One thing I always thought would be fun in an RPG with magic would be having a system by which you can discover and "make" your own types of spells.


Where there are some rare components that you discover (Which could be hinted at through some text/lore books within the game that you find while exploring) and upon finding items you can then try to use them to mix and match and create a very unique spell to your own character.

Instead of your more general "lv up" and getting scrolls/buying the spell you rather discover them for yourself. It always felt to me like you could never be "that" guy who found new and exciting spells or perhaps even just funny/absurd ones (IE remember the guy you meet in Morrowind after his unfortunate "fall" from the sky?). I

I just think it'd really add to the magic character if we were able to find and discover spells on our own, aside from just buying them from people that already know them and not being able to have a more personal experience with magic. Imagine how cool it'd be to just be exploring and you find some obscure magic book which tells about a once long forgotten spell that no one else in the entire world knows about and using your knowledge you find the things to make it and then you learn the spell? That's the type of thing I'd lik eto see.

Then you come to another thing, Spell combinations. Do you think it'd be a good step in the right direction if TES V allowed you to combine spells? Which in turn could have all kinds of different abilities and actions which not only could open more combat oriented choices but could also be used within the world to find new locations, solve a magic oriented puzzle, etc?


To sum it all up, I'd like to just see magic have a more personal experience where you can really find your own style of spells and create more unique ones on your own with knowledge you gain now from simply lv'ing up, but from exploring the world and discovering things.

That would be some good stuff. I'd like the spells you learn from the guild to just be training ideals so you learn the effects, but you should be able to make your own spells with adjusting sliders after mastering the basic spells. Then you could combine the spells and effects like you said, in your spellbook and keep adjusting that as you level the different magical skills.

i dont really understand what you mean. by "finding a spell" do you mean being able to find a spell in a chest or something else. also what do you mean by combining spells. do you mean like making a spell that does fire and frost damage, shock damage and paralyse. not sure what you mean when you say combining spells?

Heres a little spellmaking slider list I've thought about.

Power: Damage/proficiency of the spell, how effective

Duration: How long spells remain active on a person/object after coming into contact with them.(this is not to be confused with stream)

Range: How far your spells will travel. If they travel at all.

If you put the range at zero it becomes a touch spell, the range increases to the maximum. To infinate where the spell keeps going till it hits something.

Area: Once your spell has made contact with an area it will expand how it did in Oblivion.

Regular: Basically how the spells work in Oblivion. Tsp the button you use the spell

Stream: Hold the attack/magic button to keep a steady stream of spell(usually an elemental destructive/heal spell) that you can keep on target and cause continous damage or whatever effect your using. You keep losing magicka the longer you hold onto the button.

Target: This is not the target from oblivion. How it works is when you aim your cursor onto the area and press the magic button the spell will automatically appear on the nearest object you are aiming at.

Edit: Self: Almost forgot this option, pretty much how it worked in oblivion. If you can find a use for burning yourself, good for you. but options are options.

Example: Say you were pointing at a bandit and pressed the magic button to use a 'target' fire attack. The bandit will burst into flames if you correctly aimed at him. this goes for any surfaces that are nearest to you so be careful.



Charge: When creating a spell with charge you will have up to 2 to 3 types of level depending on the spell. The longer you hold onto the magic button the farther up the level tier it will go and be more powerful(if you choose it to be). You first pick what your spell will do at the first level choosing from the options above. Then you do the same for the other 2 levels.

Charge will mostly be used to allow some spells to have more quick select options and allow you to free up that space and allow you to charge up for a diffrent type of attack or more similar powerful attack. The spell must be of the same type to be used.

You can't have a fire ball spell charge up into a frost spell.

Every tier you charge up to will use up magicka. If you just tap the magic button it will just you the first tier spell with only its magicka cost. But higher tiers will take up some magicka cost each level you go up.


Then of course you can mix and match spells with frost and fire damage.


Also options for multi layer spells like a frost/fire spell will be optional to the base damage and other effects.

Shading: This is for aesthetics mostly. choose which effects, graphics you want to appear in your custom spell. This is only for looks.


All these options will be closed or open to you based on your skill level in the correspondent skill with the spell/spell effects you wish to use.

sounds pretty good. the mix and match thing was in oblivion though. you could mix fire damage with frost damage ect. i don't like the range idea, i think the spells should stay how they were, either touch or infinite. rest of it would be pretty cool though

Basically yes the mix match is the same but I just wanted to reinstate so it wasn't left out.

And the range thing was their because some people don't need infinate range spells (me) and I thought it could be a way to decrease magicka costs.

If I only kill enemies from 30meters or so, why would I need a infinate range spell when I can lower the range to what I need it to be and save magicka for other effects, like a brief paralyzing effect.

I just like options I guess.

fair enough. i definitely agree on the thing about different effects for spells. in oblivion i didnt like how a spell that does 1pt of shock damage would have the same animation as a spell that does 99pts of fire, 99pts of frost and 99pts of shock damage. i want some grand effects for powerful spells as well as more variety.

Exactly.

And I do like the OPs suggestion of a more 'natural' way of obtaining effects.

Maybe in the game you can start off with one elemental effect.

Also I hope we can start off with a basic random elemental spell, a healing spell, and a number of random spells depending on what we chose in our major skills.

These of course would just be basis low level spells of course.

I like most of Mumatil's idea, but I think I'd rather have a projectile speed slider than the target option.

I'm not sure if I like charging spells... if it was to be included it should require some magic skill to reach the higher level tiers.

Edit: I also support what Stiler wrote in the opening post.

O yes I forgot about speed, it could just be another slider for 'regular' spells. Thx for reminding me but I would just make it another option than to take away 'target'.

-Sometimes you just one to stare at someone and watch them burst into flames.-

The charging idea needs more refinement I know. But I was using 3 tiers as an example mostly.

I agree that it would be cool... but those spells would have to be really expensive to make a balance between instant target and projectiles.

Of course, it should take a good deal of magicka/mana to perform those kind of options.

The 'target' like spells are mostly to be used by stealthy mages who don't want people to think they did it.

Regular spells usually cause lghting effects that force you to lose your hiding place and with this spell (with the expense of much magicka) you can safely kill a bandit from a distance with no lighting effects falling on you.

Something like that.

Oh they would know that you did it... if it cost more magicka than usual it would likely not be instakill spell.

I would like to have a spell like ability, to create all sorts of blade and throwing weapons out of deep frosted ice. The weapons would have the hardiness of steel and every contact with the steaming ice would cause a very nasty frostbite.(except for the caster) The ice weapon would not just disappear after a fixed period of time, but it would not be as strong as a summoned weapon. And, you could easily repair the weapon if it's broken, just cast the spell again.
Well, perhaps I'm making a mod for this.

If they did not see you they should not know. Let's just hope NPCs are not psychic in Skyrim.
If sneak criticals was added for spells it could probably be a very effective spell.

The magic system in Dragon Age: Origins was particularly interesting in that spells could affect one another e.g. Using an area grease spell followed by a fire-type spell would cause a grease-fire to come up; another interesting spell combination is if you froze someone and then cast a hard breaking spell like a rock throw, this created a 'shatter' effect which one-hit killed normal enemies. Having clever spell combinations like that is rather fun and brings out a bit more strategy rather than' which of these spells am I going to spam for the rest of the battle'.

Ok so you can cast from sneak and just pick off enemies at your leisure without ever alerting them... unfair. Secondly the sneak attack is a dnd move... it wont ever be for magic read up on it to learn why.

You know, the mechanics for something like this was already in game, in the form of the alchemy system. If we create building blocks with set properties, then we can combine those building blocks using various arcane equipment and create a spell that way. this would work best, i think if it were in addition to "normal" spells purchased ready to use from vendors/guilds.

So, fro example, if I want to make a fireball spell, I could combine a "sphere" component to form the ball, a "fire" component to make it burn, a "fuel" component, to give it something to burn (perhaps defines sorts of damage...physical, arcane, ethereal...) and a "go" component, to project the thing. Each component has set attributes, which combine when, well, combined.

Then, the effectiveness of the spell is determined both by the quality of the components, and the character skill involved in creating the spell and using it.

So it's just like alchemy, except we use spell components, not herbs, or to make it really interesting, both.

Next idea:

A spell that allows us to attach / create ice on top of a surface or body.

Then:

A spell that allows to let the (attached) ice grow in size, to form a wall, a house, crush the enemy under a heavy ice cube or tear bodyparts off.

(A character of mine fights with this spells in a roleplay forum... very bloody )

TES is not Dnd, so I don't really see how that matters.

I don't know how Bethesda does AI and sneak attacks in the next game, so I really can't say how instant hit spell criticals would work.

I believe the Midas Magic mod actually has one spell quite similar called 'Glaive' which summons a glaive/big shuriken and throws it, after which it bounces around the room dealing electrical damage to anything that touches it. It disappears after a while and then you can summon multiples glaives at a time for a real party =D

Sounds nice!

Now, I wan't to check it out... .

I agree and disagree. TES is not D&D however, a great deal of what made this game was adopted from that game. In any case, there are some aspects that we must remember, for starters a lot of what Bethesda did when designing their games early on is take into account the die roll system, they did this to simulate things like hit and damage, but these elements just like sneak attacks and such succeeding were all put into the game to simulate things that couldn't be simulated in game, like your clumsiness and inability to swing straight in early levels, your opponents agility and thus ability to dodge attacks, or in the case of inability to sneak attack with magic, the longtime understanding in most RPG's as based off the D&D and most D20 systems, that magic users use vocal, gestural, and physical components which give away their ability to do something without being noticed easily.

That being said, there's a great deal in this post I would like to address, but that's the first thing I would like to see. One of the complaints I here a lot about is the psychic AI, and I agree I want it to disappear, but in response, I'd also like to see a more accurate magic system, much more robust and creative, with a lot more options, and potentially more power, but a great deal more weaknesses as well.

Now before I get any complaints that the TES series does not take into account things like vocal components, or gestures for spellcasting, and that these additions would ruin the game explain to me why the spell 'Silence', makes a spellcaster incapable of casting a spell? Does the name of the spell have no meaning, or is it more likely that the developers knew precisely what they were doing, but the additional effort to put in the vocal components was too much of a hassle? Further why is it spells can't be cast when the caster is paralyzed if its all just a mental excersize? Once again another thing that makes no sense unless taking into account gestural components.

What I want to see is spells taking spellcasters time to cast, with a potential to fail casting if your gestural or vocal components are messed up, and I want to hear the vocal component and see the gestures, particularly at low levels. For Illusionists this will make their skill particularly difficult, but in that example, you see in D&D at least that illusionists tend to specialize in learning special talents to eliminate the need for both vocal and gestural components. Should an illusionist in the game acquire this ability, it should be reflected, and the spellcaster should be able to cast while paralyzed or silenced.

Further, components aren't only used merely to cast spells, they are also used to amplify spells, we've hear of wands, orbs, and various other such equipment. However, in lore there are also enchanted areas, or even larger objects that amplify spells or varieties of spells, that would be fun additions. To add to this concept though we can't forget we're talking about adding very unique spells to the game, such spells if powerful enough may themselves require new components, be it runes, or just rare elements consumed in their casting et cetera. While the requirement of material components for most TES spells has been excluded preferring a pure Magicka method, the use of such components with these new and exotic spells wouldn't break the TES tradition, as it would not only emphasize how special these spells are but also emphasize that they are being rediscovered. Perhaps upon advancing these types of magic further eventually you could stop with the material elements, just the way illusion eventually would lose the vocal and gestural elements when significantly advanced.

Finally I for type of spells, I would suggest permanent area effects of enchantment, illusions like de'javu in combination with an area of effect invisibility spell on a house or something would be great (Though useless in the TES world as no one ever comes looking for you or hunting you, however if they improve this system such an illusion, and old spells like the 'lock' spell might actually see practical use), or perhaps even spells that alter time, channeling as mentioned by many others, and even as an incredibly illusory sort of magic, which is really difficult to find, it would be fine it they added a small quest-line for some sort of dimensional rift spell or something. Many such adventures existed in the D&D world, but they are excessively complicated, and thus wouldn't be possible unless they had their own quest line attacked to them at the very least.