So, I've been tinkering around with RPG Maker MV, and I've decided to do the most ambitious thing possible, which is to create a Harry Potter. Now, I've brewed tons of ideas for this kind of thing in the past, but within the confines of the creator, not everything is possible (such as a paragon/renegade system, or romance, but I'm not 100% sure about that).

Anyways, long story short, RPG Maker is essentially a jRPG building tool, it's pretty simple to use. The goal I have is to have it go for all 7 years, going in 1 year increments. Thankfully, it's easy enough to reuse whatever maps I've created.

Right now, you start as just Harry, and can gain different party members through various triggers. I'm not exactly sure at what point in canon gameplay will start (I'm thinking the sorting ceremony). So, one of the first decisions you have will be to choose your house, and in doing so, you get a key that unlocks the door to that house's common room which will theoretically contain your bed and stash. Each common room will also have your first recruitable party member. The idea in my head is that each house will have 1 house specific party member, so for Gryffindor it will be Ron, and for Slytherin it will be Malfoy. You'll have the option to recruit Hermione (from any house probably) after the optional event of rescuing her during the troll boss encounter (and there should probably be later opportunities to recruit her later on, or even in later years if possible).

So, the purpose of this thread is that I'm looking for actual mechanic details. Specifically involving the first year.

For example, I need spells a first year might know, or could learn. Same with potions, monster encounters, spell books. also, possible party members.

One of the creative difficulties that I may run into is the fact that nearly everyone is a witch or wizard. In RPG Maker there are 4 classes, Hero, Warrior, Mage, and Priest. As I see it, there are two solutions. A character like Goyle isn't much of a mage, so having him be a warrior makes sense. Having Hermione being a Priest isn't farfetched either. The important thing is that each class has a different set of stat weights. The second solution is that I can add whatever spells I want to each character. So even though Hermione is a priest, she can still have Incendio. The answer is likely a combination of both, though I could see everyone just defaulting as Mage (except for Hagrid and Fang, if I can figure out if I can have temporary party members)

So, first things first, I need spells. Now, there are various different elements the spells align to, and I feel it’s important to try and cover them all. There’s Physical, Fire, Ice, Thunder, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, Darkness. Also, each character can have an innate alignment that boosts spellpower of an element (I think). So, for flavor reason, Harry has Thunder alignment, and Daphne Greengrass has Ice alignment. My idea for first year spells is that most of them will be the basic version, and there will be various upgraded versions to get in later years, or in some situations, can find a powerful spell early on.

Anyways, the list so far of first year starter spells (some of the names are janky translations):
Incendio- minor Fire spell
Scintillio- minor Thunder spell. 20% chance of knockout
Diffindo- minor slicing spell (physical) tier 1
Wingardium Leviosa - minor Wind spell tier 1
(Minor Heal)- Light minor heal
(minor Freeze)- minor Ice spell, does minor damage, lowers magical defense
(blue bell fire)- Buff to party?

List of first year spells that can be learnt
Corporio Prohiberio- full body bind - 100% chance of knockout
Silencio- silences 100%
Tongue-tying - silences 50% + other effect?
(minor Poison)- (darkness)does small initial damage and more over time
(sacrifice) - (darkness) turns HP into MP
(minor dark drain)- (darkness) drains X HP from enemy, gain X/2 HP
Alohomora - unlocks minor chests and doors

List of spells with unknown gameplay effects-
Reparo
Jelly Legs


Random spells for later years:
Stupefy- (wind)100% chance of sleep
Protego- defense
(MP drain) - drains MP from enemies
Sectumsempra (darkness) - tier 4 cutting spell
Banishing charm - tier 2 wind spell

First year potions:
Minor Health
Minor Mana
Elixir of Resistance - removes poison, blind, silence, rage, confusion, fascination, sleep
Pepperup Potion - removes Knockout 100%
(some sort of damage buff)
(some sort of potion that damages enemy)

Later potions:
Medium Health
Medium Mana
Large Health
Large Mana
Super Health
Super Mana
Mandrake

Items:
Wands - Everyone starts off with a default. There’s probably a jank way to give people unique wands, but not sure if worth the effort. Perhaps for Harry only, where there’s a scene where he starts in Diagon Alley and get’s his phoenix and holly wand, which gives like +5 int or whatever, enough of a boost for a starting character to be clearly the main character when in a party, but not overpower.. Won’t find wands as random drops, but can get them as quest rewards, boss rewards, or buy
Swords, axes, bows. Don’t really have plans for them. I plan to have the Sword of Gryffindor be a quest item (if possible), and (if possible) have a house specific item if you’re in a different house (like a staff of ravenclaw). Though I guess having them as usable items isn’t the worst.
Armor- shield, hat, cloth, rings. Only really odd one is Shield, but I think i’ll be able to have that be some sort of offhand instead, like a spellbook.
I don’t think set items are possible, but maybe with a work around, I’ll have to look into it. I think having something like the philosopher’s stone be attainable would be cool.

Zones:
Overworld: Hogwarts’s Grounds
On Hogwarts Ground’s - Hogwarts, Hogsmede, Quidditch Pitch, Hagrid’s Hut, Whomping Willow (3rd year and later only), Forest (3 zones?), Mountains (2 zones?), Lake
Inside Hogwarts- Entrance Hall
From Entrance Hall- Great Hall, Dungeon Hallway, Main Hallway
From Dungeon Hallway- Kitchen, Snape’s classroom, Empty Classroom *x, Abandoned Classroom *x, Dungeon Hallway 2
From Snape’s Classroom- Snape’s Office, Potion’s storeroom
From Dungeon Hallway 2, Empty Classroom *x, Abandoned Classroom *x, Secret Room?
From Main Hallway- first floor corridor, second floor corridor, etc. maybe a secret passage
From Third Floor Corridor - Locked Passage, Trap Door Room, Puzzle Corridor, Philospher’s Stone Battle Room
Various Corridors lead to various common rooms and class rooms, library, headmasters office, teacher’s lounge, prefects bathroom, etc. I don’t have an actual list compiled yet.

Encounters. Any proper rpg has monster encounters. The setting of HP makes it difficult, but still possible, to incorporate it.

First year:
Dungeons, Rats and Bats? Small chance for a troll?
Abandoned classrooms not in dungeon - ??? animated books, tables, etc?
Hogwarts Grounds - Duelling students (current year, plus smaller chance for higher level student)
Forbidden Forest zone 1 (unlocked after fighting the wraith). - ???

Party Members:
Ron Weasley - Fire Mage (starts with Incendio and Diffindo). Gryffindor only, available immediately after sorting by visiting your common room
Neville -Physical Hero (starts with ??? and Diffindo). Unlockable after a quest (duel with Malfoy
Hermione Granger- Wind/Light Priest (starts with Blue Bell flames and Minor Heal) Unlockable after Troll encounter

Ernie Macmillan - Mage (starts with ???) Hufflepuff only, available immediately after sorting by visiting your common room
Hannah Abbott
Susan Bones

Cedric Diggory - secret unlock after a quest?

Terry Boot
Michael Corner
Padma Patil

Cho Chang - secret unlock after 4th year?
Luna Lovegood - Secret unlock after 4th year?

Draco Malfoy - Mage (starts with ???) Slytherin only, available immediately after sorting by visiting your common room
Goyle - Warrior - unlockable after a quest (duel with Ron)
Crabbe - Hero - unlockable after a quest (duel with Ron)
Pansy parkinson - Priest?

Daphne Greengrass - Mage - unlockable after certain ingame condition is met?

Hagrid - temporary NPC
Fang - temporary NPC

 

Sounds awesome. Good luck!

 

Whilst it's not going to be brilliant, there is a list of spells used in the actual Harry Potter games, here's the ones from HP&tPS:

Admittedly, it's a pretty small list, but the game was originally on PSone and gameboy, so they only really added what they needed to.

But even then, you've got four or five actual damaging "attacks" (Knockback, Incendio, Avifors, Diffindo, Vermillious(?)). Drone and Wingardium Leviosa as debuffs, maybe something similar with spongify and lumos?

 

I started working on a map flow charts for year 1.

http://imgur.com/JenksjP

I color-coordinated the door pairs, or tried to. Text in red indicates rooms with encounters in them. Could probably add a bunch more if needed, and I'm sure I'm missing some quest specific zones. Could also break them up into multiple corridors.

I've got some encounters in my mind for year 1. In the dungeons, mostly just rats and bats. Perhaps a very small chance to encounter a troll. In the greenhouses, a variety of plants, difficulty dependent on which greenhouse it is. In the various classrooms, perhaps something like animated books, or quills, or furniture, or mis-transfigured animals. On the overworld, other students. most common with be your same greade duelling student, smaller chance for a higher grade duelling student. The victory text will indicate that the student has been defeated rather than killed. I was also thinking maybe it would be possible to break into the teacher's lounge and they fight you and you get rekt. Also, perhaps a possible random encounter with Filch + Norris anywhere in the castle, with a higher chance in a secret passage. After the first forest area is unlocked on the detention quest, it will be possible to go back afterwards, and you'll encounter various stuff there, perhaps a small chance of a werewolf? should come off as a very dangerous place to be, especially with a small party.

Anyways, I'm looking for ideas for monsters. Rats and bats are all fine and well for a level 1 character, but they're not really magical. Perhaps it's not farfetched to fight a ghost for flavor reasons. There's a decent amount of "boss" encounters in year one - voldemort's wraith in the forest, two trolls, fluffy, Quirrelmort, Malfoy. And later on you got stuff like a Boggart, Dragon, Death Eaters, etc.

On the map, you'll also see that a bunch of them are locked. Classrooms for Care for Magical Creatures, Muggle Studies, Arithmancy, Divination, and Ancient Runes are locked until third year, but they should still appear on the map for flavor reasons. The advanced classrooms and Alchemy are locked until 6th year. The various locked secret passages need the marauders map. The others are just there for you to find whereever. A couple others are quest dependant, such as the corridor you go to rescue Hermione in, or the third floor corridor where Fluffy is. Other than that, I put in a couple other abandoned corridors for potential encounter areas. The one one the sixth floor I labled as DADA thinking that perhaps it will be a more difficult area, perhaps not even accessible in year one (or two for that matter - perhaps one of them unlocks every year). So perhaps, the floor three corridor is the default one for year 1, as well as the first level dungeon.

Anyways, any feedback would be great, good or bad. This is a pretty ambitious project I'm starting. I'm sure I missed some things, like as I'm typing it, I realized I forgot the hospital wing, which would be a great place in game to get free healing. I'll probably put it on the 4th floor, since that's midway up the castle.

I also need to create Diagon Alley and Hogsmede. My current idea is that Diagon Alley will be the tutorial, and Hagrid will be in your party, telling you to do. He'll give you a couple gold to go buy a quest item, and then you return it to him and do it again with a different item. The tutorial boss will probably be a decoy in Ollivanders that you fight when you get your wand. Afterwards, Diagon Alley will be the main shoping area that you can visit every summer, and will have the most items available. Knockturn alley will be a thing as well, with powerful, rarer and more expensive items. perhaps its locked to start with, and maybe there will be random encounters with dark wizards there (not to be cliche or anything, but gameplay is gameplay).

Hogsmede will be unlocked during third year after you get the marauders map, and will have a decent range of shops, but not quite as good as Diagon. I'm also thinking there will be a couple vendors inside the school, students looking to make some coin. Perhaps there's a student selling potions down in the dungeon, and another selling new spells in an abandoned classroom on the fifth floor.

 

You should embrace the game-ness and put it in the narrative. Make the world take place in a game à la the multitude of 'video game' fanfiction. It would give you freedom to break away from canon mechanics as necessary.

 

For low level opponents -

Doxies (the fairies, not prostitutes, although...) are a minor household pest, remember that Mrs Weasley set the kids against them during the summer, so without magic.

Gnomes could have wandered in from the grounds. Not a major annoyance, but a minor pest.

Cursed items, too - think of biting toilets, confused suits of armour, wrapping curtains and so on. All of a more pesky nature than actually dangerous, but they would block the way for a low level party.

I like the idea of a Hagrid lead tutorial, and I'd certainly pick it up for a try at some point.

 

Why not Petrificus Totallus?

Obviously available if you manage to complete the 3rd Task without him dying. Otherwise, the dragon tip. If you give him the tip, he's now your friend.

If you don't fail the Yule Ball questline.

A lot of the party members are related to the DA. So you could have them be related to events associated with the DA. Neville could become available after the first DA meeting. Luna after the MoM debacle.

 

Ha, I forgot there was an actual incantation for the full body bind. I spaced on that.

For party members, a fair amount of them should be available early, so you can have an actual full party. I'm not sure if it's possible to make it so you can lose a party member and regain them later and have them keep all their stats and gear - I've only been using the program for a day so I really don't know. Flavorwise it makes sense that you go back to privet drive by yourself and regain them when you go back to hogwarts. And there has to be a fairly equal amount available to all houses. So, for someone like Padma, it would be interesting if you could get her as a default year 1 NPC if you're a ravenclaw, OR, year 4, you can get her at a higher level from any house due to the yule ball. Actually, the easy way to simulate that is to simply have two different characters named Padma Patil.

 

I don't like the idea of being able to replace wands with better ones, I think it goes against the books too much. I think giving wands attachments and upgrades would be a better way to go. Maybe you could have it work like in the Dark Cloud games and give the wands an experience bar as well as the players.

The wands could have their own set of stats like spell attack power, accuracy, effect chance, element boosting and extra effectiveness against the various types of enemies. You could get items like gems or magical creature parts to equip onto your wand and have the wand absorb them when the experience bar is full. When certain stat conditions are met and/or the wand reaches a high enough level you could have it ascend to a new state and give the player things like better passive buffs to their own stats.

If this was done the wand would be the main source of attack power so the characters stats would be the main source of attack power so the characters stats would cover the other areas. Are health and whatever you call the mana pool going to increase on their own with level or will they be dependent on other stats? If it’s the latter then how about stats like endurance for health and physical damage resistance, dexterity for dodge chance and who casts first, intelligence for mana and magical damage resistance, willpower for chance to resist status effects.

I’m not sure how much, if any of this you can implement with RPG Maker so if you can’t sorry for wasting your time.

For offhand spell books, you could have them grant passive stat buffs, increase the power/ decrease the cost of spells from that book or of the same element or have the book give beneficial status effects like permanent shield charms.

I think it would be a good idea would be to have which house you're in give buffs to certain stats, like Hufflepuff has endurance, Ravenclaw has intelligence and getting house points for each house will increase that stat for party members in that house.

Would it be possible to have a crafting mechanic for things like potions or would you need to buy them?

Spells (not specifically first year):

Reducto: Large physical damage to one enemy

Serpen Sortia: Dark damage + 50% poison chance to one enemy

Rictusempra (tickling charm): Wind damage + 25% chance to silence due to laughing too hard

Tarantalegra (uncontrollable leg dancing): Earth damage(?) + 50% chance to confuse (assuming confuse is attacking randomly) or maybe decrease dexterity or accuracy

Jelly legs: same as tarantalegra but with water damage

Expelliarmus: thunder damage + 50% chance to lower physical and/or magical attack

Disillusionment charm: Boosts dodge rating

Finite incantatem: removes buffs for enemies or debuffs for allies

Imperio: controls enemy so you can access their move pool or gives it debuff causing it to attack it’s allies

Crucio: High dark damage + lowers mana pool

Avada Kedavra: instant death but low accuracy and high mana cost

Ventus: wind damage

Inpedimenta: wind damage 50% chance to cause sleep (maybe the spell before stupefy?)

Confringo (blasting curse): Physical or fire damage full damage to one enemy 50% damage to other enemies

Episkey: minor healing spell

Patronus: High light damage

Obscuro: causes blindness

 

As far as I know, I can't do any of that special wand stuff in RPG Maker. Not sure if I would want to if I could, anyways. My idea behind the wands is mostly for flavor. Like, Ron starts off with a really shitty wand, so at some point he'd be able to get a better one. And, some wands are more suited for certain types of magic, so if a wand was better at destructive spells, perhaps there would be a small bonus as such.

The idea of the House giving a bonus is a pretty good one. Having the house actually mean something would be interesting, other than it being just the choice of initial party members. The weird thing is that there is the traditional stats aren't there, no str, int, agi, etc. For some reason I thought there was. So, as an alternative, I was thinking maybe each house had a special starting spell. I can also make it so there's a starting set of armor, like Gryffindor House Robes (tier 1).

For armor, I was giving it a thought, and I think there can be a pretty good heirarchy. Like, baseline there would be Worn, Standard, and Well-made versions of robes and hats. And later on, there will be enchanted versions, like +1, +2, +3. Either that, or I can physically represent a shield hat by granting the shield ability, but I think mechanically it works best as a +defense boost. To go further, I could probably incorporate other armor as well, such as various types of Quidditch Gear.

Sadly, I'm not sure if there's a way to implement a crafting system. I'll definitely have to look into that, because it would be important since potions is a thing. Not to mention, it would be nice to be able to give low level monsters low level ingredient drops because otherwise, I can't really think of anything a bat would drop other than experience.

Oh, and this is what Harry looks like right now -> http://imgur.com/IbyMBId

-edit- looks like there's a fan made crafting plugin, so I'll have to give that a look -> https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/szyus-crafting-system.49243/

 

I don't know how limited the rpg maker is so my suggestion is how I'd want to make a class/leveling system.

I personally don't like the idea of classes at the start of the journey (in a setting such as this). The characters are blank slates when coming to Hogwarts so I think it would it better were they to slowly become what you want them to be. This could be done by having no rigid class system but a talent system representing the development of the characters. Where you could combine different "trees" for a unique playstyle. It would give the player some freedom yet still lead to characters being mages, healers, warriors. Depends entirely on how it's designed.

Just some idle fantasy on my part. I don't know if it's even possible to do that with rpg maker.

 

Not really possible. What I'm likely going to do is just reimage some classes internally, see if that helps. I can create new classes, so I'm going to divide them between witches and wizards, which are identical. But, I can have multiple classes named Wizard and have them have different skills. So I can have Crabbe and Goyle be the same type of wizard, which will focus more on the physical stats and attacks. Similarly, I can have Hermione be a witch, but focus more on party support rather than be an attacker. In theory, at least. I have to look at it a bit deeper. As far as I can tell, classes only effect your starting stats, internal traits, how much XP it takes to level, and how much of each stat you gain when levelling. Which is to say, I don't think you gain skills when levelling. So, that means most skills are going to be skillbooks or event based (I think), but I don't think there's any way to make them class specific. I think there's a way to make it based on an event rather than an item, and have that event be character specific.

So, I mocked up an event to do that - http://imgur.com/Enqu9EQ The only thing I have to work out is have there be an If clause, such as if anyone else clicks on it, it pops up a different text. Should be doable, but I actually have to figure out how to create events better.

 

Well it's your choice for how wands work, it just doesn't seem right to me for wands in Harry Potter to be treated as something disposable.

On the subject of house bonuses maybe it could be for what the head of house's subject is: Gryffindor and Ravenclaw could give attack/defense bonuses for transfiguration and charm spells. Slytherin could increase potion effectiveness. Not sure about Hufflepuff though, maybe better resource harvesting and loot drops?

Will all spells require mana or could each character have their own unique spell as a basic attack that they could use for free. For instance Harry could have expelliarmus, Ginny could have the bat-bogey hex. Would this default spell could use the attack stat rather than the m-attack stat or would that be for physical spells?

On the subject of armour, can any piece of armour be worn by any character or will it be light armour for priests and mages, medium for heroes and heavy for warriors.

Some armours could be made out of magical creature hides, like unicorn hide giving light resistance and a boost to healing spells, a dementor cloak for dark resistance and maybe a mana drain skill, yeti fur for ice resistance, Demiguise fur/tebo hide that boosts evade, dragon/basilisk/manticore hide for high physical/magic defense and the best heavy armours could be made from goblin silver.

Would the character models change when they equipped different armour? Otherwise everyone would just be wearing the same school robes, which would be a bit dull.

Also will characters have the same appearance throughout the entire game or will they appear to age with each year. Although the design you have for Harry could work for the full seven years but that may not be the case for other characters.

 

Alright, so I'm typing this from work and don't have RPG Maker handy at the moment.

Most spells will require mana. I can't say all, because truthfully I don't have it all figured out yet. I do know for certain that there will be a Dark Arts spell that costs health instead, but gives you mana in return (I guess it would essentially be that warlock spell from WoW, now that I think about it.)

Now, one thing I was thinking about was spell scaling. For example, I was thinking of there being multiple types of each spell. So, like Incendio rank 1 would be the starter level, and then there would be a rank 2 and rank 3. Each would cost the same mana, but that rank will override the previous rank and it will do more damage. In addition, the spells will be part of a tier system, so It would go Incendio -> fireball (Confringo?) -> Dragon's Breath. Then there is Fiendfyre, but I'm thinking that that is either a special unlock if you go the Dark Magic route, or perhaps it's part of a tier system as well. The important thing to note is that I don't think it's possible for spells to have XP, like casting 100 spells of a certain type unlocks the next type, so it would have to be done mechanically in the game, using events like reading a book or something like that. Might be too ambitious to start.

Right now, some characters will have a unique starting spell, but not all. For Hermione, I was thinking the Bluebell Flames. My first thought (as posted earlier) was to have them be some sort of party buff, but I could see them being an alternative to Incendio as well. Now, for Harry, he's kind of known for Expelliarmus, but he doesn't learn that until second year, plus, I'm not sure how to actually make it mechanically. Disarming seems like it would be OP as hell, especially being able to chain it. Though, I guess it wouldn't do anything against monsters who don't have weapons? Perhaps I could set it up so it does some damage, and gives a stat debuff, or perhaps a 20% chance at a stasus effect. Either way, I wouldn't have it as a default ability, since it makes sense to have Harry learn it after the dueling club scene in book 2.

As for armor, I'm not sure how far down the fanon route I want to go. Hell, I've written a story where Harry get's basilisk hide armor. Mechanically for a game, it makes sense. You can have several types of "normal" leather armor before getting to basilisk, dragon, etc. Metal armor doesn't really make that much sense to me. Regardless, I added a plugin that adds crafting to the game, so it should be possible to add recipes to make various armor. The only issue is that I don't think it's possible to have multiple types of chest armor on, so you wouldn't be able to have both robes and leather armor on. Techincally, I could maybe fudge it so the hat slot is all of the robes, and that might make sense. I'll have to think on it.

As for character models changing, well the honest answer is that that is a ton of work. It's technically possible if you are good at photoshop (or similar program) and are willing to dedicate a bunch of time to creating a bunch of sprites for every possible armor combination. I'm not. I'm using all the default texture and tile packs at the moment. I added one tile pack for a greehouse texture, and that came out all right, but when I downloaded a bunch of plant tiles, I had to scale them all up, and that was a lot of effort and time to just do that. So, maybe when I'm more experienced with both RPG Maker, and Gimp, I'll go back and do stuff like that. But for now, I'll just have to stick with the built in character generator, and just pretend that everyone is wearing robes with armor underneath.

Lastly, there is a "TP" stat in the game. It's a "limit break" skill, and the TP stands for Technique Point. Essentially, the TP bar slowly fills up, and when it does, you get a special action to perform the Limit Break skill, which is usually a powerful thing. So, this might be a way to give characters a unique identity, by giving them all different limit breaks. Not sure if it's possible to learn new ones though.

 

Wait a sec, RPG maker? I am not familiar with that concept. What will the result look like? Text choice game, something like pokemon red, but with spells, or something like Akabur's witch trainer?

 

Just imagine any jRPG from the SNES or gameboy. So, similar to the pokemon visual style I guess.

Example Map from Google
Example Battle from Google
Here's what the program itself looks like from Google

-edit- I should note that I'm not very artistic, but I'm good at learning and repeating something until I'm good at that. Which is to say, I've made about 25 maps so far, but they're kind of lifeless and dull right now, but I expect with practice I'll get better at it.

 

I've played a few RPG Maker fan-made games, so I'll weigh in. Usually the games I play are from RPG Maker VX Ace, not MK, and I've only played the games made not created any. So I know what is possible, just not how to do it.

First off, cut off a lot of the customization options. Writing dialogue and designing characters takes a lot of time and effort, and having to do so with four Houses and optional party NPCs on top of basic level and story design will drag the production time out. The number one cause for burnout when making these games is trying to accommodate too many factors at once, causing loss of drive. It's best to pick a single path with required NPCs--such as a mirror of canon with Gryffindor Ron and Hermione--and then once that's at least mostly complete use the previous encounters as a framework to replace say Ron's dialogue with Malfoy's.

Two, look into fan mods. There's a long list of things that you can do with the Makers that I've seen done--eliminating the leveling system, instead applying stat increases as the story progresses; changing the number and type of equipment slots; looping maps, etc.

Some other suggestions:
-Eliminate equipment (for the most part). It's alright to have EQ slots with items that provide bonuses as needed, but the wizarding world is not DnD--there aren't any rings of +1 DEF. You can assign items for story purposes--having Harry's Body slot occupied with 'School Robes' during class hours and 'Quidditch Uniform' when playing the game, his head slot 'Taped Glasses' breaking at some point and imposing penaltys to Aim, Ron's wand breaking and giving a Chaos/Wild Magic effect until he gets it replaced, etc. Just fill their EQ slots with items that are thematically appropriate but don't provide benefit and everything will be fine.
-At the same time though, make spell-casting dependent on having a wand equipped. There's probably disarming effects that you can use for Expelliarmus that disable EQ slots.
-To make up for the lack of stat-boosting EQ items, make judicious use of consumables. Healing potions, mental/physical stimulant potions, dungbombs etc.
-Careful with making things like Petrificus Totalus 100% chance spells. It will drastically unbalance the game and make encounters trivial.

 

Thanks for the tips. I'm sure there will be a lots of improvements along the way as a I get more acclimated to the program and learn what it can and can't actually done. You are correct in that I don't want there to be too much. Starting strictly with the Gryffindor path is a good idea so I can at least get a feel for how the game is supposed to work.

Like, if you look at the pic I posted earlier: http://imgur.com/JenksjP
I've got lines 4, 6, and 7 done, and about half of 8. Also got all of 14 done, as well as all of 20 and 21. Oh, and I also started Diagon Alley. Its like 25 maps in total, and I've also got all the doors and transfer events working. The main issue is that I'm not super artistic so the rooms are all kind of dull and lifeless at the moment, but as I said earlier I hope I get better at the program. So, it's a fair amount of maps, but probably not even 5% total just for year 1. Luckily, lots of them will be copy/paste with slightly modified interiors and npcs.

Some of your other suggestions are good. The only equipment slots that really matter are wand and chest. I'll definitely create a new equipment slot for armor if possible, and eliminate hats and rings and whatever other default ones there are. I guess there will have to be a quest item slot for something like the Invisibility Cloak, which otherwise I wouldn't even begin to know how to implement, other than it just being a quest key.

My original idea was to have spells be reliant on having a wand equipped. I couldn't actually see how to make it work though. Like, I could make a wand add +skill, but I don't think I could make it so I can add +skills to it after the item is already generated and equipped (but I could be wrong). The downfall of this system is that the disarming spell would be super OP against enemies with wands, though that wouldn't come up too often.

You are right in that the tricky part of spells is going to be balancing. By far the most difficult part of creating the game most likely. Like, Stupefy will put an enemy to sleep, but having it be 100% is crazy. Even 50% is pretty high, but if the spell does no damage, it's probably fine. I'll have to get my cues from other games in that regard. I'm not sure what other stats will be good against static spells like that. Like, I know there's a Magic Defense stat, but I don't know if that will actually make it so you can resist it, and there's is also a built in miss percentage on every spell, and I think I can tinker with that number. There there is how long are they actually asleep for (I think that's a variable I can change, not sure), as well as can it break early by taking damage, which I'm not sure of. The first thing that comes to mind is to go see how Sleep Powder works in pokemon.

Anyways, I started working on some spells. http://imgur.com/ZvhfdfK The blue boxes indicate values that actually appear in game, while the white is mostly for me. All the numbers are subject to change of course, and are mostly just placeholders. I do want there to be a ton of spells though, more than one branch per element, since it is the main way for characters to battle. Though hopefully I can add/delete/change the elements. Like, right now I've got 10 spells on the sheet, and I want maybe like 250. And, when you take into account the different ranks of each spell, that could be over 500 spells.

One thing I do need to figure out is how to change starting stats, since right now all the witches and wizards start with higher attack and dense rather than magical attack and magical defense. Sure, I can spin it off flavor wise as them just sucking at magic to begin with, but it's still weird.

-edit- I have discovered that it is actually possible for skills to be learned upon levelling

 

I love RPG Maker games, the Aveyond series is my favorite.

Good luck!

 

I've been working on the equipment system. Here's the categories I've come up with so far: http://imgur.com/yZelTOW The elements can probably be condensed slightly, but for now, it'll work. Skill Types are default right now. Special is for special attacks, maybe for the patronus charm or something like that I think(i'm thinking that that spell will be a Limit Break). Perhaps I'll alter the skill types to be the various types of magic (charm, hex, jinx, etc) but that's too complicated for right now I think. Weapons are straight forward. Everyone uses a wand, and then the other categories will be quest/event dependant, like Hagrid will be using a crossbow. Armor is straight forward as well. Every year at Hogwarts unlocks the next tier of robes. The other category is for under-armor, such as the various animal hides. I figure you'll unlock that category at the start of third year, after you've killed the basilisk. Perhaps you can go to Hogsmede to get your first set. So right now there's 4 types of equipment, weapon, robes, armor, and trinket. Trinket is mostly for random items, such as the philosopher stone or invisibility cloak or perhaps generic curios.

Then, I've started working on the different types of armor. http://imgur.com/J4jPBzX Hardest part as I've said before is going to be balancing the stat weights. As shown, I have the base level robes, and basic enchanted robes shown. Robes won't give +attack, but they will give a small amount of +defense. More importantly, they'll add magical attack and defense. I'm testing out different qualities of the robes, Worn, Standard, and Well-Made. You can think of this like Fine, Masterwork, etc. Enchanted Robes use the well made base stat, and add a further multiplier. All the values will have to be tinkered with over time. I also plan to add other types of enchanted armor, which grant actual effects, perhaps fire resistance, or even a 0skill. I don't want to go too crazy, and perhaps if I can figure out a better way to do it, I will, such as with enchantment books or something like that.