Magic with material components

[Mickel]

Crossfire has a very interesting and diverse magic system which I like, and I feel it can be made even more diverse by adding magic schools which use material components for the magic - that is, magic that in addition to spell points requires the expenditure of some object in the game. A few examples come to mind:

Necromancy

Necromancy is the art of manipulating the dead, and all the spells in the necromancy school would require dead bodies or pieces thereof in some way. The classic example would be the ability to reanimate an intact corpse into a ghoul whose abilities are a percentage (dependent on the ability level of the caster) of those of the original creature. There are tons of possibilities though.

Corpse combustion - the caster causes bodies and body parts on the ground to burst into flame, creating flame wall like effects whose strength depend on the mass of the dead material used to fuel it. Corpse gas - similar to the above, but the body parts instead burst into clouds of poison. Absorb - the caster transforms flesh from his inventory into hp. Corpse mine - a corpse is charged with magic and made to detonate when it is touched... I am sure you can come up with a lot more ideas.

Crystal magic

From another excellent game I got the idea of crystal magic - that is, magic which is done with crystals as a material component. We already have magic energy gems and this is a logical continuation. There are two ways about this and there is nothing to say both aren't possible.

Crystal magic as a casting skill:
Spells are cast much like with the existing magic schools, but require gems in your inventory. Examples would be things like channeling magic energy through a ruby in order to get make a "laser beam", and which destroys the ruby in the process, or charging a gem with energy, making it fly toward a target and then explode, causing a diamond to burst into dust which levitates around you like a shield and blocks damage...

Crystal magic as a crafting skill:
Just like we can make magic scrolls now, we could use jewelry in conjunction with the crystal magic skill to craft magical gems that you use exactly like a potion or scroll. You activate it, the gem turns to dust, and the magic is cast.

Plant magic

This is something I had actually expected from the gaians. Charge a rose with magic energy to make it into a homing projectile that paralyzes the opponent, or make a humble mushroom grow into a huge, animated mushroom that attacks your enemies...

Money magic

I can't remember where I saw it, but one game had a spell where you used money as a material component to do damage proportionate to the amount of money sacrificed. Imagine things like a cloud of platinum coins forming a shield in front of a character, or a cudgel of heavy gold coins lancing toward an enemy...