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Oct 11, 2020
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Its been nearly a week sitting and thinking about this subject. Magic. What does that mean and how might it be introduced into DHS. I was able to be a part of our last Community Stream and made the comments that one thing that I look forward too about Deadhaus is magick. The evolution of magic in games draws me, but one thing I would love to see is the combination of magick in this game. Is it a thing? Can it happen? What would/could it look like?

After thinking on this and even talking with a few communities members I have come up with 3 ideas. What follows is based on a few things.
1. Nothing about the magic system is known so this is all speculation.
2. Everything I say is my opinion.
3. We know that the game will use a Tarot Card system for skills, which I am also assuming means magick.

I believe that most would agree that the more you use something the better at it you get, or at least should get. I think this should apply to magick as well. If I am a Liche and I cast Fireball a thousand times but Lightning one hundred I think it should be clear in which school I excel.

...but what if I want to combine magicks?...

This is my focus here and I would love to discuss and hear ideas. I faced with what I think is three options.
1. The Denis System
Denis as some system that Ive never even thought of.
- This honestly is probably the best answer.

2. Tarot Card Skills
Each spell that could be combined with another, might have a special branch in the tarot card traits that would allow for combination. The more you use it the more adept you are in combining that spell with another that you have also leveled.
- Lets take Fireball for an example. I assume that Fireball would be a Tarot Card its own. On the back the skill system would allow you to power this up or maybe even augment it in some way. (Large Fireball, 3 fireballs, or 25% more damage) And then if you so chose, another line of traits may be something like "if combined with x (+%damage)"
Its hard to think of a million different combinations so my thought is that combinations would result in specific types of casts. (i.e. Fire Spell + Wind Spell) resulting in something that is predetermined based on the collected "levels" of the used Tarot cards.
In order to cast something like this my thought was a toggle system. Obviously you would have to have both or all combinations equiped to you. Fire+Wind. You would press a key to prep the spell. Then you would press 1 of 2 keys, these being 1 to cast the normal spell or 2 to cast the combined version of the spell. Again in that instant the combo spel cast would reflect the spells used and their stats and augments.

3. A Tarot Card called Combine
This one I credit to Varik Keldun. This was not my idea but his and I out it here because I liked it. I wont expand to much in case he would like too and Idont want to misrepresent an idea that isnt mine. I know he will correct me though.
- The idea is that a Tarot Card itself would allow for the combining taking into account the spells used and the stats of those cards. It would be activated similar to what I said above but you would have the Combine card plus the magicks. You would prep the combine spell with a key press, and then select the spells that you would combine to cast.

To me this still seems to fall into maybe predetermined spells cast depending on what is used, but I could also see it allowing for much more customization depending on the magicks themselves. You could have a "maxed" fireball without the idea of using points in another branch of some sort. The only thing I dont like about this idea is that anyone who didnt want to combine magick would basically have a dead card they may never want to use (but again there are going to be a ton of them so I think we will be fine.)


These are my thought finally written. What are yours? Something similar? Perhaps another way this could work? Something comepletely different?
 
As Bishop knows I've been waiting for him to post this thread so I could attach my own thoughts and predictions to it so here it goes...


here are my thoughts assumptions, and predictions on how the magic system might work within the world of Malorum.

1: Denis Dyacks other spell system ( Eternal Darkness)
2: Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
3: Other game references
4: Cards or no cards
5: My predictions

1: Denis created Eternal Darkness way back in the day and with it he created a spell system that you could combine spells based on words you learned to have different effects... and to this day we still need more Pargon. The spell system only required that the player knew how to cast the spell and had access to the runewords to cast it.

2: Denis has stated that the spell system will be based off of PIE as the language used - much like he used Elder Furthark for Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for the written runes around the world.

3: During one of the older streams I do remember Denis speaking up about the Ultima series (cant remember if he stated Ultima Online or not) but I do remember playing U.O. myself and the spell system though basic had words attached to the spells and though you could not change words around when you cast "AN NOX" it was remove poison and when you cast "IN NOX GRAV" it was poison wall. each word had a specific meaning behind it. a set of examples would be the summon earth, air, fire, water, daemon spells... they all started with KAL VAS XEN - then woud add in the final word to summon Air(HUR) Daemon(CORP) Earth(YLEM) Fire(FLAM) Water(AN FLAM)

4: With the skill system being made up of at least 72 tarot cards for each class the question here is, Are the spells going to be attached to the tarot cards or something completely seperate from them?
If they are attached to the cards, How many of the cards are going to be set aside for spells and how many would be set aside for abilities? Which in turn asks the question how many spells are attached to each card? and will those cards need to be equiped to cast their attached spells?
If the magic system is something completely seperate I.E. you write down the spells in a book to memorize and or use them later. Do the spells level up or will we use cards to level up our spell powers / effects.

5: I personally think that the spell system will be seperate from the Tarot card system - If the spells level up with use or if we are going to need to use the tarot cards to enhance them i cannot say, but I can see both ways working though I personally will lead torwards the later and say that the cards will help empower the spells. And the spells will just be words used to enact the spells, This would also help show at least in game why Liches are the strongest magic users - they can have up to I belive it was stated 9 tarot cards active at any given time and if they all had to be used to hold different spells or spell words it would make the system quite clunky. I think that the spells will be of an individual base(root) word for each spell word like the examples from Ultima Online but with the customization of the spell system from Eternal Darkness - This would add a VERY WIDE variety of spells to choose and customize to each individual playstyle simple in design where each word has one or two specific effects which you could preset via spell book / hot keys. which could be enchanced by the tarot cards you decide to use. each word would require different mana costs to use based on the word itself.


for examples im just going to use english to make it simple but here are some examples.

Fire - Ball
Fire - Ball - Enlarge
Lighting - ball
Lighting - bolt
Enlarged - Lighting - Storm - Extend - Area - Time (thought process here would be a extra large area of effect lighting storm that lasted longer)
Summon - Skeleton - Volitile - Fire (exploding fire skeletons)
Essence - Fire - Bolt (a fire bolt that deals damage to essence rather than health and burns over time)
Mana - Ice - Ball (an Ice ball that slows the progress of enimies spell casting)
Blood - mana - hex ( a hex that drains a percent of the enimes health when they cast spells 10 points of mana for their spell = 5 points of HP damage)
Combine - Fire - Posion - Spray - Enhance - Elemental (A fire/poision cone spray with enhanced fire and poison elemental debuff effects *on fire / poisioned*)

Just a few of the possibilites that there could be depending on how many words and how many combinations are availible.

TLDR - I predict the following...
Spells will not be directly linked to tarot cards.
Spells will able to be enhanced by the tarot cards.
Spells will be as close to their base words as possible.
Spells will be based off the words chosen for the spell to allow for maximum customization.
 
3. A Tarot Card called Combine
This one I credit to Varik Keldun. This was not my idea but his and I out it here because I liked it. I wont expand to much in case he would like too and Idont want to misrepresent an idea that isnt mine. I know he will correct me though.
- The idea is that a Tarot Card itself would allow for the combining taking into account the spells used and the stats of those cards. It would be activated similar to what I said above but you would have the Combine card plus the magicks. You would prep the combine spell with a key press, and then select the spells that you would combine to cast.
The original concept for this tarot card was based around the spells being based off the Tarot cards. With Liches having 9 total open slots to allow for the most options on spells.. having 2 or more elemental type attacks that you could combine using said combine tarot card to have multiple effects with the trade off of not having 1 spell type with extra enhancements..

Tarot cards in use
SET ASET B
FireballFireball
StunIceblast
Extra BurnLighting Bolt
KnockdownPoison
MulticastCombine
Increased elemental dmgIncreased area of effect
Copy SpellStorm
Generic Evasion SpellGeneric Evasion Spell
Generic Healing spellGeneric Healing Spell


The first example would be a Fireball that did a 2x-3x multicast that copied itself to shoot out 4-8 copies of the spell that all had extra damaging enhancements to a single target fireball.

The second example would be a decent use of a wide area storm multi target spell that did multiple types of damage to deal a wide variety of spell damage types to multiple enemies.
 
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This is great. The more I think about it, the more interesting the idea of "crafting" spells gets. I'm very curious to see what they come up with. I like the idea of having lots of flexibility during the missions themselves, and I like the idea of the Liche having its own spell system, separate from what the other classes have, but I like the idea of combining different types of words/runes/ideas to amplify and change the spells themselves. I like what you guys came up with.
 
I'm not sure about combining spells through a specific card in the hand you are carrying, but I would like spells to be able to play off of each other as I think that could result in some satisfying moments of skilled game play.

For example, casting a barrier around an area that you just fireballed to seal the intended targets within it so they can't escape the flames or heat like they are trapped in an oven (Goblin Slayer anyone?) and then maybe puncture the barrier with a gust of wind spell to cause an explosion.

If I understand it the tarot cards will level up and unlock new applications of their base ability. Perhaps combining could be unlocked with the leveling, only allowing cards that have acquired this attribute to interact?

As for leveling magic I agree the more you use something the better you understand how it works; but I would also like there to be multiple avenues for applying that improved understanding.

For example:Fireball
Level 1 (the only thing you can do at first with the newly acquired fireball card): You create an inner core of flame that generates a ball of fire that you can throw and I mean throw like it is a baseball.


You level it and can focus that improved understanding of the spell on things like;

-Learn how to charge up the fire ball, increasing the destructive power of the flame or the rate at which you can cast them as you pursue this discipline

Or

-learning how to launch it with magic instead of physically throwing with a focus on increased range and accuracy as you pursue this discipline

Or

-Learning how to vent the fire forward while the core is still in your hand to make it now function as a flamethrower if you desire it and can now choose to focus on improving that discipline if you want
 
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