Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 6080038" data-attributes="member: 23240">1. What is the "arcane energy" in your model? Where does it come from?If it's easy to get and channel in big amounts, the most popular spells will be telekinetic and explosive effects. They require energy, but not much finesse.If energy is hard to get, detection spells become popular, as they are among the least power-consuming.2. How hard is the magical language by itself? How hard is it to represent complex concepts and complex algorithms?If the language is simple, or if it is possible to cast spells that someone else designed, you'll get a lot of pseudo-intelligent, composite and indirect spells. Forget about lines of sight and casting in combat. Spells will wait ready, activating on appropriate triggers; they will scan surroundings for targets, discerning friends from foes; they will counter other spells by themselves. Magic combat looks like hacking or like hard sci-fi starship battle.If the language is complicated and hard, spells will use only simple physical processes. Push something. Heat it up. Make a flash of light. Things like this.3. How does the magical language describe living creatures? What about minds? From purely physical point of view they are awfully complicated - but in your setting this does not have to be true.In one extreme, you have no magical healing, transforming or charming. It's much easier to kill with magic than to affect someone in a positive, or at least non-lethal way - disturbing a complicated system is much easier than repairing it.On the other end of scale, you have vital energy or emotional energy working like thermal and kinetic energy. Healing somebody or making them fall in love is as easy (or as complicated) as moving something or heating it up. This may be more fun in play, but you have to design the "natural laws" of your world very carefully. because they differ drastically from the real world.</blockquote>

Verification