LE Realistic Magic - Upgrading System Suggestions?

[JetSteele]

Hi,

 

I made an Overhaul (Supernatural) to the vampires and werewolves of Skyrim making them run more like Vampires from The Originals and Werewolves from Teen Wolf, so I got a request to also overhaul the magic and make it similar to The Originals/TVD which is what I'm doing now. What have I built so far:

 

1- Death System: Ok this is pretty much common sense for me, hell even Tolftir said it in game "Magic is by its very nature volatile and dangerous...it can and will destroy you." SO why is it so easy to use magic, I designed a system that when you run low on magicka your magic bar will slow down the amount of magic consumption and begin using your stamina bar, once your stamina is drained it will begin using your health bar. This means that too much magic can actually kill you, now for concentration spells its easily tracked for fire and forget you have to plan your attack before launching it. This function turns magic into sort of a strategic play as it removes the possibility of spamming attacks.

 

2- Upgraded Spells: The spells feel underpowered in late game, like seriously 4 fire storms to kill one person. So I am designing upgraded versions that look and feel different from their bases as well as being more powerful. I'm adding chant spells also BUT those are limited to concentration and fire and forget spells that aren't used to spam attacks like invisibility and not firebolt (seriously that got annoying REALLY fast).

 

and now comes the point where the post is central to:

 

3- Mage Upgrade System: You can't be a mage at the start of the game, hell all you have at the beginning is your racial ability and active effect. All spells are stripped from the player, Magic shouldn't be something that everyone uses; so why is it so popular in game? I stripped it from people to make it something ethereal and feared when you come across it. Also I built a mage upgrade system that has 6 achievable levels but 10 in total:

- Novice

- Apprentice

- Adept

- Expert

- Master

- Elemental Specialization (Destruction)

- Restorative Specialization (Restoration)

- Conjurative Specialization (Conjuration)

- Alterative Specialization (Alteration)

- Illusionist Specialization (Illusion)

The first 5 stages everyone can go to but once they become a master AND complete the proper ritual spell quest they can specialize in a school.

 

What this does is it increases the spell power of that corresponding school by granting the player the chant version of the spells. Now the bases of the system is completed what I am unsure of and would like suggestions about is how should the player jump from one stage to the next; what should be the deciding factor or factors? level, skill level, magic pool? what would you guys think would fit to allow the player to increase his rank as a mage?

 

Also just a side question: the system works from an OnSleepStop event, if another questline UnregisterForSleep will that affect my mage rank monitoring quest?

 

Any suggestions are welcome since I hit a wall on criteria to increase the mage rank.

[HailHell]

First of alI love the idea, about the rank jump, why not base it on a quest? Like the player needs perform a ritual to rank up but to perform the ritual in the first place the player needs the aid of the masters in the particular school of magic, but to get their help he needs to be deemed worthy of such a gift by progressing through quests in a guild.

 

If you think that's too much work then i suggest you base the jump on perks that require specific skill level, actallu if you ask me i would completly change around the skill trees and the schools of magic but thats just my perference.

[JetSteele]

thanks for the ideas :) , I really like the ritual idea; I'll work on that.

 

Thanks again!

[JetSteele]

Just one question to anyone who can answer it:

 

I am designing that any spell that the player casts without being a mage doesn't work. Lets use Flames for example, b/c it doesn't work I also don't want the spell to have any effect visually unless the parameter that (PlayerIsMage) is == 1. The effect works properly (doesn't work without the global == 1 parameter) is it possible to show no effects also unless the parameter is 1?

[ArronDominion]

Not sure off the top of head.

 

One thought that comes to mind is creating a dummy effect that has no visual art that does nothing and have that cast when the user is not a mage, and cast the normal effect otherwise.

[JetSteele]

I'll try it; the only thing that bugs me with that is if the hands will still have fire in them or will the other hand effect take precedence. Anyways I'll try it and see what happens.

[JetSteele]

nope no dice, the visual effects still play even though the magic effect doesn't apply b/c of conditions

[JetSteele]

alright I got something working for now, basically if you read a spell book before becoming a mage a dummy spell gets equipped to the character instead of the real spell that fires nothing.

[HailHell]

I would make it physicaly impossible to obtain any spells unless the ritual has been performed or replace all the working spells with dummy spells until the ritual gets done

[JetSteele]

that's what I'm actually doing; every spell in game will have a dummy spell attached to it and once the ritual is complete any dummy spells attained will be replaced by actual spells BUT here is the catch. If your an apprentice in rank you won't be able to cast adept or expert level spells as those are above your current skill level.