A balance issue can be avoided. You just need to work out the possible combinations. So you need to define the parameters of magic.
That means that you define magic more than it is being done now.
Magic, to me, is basically energy. A spell costs an x amount of energy. The amount of energy you have comes with training your 'magic muscle' so to say. A spell also is of a certain type. Those types are already defined in various games. E.g. area effect spells like Stinking Cloud or a fireball. There are spells to affect only one person, like Charm. Or spells that do something to yourself like boost your stats. I don't own an official rulebook but basically most spells are already defined and put into categories.
All a developper now has to do is find out which categories work best and which will not work together to mix 2 spells (or more) into one!
My idea is to make the categories and effects of a spell more formal. I mean making them strict rules so a computer can join 2 spells and work out the effect and a corresponding logical combination.
An example. If you mix fireball and Freeze you will get e.g. an explosion that also 'freezes' everyone in the area for an x amount of rounds/time. So what animation will be shown? The smart developpers have classified this already. You will see a the explosion but it doesn't die out. Before it dies out the fire will become ice before it melts away. The animated effect is connected to the categories themselves. I imagine that this way you do not need to animate every possible spell effect but use let's say layers of animation that can be put over eachother.
So which spells can be mixed and what the effects will be is up for debate. ut what interests me the most is that you should be able to combine thousands of spells all based on energy. As you gain experience you can allocate (this is optional, just a possibility) e.g. exp. points to boost your magical energy, that is, rather, the amount of energy you can channel.
I can see a screen with on the left a gauge of magical energy. This is your total, your max. Next to it are 5 different energies respresented by gauges. These are spiritual and the energies of the 4 elements. You can combine these energies, that is, mix them to be the carrier for magic. magic is the arcane arts. That means the wisdom and knowlegde and Intelligence you need to formulate a spell. So you ahve source, that is energy and the arcane art of understanding spells.
In the game you find spellbooks or scrolls. They can be used once like in Baldurs Gate or be written in your spellbook. Once in your spellbook you can select them in the afore mentioned screen. There will be slots for that. So you drag from your open spellbook a spell into a slot. A slider will give you access to your energy. You can increase the magical energy of that spell, means nothing but the effect a spell has. A fireball does x damage but that is its max. Now if you lower your energy there so it does less damage or decrease the area effect, you can have some enegy left for spell 2 that you drag into another slot. As you progress you can mix more spells. Above each slot are buttons. There will be a button for area effect. And a button for damage. And buttons for any other statistic of a spell (see the rulebooks).
The power of fireball can be tweaked. You can put emphasis on area of effect or choose for more damage in a smaller area. Thus you can make your own version of fireball. So let us say that a fireball uses 100 energy of the element fire. You want to enter sewers so you need more damage than area effect. So you click area effect button and decrease the number. Then you see the energy you have left, say 70. You click on the button for damage and increase it to the max. Voila, a custom made fireball spell. Now you can 'write to spellbook' and give it your name, like Vaipen's Fireball of the Sewers. The game will determine where to put it because it knows it is based on the element fire. here are these categories again!
Now spell 2. Let's say...Charm. so you dedicated 100 energy for your fireball maximising it and customising it in a 30 area and 70 damage customization. Charm would be in Spiritual energy category. So what do you get mixing these? say your fireball custom spell uses 80% of all your magical energy. The gauge shows it. So you have 20% left to alter Charm. The Charm facet will be much lesser in power. So you drag Charm to slot 2 and click on area and put it at the same area size as fireball so every creature in the firbeall effect range will also be charmed. But you can tweak! What if your playing style is to target a creature and bot blast a fireball just between them? In that case you can put the area effect to a minimum which by default would mean that the spell in use will only target one creature,t he one closest to the centre of the blast. So put the slider to 1 or the lowest number. Then click the damage button, put it on full so the Charm effect will be put all on the creature.
So as you cans ee a spell can have all kinds of stats. I mentioned only 2. Area and damage.
it all is based on the categorioes of spells and the stats as you can read them in the manuals and rulebooks.
When you are done tweaking your spell you can click 'Write to Spellbook' and from then on you can use that spell.
What this system emulates is an arcane practisioner studying arace arts. He is limited by his ability to channel energy and as he learns more he can channel more energy, just like mana in DD. As he learns more he can combine more spells. in the end he may be so wise that he can mix spells of opposing schools/elements. perhaps there can be some danger to this, odd effects that people here have mentioned. backfiring e.g. As you gain experience spells become more stable with lesser chance of not working. i think the player must be allowed to make mistakes, i.e. the game must never show that a spell cannot work. let the player cast his spell in a crows of skeletons and see what happens if they realize a skeleton cannot be charmed and all have necklaces of Fire Warding. perhaps there is a chance of reverse effects, the Charm will be put on himself and the fireball just does what is is supposed to. Mixed blessing!
That all should be experience based. Some monsters using this system can really be made invulnerable to any spell save one! That can be a qayst thing even. You need to combine the right spell for this monsters.
You see, in other games you sometimes meet NPC's who speak of studying magic and they made this spell with this or that effect. it seems that THEY CAN really use their energy to create a uniwue spell with a spcific effect! So i thought why not the player? If NPC's can make a spell to water their plants, why can't the player?
So what is the hardest of this system? The animations? The spell definitions, that is, stats like what it exactly does? or the sheer number of possible combinations. if the max. number of mixable spells is 4... I suck with math. How many spells are there anyway? Minus the opposing elements... Should be many thousands!
I love to hear more about this! ideas? Suggestions?
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Vaipen
