IMO there should be another class branching out from herbalist. This class would be a very versatile, but advanced. A mage would have to be a level 5 herbalist and have a tome, crafted by the herbalist from wood, cloth, string, and gold. The mage’s ability would be based off the all of the stats (so the best mage would be a 6/6/6 hearthling). The higher the mind stat, the faster they would cast spells (able to read faster); the higher the spirit stat, the more effective non-physical spells would be; and with a higher the body stat, a more powerful physical attack spell would be possible. The mage would be very versatile because s/he would have a massive variety of possible weapons, ranging from the basic tome with a short range/meele physical attack (enhanced punching) to ultra long range shots. There would have to be many types of magic, like physical attacks w/ high dmg and low range and long range attacks with lower dmg. There would also be different elemental tomes for each ranging type like ice, lightning, fire, and poison/curse. Different elemental attacks would have different animations and effects. Ex. fire could have low range and constant medium dmg w/ area dmg attacks and chance to burn (think flamethrower). Lightning would have medium range extreme dmg and slow reload single target attacks, but it would have a 1/5 chance to miss. Ice would do low dmg but it would do slowing to a group of up to 3 enemies at a time. Lastly curses/poison would have a long range, slow reload and do no upfront dmg, but it would slowly damage the attacker; it would start with nearly un-noticeable damage and building up over 45 secs to extreme dmg and an instant kill (for non boss creatures) in 60 secs. Please tell me what you think of this idea, whether or not it seems good, what more it could have, and how it could be balanced.
There will only be 2 mage classes from what I’ve read. Cleric and Geomancer; No other mage classes
Well that kinda sucks 
There are at least 2 mods from what I remember trying to implement mages. One of those are from @8BitCrab, are you still working in that?
yes and no… @Aviex and @thelegorebel are helping me by doing the coding, but i’ve kinda been failing with getting all my models ready and sent to them…
so some time in the future the arcane expansion should be ready, really it currently just depends when i get my models sent to them.
At the moment, the Cleric and Geomancer are confirmed – they will be in the game at some point. Of course, the Cleric is already in, but they’ll probably get fleshed out further as we get more advanced features.
However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t get new magic users in the future; simply that Radiant haven’t confirmed any of them yet. We already have the Black Cord Necromancers, and the RC lore hints at a lot of magical goings-on, so I think it’s inevitable we’ll get more access to the magical side of the world of Hearth.
I have read rumours that Radiant want to avoid “classical” mages/wizards, at least as standard classes, but there’s a lot of room for interpretation and, frankly, I haven’t seen any original statements from Radiant to that effect. Of course, if anyone has a link to one it would be very useful to know; I certainly haven’t done any in-depth searches in that regard.
I’m personally in favour of some kind of magic user as a defender/soldier, and another more “utility” magic user besides the Geomancer. What I’m imagining are a straight-up battle mage (think Gandalf, a DnD wizard class, etc… a traditional Big Pointy Hat and Big Magic Stick, sets enemies on fire or turns them into frogs) useful for late to end-game defence; and something closer to a sorcerer, illusionist or enchanter which complements the other classes without replacing them.
How I’d love to see magic work in Stonehearth is how it worked in Majesty – you have your magic users and they do their own thing (e.g. when something attacks them they cast fireballs at it); but you can also have them perform “larger” or more powerful rituals such as changing the weather, creating a wall of fire between two points, or opening a portal. To facilitate these spells, the magic user would need access to both supplies (ingredients spent on casting the spell) and arcane apparatus (workbenches, higher tiers allow more powerful spells), so magic becomes a reward for establishing these high-end workshops. Of course, spell ingredients may be rare or expensive, and the player might even need to send some of their hearthlings on a quest in order to unlock a spell (e.g. defeat the necromancer equivalent of Ogo in a similar quest-line, and use that necromancer’s ancient ring of power to build your wizard’s new magical thingamabob that lets them cast the next tier of spells.)
The key to making magic work in a game like Stonehearth is to make it an intrinsic tool, just as much an option as doing things the old fashioned way… but with a different cost. Magic shouldn’t be tacked on, or open up entirely new pathways; IMO the best magic systems are ones which allow you to do normal things in a magical way.
The other key thing, and this one is specific to Stonehearth, is that the magic needs to be a “macro” option – not something you use to solve individual problems, but a larger and vaguer tool which you combine with other possibilities. Stonehearth is being made to be anti-micro-management, which means that individually targeted spells don’t really fit with how the other mechanics work. Instead, it would be better to have spells which effect the whole map (e.g. weather related), the entire hearthling population (e.g. teleport everyone to the town banner), or everything within a set area (e.g. a spell which makes all the crops within a small selection grow at double speed; or gives all the hearthlings in that area a boost to attack and defence stats.)
The potential is there; and the benefit of being part of this early stage of development is that we get the opportunity to convince Radiant that this idea could be great for Stonehearth. The Cleric and Geomancer are there to fill pretty specific roles; and I’m sure that if we come up with a mage idea for a specific role then Radiant will, at the very least, get something useful from that discussion and find a way to fill in that specific role.
I also made a post talking about various “magic” concepts and I like your ideas as well. I love that idea of more “magic” in hearthstone. I hope to see more.