Magiclysm: A Total Fantasy Overhaul

So some of you may have noticed a sparkling new mod in the core content pack section.
I actually created a discourse account just to post this topic. I wanted to have a “general discussion” topic available for people to discuss the Magiclysm mod.

First, the setting:
“magic” is an esoteric but not uncommon occurrence. In the past it was used for nearly everything, but with the advance of technology it fell out of favor, as guns were often more deadly, and technological ways of doing things were generally more convenient, as using the energy that every human possesses leaves you feeling spiritually drained for up to an entire day, even for the smallest spell. Advances in magic were rare, as those who studied it were Draconian in their strictness with sticking to the letter of the law. “spell designers” were outcast from the (very small) magic community, and without the network of previous spellcraft books and spellbooks, their breakthroughs were minor and rare. With the Cataclysm however, magic has had an upswing in rogues and spell designers, since most of the draconian heads were killed off. Even normal people are more likely to practice magic, since the infrastructure of modern day society has collapsed, and even the simplest tool is not the convenience it once was. War mages dust off their old books in preparation to fight the zombies, as guns have limited ammo, and ammo factories are all shut down.

Magiclysm adds magic to the game - each spell is tied to a class, of which there are eight. You can only be in four classes, as each class has an opposing class.
Here are the classes:
Magus opposed to Animist ,
Kelvinist opposed to Stormshaper ,
Technomancer opposed to Earthshaper , and
Biomancer opposed to Druid .
To cast magic, you first need to bind a key for it.
Also, be aware that bionic power will decrease your mana pool.

The failure chance of a spell depends on several factors. Things that increase failure chance:
Difficulty of the spell
Level of the spell
Arm Encumbrance*
Leg Encumbrance*
Mouth Encumbrance*
Focus Pool*
Things that decrease failure chance:
Intelligence
Spellcraft
Focus Pool*

  • Depends on the spell characteristics

As a spell gains levels, in addition to reducing the failure chance, the spell can gain various stats. All of these stats depend on the specific spell for whether or not they change due to levels, and how much they can change.

  • Damage
  • Range
  • Area of Effect
  • Casting Time
  • Casting Cost
  • Duration of Effect

I mentioned spell levels: Each spell has an individual level. You can gain experience in a spell by casting it or by studying the spellbook you learned it from. The formula is exponential, so the higher the level you attain, the longer it will take to get to the next level.

In order to cast a spell, you need to set a keybinding for the cast spell action.

The mod is somewhat young, so bear with me while content is slowly added. I am more of a fan of doing the C++ side of things, so if people are interested in writing JSON content for the mod, I would be more than happy to get some more help. I’ve been wanting some more monsters, items, and map locations in order to feel like it’s a more magical world right when you install the mod.

If you are interested in contributing to the mod, and don’t know where to start, you can look here for the current todo list: https://github.com/KorGgenT/Cataclysm-DDA/projects/3 If you have any other questions about the mod, feel free to ask here.

If you would like to give back, you can sponsor me!

17 Likes

My survivor recently stumbled upon a cabin with a few magic books and two wands. She just began learning her first spell and I’m excited to see how a simple ranch hand turned mage turns out.
I had a question about mana crystals though. Mana crystals power wands, correct? And crystallized mana powers the mana crystals? Oh and where would you find or how do you make more to keep your wands charged?

5 Likes

It is allright, except:
You cannot rebind individual spell keys. i.e if you have magic missile as 2nd spell, on spell window key “b” is assigned and there is no way to change this.

Also, when casting damaging spells does not… autotarget. Has to press “Autotarget” separately after casting spell.

1 Like

yes and yes. you can find these in magic shops and the magic cabins for now: it’s going to be possible in the near future to craft the crystallized mana slowly, but i haven’t done it yet.

2 Likes

Just to clarify something your CURRENT bionic power is what drecreases you max mana pool (just in case someone thinks that is the max of the bionic power pool, like i did)

And a question, does anyone really choose animist over magus?

1 Like

correct,
and i’ve seen a lot of people make that choice for the necromantic minions and pain spell.

2 Likes

I just checked the spells again, now i think the best of the magus is the mana bolt (basically a rifle) and the translocate spells, that, agasint and undead army and hp to mana, mmm…

1 Like

translocate is classless. unless you mean phase door and escape.

3 Likes

time to reroll the world then.

Have you thought of adding an arranging option to the spell interface or a way to change the autoassigned keybind to the spell? , it becomes a hassle to scroll/search for the spell that you use the most.

1 Like

yeah, changing letters is definitely on the shortlist

2 Likes

Magic you say?

“On that moment the multi dimensionals beings feeled the real terror”

(Narrator on cell fear DRAGON ball meme)

Why this mod not in the MAGICAL MODS category?
Like Arcana and Necromancy.

two reasons:

  1. Visibility. it’s at the top of the list
  2. it changes far more about the hardcode than any other mod, which is why i consider it “core”
2 Likes

Is there a summary somewhere of the different classes and their abilities?

currently classes don’t have “abilities”.
All they have are spells unique to that class.

2 Likes

Just in case by abilities you mean the spells they can cast, they are pretty much balanced in damage and utility spells, and is more of a personal matter to choose which one doe you like or feel is the most useful of the classes

1 Like

But quite difficult to make that choice if there isn’t information anywhere as to what the differences are!

1 Like

you can check the json files that are on the “spell” folder, every class has its own json file

1 Like

i’m excited to announce some new monsters – Demon Spiders! better not tackle them unless you have at least a survivor firesuit! they come with their very own overmap special, so you won’t run into the adult ones unless you wander right into their nest.

4 Likes

Does the animist summons, have any kind of AI to follow you?, the just seem to wander off and need to lure the mobs to my summons