Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Idea: Magic variations

Magic became in most games/worlds the fantasy equivalent of standardized ammo (fighting), pills (healing) or other things of convenient gadget replacements.
To some degree is that of course also necessary to categorize spells but it also left them often in some very tight defined corset.
Trying to keep players at the table from getting bored I think of ideas to keep things a bit fresh through variations as nothing is more deadly for fun as setting in routine.
So I came up with some simple optional modifications for spells.

Spell ingredients
- Spells could require certain substances and/or objects (e.g. a piece of sulfur or a dagger for a little blood)
- Those things could be mandatory for powerful spells or beneficial (giving the spell a bonus of success, strength or time.).
- The spells could be also possible without those items but with basic or reduced effects.

Misfiring spells
I ever liked in some fantasy how magic is hard to control and can have at times a life of its own like e.g. Schmendrik in ‘The Last Unicorn’ which had trouble to channel it.
Spells could have a chance of misfiring, reaching from
- no effect at all to
- variations (e.g. light show, smoke cloud, etc.) to
- disastrous (e.g. harmful or opposite effect)
In paper games I just used some simple tables to stir the creativity for misfires.

Combined casting
Casters can not just neutralize each other with opposite spells but also combine their powers by working together, maybe even objects as above to boost the spell through all the combined synergies, increasing also a possible unpleasant misfire leading to…fascinating results
All those ideas are of course not original but on the other side got often dropped for convenience of lazy or streamlined magic use were magic is just a simple tool but also taking a bit life out of it.
I just bring this examples up to inspire at least a bit more playfulness into magic and blowing so some life back into an otherwise lifeless set of tools like a med kit or a gun in some modern age game with completely standardized effects.
The game Magicka pushed this playfulness to the extreme, putting the ‘fun’ back into fantasy

Some of those ideas might be not for D:OS but I hope to see them in future Larian fantasy games.

Personally, in PnP D&D, I love wild mages and wild magic, so for RPG reasons, more unpredictable and fun magic would be great. Problem is, there are so many people who want character abilities and spells that are standardized and fully predictable, not necessarily because they are min-maxing, but because they are used to streamlined CRPGs post year 2000. I'd love to see magical fumbles, fizzles and calamities. And D:OS with its coop play and friendly fire is a match made in heaven for this. Unfortunately, I suspect we are in the minority here.

Sry but have you watched a gameplay video of D:OS?

In D.OS the Hereos are Source Hunters that means they use the power from the Source (i dont know exactly the power of the Source since in DD and D2 the Source is just a healing-gem prodicing thing).

But in DD and D2 there are no special powers needed to be a magician so it would ot fit into Rivallon if somone would have to use a certain substance.

Combined Casting: You know that D:OS is TB and that there is a lot of combination between the schools of magic. Like using lightning on water surfacestuns all enemys and a lot more.

The chance that spells would be totally annihilated or turned into the opposite is against the strategy of D:OS. If I have a certain strategy how to kill the enemy and now instead of freezing and stun the enemy it would just a lava surface?? I mean that would mean planning something will be useless.

Welcome to the fun and wonderful world of wild Source magic!

I would just save before every spell so that i make sure every spell against dangeros enemys will work. of course against small enemys it would be funny but against a boss it would really piss me off i.e. if they are fire elementals they heal from fire spells when i actually wanted to use ice.

Jokes aside, I do understand that it would be frustrating in important encounters, but I prefer to play along when the situation throws you a curveball, so perhaps this could be an option, a toggle?
I mean, if games have "friendly fire" as a toggle, why not "unstable Source magic"?

Those ideas don't really fit, Bearhug. Ultima can keep its annoying reagent management to itself.

Combat is supposedly going to be tough enough even WITHOUT spells misfiring. A misfiring chance would make people shun the magic system Larian has crafted - if magic is going to be unreliable, then people won't rely on it.

I think some combinations of spells may be implemented in the game without the "misfiring" idea.




No to a billion billion billion toggle options. Yes, I might be contradicting myself from somwehere else.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Hmm, I'd still love to see some unreliability and surprise to magic, and perhaps what you say is true if it only applies to magic-users, so I'll have to come clean and confess that I love the concept of fumble in combat too - critical failures making swings and stabs go haywire. I don't find that frustrating, nor do I get some slapstick comic relief out of it, it just makes for great roleplaying, and D:OS is built around the concept of that - coop play would be a blast if fumble and fizzle are in.

I saw lots of mistakes and fumbles in the pre-alpha preview videos I watched.

If unreliable magic scares someone off then they should not play D:OS as the test players often enough demonstrated by setting themselves or Swen on fire with their fireballs.
From the reactions from viewers and seeing what Larian created in the past I think they just not mind fumbles but find them more appealing like slick spells which work 100%.

OF course not all idea work for D:OS but which would be nice to be available in the editor for making own stuff.
If such brainstorming ideas don't come up early enough they will come too late for the editor.
Besides...I just see the ideas as inspirations for variations, not to make draconic laws out of them.
If items would be mandatory, if fireballs would turn into nukes under the own behind then of course people would be disgruntled. But life is not perfect, it's the imperfections which make it more appealing then looking for perfection.
It's not just the monsters which can be hazardous but bad luck or worse: ourselves as we are all our worst own enemies

A general note:
Please people, don't get scared by terms like 'champion' or 'misfire'. Most of the ideas can be easily implemented into a game as it does all the number crunching. Like I said, I hope that Larian might consider the one or other idea in future fantasy games as not EVERY idea in a brainstorming process can and should be implemented. Right now, anything goes
I saw too many games which were actually a bit too smooth in execution, embrace life with its imperfection

Physical attacks aren't 100% accurate neither (unless the percent showed when attacking a enemy is just a pointless lie), a misfire doesn't need to happen every other time, casting can be a "safe bet" there is just the fact that such thing doesn't really exist
The effect shouldn't something totally random tho', it need to make sense with the school of magic or element (if we can really speak of "sense" in the context of magic)