Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General What are the plans with magic? Any summaries?

I have some ideas about magic, but rather then jump about blindly... Does anyone know what the general idea with magic is? The systems, lore, mechanics, etc?

Any sort of summary, projected plans outline, etc, would be great.

What I do know (ha!) so far:
- Mana is no longer used (?), it instead just uses AP (?)
- 'Source' something something? Hmm?
- Intelligence ties in with spell cap, AP, etc
- Some magic skills are needed to use relevant spells
- Telekinesis!
- They have interconnecting & environmental effects.

There is no mana. Spells/skills require AP to use, and have a certain cooldown time.

Intelligence decreases the AP cost of skills (currently 1 AP less for every 2 Intelligence above the base value of 5). In the current build it also has an influence on how many ability points you get when you level, but the next update will remove that (within a couple days, or so).

There are skill requirements to learn certain spells/skills.

Telekinesis requires points in the Telekinesis ability to use. It used to be automatic for every character with Intelligence 6 or higher.

Source magic is a form of magic typically used for bad things. The player characters are Source Hunters who seek out the people using Source magic and eliminate them.

Ok, cool thanks.

Is there any lore/backstory on the nature of non-source based magic? How used, effort, origins, side-effects, anything...?

None. And none on Source Magic, either. There really should be some provided, given that the characters are, you know, "Source Hunters".

As far as I can tell, "Source" seems to be a play on the old-style definition of "sorcery" as a mix of necromancy, demonology, and other assorted "black magic". I have no idea how canonical this is, but my impression from the alpha is that some of it could theoretically be used for good (or at least non-bad) ends, but even that path is the sort that's "paved with good intentions".

In the Divine Divinity lore, the Source was discovered during the Age of Deception by the healer and explorer Ruganol. It allowed healers (who could mentally connect to it), to cure almost all know diseases and instantly heal the gravest of wounds. While some speculated that the Source was a minor deity, most healers believed it was and extra-dimensional field of energy.

Ruganol came to Ferol by ship during the Age of the Damned, and offered his help to Duke Dylan Ferol when the demons and wizards of the Damned were laying siege to Rivertown. When the war was won he left to teach those in other countries about the Source.

For an unknown reason, shortly before the events of Divine Divinity healers lost the ability to connect to the Source. A healing shrine in Aleroth, also connected to the Source, stopped producing healing gems. This continued through the plot of Divinity 2, as well.


In Divine Divinity a book described the recent history of Rivellon as being divided into four time periods of between four and six hundred years each: The Age of Deception, The Age of the Damned, the Renaissance and the Age of Chaos. The lizard scholar and seer Tol Dane predicted that after the Age of Chaos, when the events of Divine Divinity take place, would come a time of great troubles for the seven races, which he called The Age of Lies.

Hmm. Vague history, but appreciated. Guess we will see how it works in this game.

Anyone willing to paste a brief list of currently implemented spells?

An incomplete list off the top of my head. I'm probably missing some and I know some names are wrong:

Fire Magic:

• Flare - Shoots out 2 (or more) projectiles towards a target. The projectiles can hit obstacles on the way to the intended target. The total damage of the spell is divided between the target. Inflicts burning with a chance of knockdown and causes a fire surface in a radius at point of impact.
• Fireball - A single fireball that explores in a wide radius. Inflicts burning and causes a fire surface in a large radius at point of impact.
• Purifying Flame - Removes all statuses and shields from the target.
• Infectious Flames - Single attack that spreads and damages all allies and enemies in a radius of the target.
• Fire Shield - Increases your resistance to Fire, Decreases your resistance to [Element] (I forget which).
• Firefly - user clicks to draw a points to create pattern of fire surface up to 15m long.
• Summon Fire Elemental - Summons a controllable Elemental. Immune to burning. Chance to inflict burning on a melee hit. Has a fire spell, I don't know which one.

Water/Ice Magic:

• Rain - Causes it to rain all around the area, inflicting the Wet status (lower resistance to lightning and ice spells). Creates a puddle of water around the target location, incl
• Ice Shard - A single shard of ice that pierces the target and any targets behind, with a chance to inflict Frozen. It leaves an ice surface at the impact point, even without water. The piercing effect is bugged and does not actually pierce.
• Winterbreath - A dragon breathes a cone-shaped spray of cold, freezing water and enemies in front of it. More effective when Raining.
• Hail Attack - Like Ice shard, but with multiple projectiles, each one causes the enemy to roll a fresh check against Frozen.
• Ice Wall - Creates a wall of ice at the target location. Imprisons enemies inside, with a chance of inflicting Frozen.
• Water Shield - Increases your resistance to Water/Ice, Decreases your resistance to [Element] (I forget which).
• Summon Ice Elemental - Summons a controllable Elemental. Immune to knockdown. Chance to inflict Frozen on a melee hit. Has the spell Ice Wall.

Air Magic:

• Telepotation - Throws the target actor or object into the air and drops them at a specified location, inflicting minor crushing damage. Very useful, and can move allies, enemies and objects like barrels. You can't drop things on top of other things.
• Blitzbolt - Single-target lightning bolt, has a chance to inflict stun. When cast on water, inflicts Stun on everyone standing in it.
• Lightning Bolt - A more powerful Blitzbolt with a greater chance to fork to other targets.
• Chain Lightning - Single attack that spreads and damages all allies and enemies in a radius of the target.
• Tornado - Sends a randomly moving tornado across the battlefield, damaging everyone, but cleaning up any surfaces it passes over.
• Air Shield - Increases your resistance to Water/Ice, Decreases your resistance to [Element] (I forget which).
• Summon Air Elemental - Summons a controllable Elemental. Immune to Stun . Chance to inflict Stun on a melee hit. Has the spell Blitzbolt.

Earth Magic:

• Poison Dart - inflicts poison on a target and leaves a poison surface behind at point of impact.
• Oozespray - A dragon breathes a cone-shaped spray of poison, poisoning enemies in front of it and leaving a poison surface behind.
• Boulderdash - Summon a boulder that charges in a straight line through enemies until it hits a solid surface. Grows larger as it moves through poison surfaces, catches fire if it moves through fire surfaces.
• Infectious boils? - The Poison equivalent of Infectious Flame, I forget what it's called.
• Earthquake - Creates an earthquake at the CASTER'S location, damaging everyone, causing a chance of knockdown, and poison escapes from the ground.
• Earth Shield - Increases your resistance to Earth/Poison, Decreases your resistance to Fire? (I forget which). Gives a temporary +50% health boost.
• Summon Earth Elemental - Summons a controllable Elemental. Immune to Poison. Chance to inflict Poison on a melee hit. Has the spell Oozespray.

Thank you, I'll be going over this!

I hope there will be an game-manual later for alls those spells as pdf.

But seems the magic is much more powerfull then the nonmagic .. so why use an figther-typ chacaters.

If I make some hand to hand combat with one charakter, my own spellcasters hit me with their fireballs / ligthnings ....

Using bow maybe usefull in combination with those spells and also for enemies with high Magic resistance!

But swords and cudgels? I think only a few enemies have "allmagic" resistances. So the game seams to be an range fight one.

Also the AP handicapping "hand to Hand" combats.
I need my AP to walk to the enemy and have no more AP for the hit. My Caster kill the enemy bevor my turn will allow me to do one hit, so the figther will be only pur wanderer, sometimes killed from his own partymembers with their spells.

PS: Please give me a "cleaning environment after figth" spell!

The powerful effects cost a lot of APs, to the point that you may only be able to pull one off by saving several APs from one turn for use in the next. Warrior types (and ranger types) also get various tricks that may not officially be classed as magical but certainly produce effects of similar potency.

Environment-cleaning is generally accomplished with the "Rain" spell or by waiting a short while for the environmental effect to end. (Rain puts out fires in the area - all fires, so you can stop a character from burning, make the lights go out, or safeguard flammable objects.)

Yes! Warrior types get various tricks! But Why they Need swords if the are able to use range various tricks?

Environment-cleaning difficult... you need firefly ore Fireball to clean the Ice! Fire to clean Poisson and rain to clean fire. This takes a long time! I whish there was only on cleaning spell, removing fire, Ice, poisson and make the streats, stairs, gras as nice as for the figth.... also clean this graves!

The ice not melting is NOT intentional. The poison not dissipating is NOT intentional. It is a BUG.

Just tossing this into the jar. Necromancy was awesome! when I was fighting them. Would be neat to be able to summon undeads and such for spells!