And for those who aren't the quickest of bunnies in the forest, the wink pretty much suggest if enough support shows for this type of play system I'll implement it or atleast post enough snippets for others to.

I have no idea which codebase that's from (having very limited experience with "stock" muds)...

But it sounds to me like you're dealing with a list-based system of spells, where everyone learns the same things from the same list, with no options to branch to other things, and the entire list is in linear order.

I would suggest a more scattered and logical approach:

Wind-based spells can only be learned by experimenting with other wind-based spells. Fire-based spells can only be learned by experimenting with other fire-based spells.

The more powerful/dangerous/risky the spell, the more difficult it is to learn it. Perhaps...something similar to how Armageddon does it, but created to fit your game...

Wind spells might be: "cool breeze" (which gives you a lesser movement delay than other people), "lesser windstorm" (which causes a bit of sand to gust up into your enemy's face and gives you a few extra seconds to escape a fight), and "float" (which gives you less stamina drain when you move from room to room).

Once you've become really good at "cool breeze" - you'd discover that "icy wind" pops up on your spells list. But you won't know the right combo of words to cast it - you still have to experiment and determine which words you need (based on specific documented criteria that gives you some indication on what to look for). Icy wind might branch further into Gale Storm - a room-spell that affects everyone standing in the room except for the caster.

Etc. etc. etc. and you can do this with all types of magicks.. let only certain spells branch to other certain spells - and start new mages off with just a few basic spells so they can get things rolling. From there they have to decide which direction they want to go in - if they try to do everything right away, it just takes longer for them to branch. Focusing will help them branch, but they must neglect other things in order to do it - and that helps balance things out and give characters a more varied set of dimensions and depth.

Awesome input, thanks, I just got tired of seeing people get spells just because they leveled. I will definantely take the branch idea into account when starting the code for this, it is sure to be an experience, as soon as its up and running I'll post the link and you can come check it out. Many Thanks.

Ciao,
Enola

The approach Jazuela describes is typically called a skill-tree (or a skill-web, for the version with interdependancies). It's the same approach used by many RTS computer games for technology development, although some games (such as Diablo2) use it for skills as well. It's also used by some roleplaying games (GURPS Magic has quite a nice version) and is quite a popular approach for many of the newer generation of muds.