When I read about music/bards... I was thinking different parts of a song. Like maybe one person can play a background beat, and the other play a melody, an depending on the combination, you can get a spell out of it, or a fizzle in the spell, if it sucks.

If I were to make a magic system "designed for combos" I would instead make all magic first take the form of status effects, that do nothing, until someone closes the spell.

Also I would allow for unfinished magic to be stored in two places until it is finished. Inside players, enemies, and inside totems(IE the ground for area spells).

Essentially spells are casted in "halves". And when two halves meet the effect triggers. A single spell allows you to store two tokens in it which may have 1 or more halves. When players make a spell they can take two tokens that they have learned to make one spell.

Meaning that spells end up looking like this.

Spell 1:
Token 1: Fire Damage Target, based on finisher elemental level. Cast time +.25 Seconds
Token 2: Fire Weakness target, based on time stored. Fire Weakness Self, based on time stored.

Spell 2:
Token 1: Fire Damage Target, fixed 100 damage
Token 2: Slow Atttack Target, fixed .

Spell 3:
Token 1: Fire Weakness Target, fixed . Slow Attack Target, fixed . Cast time +3 seconds
token 2: Fire Damage Target, fixed 5 damage. cast time -1 second

Used
one player casts spell-1 two times in a row. The target gets fire damage and a bonus to the damage the second time the spell is casted. However the spell caster also gets fire weakness on themselves for a set amount of time.

Two players cast spell-1 on the same target once. The target gets fire damage and a bonus to the damage. However each player gets half a spell of fire weakness on themselves, meaning the next time something casts a spell that puts fire weakness on them they'll have the effect.

One player casts all the spells in order. Spell-1, nothing happens. spell-2, Fire damage resolves. Spell 3, Fire Weakness and slow attack resolve along with a very weak fire spell stored in the target.

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This means fighting someone/group using magic can get pretty tricky. Even if you limit players to 3 or 4 available spells they can still pull out quite a bit of adaptive utility ranging from anything from spiked damage, to very tactical effects.

Also means that there is probably TOO much room for surprise. Players tend to not find it very fun when something seems to be doing nothing for most the battle, then suddenly end up with with 4+ crippling status effects.

Thanks lithos,

I think this is why I was trying to consider abstracting away from an immediate cast kind of spell (fireball was the example) which would be done in the general game screen, and a more archaic and complex kind of spell (like say lowering the defences of a towns spelled defence).

With the former you want the effect to be immediate and therefore it should play in-game. For the latter you want to have a trance like state where you are mostly unaware of what is happening in the world around you (except for indicators that let you know that a danger is present for example) as you are focused on building your spell similar to the way that you would build a sentence in language, or a ethereal structure, or a weave of fabric.

Having it in a trance would cause issues with game mechanics, but you could first cast as a base an Aura of Protection for example and then build your protection to surround a larger area. Then you could start casting another spell while also having to maintain the Aura of Protection. Before the other spell can be unleashed you would then need to break down the Aura of Protection safely (so as not to cause damage to your new spell structure) and then unleash hell. This would cause a delay prior to the final cast where you were unprotected until your spell takes effect, which would mean there was an opening for non-magic users to get in and start hacking to disrupt the final cast.

...

OK, I forgot where I was up to so I'll come back later and see if I can regain my thought process ;)

You could have rune system so it because a sort of puzzle game. You join runes together to form patterns connecting patterns together to form bigger patterns which are the “spells” The size of each pattern would be limited to the magicians power level and the runes the can use would might be part learnt part situational. Each level or puzzle might have a number of possible solutions and patterns that could be built and player has to coordinate the different patterns being formed from runes and combine them together. So it might be that when faced with defending the castle from an invading army you take your three mages one forms a life pattern the other form fire and the last forms stone, you combine the fire and stone to make lava, and lava and life to summon a powerful lava golem to lay waste the enemy army. Or you could form the patterns necessary for a shield to surround the castle or to cause an earth quake. Each solution might have different affects on the out come of the scenario.