I drafted a magic rework for fun

Warning: long post

I finished BioShock 2 last night, and since Skyrim's combat was apparently inspired by BioShock, I briefly thought about what Skyrim's magic might be like if it felt more like BS2's plasmids, and enemies felt more like Splicers.

Today I blacked out and wrote nine pages of notes on the concept.

So, I propose to you: AzureOrpheus's magic rework.

I made it to be more like if Skyrim was released today instead of checks almost fifteen years ago. Is it overcomplicated and/or overpowered? Quite possibly. But I also wrote it under the assumption that there isn't any stupid alchemy/enchanting shenanigans.

General Magic Changes

Each spell is unique, with variations in effect and "trigger" type. However, earlier spells can be upgraded to keep up with your current magic skill. Would this be done through the perk tree or tomes? Idk, I'm not a game designer. Point being, you can use exclusively stream spells if you really want to. You can also choose to use a worse tier of spell, if ya nasty.

Destruction

- Mage battles! Stream spells can clash, and the loser will be stunned briefly

- Dual Casting is actually worth it and good

- Maybe a rock/paper/scissors fire/lightning/ice system?

Fire:

- % chance to set enemies on fire per damage tick

- Fire can potentially spread between enemies

- Can potentially burn enemies to a crisp at later levels

Master spell: Short(!!) charge up, then a huge explosion that sets everything (including you) on fire. Think that one Smash item, the lil nuke with legs.

Ice:

- Half damage to stamina

- Damage ticks apply a stacking slow effect, max stacks will freeze them solid. Bonus melee damage? Maybe?

- Enemies will shatter into pieces at later levels

Master spell: Summon a localized blizzard that will rain ice spikes that can instantly full freeze enemies

Lightning:

- Half damage to magika

- % chance to proc a status that will damage and "stutter" animations

- Can potentially chain to other enemies

- Will explode heads at later levels

Master spell: Sustained channel for a torrential lightning storm (I'm thinking kinda like a Warlock storm grenade from Destiny)

Other spell types:

- Weapon infusion

- Expert level storm spells (slower than master level, will not proc status as much)

- Melee/fist/claw? spells

- Stealth bonuses and melee stealth finishers

Ability/Perk ideas:

- Cloak spells self-apply their status, but that status will regen health and their respective stat for the duration

- Craftable handles for channeled elemental weapons that consume magika on strike.

Illusion

- Charm/rage/fear with scale up duration rather than effective level

- Enemies will have a (almost never 100%) chance to resist, based on their general level and Illusion level against yours, and will be highlighted with helpfully indicative colors based on that chance when targeted.

- Fear will cause enemies to cower in place rather than run, Charm in combat will cause them to fight for you.

- You can also uncommonly be subject to Illusion spells. Frenzy will disguise allies as the same faction as the caster, Fear will hide your attribute gauges and disguise all enemies as dremora, and Charm will put you under AI control that you can button mash out of (this is, of course, very rare)

Additional spells:

- Decoy

- AoE Silence

- AoE Fog that limits vision to Xm

- Dominate - Assume direct NPC control, leaving you vulnerable

- Chameleon, capped at 50% or so

Ability/Perk ideas:

- Passive chance to inflict Fear on enemies that look at you

- Fear/Charm can be used as a speech boost in dialogue/on vendors

Conjuration (this is where I go a bit crazy)

- Bound Weapons/Armor: Press to equip, hold/neutral charged attack for an effect

- Dagger: Throw and recall. Upgrade for headshot bonus damage and ricochet

- Sword: "conduct" the sword to slash independently. Taking damage will break concentration. Upgrade for an extra blade (2 for one handed cast, 3 in a whirlwind for dual cast)

- Axe: Throw with a boomerang effect. Upgrade to seek enemies and gain damage per throw for each enemy hit

- Mace: head bonk with stun chance. Upgrade for AoE effect, full knockout for main target

- GSword: Will descend from above the target's head (like Doom in Hades) and get stuck in the ground. Interact to equip. Upgrade adds explosion and knockdown.

- GAxe: Throw and stick to ground/walls. Periodic explosion. Upgrade for faster interval and larger AoE

- Warhammer: huge ground slam with stun chance, yourself included. Upgrade guarantees stun, grants you immunity, and adds knockdown chance.

- Spear❓: Shoots perfectly straight and pierces enemies, pinning corpses to walls. Upgrade will pin living enemies

- Bow/Arrow - Continuous arrow fire. Lower damage per arrow than shooting with the bow. Upgrade will make arrows explode after a delay.

- Armor: Will forcibly give enemies boots, gauntlets, or a helm. Boots/gauntlets will slow movement/attack speed, helm will blind. Upgrade lets you choose the piece by aiming, and boots/gauntlets will fully stop movement/attacks, helm will induce fear/frenzy/charm randomly

Ability/Perk ideas:

- Cast a summon/bound spell on a risen dead to destroy it and enhance the next cast of said summon/bound spell

- Direct summon to a lodged weapon to get them to equip it

- Risen dead explode when killed

- Target a critical health enemy with necromancy to automatically raise them and summon a short-lived ghost. Ghost will die instantly to soul trap.

Additional spells:

- Master level spell for each Daedric prince. Each requires a quest to unlock, uses your entire magika bar, and they all share a long cooldown.

- Azura: Mass soul trap with DoT

- Boethiah: Poison fog cloud and multiple empowered bound swords

- Clavicus Vile: Equip full bound armor and greataxe, boost your damage/2handed skill, drain health/magika over time

- Hermaeus Mora: Summon huge tentacle portal that grabs enemies, instakilling them. Instills Fear in enemies that see it, and grabbed enemies cannot be looted.

- Hircine: Forcibly transforms target enemy into a werewolf that you can direct. Target dies when duration ends.

- Jyggalag: Summons giant empowered greatsword that can crystallize opponents. Cannot be equipped.

- Malacath: Frenzies all enemies and forcibly equips them with two handed bound weapons.

- Mehrunes Dagon: Summon a huge fist ala Bayonetta. Acts like an empowered bound Warhammer with a huge AoE and fire damage/effects

- Mephala: Enemies fight each other (not you) while a huge spider web slows and poisons them.

- Meridia: Summon a mini sun that does DoT and vaporizes undead.

- Molag Bal: Summons spears under enemies that impale and suspend them (Nezha's 4, for my Warframe players)

- Namira: Rots enemies, dealing DoT and potentially rotting off limbs, disabling attacks/movement.

- Nocturnal: You become invisible for a while and enemies instantly forget about you.

- Peryite: Raises all nearby corpses. Low health enemies struck by these zombies become zombies themselves.

- Sanguine: Enemies may dance uncontrollably, barf and take damage from severe alcohol poisoning, or strip naked.

- Sheogorath: Inflicts damage and Fear/Frenzy/Charm at random. Instakills enemies at low health.

- Vaermina: Enemies fall asleep while you drain their three attributes.

Whew. Hard part over.

Alteration

- Wards are here now, along with Feather/Burden, Teleportation, and FLIGHT (I assume we don't need separate city cells for the most part nowadays)

- Telekinesis is like BioShock's

New spells

- Disarm

- Force Push (ala Fable)

- Suspend (air jail)

Ability/Perk ideas

- Wards absorb and/or reflect magic

- Skin spells reflect physical damage

- Passively cause weapons to miss occasionally

- Throw living enemies with Telekinesis

- Crush enemies (Warframe Mag 4)

Restoration

- Bring back Absorb and Restore for all three attributes, and passive healing over time

New spells:

- Poison/Disease infliction

- Non-elemental magic damage (cellular decay or something)

Ability/Perk ideas:

- Heal an enemy to set broken bones wrong, debuffing/disabling attacks and movement

- Unarmed attacks can trigger pressure points to disable/paralyze

Enchanting

- Staves scale on both Enchanting and the respective spell

- Soul Trap is an Enchanting spell

All done! Mostly. I had ideas for Multi-School perks/abilities but I'm tired of typing lol.

This is purely a thought experiment, I don't have the time or skill to mod or make a game. Any thoughts? I think I did an alright job personally. I'm not sure I have faith that we'd get anything like this but it's fun to think about. Please propose your ideas :)