Best magic mod?

[MCBozo]

Magic mods seem complicated and involved, but I'd like to at least start delving headfirst into one.

What would you guys suggest? I'm currently using the Direwolf20 modpack for MC 1.7.10.

I suppose my choices are Thaumcraft, Witchery, Blood Magic, and Ars Magica 2? Are there other significant ones I'm forgetting? Botania? Mystcraft? What else?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Just to add, I know next to nothing about any of these mods. I'd be starting out in a brand new world as well.

 

[rouge_bare]

(Note that this is largely my own opinion.)

I'm not sure why Ars Magica 2 is there, seeing as it's not in the DW 1.7 pack. Of the mods mentioned, it's also the least familier to me.

Blood Magic requires several diamonds and gold ingots to get going, placing it more mid-late game, especially if you want to progress quickly. (You'll want access to some form of self healing, be it healing potions or some other method, if you want to rush BM).

Thaumcraft is accessible slightly earlier than blood magic, the most expensive thing to find is 2 gold ingots. You'll also want a fair few ink sacks (or other black dye) for researching. Thaumcraft is one of those mods that you have to try to see if you'd like it. You can't get much in the mod without doing some research, which is pretty much a minigame in itself. This is not to everyone's tastes.

Witchery is likely the one of the 5 i'll cover that doesn't really lend itself to single player that well. Personally if it's in the pack i usually leave it to later game when it's tools are more useful. This is my opinion here. If you are on a multiplayer server that allows certain poppets you might want to get into this quicker than I usually would, if only to get you protection poppets against vodoo, or the other protection poppets. (also keep your bed safe,people can get taglocks from it.)

Personally the magic mod I tend to start earliest is Botania. Sure you need a couple of gold ingots to really get the mana system going, but other than that, it's all stone, wood and the magical flowers that are sure to be around. To get some toys you will need ender pearls or diamonds however.

I'm just going to list what i consider the perks of the mod that would likely be most useful early game. I could have easily missed something, especilly with Witchery and Blood Magic. I haven't included Ars Magica due it it not actually being in the pack.

Thaumcraft: Wand Focus: Equal Trade (Instant mass redecoration), Axe of the Stream (No more leaving a peice of tree up, although personally i prefer Ticon Lumber axes), Boots of the Traveller (speed boost, step assist and jump boost).
Botania: Manasteel Armor (Think iron armor that never takes damage as long as you have a mana tablet/band of mana with mana), Sojourner's sash (boots of the traveller, in the belt slot, I think they might stack.) Many other baubles and trinkets that are more situational. Rods of the Land and Sea (Makes dirt and water respectively from mana). Rod of the Skies (Sort of flight, but it's more of a huge upward leap)
Witchery: Sapling mutation? Seriously I don't know many huge benefits to having witchery started early. Although I'm not fond of needing to kill wolves to get certain things... (I love dogs )
Blood Magic: Sigil of Air (Rudimentory Flight), Lava Crystal (Smelting for LP, although this isn't hugely useful until you have automated LP or a fairly large store of LP in my opinion), Sigil of the Green Grove (Fast Crop Growth)

Again this is my opinion, but I'd start with either Botania or Thaumcraft. Botania has a special mention if you are particularly interested in Blood Magic, having multiple methods of keeping yourself healthy while donating to your blood alter.

 

[ljfa]

Y U NO list Botania?
I think this is the easiest one to do early game. When you get the Fallen Kanade you can start with Blood Magic

It is definitely beneficial to make a Thaumometer (and maybe an iron capped wooden wand) early game and start scanning all the things so that you have a healthy number of research points for later.

 

[MCBozo]

Y U NO list Botania?

Because I'm a modded MC newb and I'm still learning things My friends are into Botania though and seem to like it a lot.

 

[epidemia78]

All of the magic mods you mentioned add their own unique crafting system to the game. Thats kind of the hallmark of the genre, they hardly ever use vanilla crafting tables. So the question isnt so much about which mod has the best tools and stuff, its about which one has the most interesting/fun system in place for crafting the stuff. And in that regard, its Thaumcraft for me. It would be nice to have more than one magic system in my game and Ive used most of them.

I desperately wanted to find a place for Witchery since it has such a nice crafting system in place too but none of the stuff is very useful in my single player worlds. I especially dont care for the Blood Magic way of doing things, unintuitive is the word. Ive tried and failed to get into Botania. Some nice tools and stuff but meh, magical flowers...

What I should do is Minetweak everything magical to be crafted with Thaumcraft or Witchery. Including the vanilla crafting table magic mods like Reliquary and Magical Crops.

 

[ljfa]

There already is a mod which integrates all the Reliquary stuff into Thaumcraft: Thaumic Reliquary

 

[epidemia78]

There already is a mod which integrates all the Reliquary stuff into Thaumcraft: Thaumic Reliquary

Yeah I know about it. Although I think the Reliquary stuff should be Witchery based.

 

[Saamoz]

Well, you can't ignore the infusions in witchery. They are pretty fun to play around with, even in single player. And some can get you around pretty fast in single player.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Botania has a ring that gives you flight, but it eat's mana like no one's business. Best for short jaunts.

 

[rouge_bare]

It's actually an amulet, not a ring, and i find it's mana cost is largely negated by a greater band of aura.

(Note that i use a greater band of mana and aura together, if there is a loss, i don't notice it.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Ah, that would do it. I think I only had a Greater band of Mana, and that wasn't enough to keep ahead.

 

[Geckogamer]

I would start in thaumcraft or botania they are not very difficult and will provide you with some handy unique items
And if you got problems with TC research you could go in a creative world and cheat in 25 of each aspect to train yourself☺

send from a thing

 

[NJM1564]

I would start in thaumcraft or botania they are not very difficult and will provide you with some handy unique items
And if you got problems with TC research you could go in a creative world and cheat in 25 of each aspect to train yourself☺

send from a thing

Or disable the minigame in the configs.

 

[Azzanine]

My pick is Thaumcraft 4.
My order from best to less best (with that selection I can't seriously say best to worst)
TC4> AM2> Witch> BM.
TC4 and AM2 where equal as while TC looks more polished then AM, AM feels more like classical magic then TC.
Witchery follows them closely and only falls due to me being more familiar to TC and AM, also the fact I am not really an SMP guy and most of Witchery's most interesting unique mechanics are the vodoo dolls/ curses.
Bloodmagic is only last becasue the whole mod feels disjointed to me and relies too heavily on external wikis for documentation.
If anyone says they figured out how to make a t5 altar without looking up a reference I will literally buy a plane ticket just to kick them in their lying balls...

Also I will mention Forbidden magic and Technomancy.
Forbidden magic is a must have if you have all the magic mods. It combines Thaumcraft to the other mods so nicely.
Technomancy has a lot of neat (and possibly OP) ideas but in my experience it's been a buggy old mess for a long while. It's like I want to use it but I know it will cause headaches.

 

[Vasa]

I cant choose both Blood Magic and Thaumcraft, i dont want to vote.
But those two + Botania are my choise of magic mods.

 

[NJM1564]

Magical crops. What it is to a magic mod it has magic right in the name.

 

[SevenMass]

I think it might be useful to get some definitions straight in order to avoid confusion.

Tech: Combine simple in-world mechanics in clever ways to create functional contraptions.

Tech examples in vanilla:
water streams + ice + droppers + hoppers + redstone mechanics = item transport
mob AI + spawning mechanics + clever block placements = automated mob farm

Tech mods expand upon this game-play by added simple mechanics and blocks to allow for more automation and sometimes more simple automation. But never too simple or it would reduce this aspect of the game instead.
Examples of tech mods: Buildcraft, Botania, IC2

Magic: Perform a specific rituals to get some effects applied.

Magic examples in vanilla:
Set up enchanting table and books + lose xp = gain enchantment
Brew potion + drink potion = become fire immune for 8 minutes

Magic mods expand upon this game-play by adding their own, possibly more complex, rituals and by adding their own possibly more powerful effects.

Examples of Magic mods: witchery, Ars Magica.

Somewhat unrelated to these genres, a mod can also have a certain aesthetic theme.
For example Botania has nature/high-fantacy aesthetic. You could re-brand the flowers as energy pylons and the mana spreaders as lasers and it would be the same mod at its core but with a sci-fi aesthetic.
An other example: MPS has a high-tech aesthetic theme, but a MPS is functionally the same as the Thaumcraft KAMI armor and the Blood magic armor.


Most of the big mods touch both magic and tech at least a little bit.
I call a tech mod a tech mod because that is the focus of the mod.

Botania has more magic to it than most tech mods but it is still only a small aspect of the mod, the magical rituals are mostly there to serve the aesthetic of the mod. If you play a modpack with only botania in it, you could spend most of your play time creating clever contraptions that automatically do things for you. With Witchery, you couldn't do that.

Thaumcraft is about 40% magic and 60% tech.

MFR has some gray areas, for example a MFR tree farm (ignore the aesthetic) is almost a magical ritual. A Botania, or Thaumcraft tree farm is far more technical. But it could be argued that the tech of MFR is found in creating an automated base, and the tree farm is merely a basic component of that. Also the harvester doesn't need to be a part of a tree farm, you could use it to just cut down a large tree. And you could plant saplings with an item placer instead of a planter.

Vanilla crafting can be considered a magical ritual, but its such a basic way of acquiring items that can't be found laying around in the world that this can be ignored.

Beside these two genres, there are some minor unrelated genres/tropes.
And most big mods touch upon these genres too.

Genetic development: A game of statistics and patience, create something over time and with many iterations.
Examples: Forestry, Mariculture, (a part of) IC2.

Gendustry is *not* a part of this genre, because it reduces the core game mechanics behind this genre.

Resource gathering alternatives: Farm iron from iron plants, create Iron from energy with a replicator.
These things can be called "Magical crops" or "mining below bedrock" but that is just fluff and/or aesthetics.

 

[ljfa]

I think what most people refer to when talking about "magic mods" is the aesthetic theme of the mod. Everyone would say Thaumcraft and Botania are magical mods, and no one would have the idea to say that MFR was a magic mod.

And yea, a Botania tree farm is really much more technincal than a TC or MFR tree farm. You can do cool things with redstone mana spreaders and different lenses.

 

[Mywither]

Magic mods seem complicated and involved, but I'd like to at least start delving headfirst into one.

What would you guys suggest? I'm currently using the Direwolf20 modpack for MC 1.7.10.

I suppose my choices are Thaumcraft, Witchery, Blood Magic, and Ars Magica 2? Are there other significant ones I'm forgetting? Botania? Mystcraft? What else?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Just to add, I know next to nothing about any of these mods. I'd be starting out in a brand new world as well.

Personally, I would choose Botania or Blood Magic Alchemical Wizardry. They are both extremely useful and fun mods. They both have unique power systems and great automation capabilities. Thaumcraft is pretty cool, but I'm not quite as experienced with it. I know almost nothing of Witchery and Ars Magica, but they hold great potential. Overall though, Blood Magic Alchemical Wizardry is usually what I start with. Getting a ground in it early game really helps out later.
P.S. I know this thread is years old, I just wanted to share my opinion.

 

[Mywither]

I think what most people refer to when talking about "magic mods" is the aesthetic theme of the mod. Everyone would say Thaumcraft and Botania are magical mods, and no one would have the idea to say that MFR was a magic mod.

And yea, a Botania tree farm is really much more technincal than a TC or MFR tree farm. You can do cool things with redstone mana spreaders and different lenses.

I would say they are tech mods under the skin of magic mods. Botania is especially tech mod-ish. I mean, you have you power generation which is kind of manual in the first stages, and then becomes automated. After that, you start transporting the power simply, then you can upgrade to a much faster and more efficient transport system with priorities. You can take three items and combine them into one much more powerful item using a fair amount of power. With the alchemy catalyst you can break down cobblestone into sand. There are many different power generation possibilities based on what you have lots of. Do you see what I mean? I believe even the mod creator has stated that it is a tech mod.