Sharing perspectives on the Magic schools

[jefthereaper]

Basically, I've been working on a mod for a long time, but at the moment I ended up at a minor barrier while trying to recreate past spells of earlier games.

 

Mainly the problem falls to in what school of magic I should place these spells, so I was hoping by sharing and listening to the community here I could figure out where those spells would fit the best.

Currently in Skyrim within the TES timeline, the magic schools have apparently completely abolished Mysticism and Thaumaturgy, while dividing the spells of those schools over the 5 left remaining.

Alteration, Destruction, Illusion, Conjuration and Restoration.

 

For most spells I've been recreating, the new category's are fairly obvious.

Spells that increase your resistance to physical damage or magical damage are Alteration (altering the caster's/target's biology to resist a certain effect, similar to spells like Oakflesh for Physical damage)

Spells that fortify any of your ability's are Restoration.

Spells that *temporarily* damage a target's stats are Alteration (with the exception of a few spells that belong in Illusion instead)

Spells that *permanently* damage your target's stats are Destruction type's of magic. (tough not direct physical damage, they do "destroy" specific parts of your enemy, like speed, strength or others)

And spells that restore damaged stats on you or a target are for the Restoration type of magic. (if you were hit by a destruction based spell that reduced your stats, these spells will restore that damage)

 

However,

two types of spells are not that obvious to figure out.

the Drain and Absorb types of spells.

(In theory 3 types, there is also Leech, but its effect seems to constantly variate vastly over the games, so I'm trying to re-imagine that one a bit based on what it did in the past games)

 

The problem with these spells is that they are far more complex compared to those above,

a "Drain" spell drains a status from your target permanently, meaning it could be part of the Destruction school due to dealing permanent damage to the target's stats, BUT!

A Drain spell that drains life, also heals you, so in theory it could also be part of the Restoration class.

While a Drain spell that drain's a status like Strength could just as well make it a Alteration type of spell, as it transfer's the status to the caster.

 

The "Absorb" types of spells are the same story, with the main difference being that these are only temporarily and not permanent.

 

 

Even Bethesda seems clueless to where they need to place these spells as they have constantly changed schools over the course of the game series.

 

 

 

I was hoping everyone reading this could share their opinion on where they think (and why) Drain and Absorb spells should be in the magic schools, to help me choose where they would fit.

 

Alteration, Destruction or Restoration?

 

Currently in my own eye's, Drain (permanent) seems fitting for Destruction (despite also healing the caster, it also harms the target permanently.)

While Absorb (temporary) seems to fit in Alteration (temporarily altering the reality between the caster and target)

 

 

 

Most ideal would be recreating most of the spells and dividing them over all 3 classes:

Drain for Destruction, "draining" only 25-50% of the points of damage that are done. (so that the healing/fortifying aspect is only secondary, while damage is primary)

 

Leech for Restoration, "draining" a equal amount that is done in damage, but doing a lot less damage then the drain spells from the Destruction class (but healing/fortifying more as well)

 

Absorb for Alteration, "draining a equal amount that is done in damage, but every increase/decrease done is only temporarily (even health you gain or the opponent loses, but being able to do more damage then the Destruction version and Fortify more then the Restoration variants)

Edited October 21, 2016 by jefthereaper