsessive about).

So, what about you all? What route do you take when it comes to designing magic? And do you use any custom scripts to enhance the abilities? What's your particular spin on spellcasting?

[yamina-chan]

I think this question really depends on the game and what world it is going to take place in.
For my main project I've actually decided not to use magic at all. Even tough it goes into the direction of the classic JRPGs and there is some sort of "magic" in the world it will not be part of the skills like that.
On the other hand, in my sideproject (that I basically do for fun every once in a while to take a break) magic is a bigger part and to a certain level inspired by the magic from Grandia. (Learning one element, let it grow stronger to develop new technics, discovering an other element, grwoing stronger...eventually combining those two basics together to create a new one...and so on.)
I often find myself trying out new scripts and setups, combining and removing certain parts just to get a feeling on what I am possible to do and what not. I love trying out all these possibilitys even if I know I have no use for something at that point. I might get an idea in the future or have to change something. Or maybe I want to suggest a certain idea to someone else.
I love magic and I love to use magic in games. When it comes to creating my own tough -seriously and not just for fun- for my own project the first thing I make sure is 'Will this work in this world? Does this seem logical to the setup you have? Will it suit the characters?'.
I would love to try out many things and set up just as many systems, but I can't possibly seriously work on that many games at the same time. Sadly so XD

[Taylor]

I'm going for the general multiple levels per element, then all-enemies versions of those levels. Main characters get extra special combo skills, but I haven't really worked out what kind of combinations or effects yet. Physical skills meanwhile are a mixed bag, and lastly there are item gadgets that work mostly around statistic and condition changes (i.e. flares blind, smoke slows down...).

What I'm more curious about though is in-story designs for magic.

My XP project works around the idea you're draining energy in your body (and we're talking scientific energy) and converting it into a state of matter to attack, and this is all done through the power of the weapons - armbands. The armbands aren't melee themselves; the projectiles you form from your internal energy are the physical attacks. The elements are Plasma, Solid, Liquid, Gas. :3c

My 2003 project is more classic, using the usual elements, but alters the weakness/strengths flow, and describes the power as the mental power to command matter to do things around you. Air to combust, cool, water vapour to coalesce together. It is as a result also supposed to be weaker or strong depending on the environment. Water manipulation is no good if there's little vapour.

[DerVVulfman]

I may need to confer with my sis in regards to our joint project, but I think this is how it's going to be:

Player characters have an 'innate' magic system that is controlled by a Magic tree. They train or decide what they get to use as they advance their skills. Old ones disappear as the newer and more powerful ones take precedent. So if you had a fire skill and advance, it could become firewind or fireball. Different abilities or whatnot are your choice as you go along.

Other skills may be actively learned but are not dependent on leveling. Things like training parlors, Spellbooks or whatnot.

I don't think too much power should be invested into a skill as the player's own level and stats should do enough. Don't want to make it TOO easy for the player, eh?

[Jacket]

I hate tiered magic. I dislike the idea, because honestly it just fills up your menus with spells you'll never use again. Once you pick up the stronger spell, and a few levels - not to mention if there's an MP cost reducer, say in half or everything costs 1mp - there's less purpose for using the weaker spells. They just take up menu space. For this set up, I really break down into two thoughts.

I don't use tier systems with spells. I go for differing effects. The typical run down they aren't tiered but variations. You get a fire spell. Good, it's a basic single target spell, does nothing fancy. You then get a multi-hit spell, let's say. It's weaker than you're single target spell, and costs just a bit more. Okay, so you got a trade off. You wanna hit one person full force, or do you wanna hit everyone and weaken them up a bit?

Next fire spell's gonna be real powerful, but real hard to use. It'll cost maybe the same as the first spell, but do quite a lot more damage. The trade off is it's hit or miss. Mostly miss. And along the way you pick up weaker versions that almost always hit, or carry a special bonus like lowering defense or some crap. Double elemental (even though the RM games HATE dealing with those by default) works too. And don't forget the assist spells, that cause a target's attacks to start dealing fire element, or what not. I just got 15 spells off one element, and not a single one was tiered. And the whole system is built so once you get that first fire spell learned, you learn the rest at your leisure and expense.

The other thought is the one I prefer. You get one spell. You feed the spell. I used this in Cruxhound when I was working on it, you had 1 spell for every element. And the strength level was dependent on how much MP you'd put into it. Granted it was a tad annoying. You had to select the spells menu, select the spell, input an amount, and then cast the spell - but you had full control. Know the exact amount of damage it takes to take down this guy you've fought 18x already? Good, put in 17 mp, good job - he's dead. Put in 16, well, now someone has to clunk him over the head with a wooden spoon - but hey, you just saved 1 mp. Work it out, and figure it out, and play along. And despite ADDING menus, it actually really unclustered everything.

[Taylor]

Oh, yeah I agree on that. The armbands in my XP project don't provide the full scope of skills - they provide bits from several. (This is akin to demons in SMT and Personas in... Persona... not always having every level of an element.) In the 2003 one, the playable characters don't use the normal tiered skills at all. They're levelled, but are based around extra effects more than BIG FIRE and BIGGER FIRE.

[KasperKalamity]

i'm going nuts crazy all over the place. one of my characters has learned so far a lifeup spell, a fireball spell, an envenomation spell, a dagger skill, and a spell called Bloodtrocution.

actually i think i'm inadvertently creating a class system. i've had to invent some magic as well to fill in a "Green Mage" character. there really isn't an rtp animation that would fit with a spell called "Bananarang"

[MetalRenard]

In my biggest project, I had a transformation system. The main character could become different animals to adapt to different situations, not necessarily to his advantage in battle.

Sometimes you had to cross a small piece of wood on a stream. As a human you're too heavy buuut... As a squirrel you can! On the downside, as a squirrel, you only had 1/2 the defense.

You also had skills that were specific to each transformation. As a squirrel you had evasive techniques and confusion techniques, as a bear you had superior strength, could push obstacles out of the way, and had bite/claw techniques. As a bird you could fly anywhere on the map (but this was a secret one and only worked on the world map). As a... dragon (!!!) you had very powerful magic and fire techniques.


Oooh.. And my main menu consisted of a squirrel called Sid and different buildings for different options.

[Taylor]

Only half defence? I would've all out 1/9th. And maybe a mouse had a fixed defence of 1. (Or depending on the other defences, maybe 5.)
But that's discussion for another topic. :T

[Hybrida]

In my game I use skill upgrade items. Some skills become useless (too weak) in late game like the "Photon Ray." You can buy an upgrade for it when you reach a certain level. The "Photon Ray" skill will be replaced with "Photonic Beam" skill. It does twice the damage as the "Photon ray" with the same MP cost.

I also use transformations to change skills. If a character goes into the "omega" form--all the skills for that battle will be upgraded temporarily. For example the "Photonic Beam" will become the "Photonic Blast." If you didn't upgrade the "Photon Ray" to "Photonic Beam" before transforming, the "Photon Ray" becomes the "Photonic Beam" afterwards. All skills will go back to its previous grade when Omega form wears off. Conditional Branch FTW.

I create my skills in levels somewhat. Also the "Photonic Blast" can be upgraded to the "Super Photonic Hyper Cannon™" in the transformation beyond Omega. I had to say it.