More personal skill trees

[P_Tigras]

I never liked D&D's artificial division of magic into "divine magic" and "arcane magic". I don't see why priests of a god of fire should have weaker fire spells than a typical wizard, or why a wizard who devotes his life to healing must necessarily be a worse healer than a priest of a god of destruction just because of some highly arbitrary decisions made by a handful of game designers. It's all magic, the only difference is who or what gets credited as being the source.

[jack1974]

Well depends how you intend the Prayer/Gods system.
If you assume they're just a different sources of magic, then OK.
If I add this I would like it to be different. Like something that anyone could gain access to. For example, if you sacrifice something to a power-hungry God, you could get a fire spell more powerful than a higher level mage. But just once.
Wizards learn to use magic through train. With prayers instead it should be more like a one-time boost that you get no matter what your class is, but just based on your action.
But I'm not sure we'll add this in Loren 2, seems a bit complex to implement

[P_Tigras]

I don't have an issue with that. I have more of an issue with game systems that arbitrarily say that healing is only for priests, or only wizards can have the best fire spells. As for implementation, I can readily understand your desire not to overcomplicate things to the point that the game takes even longer to complete.

[Thee Forsaken One]

Unless already established otherwise, I always assume that magic shares a common source and the cause/effects are all based on the paradigm of the caster. As far as I'm aware, that's how it works for Aravorn.

[Anima_]

Honestly I'd rather keep religion and magic separate. Having D&D style gods as spell source or even direct result prayers reduces the gods to vending machines. Prayer and offerings are generally a dialogue with a god, often in a highly ritualised form. Of course often it was the mortal bribing the god to leave them alone.

In a fantasy setting it makes much more sense for cults and churches to have developed their on magic traditions. Instead of their faith or religious duties being a source of magical power they inform the disciples view on magic.

Honestly I'd really like magic be something everyone could do. In the same sense that everyone could draw. Nothing is stopping me or Jack from doing our own artwork. Well there is the lack of talent of course and the amount of practice and study we'd have to do.
The same goes for magic. Most people lack talent with it and would take decades before they could cast even a simple light spell. But a history scholar might learn how to use the light stone she bought for a good amount of coin from an enchanter to read without ruining her eyes by candlelight. (It's also less of a fire hazard.)
Some people will never learn how to cast spells but find magic in their own craft. Take the master smith in Grimoires north quarter. She produces blades with a lovely wave pattern. Many a noble warrior swears that in battle the blade itself becomes a sheet of water producing a cut so fine as to be nearly invisible. The local enchanters guild is still trying to catch the illegal mage that must be helping her, so far without much success.
Or the dwarven dancer Madora. He is often the subject of much hilarity among those who never saw him dance. But when he dances their is neither laughter nor even the sound of breathing. Flames and Shadows dance with him, the surface of the lake becomes his willing stage and no mortal ever had the strength of will to let their eyes wander.

Of course within the game magic is mostly encountered in combat and as combat skills. The ability to incorporate magic in otherwise mundane tasks would of course allow a much broader design spectrum for non spellcaster skills.
Though I have to confess that settings where magic is a natural part of life and not the eminent domain of wizard in their lofty towers, witches in their wicked swamps or druids in their hallowed forests are my personal favourite. So I just might be a smidgeon biased here.

[Troyen]

+1 for Anima world.

[kadakithis]

Personally, I think it has to do with how magic was conceived as part of fictional Lore. We had hermetic magic which on the most part was more a 1700s and 1800s thing become the default Wizard choice for all medieval magic, but nearly all magic in every other case until very recently is fueled by religion.

I always wanted a game where the type of spells and how they work are based on the belief, because all magic seems to come from either ceremony or religion. i find it odd that Hermetic magic somehow became equal to religious magic and is treated as ubiquitous. I guess so players wouldn't have to have a belif system, but would love a game where all classes are determined by culture and belief, since lore wise that seems to be where magic throughout history comes from.

So someone practising fantasy Voudoun could become tougher/more beautiful/ summon lightning or waves based on the God they have aligned with. While fantasy Greeks could call down general blessings or born with abilities. Or even fantasy Christians be the archetypical healers with a smattering of smitings that are situational. I mean it be nice to have a fantasy world where hermetic magic just wasn't as common.

but that would be near impossible to do.

[jack1974]

I don't have an issue with that. I have more of an issue with game systems that arbitrarily say that healing is only for priests, or only wizards can have the best fire spells. As for implementation, I can readily understand your desire not to overcomplicate things to the point that the game takes even longer to complete.

I was referring only to "prayers" in this case. Magic variety is fine

What Anima said it's OK too. In my game world is different from Game Of Thrones for example, where magic is much rarer. Here anyone could learn, some are born gifted with it, like Joanne. But maybe she never really trained in it (for various reasons) so while she knows a bit of everything, from invisibility, to druid-looking magic, she is not really an expert - at the beginning of the story, later she'll become powerful!
Others trained for it, the hard way, and became Archwizards (Apolimesho).
So yeah I've now established this, as Forsaken said "I always assume that magic shares a common source and the cause/effects are all based on the paradigm of the caster".

Then of course there are several schools of magic: druids learn nature spells because of their nature affinity, and so on. As said it's related to specific races/zones/area. Only exception are opposed magic, like Druids vs Dark Magic for example.

In Loren 2 there will be some interesting characters related to this topic, like Lydia who became an Alchemist, so decided to apply magic to potions, instead of spells (though probably for gameplay reasons I'll need to give her some spells too!).

[jack1974]

Ha, speaking of Magic, I almost forgot that Miakoda actually created this Wiki entry A YEAR ago:
http://aravorn.com/index.php?title=Magic
I think it's well written and basically what we're saying here in forums. I should have looked there myself before answering