Currently implementing the magic system. Thought I could shed a bit of light on that and maybe get some ideas/feedback.
This is basically how magic works at the moment:
You've got your Intelligence and your Focus attribute.
Intelligence determines which spells you can cast, Focus determines your mana pool.
In the game's world you can find scrolls. Picking those up adds them to your spellbook.
With the spells in your spellbook, you can prepare them at a shrine (which is also where you save the game, level up and put caste symbols but I'll talk about that in a bit).
You have a limited amount of slots to prepare spells in. Once you chose a couple of spells you need to equip a tome, pretty much like a regular weapon.
A tome lets you cast the spells you just chose (you can switch spells with the mouse wheel).
There are two spell types: Instant spells and summons. Summons take a while, whereas instant spells are cast instantly as the name subtly implies.
You can cast spells until you run out of mana. There are ways to restore your mana during battle.
Most spells are tied in with the status effect system mentioned in an earlier update.
So far so good. Pretty basic, so here comes a bit of flavour:
Magic is categorized in "castes". Currently there are four castes.
- Divine: Light magic with focus on healing/curing
- Demonic: Fire & brimstone, also buffs and summons
- Aura: Everything "natural", mostly poison/paralyze/etc
- Cosmic: Everything "unnatural" - lots of attribute reductions/curses
I'm actually a bit on the fence with Demonic. I like infernal magic as a concept, but it could be fit into Aura and Cosmic. Then you could have a nice rock/paper/scissors system with Divine beating Aura, Aura beating Cosmic and Cosmic beating Divine. So this is one thing I'm not sure about yet.
Another thing I'm not sure about yet is what determines the amount of spell slots. The easiest solution would probably be to bind the amount of slots to Intelligence or Focus.
Another thing I've been thinking about was "fast travelling" via magic. Every Underworld-like game from UU1 to King's Field 4 and Arx has some kind of fast travelling system. UU has gate travel, King's Field has "Star Gates"/marker stones and magic wands and Arx has portals. So far Monomyth is taking an approach close to King's Field.
Every magic caste has a holy symbol that has to be recovered first. For example the holy symbol of the divine caste is a golden chalice. Placing it at a shrine lets you teleport to said shrine using the appropriate divine spell (there is a divine/cosmic/demonic/aura teleportation spell).
The thing I'm not sure about here is where to allow this. Technically I could allow it everywhere in the world, but I don't want to make it that easy. So there could be the restriction that you can only teleport in front of a shrine (much like the magic circles in KF4). This is something I'm not sure about right now either.
Another thing I've been thinking about are caste-specific tomes. Meaning that certain tomes might strengthen certain spells depending on their caste (e.g. a demonic tome increases the damage of your fireball spell; a divine tome makes your healing spell more effective, etc, etc)
To conclude, a couple of WIP screenshots:
Scrolls color-coded according to their respective caste:
Casting a healing spell. Currently untextured on the left is a tome. Tomes are "two handed" weapons because the right hand is used for casting.
A shrine with the holy symbol of the divine caste placed in it.
And that's basically it for the moment. Please feel free to share your thoughts on these things.