Rote Cantrip

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Latest revision as of 14:30, 20 January 2011

Rote Canntrip is a learnable Mystery, that is one way for a (low-skill) character to specialize in his favourite Cantrip (1st level spell), so that Spellcasting Fumbles for that spell are much less severe.

Learning Rote Cantrip

The character must learn the Lore of Rote-Casting once (this Lore enables the character to develop both the Rote-Casting and the Rote Cantrip Mystery, both of them and several times each if desired).

After the character has learned the Lore, he must spend 12 non-consecutive Hours to memorize a more detailed and safer casting procedure for the Cantrip (the character must know the Cantrip beforehand, at at least the 10% Partial stage).

Lore of Rote-Casting

the stats for the Lore go here.

Benefits of Rote-Casting

A Rote-Memorized Spell or Greater Spell gets 9 levels of Spell Safety, serving to reduce the severity of Spellcasting Fumbles. Please note, however, that Spell Safety function on a diminishing returns principle, so that getting a great among of Spell Safety isn't doing a whole lot. (Specifically, if the character's only source of Spell Safetly is Rote-Memorization, then a modifer of -8 is added to all Spellcasting Fumble Rolls for that spell.)

Note that the Fumble Severity Roll for Cantrips tends to yield low values to begin with. Subtracting eight from the roll means the consequences of Fumbling a Rote Cantrip will be mild indeed; often nothing will happen at all.

Drawbacks of Rote-Casting

There are no drawbacks of casting a Rote Cantrip, although the character cannot choose to cast a Rote Cantrip without the Spell Safety effect.

Examples (Ex I)

Un-Learning Rote-Casting

Un-Learning merely requires an act of will, and a period of 2 Days of not casting the Cantrip.

Each Rote Cantrip takes up one Mystery Slot, and emptied Mystery Slots immediately become available for other things (new Rote Cantrips, or any other Mystery).

More Examples (Ex II)

Noticing Rote Cantrip Casting

Advice

Rote Cantrip Rote-Casting is great for a beginning spellcaster, but is not really needed for a serious caster, who has better things to spend his precious Mystery Slots on. Many spellcasting characters use Rote-Casting early in their lives but then Un-Learn it once they feel that they no longer need it (it also carries a stigma of the caster being of limited skill; it is a Mystery for apprentices, not for master mages!).

It is quite common for a player creating a skilled spellcaster to write in the backstory that the character used Rote-Casting for a period of time (and quite likely that he tried to keep it secret from everyone, but didn't manage to perfectly) and then that he at a later time chose to Un-Learn it, feeling that he had grown beyond the need for it. All the player has to do is to consider whether he wants to pay the SPs for Lore of Rote-Casting or not. If he does not, then the character has forgotten the Lore, and therefore must learn it again before he can make use of it to pick new spells for Rote-Casting, but this is common, and the character really misses out on nothing, as the Lore is quite unattractive to skilled casters, save perhaps ones with very high Mnemonic Intelligence (consider the possibility of Rote-Memorizing a 5th or 6th level Spell, or even a 4th level Greater Spell).

Please Note

Rote-Casting has nothing to do with fire-and-forget-style spell memorization. The character also cannot switch spells easily; he must decide which Rote-Memorized spells to forget and then go through the period of non-use to forget the Rotes, then after that he can memorize different spells at the cost of 4 Hours per pick.

See Also

Rote-Casting
Slow-Casting
Spellcasting Fumbles