Magic is balanced as a primary method of doing combat: That means if you engage in a reasonable amount of combat you could mostly replace melee or firearms, However, more than likely you would use it as a supplement to one or both, and enhance your weapons and armor permanently too. Also, if you go out clearing cities you won't have enough mana until end-game. You start with the mana to kill a few enemies, and work your way up. Magic is also balanced around spending 1 week incapacitated, or having extremely high vanilla skills and going through Essence Theory to make a pure potion which, should also take at least a week of effort. It's high input for high reward. 4 points per school of magic on chargen seems fair to me. I could make it more expensive.
1 mana : 10 Essence 1 rune: 100 mana : 1000 Essence 1 rune conjured: 250 mana 1 transmutation rune conjured: 400 mana to nerf transmutation 1 mana : 8 Essence when conjured from spells to nerf transmutation
These nerfs to transmutation are essential for mid-game and end-game mana regeneration rate. It only goes up.
IMPORTANT!!! I treat bio damage as black magic damage and acid damage as both bio and acid damage. Heres the short reason why, we have no damage for black magic, And I'd say any resistance to poison or acid applies to the other, so acid damage works well to replace bio.
MANA REGENERATION IS PROPORTIONAL TO THE MANA CAP! I nerfed regeneration rate for a reason. Regen rate is 8 hours by default no matter what the cap is. At a 7000 mana cap you're regenerating about 360 or so per hour. It only goes up as your cap does.
Elemental: I let you learn various different attack types with varying usefulness, some enemies will be resistant or immune to acid or electric or potentially fire. The Utility of climate control is useless for players who properly manage their temperature so I do not see it as overpowered. Other utility spells I'd like to be useful quality of life or replacements to items like smoke grenades. Lighting fires effortlessly is not OP. There are infinite matches, lighters, and you can instantly make firestarters on a naked and afraid character. Infinite surface heat isn't OP for the mana cost, as that mana is useful elsewhere and lighting a deconstructed furniture or log on fire is easy.
Spirit: I balance it around being effective against the living. That means both killing or supporting them. The spells will generally be useful more against the living, but viable against undead. It should be the highest utility and support but with weaker damage spells.
Transmutation: I balance it around being a waste of mana and time. You're using it to craft or construct generally and most of what you're making is quality of life. It doesn't help you in combat directly, instead you're forced to spend a lot of time crafting and improving your gear. The attacks should always be inferior to other schools of magic. The spells are utilities that make stuff easier like digging or tools This includes telekinetics, conjuration, and transmutation itself. Magic lamps are not overpowered. Light sources are incredibly easy to set up so giving it infinite for a mana cost is fine.
Note about transmutation: I plan for other ways to obtain essence and materials by interacting with the world.
Prayer: I balance prayer around it being usable at early game but costing a ridiculous amount of mana. You get one or two for your entire days mana. It lets you have strong bonuses that still teeter off endgame, but for players who learn magic without focusing on being a mage, it remains powerful. I may do stronger prayers as quest rewards from the Shi. As a reward for joining them and doing quests, maybe the prayer cost gets halved but the bonuses should stay the same.
Pale: I balance Pale around the fact it's going to be ridiculously hard to learn. You should feel rewarded for reaching endgame. Anything you can do with Pale should be best in class but usually less efficient for resources used, especially if its overkill on the damage. Think of it as "I need this to be dead immediately, I know it will be if I cast this, or at least it won't take much more to kill."
Arbiters WILL use spear of light and shockwave against you. YOU ARE WARNED!
Enchanting: I balance it around high mana input and taking time to craft. You can make progressively better stuff but you can also just loot stuff. It should take a lot of runes to enchant something, and you still need the preceeding item regardless.
Auras take a high input cost and the cheap ones negate environmental effects a player can simply loot gear for or simply play smart to avoid.
Magic Weaponry: I balance it around the cost of the runes. If it shoots a fireball it takes a fire rune as ammo. It's a gun. A magic gun. It's probably enchanted too, which took a lot of runes, which took a lot of mana.
Magic Armor: Souls. Requiring souls to enchant gear with permanent defensive stats is the only way to keep it from derailing insanely.
Necromancy: I balance it around you needing materials from enemies. If you don't engage in combat you don't create new allies. Good minions should take souls. Some level of necromancy can be done without materials or without souls.. This should be inferior to material input, either from requiring more mana/hp/stamina, or weaker creatures.
Artificing: I balance it around needing a mana cost instead of requiring you to set up a proper workshop. That's all. Mana is valuable, using it to craft can be wasteful.
Theres stuff that can be made only with artificing or advanced technology, it's a good way to circumvent complex machines that the player can't simply get.