Just throwing this concept out here

[HoneyBadger]

I kindof had a similar idea to yours, Uninspired Name. I was thinking, not magic that is balanced against itself-fire to water, air to earth, etc., but that the schools we currently have could "split" from central concepts, kindof like a family tree. If you had a certain level in Earth magic for instance, at some point you'd have the option to gain levels in Metal and Crystal magic as well. There'd still be spells in the Earth school, but some spells would now be in Metal, such as Armies of Gold and Armies of Lead.

Life magic (healing, resurrection) would split into Nature (pretty much as is) and Ego (mind control and soul magic, as well as spells which affect emotions, memory, experience, etc.)
Death magic (pretty much as is, except dealing with corporeal death, corporeal undead like zombies, and the state of death) would split into AEther (summoning spirits, spells that affect the soul, spiritual and more subtley supernatural spells than found in the path of Death) and Entropy (destruction spells like Disintegrate and spells which degrade things, like making provinces worse, worsening scales, etc)
Air (gases) would split into Weather and Static (electricity)
Water and Fire would both lead to Energy (temperature control), Water would also lead to Ice, (breath of winter, unfrozen, etc), and Fire would lead to Light magic (and it's absence: Eyes of God, Utterdark)
Earth to Crystal (not only physical crystals, but geometrics, harmonics, and vibrations) and Metal (lots of item improvements here, some poisons and acids also, plenty of wartime spells, naturally, as well as spells which affect gold/income)
Astral would split into Time (obviously there are plenty of useful battlefield spells that could go here, also spells which effect aging.), Space (teleportation spells, making bigger things smaller, smaller things bigger, bringing things closer together or pushing them further apart), and Void (spells that summon void creatures, do void effects, or deal with pure chaos or nothingness).


This doesn't mean that Metal magic would be more powerful than Earth magic, or Time magic more powerful than Astral, it would just give a mage more options, and more places for us to mod in new spells. It also makes Empowerment more useful in the game, because you could use your gems to "build" a Crystal mage for instance, instead of just shoring up the weak spots in your magical stable. Some mages, and probably Pretenders as well, could start out as a "basic Time mage" etc., having just levels in one of the divergeant mage paths, but this should be more rare. Mages in basic paths should gain a single level in their split-off paths once they reach a certain level in the basic, such as a level 7 Air mage having 1 level in both Weather and Static, just to simulate a broader understanding the mage would gain. Mages who start out in one of the split-paths would not gain paths in the basic paths, however, just because their knowledge is more specialized and less common. Plenty of spells that currently use more than one path could go in the new paths, while plenty more could remain "hybrids".

Four new basic paths I would then suggest would be "Perspective" (one's point of view: changing one thing into another thing, such as Polymorph for example.) "Abberation" (deals exclusively with spells like cross-breeding which subvert or break natural laws and effects which don't fit in any of the other paths).
"Divine" (not in the holy sense, but rather delving-divining. Knowledge, numbers, and word magic.). Divination would split into Ley (as in Ley-lines, ley-energy: spells which have to be "triggered" in order to take effect, landmine spells, in other words, and certain protection spells, also spells which draw things or creatures to the caster, or push them away.) and Clog (sort of anti-magic: spells which, although not holy, are specifically aimed at destroying or subverting demons, undead, and other supernatural forces). "Weird" (this path concerns spells which have to do with Fate and Destiny, leading for instance to charming and enchanting, as well as spells which have a beneficial or detrimental effect over time, such as cursing someone to turn into a werewolf, for example.)

Blood would stay the same, with no splits, except for the absence of Crossbreeding, replacing this with Bloodbreeding (breeding "normal" creatures with demons, and summoning demonic versions of normal creatures, like demon wolves, demonbreds, humanbreds, etc).
Holy would also stay the same, but I'd like to see it renamed to "Presence" as in: "in the Presence of God". Presence would split into Holy and Unholy magics.

This would give us 13 basic magical paths (a good, round number, when you're talking about magic), and 27 split-paths, ultimately, and, if all 15 levels were incorporated, a much broader and more complete magic system in the game.

Edited a bit for the sake of clarity and aesthetics, because I was half asleep when I wrote it.

[Agrajag]

The whole metal/crystal/soul thingey is already in the game, in a way. Its those spells that have more than one path as a requierment.
I understand this isn't exactly what you want/mean, but I just don't see a point in just adding extra artifical paths when we can use what we already have.
I will say this though, there aren't enough dual-path spells. (imo)

[UninspiredName]

I agree, we don't have enough dual-path magic. Earth seems to be the worst offender, at the moment.

[Cor]

Here Here! More cross path spells! In fact I would like to see more spells period. Even cooler, spells that require 3,4 and 5 paths. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Campfire.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon49.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon01.gif[/img] !

[Endoperez]

Cor said:
Here Here! More cross path spells! In fact I would like to see more spells period. Even cooler, spells that require 3,4 and 5 paths. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Campfire.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon49.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon01.gif[/img] !

3, 4, 5-path spells are currently impossible. Spells with Holy requirement are possible, even as rituals (e.g. S3H1). As I said earlier, I like multipath.

[HoneyBadger]

Agrajag, the point would be to open up new areas for new spells. Yes, the magic system we currently have works fine, but that doesn't mean that it can't be improved, and one way to improve it is to expand it in relatively logical ways. One of the purposes of the designers of Dom3 was to create a game that had many, many options. 8 magical paths is fine, for now, but it's a pretty low number for a game which features 1600+ different types of units and prides itself on being "the end-all be-all epic turn based strategy of all time". I agree that I wouldn't want magical paths that had no purpose or point, I just feel that more can and should be done in this area. As far as multi-path spells, it's a good idea, and I have no problems with it, but I think it's kind of silly to start adding death/astral/earth/nature/fire/blood spells for again no real reason. Why not just call that "type" of magic by a different name? It doesn't have to be one of the ones I've come up with, but it's a more elegant solution, and probably easier to code in, from a programmer's perspective.

[UninspiredName]

You can have 'epic' and 'simple' and the same time. Though I will admit, whether it means more paths or not, more spells would be nice. Many, many more spells...

[HoneyBadger]

Agrajag, "your idea", atleast the one you seem to be referencing, is the one the developers had, namely dual-path spells. Which is great, because that's already in the game, and you're right, it wouldn't be very much trouble to code in, because again it's already there in the game. Fully coded. If it is the point you're trying to make, then I thank you for the information, but I already figured that much out. I think it took me almost an hour of actually playing version 3.0, but I might have picked it up when I was paging through the manual. I've misplaced my manual though, so I can't confirm that for you at this time.
Now, if their are spells in the game that do at this time utilize/require more than two paths, then maybe I have missed them or just have not been paying attention, but I believe that currently-insofar as my limited knowledge extends-there are no spells which require 3+ areas of knowledge to make use of them. Am I right? Again, I don't know where my manual's gone to, I think it fell behind the little fridge next to my work computer, and their are too many wires back there for me to casually do a hunt with the barbeque tongs. I'll get to it one day when I have time and am not feeling particularly lazy.

If you are, however, referencing multi-path spells, "multi" in this case meaning 3 or 4 or 5, providing they're not in some secret level of the game, ala Mario Underworld, and depending on the type of language the developers write in (like most languages, it's one I'm not directly "hands-on" familiar with), and the way an individual programmer works, chances are that yes, it would be more difficult to add in spells which require more than two types of magic than it would be to just rename and/or add more than two types of magic. The reason for this is programs are like a house. They have four walls and a roof. The 1 or 2 types of magic per spell is like one of the walls. It's a major, "load-bearing" concept that the program recognizes, and the program probably (again, conjecture, but an educated guess) has not been written to accommodate adding multiple, unlimited "walls". Having a spell which made use of 3+ magical paths could mean major rewriting of primary functions within the program itself. Now, the number of paths, as we already know, is already a multiple. A large and arbitrary number. Expanding them would be more along the lines of adding a new unit to the game. You might have to "build a few shelves" here and there to hold and accommodate the expansion, but it's not going to cause the roof to cave in.

As for adding confusion for "newbies" or anyone else, I wasn't confused by the game, as is. I'm not confused now, and the only version of Dom I've played has been Dom 3.0. I never even played the demo, and I'm the one suggesting the "confusing" ideas here.
Why is everyone so desperately protective of the "poor, fragile, stupid newbies"? I'm still a newbie. It's a big, big game and it takes a while to learn. I'm just happy to have the chance to learn it. Expanding the magic system, even drastically, isn't going to effect the learning curve that much. I hardly see how one of your so-called "newbies" is going to be more lost in a game with 27 magic paths than they already would be in a game which has 1500+ units, dozens upon dozens of concepts, spells by the score, etc etc etc.

I understand that you like the game as it is. I do too, very enthusiastically, which is why I'd like to see it grow and expand and live. If it doesn't grow, and expand, and add new ideas and concepts and continue to evolve creatively, then it's going to...well maybe not die, but it will stagnate. Someone, somewhere, is going to be writing the very best, ultimate, end-all-be-all turn based fantasy strategy game, and if it's not Illwinter, then it's going to be someone else. Now I already put my money down and spent the time and effort to involve myself in this game. I'd really rather not have to go through all that again. Just don't expect that I'm going to be satisfied with a game that stops.
I guess my problem-and I admit I have a problem-is that you're telling me that my ideas aren't any good, but nowhere in this thread can I find a place where you've expressed an original, creative idea of your own. Infact you've only posted twice and yes, you did ask for more dual-path spells, and I agree with you, but other than that, once we've accepted that this can be a confusing, unwieldy game because of it's size, you're criticizing in a not particularly productive way. I honestly don't have a problem with the critique, though. If you don't see a point to doing it, that's fine. You're happy with the game as it stands. "Not even remotely worthwhile to code" is a little harsh, and I take it a little personally, since I put a lot of effort and passion into my ideas, but that's fine and I can't expect everyone to agree with me.

This is UninspiredName's thread, so I don't know what his intentions for it are, but I'm thinking that this is a thread where we're talking about ideas and how things can be better, not how things should stay the same, so maybe it's not an area to which you have a meaningful contribution? If you do, that's fine and I'd like to hear what you have to say. If I'm wrong and Uninspired would rather I get off the longwinded posts and out of his thread, then I'll gladly go and create my own thread and that's fine too, but my POINT as we eluded to over your last post and my reply to it is that the game is good, but it could be better, and the magic system is an area which should be examined for improvement, including-but not limited to-the addition of "flavor".