Interesting read; does this mean that only one player can posess the spells in the "lost" spellbooks?  Or is it that once unleashed on the world (by someone completing a quest, say), the book becomes available to all players?

Time to bust open the spell book! Me want!

I think it would add much more interest to make shard types not have exact overlap or duplication with spell book types. Ie when you capture a Fire Shard, it unlocks fire-themed spells from a variety of books: Fireball (Combat), Brilliance (Enchantment), Summon Fire Elemental (Summoning), Create Desert (Ruin), Thaw Tundra (Revival), etc.

This way the set of spells you can use is potentially different with each game, depending on the interplay between what books you have and what shard types you managed to access. Kind of like the system in Dominions 3, where the combination between levels of magic power (Fire, Air, Earth, Death, etc) and research in magic schools (Enchantment, Evocation, Summoning etc) determines what combinations and subsets of spells you gain access to.

Otherwise, if you have a Fire Book you're pretty much screwed if you don't get the Fire Shard, then when you do you always just unlock the exact same set of spells that were in the book all at once.

I'm looking forward to the new version of the beta. And then seeing what these spells do, and how the whole magic system functions now.

To be honest, now we'll really be able to start the "Gameplay" testing. The stuff that drives the fun of the game. Should be a good ride.

OOoooo good idea dryman! though im not sure if frogboy and co are dead set on having the shard specific books or not. your idea seems to solve many issues people (including me) have with the shards and having to have the corresponding books. maybe there could be a way to research the shard specific books as more of a mid magic tree tech. either way, shards would still be of strategic importance, gotta collect them all! if for no other reason than to keep em from my enemies..

man i cant wait for this game!

A set of stun spells would be useful or paralysis/hold person as higher end versions of slow.

If some creatures end up being resistant to normal weapons you could have an enchant weapon so your mundane creatures could fight them without penalty and without the need to be equipped with magical weapons.

Or a storm/wind spell that made arrows and siege weapons inaccurate or ineffective.

Magical diseases would be pretty messed up. Imagine if the "sloth disease/curse" spread outside of a city and ended up spreading through a trade network. Or like in Wizard's First Rule when the ancient mages made it so all red fruit became poisonous in the entire midlands region thus ruining much of their food supply.

Then maybe your herbalists would have to come up with a cure before you unleashed your biomagical weapon of mass destruction so you could defend yourself...and sell off the formula to those "accidentally" afflicted.

If find it strange that the revive land spell cost only 1 essence while the ruin land spell cost 1 essence + 5 mana.

So what's the deal with shards now? Do we only care about them for the big spells or do they give bonuses for all spells as well? It doesn't seem like there are very many shard-requiring spells... 

Your magic could definitely use some magic...

A little creativity would be nice with the spells, I'd rather have spells that allow subtle control over the flow of battle then 15 different ways to do direct damage. The strategic spells arn't bad, but your tactical spells need serious inspiration. Spells shouldn't just be "Hey, I'm gonna blast that guy with Ice... Nah Fire... Wait Darkness!!" It should be about controlling the flow of combat, attempting to force your enemy to dance to your tune. Magic should be more deep a battle between Spell-casters should be like a game within the game.

Also I don't like the idea of one shot spells... Isn't mana there for the whole sake of deciding how much pain a mage can dish out before running out of juice? If I want to throw 15 magic blasts and have enough mana to do it then I should damn well be able to. I'd rather see you adjust the mana costs of spells to be higher then enforce arbitrary limits on how many times you can cast a spell in combat, the very idea is... Lame.

I'm sure in some future expansion pack we can dive deeply into "subtle" spells.  It would be great if you could provide some concrete examples of spells you would like. We're all ears.

Just realized that the table doesn't list the book of summoning. 

Yep!

One time usage only? Only 20 mana to cast "Spell of making"?

What?

I mean, wouldnt it make more sense for ´"Spell of making" to cost like, 40, maybe even 50 mana?

It wins you the game instantly, it should damn well be a spell that only the most powerfull magicians of all time can cast, and what about all those spells that can only be cast once? For gods sake, just make their mana usage higher, or make them consume an apropriate magic shard, spells that can only be used once just make things boring, well for me atleast.....

Also, you havent actually made that many spells, and as the guy above me said, you need a lot more different spells and such.

Ofcourse, thats just my oppinion..

Also, to savagebananaman, some spells should be just direct damage, but i agree that most of them should have some side effect, but usually a quite weak one, like a very, very small reduction from combat speed.