Discussion: How should each school of magic "feel"?
Elemental Forums
So, over the course of creating a mod which expands the game's magic system, I've found myself thinking alot about how each magic school should "feel" during play. In my opinion, the absence of different "feels" is one of the main shortcomings of the vanilla version of the game's magic system. Ideally, each school should be good for a specific style of play, but be able to be used in new and interesting ways for the creative player.
I'd like to spark a little discussion about what everyone else's conceptions of the different magic schools are. How should they feel, at a very high level of abstraction? What should they be good at? What should they be bad at? You can limit the discussion to the base elemental schools, or all the schools in my Expanded Magic Mod (which would be helpful to me, and I would greatly appreciate), found here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/402629.
I'll kick things off:
Air: I think that school should be good at increasing awareness of the game world, and should have damage spells at high levels rather than low, that affect all units on the battlefield. Should be bad at high-damage, targeted spells.
Earth: Should accomodate a turtling style of play. Good at spells that accomodate high-level strategy through affecting terrain. The Earth-focussed player's power should come from armies, supported by increased food production. I'd envision a faction that could be viable with fewer cities, that creates defendable chokepoints through terraforming. Probably the worst damage production of all the elemental schools.
Fire: Pretty simple. Direct damage in all its forms. Single unit and multiple units. Bad at everything else.
Water: I'm really not too sure about this one. Right now, I have it conceptualized as an Air-Earth hybrid, which doesn't feel very satisfying.
Now, my custom schools:
Light: Gandalf from LotR. As well as a significant illusion component. Should be good at supporting a lightly armored military, as heavy armor would hurt dodge-enhancing magic. Should be bad at direct damage and support spells. The only non-Ether spellbook to be any good at summoning, in the form of illusory units.
Ether: Summoning creatures from other planes. If anyone has any other flavor suggestions...
Blood: I think that Life magic and Death magic should be two sides of the same coin. A school that can do great good and great evil. There should be temptation to do powerful things, but should come with substantial costs, diplomatic and otherwise. Should have a wide variety of benefits. Powerful, high-risk-high-reward type damage spells.
Spirit: I think that this spell school should feel the most "mystical," whatever that means. Mediocre damage output, but with the ability to be in many places at one. Should increase strategic awareness. Should have interesting effects not available in any form to other schools. Should be able to do a wide variety of things, but perhaps not as well as other school.
Summons that are not for combat and/or that go to combat like something more than tanks, could be welcome. The summons can offer great versability to their caster, so depending on the outer planes of your mod, it may be worth considering. Focus noticed: Summons. Seems fine to me.
But it may be just me. If you consider "blood puppets", I suppose they make sense (not popular spells then). Remember that with the proper sacrifices and high levels of blood knowledge, decimating entire populations (or maybe take total control of enemy champions) is not impossible. Focus noticed: Jack of all trades. The focus on combat/healing would seem to fit better your idea of life/death mentioned in the OP.
