Minecraft has a magic system: Enchanting, Brewing and Experience are its 3 main components.
Except... They don't really work together, and often feel displaced or incomplete.
Sortilege is an attempt at making these 3 aspects, as well as other magical components of Minecraft, work better, together. To achieve that goal, it offers a handful of small utility tweaks and extra features, all fully configurable.
While magic mods usually ignore Vanilla's system to make their own, this one rather tries to push the basis already here into a fully fleshed one. Think of it as some sort of vanilla friendly magic update.
To see all the features from a technical side and learn how to configure them, check out the wiki.
Magic Staves
First of, Sortilege adds Magic Staves. Because how would a magic mod not add an excuse to go pew pew.
They are available in all 6 Vanilla materials (Wood, Stone, Iron, Gold, Diamond and Netherite), and serve as a middleground between melee (Swords) and ranged combat (Bows). To do so, they shoot a ray of particles that travels instantly, ignores gravity and does damage to anything in their path - stopping when hitting a block or after it cannot pierce anymore.
Different tiers affect the range, damage and max amount of targets. Lastly, Staves go under cooldown after you use them: no charging required (unless you set one in the configs), but you cannot spam either - this cooldown is fully configurable.
They also deal magic damage, giving that almost unused feature some love!
Staves also come with their very own set of enchantments, ranging from pure stats boosts...
- Unbreaking, the infamous
- Potency! Increases damage like how Sharpness does on swords. Level 1-5
- Stability! Increases the beam's range. Level 1-5
- Chaining! Increases the beam's pierce. Level 1-3
- Wisdom! Decreases the staff's XP cost. Level 1-3
... to new effects!
- Bonk! Your staff can be used as a melee weapon, and retains its magical properties when doing so.
- Push! The beam now pushes foes away. Level 1-2
- Pull! The beam now pushes foes away. Level 1-2
- Blizzard! Light Blue particles, and the beam freezes foes. Level 1-2 | Incompatible with Brazier, Blast and Blitz
- Brazier! Orange particles, and the beam burns foes. Level 1-2 | Incompatible with Blizzard, Blast and Blitz
- Blast! Dark Red particles, and the beam triggers a small explosion where it stops. At max level, it also triggers one on every target hit! Level 1-2 | Incompatible with Blizzard, Brazier and Blitz
- Blitz! Yellow particles, and the ray shocks foes, slowing and weakening them. Level 1-2 | Incompatible with Blizzard, Brazier and Blast
but do not forget... curses...
- Curse of Ignorance... Using the staff costs experience, or increase the already existing cost if set in configs.
A staff's particle color changes depending on the type of staff, and the enchantments it has. You can also dye it in a crafting table to have it be exactly the color you want.
You can also click with Lapis Lazuli on a staff in your inventory to overcharge it. This displays as a second durability bar, and prevents your staff from consuming experience to shoot as long as it is present.
Staffs are extremely configurable, from simply changing a staff's stats, to adding your own or disabling the default ones! Read the wiki to learn how to do that.
Antidotes
You already know about Splash and Lingering Potions: We are bringing you a new type, the Antidotes!
Brew Glow Ink into any non instant potion to get the corresponding Antidote (also works works with any modded effect, as long as the corresponding potion exists); then, drink it while you are under the effect to instantly remove it, like a precise Milk Bucket. You will also be immune to that effect for the next 5 minutes.
On top of that, they also stack up to 16 in a single slot, and are much faster to drink than regular potions.
Want your thrusty potion back? No problem! Just brew your spare Antidotes with normal Ink, and the transformation will be reversed
Sortilege also fully overhauls the brewing and potion system, and exposes it to datapacks.
Now, potions stack to 8, are faster to drink (only 1s compared to vanilla's 1.6s), last for longer, but go on a 10s cooldown after being used. Maybe they will finally be usable in regular gameplay.
Furthermore, potion brewing is now accessible from Cauldrons! By placing one above a lit campfire, it will start bubbling, and you can then toss certain ingredients in to brew potions. Cauldrons placed above a Soul Campfire will even refill over time!
Better Enchanting
But Sortilege also touches on the Enchanting part of the game! First of all, you can find new enchantments to work with the Staves' damage type, magic damage.
- Arcane! Can be applied to melee weapons like Swords, is exclusive with Fire Aspect and converts your whole damage to Magic. Single level.
- Magic Protection! Just as name implies, protects you from any damage from Magic sources, like mentioned above Arcane enchant, Staves damage themselves but also things like Potions of Harming, etc. Levels I-IV | Incompatible with other Protection enchantments
- Soulbound! Items enchanted with it won't drop on death. If set in configs, will be consumed on successful use. Single level.
On top of that, some forgotten vanilla enchantments have been given extra effects when at max level to encourage using them.
Additionally, to ensure balanced enchanting environment, you can turn on Limiter Module in config that will limit how many enchants can be applied to items, the number itself is also 100% configurable! (Defaults to 3, set it to 0 to disable enchanting, and to -1 to disable the module)
Please note that Curses add an enchantment slot instead of using one. This means that a cursed item can have more enchantments... Will you risk it? (configurable)
From version 1.1 onwards, per item limits can also be set! These limits can be set to be relative to the default limit (so they add up), or absolute. Useful if you don't want to have to change very single line because you moved the default a bit!
From version 1.3 onwards, you can now find Limitite gems in rare structures' chests! These, when combined with an item on a Smithing Table, allow you to raise its enchant limit!
In version 1.6, a new mechanic has been added: Enchanting Catalysts.
Certain items, defined by datapack, can be put on the book that appears in Enchanting Tables. They increase the odds of certain enchantments by a lot, and it appearing in a pool is indicated by an amethyst outline!
Additionally, you can place an Enchanted Book here to increase odds for all of its enchantments. Note that the book won't be consumed, unlike other catalysts!
If you want to really change how enchanting works, you can disable vanilla's default and have it work only through catalysts.
ReExperience
Lastly, from version 1.3 onwards, Sortilege offers a handful of tweaks to the infamous Experience system.
All of these values can be changed or disabled in the configs, so if you dislike one, no problem! Now, without further ado:
Linear experience leveling!
Because vanilla only ever uses full levels, effectively punishing you for being high level.
Experience level cap!
You get experience quicker overall, but you have to use it or it will go to waste! Dynamism all the way.
Witch Hat!
Hunt Witches to get their hat! It increases all your experience gains, to ensure you are able to make full use of the new features.
More expensive enchanting!
There is a catch: you get more xp, but you also need more of it! Enchanting Tables now cost more levels than the ridiculous 1, 2, 3: by default, you'll now need 1 levels for a tier 1 enchantment, 3 for a tier 2, and 7 for a tier 3! Combined with the Enchant Limiter, that makes for a fairer experience environment where no one should have thousands of enchantments more than you.
It also makes Staffs a more viable option: instead of stacking xp, you can use it to deal more damage, quicker!
Experience keeping!
You can keep more than 7 levels on death! The configs offer 3 values. Note that these are not forced to sum to 100%, so it's not a full keep:
A ratio of the xp you have will be kept on death! Now, when you get killed, you won't start from scratch without anything, you have some savings
Another part of it will simply drop on the ground. Getting to your death spot can now properly give you your cherished xp back... or give more to your opponent
The last part goes directly to your assassin, as a reward to encourage pvp! If you die to a monster, it will keep your xp with it as some sort of living piggy bank, and drop it back if you manage to kill it... if you manage to, of course. It will also start glowing from all that experience, so you actually have a way to find your loot! And if you die to the environment, such as fall damage, the xp that would be stolen drops too.
Experience pinatas!
Monsters have a chance to burst into xp on death. This means on average, combat is now the main way to gather experience, not stacking tons of random junk!
Death position tracking!
Your death coordinates now shows up on your death screen and gets printed in the chat, instead of the old score thingie! More reasons to let F3 out of the way
Balanced keepInventory!
From version 1.5 onwards, you can also set the configs to keep your equipped items (hotbar, armor, trinkets and offhand), as well as potentials items equipped with Soulbound!
Experience-less anvils!
Anvils now longer use experience, allowing you to make full use of your Enchanted Books and Staffs.
Recipe locks!
You can lock certain recipes behind experience level or advancement requirements. Enjoy!
Lapis Shield
By surrounding a Shield with Lapis Lazuli in a crafting table, you can make yourself a Lapis Shield.
These are specialized to be paired with staffs, automatically preventing front attacks, but only doing so every few seconds, without you needing to hold down any button.
Be careful though, they have less durability than regular shields, and block attacks in a narrower cone.
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