I think passive abilities for each magic could help build certain playstyles. Enforcing certain playstyles and outright deciding x magic is “tank” and x magic is “fast” might not be for this game though. Some ideas that I had were:
Water: Size/damage bonus when in a body of water, infinite Air while swimming - of course water should get some bonus when in water. It makes sense.
Sand Size/damage bonus when standing on sand - Sand magic leaves behind piles of sand. It would be cool if sand users were encouraged to restrict their movement to their zones of control or deserts/beaches.
Earth: Defense boost while casting - Earth is slow, so earth users are more likely to be in melee range when fighting. This would help them tank lots of hits at point blank range.
Wind: Slower falls, higher jumps - Makes wind users more floaty.
Light: Damage/speed boost during the day, weaker/slower at night - Vice versa for dark magic.
I don’t think these passive abilities would fit having a tier 1 magic, but maybe this could be worked into Transformation spell abilities for Lost Spells.
While I do think these magics should be reworked, what you’re doing here is giving them just straight up buffs, not really passive abilities. For example, instead of simply giving size/damage boosts to sand users standing in sand, you can add onto what they already provide such as stepping in sand piles will slow down movement a certain percent. Or earth actually creating piles of rocks/gravel when they hit the ground, leading to bleeding damage or something like I said with sand.
I don’t like this idea.
I think each magic is already unique enough thanks to the various interactions magics have with each other.
This would make selecting your magic more like selecting a class, which I don’t like.
Definitely would need some work but I like this. Especially because some magics are unbalanced right now so this could help balance them. For example: plasma is currently a strong magic but there would not be many things that gave it buffs but water magic would be extremely well in water which is everywhere. This would balance stuff out more and make some of the “bad” magics, good.
I really like this. While it doesn’t make sense for starter magic, it makes a lot of sense for mastery level magics seeing as, with mastery magic, you’re able to control your element. Controlling your element would allow you to
Manipulate surrounding water to increase your damage and transfer air bubbles from the surface to your lungs+prevent water from entering your lungs
Manipulate surrounding sand to boost your attacks.
Manipulate surrounding earth to protect you while you cast (the way how it’s described could be reworked, seeing as there’d be no way to simply “get a defense boost while casting”)
Manipulate air surrounding you to make your falls slower and boost your jumps
Manipulate surrounding light/shadows to boost your attacks by adding more of your element to them.
As said above, for mastery tier of your magic this would be a very good idea. And maybe some of the passives could become even better at the awakened tier of your magic.
I can see this idea for modes. However, I agree with what kitty_cushion had said - this will make it that you are selecting a class. I don’t like this idea because it feels to me that the magic caster is embodying their magic which they should not be–at least not in our early state right now. We are just humans with the ability to cast magic.
Especially with the water example, you can’t breathe indefinitely as a passive ability because you will need gills (to be passive). Instead and theoretically, to breathe indefinitely/longer a spell needs to be cast which I only see for water/wind users.
Last worry that I have about this is the balance which has to come with implementing this idea into the game.
