As you probably know, I'm a big fan of letting wizards be wizards, and no, not because some "jocks" threw me into a locker (if anything, I was more along the line of being a jock in the HS, but sssh >.>). I was thinking of doing some epic - fantasy Planescape - style setting, where wizards could do almost anything, depending just how powerful they were - and I had this idea how to allow magic and wizards to accomplish almost anything, while still keeping some balance and without too much mathematics. Before I get to the actual design, let me explain the process of getting that idea.

Namely, for that Planescapy setting, I have devised that each Plane is actually composed from "mana" of elements - Earth, Water, Air and Fire, and that the elements were actually responsive for not only aesthetics of the Plane, but also govern the laws of (pseudo)physics and magic for each plane. Each Plane would need to balance the elements in different ways - if you had too much Earth element, you had to have less Air element. Ideally, both the Water - Fire and Earth - Air ratios were both 0. If there was a shift of +1 Fire, there'd have to be -1 Water. All those numbers are important for the next step.

Each element would have it's corresponding magic skill. And when a wizard'd like to cast a spell, he'd simply need to declare what effects he wishes to archive, then the GM would set an Inertia Factor - how difficult it is to bend the laws of the universe/Plane, so that the spell would work. And obviously - if you were on a Plane dominated by Water, it'd be much harder to cast a spell with Fire - based effect, and easier to cast a Water based spell - after all, on a Waterworld it is much more possible for a tsunami wave to appear, then a wall of fire.

What do you think? I myself though of using this system with WoD style dice pools, but I think it would work with DnD as well - just give the wizard 4 skills relating to each of the mana types, and each time he'd normally gain a magic circle, he'd gain one/two point in any of those skills, or something like that, while the Inertia Factor'd be a simple DC modified by the Plane/area the wizard was in. You could also relatively make some "Sub - manas" - just devise a system how combining, for example, magic of Earth and Fire can result in shaping Body mana.

What do you think?

As a theoretical concept you are essentially eliminating non-spell casters from any contention.

As an evaluation of rules... well... you didn't really post any. I don't know if this is D&D or what not.

I'm assuming some variation on D&D, based on planescape. If its an older edition (2nd or earlier) then upping wizard power might not be a terrible thing as long as you don't remove the existing checks on wizardly power.  If fourth edition... well... everyone is a wizard there so...

Its the nigh on ubiquitous third edition systems that upping wizardly power is somewhat laughable as a concept. Quick casting times, awe inspiring power... combine with apparently utter flexibility within elemental contraints (as you describe)... well, wizards go from demi-gods to actual gods.  

Something to keep in mind.






So: What system is this?

I'm prejudiced against systems like this. Make up your own spell on the fly is just the same kind of minimalist can't be bothered to write rules crap that fills the Internet with more games than players.

I liked Mage, but it wasn't minimalist. There was a lot of worked done. It also didn't play very well.

That said, your idea sounds fun. I just think the way you described the rules concept is weak.

I just tossed an idea out - I didn't consider any particular mechanic for it. I'll probably post some mechanic suggestions tomorrow. Maybe a mod can move this to general RPG forum. And I think that any mechanic can work here - though for some systems (like CoC), it'd not fit. Then again, CoC had Dreaming in Dreamlands...

I won't lie that I had obviously designed it such fantasy settings as Black Company, Garret PI and Malazan Book of the Fallen, since I had always loved the first two and recently started to love the latter. Heck - wizards from Tolkien, Wheel of Time, Howard and Sword of Truth also didn't have the "technological" profiling to their spells. I'm not saying this is better then Vancian - just perhaps more "epic" in it's feel. And more freeform.

The wizard should probably face some consequences of casting a very powerful spell - if you gather too much magical energy, and you are an inexperienced wizard, you risk mana burning your entire body, MtG style .

I for one find all those spell list a bit of a haggle, especially when I do want my wizards to be just powerful. And after a few spells, you'd have basically a base for rulings for any next effects as a GM. Let's say we use DnD 3e skill system, and a wizard can buy a Skill: Fire Magic as a normal skill roll. A fire - based magic missile'd have Inertia rating of 12, Fireball of 18, a Flame Wall encompassing a large area and about 10 feet high 20 - 22, and pulling off a Sodoma and Gomorrah style apocalyptic flame pillar on a city probably 40 - 50.

As for balancing this - there could be many ways to do so.

Maybe the wizard gets tired each time he casts a spell (using 3e mechanics, he'd take stunning damage equal to Inertia rating each time he casts). Maybe he gets older each time a he casts a spell. Maybe he needs powerful and unique focuses to get those  really powerful spells to work. Maybe each wizard can only master one mana type, with even two being extraordinary (Malazan's way), and if you want to cast truly powerful spells, you need to use Chaos Warren (Malazan again), which will probably drive you insane if you are human. Or maybe if someone knows your true name and utters it, or hits with with a weapon inscribed with it, your magical skills get shut off (Black Company). Maybe the very talent of being a magic user makes the males born with it insane (Wheel of Time). Or maybe all of this.

As I said, this is a wild idea - and oddly enough, I never read Mage. I just came up with magic being a result of wizard breaking inertia of the universe for pseudoscience of my fantasy settings for the novel I started to write.

QuoteI'm prejudiced against systems like this. Make up your own spell on the fly is just the same kind of minimalist can't be bothered to write rules crap that fills the Internet with more games than players.

Sure. 30 rulings later, GM has a rather clear sheet of reference. I'd say this is as far as your usual indie as possible. I ain't trying to make a game out of this at this moment, just throwing an idea. I'll probably try to give some examples how this might work for BRP and DnD.

One rule: Let magic be magic. That doesn't mean other heroes/characters are invalid. Magic (in fantasy) tends to be wild and unpredictable. You may get a few fixed effects of course, but try something too powerful, and typically something goes boom--and not what you want it too.

 I'm quite fond of Sword and Sorcery magic because in good S&S, magic tends to be pacts with powerful things. The difference in the real world between magic and faith, is magic demands, faith asks. Quite often "gods/spirits/forces" fallen away to new religions become the powers that move magic in such works. (Which is quite similar to how real world belief in magic works.) Spirits and forces beyond men tend to ask for strange rituals and behaviors in order to appease them and that may or may not be consistent.

Magic in other fantasy varies a lot more between close to S&S magic, all the way up to "Science you don't understand." One thing to examine is how you want magic perceived, and how much room you want for heroes. Shadowrun manages both because it has a strong technological base for other heroes, skill and fortune matter in 4E, and magic is just like science--predictable.

In my own High Valor, heroes matter because of skill and trait pools (Will, Faith and Valor) on pretty solid grounds between each other. Magic on the other hand has somewhat expected results for unleashing spells on a target, but you always have blowback that can be quite random.


 Unlike others I like spontaneous spell casting, it makes magic operate more loosely and feel more magical, and magic be as flexible as other abilities often are in games. Plus it still  has rules it must follow in most games, while wild and erratic. High Valor works this way--though the rules are applied to "How much will you put into it.." and "How much are you willing to risk.." rather than strict A+B=C effects.

Aha, another Discworld inhabitant!
 
My 2cp would be that the elemental motif probably limits magic somewhat. You might need a fifth type ("Wild" or "Void" or "Chaos" or something) for non-elemental spells, unless you're interpreting the elements VERY broadly. (e.g. what element is teleport? telekinesis? ESP? Resurrection?). Some spells might require multiple elements too.
 
Or if you did go with just four elements, there was an old Sega game, Phantasy Star III, where characters had power grids for powers showing how points could be allocated (a power could be increased by putting down either of the two adjacent powers), maybe you could do something like that with the four elements ( http://ps3.huguesjohnson.com/techniques.html
(no relation).
 
Cheers,
BSJ.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;500668Aha, another Discworld inhabitant!
 
My 2cp would be that the elemental motif probably limits magic somewhat. You might need a fifth type ("Wild" or "Void" or "Chaos" or something) for non-elemental spells, unless you're interpreting the elements VERY broadly. (e.g. what element is teleport? telekinesis? ESP? Resurrection?). Some spells might require multiple elements too.
 
Or if you did go with just four elements, there was an old Sega game, Phantasy Star III, where characters had power grids for powers showing how points could be allocated (a power could be increased by putting down either of the two adjacent powers), maybe you could do something like that with the four elements ( http://ps3.huguesjohnson.com/techniques.html
(no relation).
 
Cheers,
BSJ.

Hello as well, worst architect of Ankh - Morpork

I'll post some rules today for BRP, at least an example of them. That elements stuff was just for pseudophysics of my setting - and I actually took it down much further. Basically, every type of mana can be combined with the other, to form a 2 tier of mana. And those 2rd tiers of mana can be combined with other 2nd types of mana, to form a 3rd tier mana - in my setting, the first 2 tiers are well - known and "safe", while 3rd tier mana is still being discovered, and dangerous - equivalent of atomic energy.

But I'll throw that stuff later - trying to write some rules guidance for "Epic Generic Magic" for BRP.

Btw - you can always just go that all magic is just a "Magic" skill - such would be a case, for example, with LotR's magic I think, Sword or Truth's or most of Hyperborean.

No to elemental magic.  It's so boring.  I'd much rather have magic based on something more interesting (even non-traditional elements like metal and wood).

Quote from: B.T.;500674No to elemental magic.  It's so boring.  I'd much rather have magic based on something more interesting (even non-traditional elements like metal and wood).

I've always been fond of the Verb/Noun stye. It might be interesting to come up with a new set of them like "Free" and "Stone" lets you shoot rocks at people, levitate rocks, animate an elemental, and Teleport.

While "Free Metal" might rust things, send a storm of metal flying, or even liquify steel momentarily.

Quote from: Silverlion;500675I've always been fond of the Verb/Noun stye. It might be interesting to come up with a new set of them like "Free" and "Stone" lets you shoot rocks at people, levitate rocks, animate an elemental, and Teleport.

While "Free Metal" might rust things, send a storm of metal flying, or even liquify steel momentarily.

I actually considered something like this - to make an "Ice Dagger" equivalent, for example, you'd need to manipulate Water & Air simultaneously - Water to create a blurb of water out from the air, and Air to freeze it and send spinning. And those who become particularly adapt at this stuff become Ice Mages - they have Magic:Ice Mana skill. Then again - I really need to start to write an example of this stuff, rather then discuss it.

Alright, here goes first proposition, for BRP as I said. My commentary will be in italic.

Epic Magic Example #1.

Rules of magic: Some people are born with a connection to a certain Mana Lode - rare individuals, who need to be tutored by other wizards in art of Magic, or risk going insane. With proper education from the scrolls and such, the true potential may be achieved. Priests on the other hand, receive most of their powers from divine source - they still need a certain complicated education in order to manipulate the magic, and not every priest is capable of channelling his or her god's power, without burning himself in the process.

Mana Types:

Fire - Water

Air - Earth


Life - Death

Law  - Chaos

Nature - Metal

Shadow - Time

Short description of each:
I believe the first four Manas are self explanatory - Fire Magic allows you control over fire, Water control over water, etc. etc. The only "problematic" thing may be an issue of temperature - it still requires a proper element. So raising temperature of water or lowering it would be Water magic, while dousing out a fire can be also done with Fire magic.


Life - art of manipulation of the life itself. Healing, damaging undead and animating objects (with exclusion of formerly living things) falls under this art.

Death - also called unlife, perhaps darkest of arts save Chaos. Creation of undead, speaking with the dead and sucking out the very nature of life falls under this magic.

Law - art mostly dedicated to manipulation of human psyche and dispelling magic. Raising morale, creating despair or magically dominating people to your will fall under this category.

Chaos - the most dangerous of all kinds of magic, drawing upon mana of Chaos allows empowering other spells, as well as summoning of daemons, creation of random, twisted mutations, sudden, random teleportation, unpredictable offensive spells, and causing artificial madness.

Nature - a bit bizarre school of magic. Those who control mana of Nature can summon animals (though controlling them'd require use of Law magic), mutate and create living things or create magical poisons.

Metal - art beloved by all warriors. Those who control mana of Metal can not only manipulate metals, but also transform other materials into them.

Shadows - art favoured by mages hanging with thieves and cheats, the mana of Shadows allows creation of illusions and artificial darkness. In a very light degree, it allows some mind - control - mostly in regard to lying. It is not so powerful in attempts to modify one's mind as manas of Law or Chaos.

Time - the art that allows the manipulation of stream of time itself. Unnatural hastening, sudden ageing, causing youth or controlled teleporation - all such falls into the mana of Time.

Well, enough fluff, time for crunch.

Rules of magic dealt with, now it is time for...

Rules for magic:

Character creation:

• List of magic - related skills
• Theory of Magic (01%)
  
• Ritual Engineering (01%)
• [/B]
  
• Mana Manipulation: (01%, must be bought separately for each Mana type)
  

• Fire
• Water
• Earth
• Air
• Life  
• Death
• Law
• Chaos
• Nature
• Metal
• Shadows
• Time

If you want to be "realistic" about the wizard creation - make the player roll d100. If she rolled 01, she can play a wizard.

Just kidding, of course, thought if you need a random character profession system, a chance for being a trained magic user should be very, very low.


First of all, if you are using BRP for wizards - you will need to add Sanity Points track on your character sheet, similar to the Call of Cthulhu track. Like in CoC, it starts as your POWx5. More on this later, but in a pinch - using magic, especially some darker varieties, can cause a wizard to go insane with power.

Mana Points

Your Mana/Magic Points are equal to your Power, and should be noted on character sheet as well. They will be used a lot. Basically, Mana Points are the indicative of how many powerful discharges of raw magical power a wizard can perform and summon, before she is too spent to cast any more spells - or must use her life force to substitute. Mana Points are also spent to Empower spells.



After that, the GM and/or the player must decide wizard's Competence Level or in other words, his Mana Manipulation:X (where X is the name of the element) skill cap. If the party is supposed to be composed of new, unexperienced adventurers, the GM should declare that maximal Competence Level is Adept. If however the party is to be composed of epic adventurers, the GM can declare the maximal Competence Level of Archmage.

Here are suggested competence levels, alongside examples from literature. In the brackets there's a maximal variable for Magic:X skill:

Novice (1 - 30%) - beginner, new magic user- in-training or perhaps a failed sorcerer.
Examples: A typical 1st level DnD wizard, Rincewind, Thraxas, Tobas of Telven.

Adept (31 - 60%) - At this point the magic - user deserves to be actually called such. Magic missiles become a common trick rather then a an almost back - breaking experience, though any bigger exploit of power will still require a rather detailed ritual.
Examples: Classic fantasy witch, Ged when he summons Shadow, Liriel Baenre when taking rites of passage, Kruppe, Thulsa Doom from Conan the Barbarian.

Mage (61 - 100%) - A fully trained user of arcane, and a force to be reckoned with in combat, as the classical "fireball" becomes easy as a pie.
Examples: Tattersail, Hairlock Goblin, One - Eye, Tom - Tom, Gandalf, typical Aes Sedai with Gift, Elric, Thoth - Amon, Unseen University wizards.

Archmage (101 - 150%) - Wizards like those are quite often advisers to nations, or rulers themselves, as at this level, there's little that can stand in the way of their power.
Examples: Quick Ben, Rand al'Thor after fully becoming Dragon Reborn; The People of the Black Circle, Ten Who Were Taken, Lady, Gromph Baenre, Teclis, Coin the Sourcerer, Sauron, most powerful Amberites

Lord of Magic(151+ %) - At this point, the magic user is like a demigod, usually a ruler of a nation or few, and a force that can alone turn the tide of a battle.
Examples: Anomander Rake, Sandman (Gaiman's), Dominator, Morgoth, Dworkin Barimen

After the limit is set, the wizard's player is free to spend points to buy them normal basis per BRP character creation(they all start with 01%), to raise his skill up to that level - at least as far as Primary Mana - related skills are concerned.



Learning outside of practice:
As you might notice, Archmage ends with 100+ % - after you reach 100%, you still can raise the skill in Magic. It can be done in many ways, I suggest three. Of course, if your skill is lower then 100%, it's all too easier to learn magic this way. And again - Archmage level of magic is best reserved for NPCs.

Racial Affinity X - certain races are born with affinity for magic. A race with Racial Affinity 20 receives a +20 to a roll at the end of the scenario, to see if you get a Skill Advance, per normal BRP rules. Example:

High Elves from Warhammer have Racial Affinity 15. If the wizard used his Magic: Fire skill in which he has 53%, at the end of the adventure he must roll 38 or under (53 - 15) to gain 1d10 in his Magic:Fire skill.

Booklearning: You can receive a permanent bonus to your Magic:X skill if you read a proper tome on the subject. Of course, such tomes are rare, and  GM may decide that if the magic user is too powerful to learn anything new from the tome. To raise a skill above 100%, you need to read books that are an equivalent of setting's Pnakotic Manuscripts or Necronomicon - rare, and probably dangerous to the very reader's mind books.

Divine Knowledge: Though I will write a suggestion on how to handle DnD style divine knowledge in the setting, if gods exist and directly influence the world (Most of DnD settings, Malazan), there may be willing to either strengthen a wizard's link to his Mana, or perhaps give him knowledge needed to do so, in return for a favour, of course. I highly suggest that Cthulhu Mythos and "Faust" are used as a guideline for striking such a bargain. The Gods may also  themselves bestow the skill of a wizard upon their most faithful priests - but most of gods are jealous of the power of Magic, so they will be careful about it.

Deals with Devils: Powerful outsiders, as well as ancient creatures that inhabit the game's world, will sometimes offer a certain amount of raw magical power. The price for such exchange is however quite high - the usual price is soul, but that varies on the entity.


After the character creation is done, mark down to each of Mana Manipulation skills two numbers. First is half the decimal (and hundreds, if any) number (rounded down) of corresponding Mana Manipulation skill, the second -  just the number that's the number for hundreds and decimals. Those are Safe Mana Control level and Maximal Mana Control level correspondingly. So for example, our wizard who has 53% in MM:Fire would have 2/5 proportionally. Those two statistics will be explained in a moment - they are used to Empower spells (and therefore, increase casting chances) by using Magic Points.

Rules for magic continued

Now that character creation is behind us, onto the real crunch of the rules - the actual handling of casting, suggestions of rulings for Inertia ratings for various player declarations, and rules on how to use Mana Points. Probably not quite in this order.


Casting a spell:

Casting a spell requires a successful check of Mana Manipulation skill corresponding with the type of Mana we want to manipulate. Normally it takes about 10 - 20 seconds to cast a spell - as per  normal BRP magic rules, you finish casting a spell in the next round, during your Dexterity rank. However, for every full -40 of Inertia Factor, you must cast the spell for another round.

Each time you want to cast a spell, you must spend one Mana Point, and it provides a +10 bonus to the check, like spending more points on that does to Empower the spell - on that in a moment, though. Despite that you may have enough Mana Manipulation skill to automatically succeed, the very act of attempting to break the Inertia costs even the most experienced wizard a bit of her power (this also prevents an idea that a wizard might create a thousand swords one by one, rather then try and make a thousand instantly - making one sword is significantly easier, yes, but you still need that "spark" to start the process, so to speak, and even the most powerful wizard will run out of "sparks" rather quickly).I
f you succeed, the effect you described enters play, and GM narrates it and any mechanical effects, such as damage or new equipment items, it causes.

Combining spells


Sometimes you will wish to do something that manipulates more then one element - for example, creating a dagger from dirt and tossing it through the air. In such occurrence, two separate spells will be required - first a spell of Mana Manipulation: Metal, then of Mana Manipulation: Air.  

Of course - you can try to just change the air around the target into a long metallic spike that'll pierce a heart, or a dagger out of air. Though it'd be harder then just creating a dagger out of dirt and flying it through the air - but on the other hand, probably faster. If you do so, add the Mana Manipulation skills you will be using (in this example - Metal and Air), then divide the sum by two. Calculate the Safe/Maximum Mana Control from the sum that is the combination of the skills.

As a rule of thumb - when you are in doubt about usage of different manas, just combine them.


Inertia

The world is built on an idea of a delicate balance of Manas, balance that manipulating them shatters - and as such, the world fights against such an act. It is because of that act of opposition that even the most powerful of wizards must perform something that is commonly called a "Spark" - a discharge of raw energy from Mana Lode. Would it not be for Inertia, wizards would surely rule the entire world, for as it is, each caster has a limit to how many "Sparks" his body can summon, before she must begin to substitute her life force. But as it is, Inertia remains a phenomenon cursed and feared by all wizards.

How Inertia works mechanically

A simple matter, really. Inertia is basically a modifier applied to the Casting check. Inertia's modifier may be zero, but it may never be positive - the wizard's act may be as simple as trying to heat up some water with a touch, and in such occurrence the laws of balance will not oppose his desire strongly, but they will never help.

Example Inertia ratings for example effects of spells:

Weak Minor Spell (warming up water, starting a fire): 0

Minor Spell (a "missile" of fire, creating a dagger from earth, making one individual slightly stronger): -5

Weak Medium Spell (a gust of wind to knock down a a man down, mending some light wounds): -6 to -20

Medium Spell (fireball, growing a tree big enough to sustain a house in a space of seconds, healing someone heavily wounded, raising a few undead): -30 to - 50

Strong Spell (creating a pillar of fire to annihilate someone instantly, raising a few units of the undead, adding a set of functional eyes): - 70 to - 100

Powerful Spell (creating a wave of water to drown a legion; creating a hundred full plate armours with swords and metal shields, heal someone terribly gutted and missing limbs, raising an army of undead): - 130 to - 180

Legendary Spell (causing a tornado capable of destroying the most fortified city, travel back or forward in time, force entire gargantuan hostile army to bend to your will, create a sphere that'd suck all life in radius of five miles): - 250 and more, quite often much more.

How can a wizard raise his ability high enough to beat a modifier of, let's say, -100? There are two ways. The first and the most common used is...


Burning Mana Points to Empower Spells

To even cast a spell, you need to burn at least one Mana Point, a so - called "Spark". It automatically gives you a bonus of +10 to the skill check. You can choose to burn more Mana Points to Empower the spell - each point spent gives you +10 to skill check. However, a mortal's body is fragile, and it can quite often not withstand powerful magical energies required to pass  through it.

For each Mana Manipulation skill, you have Safe Mana Control and Maximal Mana Control levels. The first number means how many points of Mana you can spend to Empower your spell - you just declare, no special rules. You can however decide to call upon more Mana then you can safely handle - the Maximal Mana Control level means how many Mana Points you can spend at most. If you spend enough points to exceed your Safe Mana Control level, but succeed on the spell - nothing happens. If you however fail to cast the spell in such an occurrence, you receive 1d3 points of damage for every point spent over Safe Mana Manipulation limit.

Empowering Spells with Blood.
You can spend 4 Hit Points instead of Magic Point in order to cast a spell or Empower it further.. If you do so, the spell is considered to be cast over the Safe Mana Control level, and follow normal rules.

All decisions to Empower spell must be made in first round of casting.

Fast Casting

In middle of combat, it may happen that you will need casting time to be shortened. For each round you shorten, receive -30 penalty to the check. Also, Fast Casting causes one to forego necessary Mana control - after you select the amount of Mana Points spent, roll 1d3 and add so many Mana Points to the spent amount - if this causes the spent Mana Points to go over Maximal Mana Control, take automatically 1 point of damage for each point that goes over it. You still receive bonus of +10 for each point that was forcefully spent by that roll.


Counter - Spells.

Every type of Mana has a type "hostile" to it - an opponent, a balancing element in the universe. A proper manipulation of that opposing Mana type can allow a skilled wizard to counter a spell of another.

In order to counter a spell, the wizard must

• Have a line of sight on the casting wizard. This can be achieved by means of divination
• Success a Theory of Magic check to identify what Mana type the opponent is mustering. If the counterspelling wizard has higher initiative then the caster, he gets +10 to that check. Otherwise, counterspelling wizard receives -10 to that check. Only one such check is allowed for each wizard observing the spell caster per the casting. If successful, wizard identifies the type of Mana that caster is mustering, and also potential power of it - with precision of about 4d10 Inertia points.

Immediately after wizard successfully identified the type of Mana, she can decide to counter the spell. If so, she must cast a Counter - Spell, which requires a check of the Mana Manipulation skill of Mana type opposite to the Mana Lode that the examined spell caster is drawing from. A counterspell is also considered a spell, requires Mana Point spend, follows normal rules for hastened casting and Empowering - you must be able to finish casting the counterspell in the same round or earlier as the original spell is being cast, for the counterspell to work. A counterspell faces an Inertia rating exactly the same as original spell, except the hidden modifier of 4d10 that is only revealed to the wizard who attempts the counter spell after she made all the declarations about Empowering.


Fetishes and rituals.

Any spellcaster who learns a bit about Ritual Engineering, may use such knowledge to influence the challenge that channelling Mana poses for him.

Fetishes

Fetishes are objects enchanted to help with one specific spell. After the wizard achieved a certain effect for the first time, she can decide to try and construct a Fetish to help such an attempt again. First, she takes to studies of her own abilities and Magic Theories - such studies usually take about a week, and a hidden check of Ritual Engineering is made by a GM - +10 if Theory of Magic skill is 50% or higher, +20 if Theory of Magic skill is 80% or higher. A successful check means that the wizard designed the easiest possible way to make a Fetish - usually it'll require one or  two specific objects. They can be herbs, body parts, bone pieces, even stone daggers - anything that is plausible and not very hard to acquire. Such a designed Fetish will later add 10 + 1d10 to any Mana Manipulation rolls checked if the spell was successfully cast - you roll the 1d10 of bonus at the start of casting, before Empowering phase.

If the roll for Ritual Engineering was failed, a Fetish recipe was also made - but leaving it to GM's description, it could result in a flawed Fetish that'd grant only 1d10 of the bonus, an useless Fetish, or perhaps even a Fetish that'd provide a penalty to casting a spell. Of course, there's no way of knowing which it is until the Fetish is used for the first time.


Rituals

Rituals are the opposite of a Fetish - a very powerful, but only usable once, and tailored to a very specific spell that'll be greatly Empowered by the ritual.

Unlike Fetishes, a wizard does not need a prior experience with a spell to design a Ritual. At the beginning of Ritual design, the spellcaster must declare a specific effect (spell) that the Ritual will be constructed to help cast - for example, an enormous pillar of flames that'll destroy an entire specific city in a heartbeat. The GM then makes a secret note about the Inertia rating of such a spell, and  then the process of Ritual design begins. A Ritual usually takes three weeks + a day for every 10 points of Inertia rating to be designed, and like in case of Fetishes, the final roll is made in secret by the GM. If character's Theory of Magic is 70% or higher, she receives a +10 to that Ritual Design check.
After the roll, GM informs the wizard of the list of reagents needed to perform the Ritual - generally, one reagent per each 20 - 30 points of Inertia for the spell. The reagents for the Ritual should be directly connected to the effect of the spell - for the example of creating an enormous pillar of flames to destroy an entire city, an important artifact from the targeted city should be a reagent, such as a piece of High Temple's bell. The more powerful the spell that the ritual is designed, the more difficult the reagents should be to acquire - a very powerful ritual will need an adventure, or even a campaign, to gather the necessary components.

After components are assembled, the wizard may begin the Ritual - casting a spell through a Ritual takes 1d10 minutes for every 10 Inertia rating of the spell. If the Ritual was successfully engineered, his Safe Mana Manipulation/Maximal Mana Manipulation levels are tripled, and each component of the Ritual provides bonus 1d3 Mana Points.

If the Ritual was however flawed, it is left for the GM's discretion what happens. Perhaps the SMM/MMM levels are only doubled, and each component grants only 1 Mana Point. Or perhaps the wizard explodes in the fountain of gore, as her body is overtaken by raw Mana. Rituals are a dangerous game, but they offer a possibility to cast even the most legendary spells.

Scrolls and Magic Books:

If a procedure for a casting of a certain effect is carefully described, as per a scroll or a magic book, a bonus similar to Fetish will be given - about 10 to 40% bonus when casting such a spell, depending on quality of description. This bonus can be combined with Fetish and/or Ritual.

Sacrifice

If you assemble a sacrifice, by placing an alive, intelligent but immobilized target on an altar with dark sigils prepared, you can use that sacrifice's Hit Points to Empower your spell. For every 4 Hit Points of the sacrifice you receive 1 Magic Point until the end of next day. After performing the sacrifice, roll a Sanity check. If you pass, loose 1d3 Sanity. If you fail, loose 1d10 + 3 Sanity.

If you use non - intelligent alive beings, gain 1 Magic Point for every 8 Hit Points of the sacrifice.

Speciality rules for Death, Chaos and Law Manas

All those rules available are only to wizards who have at least a score of 30% in any of them.

Law - Dispelling. You can add your Mana Manipulation: Law score to any other Mana Manipulation skill when you are attempting to counterspell. If you do so, after the counter - spell is cast, test Mana Manipulation: Law. If you succeed, permanently lower your Mana Manipulation: Chaos score by 1d3. If you fail - permanently lower your Mana Manipulation: Chaos score by 1d10.

Chaos - Raw Empowering. You can add your Mana Manipulation: Chaos score to any other Mana Manipulation skill when you are attempting to cast, but not when to counterspell. If you do so, after the spell is cast, test your Sanity score afterwards. If you fail that test, loose 1d10 Sanity points, if you succeed - 1d3 Sanity Points. For every point in Mana Manipulation: Chaos, lower your maximal Sanity by 1.

Death - Life Channelling. When you sacrifice Hit Points to fuel a Death mana spell, you sacrifice 2 Hit Point for one Magic Point.

In a bit of a hurry today, sorry, can only comment briefly ATM but...
 
-as far as limiting how often magic users are supposed to appear, you could do something with the POW attribute. If all wizards need Pow 18, in theory that means 1:216 people in the general populace would have the potential to
use magic (18 on 3d6)...?
 
-Death spheres and Life overlap, both being Water + something, is that deliberate?
 
Initially I was skeptical of powerful spells having -300% when the difference between a crummy mage and an archmage is about +60%, but the Mana Manipulation thing looks like it should work (and limit the maximum nastiness of a low-skill wizards' spells).
The variability of the d100 would mean there's a big difference in mana cost between casting a spell at a 50% success rate and casting it with a 100% certainty of it working.
I sort of like the feature that a clever wizard might be able to reduce how much mana things cost by figuring the smallest change he needs to get an intended effect, like 1 to break the chandeleir so it smashes on the guards or stick a door closed so the PCs can get away, vs. lots to just disintegreate everybody.