Spell
From Sagataflwiki
Spellcasting is only one of several magic systems in Sagatafl. A character can use many other kinds of magic, without ever having learned Spells.
Spells come in 6 levels, 1st level (Cantrips) to 6th level (Wonders), and 2 types, called Spells and Greater Spells. Greater Spells cannot be 1st level, making for a total of 11 levels of Spells (Spells 1st to 6th level, Greater Spells 2nd to 6th level)
The term non-Greater Spell is sometimes used, especially in this article, but otherwise, when the term Spell is used alone, it covers Spells and Greater Spells, and when the terms Spell and Greater Spell are both used in the same paragraph or subsection, Spell refers only to non-Greater Spells. In all cases it should be obvious from context.
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Spells vs Greater Spells
A Greater Spell and a Spell of the same level should be equally powerful, but with the Greater Spell being more flexible.
For instance, the Control Earth II Spell, which is a Greater Spell, can do a great many things to the element of earth (including stone, sand and ceramics), and each of those many effects has its own separate non-Greater Spell: Shape Earth, Purify Earth, Extrude Earth, Create Earth, Reinforce Earth, Destroy Earth, Weaken Earth, and so forth.
Likewise, for Illusion Magic, the five Greater Spell, Illusion I to Illusion V, are super-flexible, giving a number of Build Points that the caster is free to spend as he wishes on various effects. In contrast to this there are many non-Greater Illusion Spells, but for all of them the Build Points have been pre-spent, to create such spells as Invisibility II, Silence III and Quiet Invisibility I, with the only variable parameter being that if the Spell is to affect a larger target, its Duration is reduced.
Sometimes a magical effect can nly be had via Greater Spells, because it is thought by The Designer that it should be "controlled", and would be ued too often as a mere Spell.
Drawbacks of Greater Spells
- Harder to learn, costing more Skill Points, especially for higher level versions
- Takes more Pages when writte down, e.g. in books intended to teach Spells
- Much harder to invent
- More time-consuming to cast, requiring twice as much Progress to complete, so on average more casting roll cycles must be used
- The consequences of Fumbling a Greater Spell are worse, as an additional positive modifier is added to the Spell Fumble Otcome roll
- It Costs more Essence to Invest a Greater Spell in an item than a same-grade Spell here are fewer base Charges, and if the Activation Roll Fumbles, there's a positive modifier to the Activation Fumble Outcome Roll
Reasons to use Greater Spells
Greater Spells are more flexible. Greater Spells of Duration, rather than those with an instantaneous effect or similar, are particularly flexible, because for as long as, e.g., a Control Earth II Greater Spell is running, it can be used in different ways from Round to Round. This is in contrast to a Shape Earth II Spell or a Destroy Earth II Spell, which can each do only one thing, so if you want a different effect, you must cast a second Spell, preferably after cancelling the first Spell.
Tactically one can also be less predictable. If one is deduced as casing a Destroy Earth Spell, by the opposition, then they can take a qualified guess at what one will use the Spell for, but if one is deduced at casting a Control Earth Greater Spell, then the opposition cannot guess precisely what the intent it, since the Greater Spell can do a great many different things, and can be used for very different purposes from Round to Round.
For the purpose of Investing Spells into magic items, Greater Spell versions are more flexible, and as soon as a Greater Spell splits into more than 4 non-Greater Spells, it costs less Essence to just Invest the one Greater Spell, than to Invest each and every non-Greater Spell in order for the item to be able to re-create all the effects of the one Greater Spell.
Some characters also specialize heavily in only one or two Spells, which is then pretty much always Greater Spells. Illusion IV, or the combination of Illusion III and V, are popular choices, as is any of the medium-or-higher level Control Element Greater Spells, e.g. Control Earth IV, Control Air V or Control Fire III. The magic system further supports this via Mysteries for Spell Specialization, and single-Spell Focus Enchantments, and of course every character's privilege of having every Skill he has, including Spell Realm Skills, specialized in a single thing, which in the case of a Spell Realm Skill can be any one Spell, Greater or non-Greater.
There are a few cases where one-trick ponies make sense for non-Greater Spells, such as a medium-or-higher level Fire Bolt Spell, or maybe an Air Shield Spell for a character paranoid about being turned into a pincushion by enemy archers, but... it's a bit stereotypical, and will not be much fun for a player in the long run, if it is the core of the character concept.
Weather Magic Spells are another option, although much more suitable for settles characters than for adventurers. They have not been created yet, but most likely the Control Weather Spells will be Greater Spells, and be well suited for a single-Greater Spell specialized character, e.g. Weather Control III or IV.
Likewise the Blight Spells from Horror Magic, make for good single-Spell specialized NPCs, if the setting has an official job position as Blighters, as in the Magocracy of Bretagne in the Ärth setting.
Reason to use non-Greater Spells
Sometimes, they get the job done just fine. For higher Spell levels, Greater Spells costs lot of SPS to learn, compared to non-Greater Spells. They're faster to cast, and one suffers less on a Fumble. Also, sometimes it doesn't hurt much that the opposition can guess that one is preparing to barberque them with a high-level Fire Bolt Spell; it may even be amusing to see them cower in fear. For Investments, non-Greater Spells also often work fine, not costing much to Invest and giving a fair number of base Charges, and with the item being less likely to explode in the user's hands on a Fumbled Activation Roll.
Spell grades
The Grade of a Spell denotes its level of power relative to similar named Spells that produce the same effect, for instance Fire Bolt II is more powerful than Fire Bolt I. IT does more damage, and may also have a longer RI.
Likewise, for a Spell that is a subset of a Greater Spell, e.g. Extrude Earth versus Control Earth, one can assume that if the grade is the same, they are equally powerful, although the Greater Spell version (Control Earth) will be more flexible - it can extrude Earth but can also do many other things.
General stats for Spells and Greater Spells
Insert here a table listing some general stats for Spells, based on level and whether they're non-Greater or Greater.
- SP cost to learn (remember, Greaters go up in cost by a factor of x3 per levle, non-Greater only by a factor of x2.5 IIRC)
- Fumble Outcome Roll modifier (raw modifier, on top of this goes an additional modifier for Fumbles worse than F-3, and for Pushing, and so forth)
- Pages required in Spell Study Text (should probably progress more aggressively than SP cost to learn, since texts are non-interactive learning)
- Progress needed to complete (standard 2,4,8,16,32,64, and simply doubled for Greater Spells, starting at 8 for GSL2).
- Base RD (starting at 7, ending at 12. Same RD for Greater as for non-Greater; they're not that much harder)
(Note, these stats are already mstly determined. It's not a design issue. I just need to find them (made harder by still not being able to access my email archive), although the Spell Fumbl modifiers might change, and I haven't thought about Page "cost" yet.)
Please note
Spells and Greater Spells are completely analogous to Item Abilities and Greater Item Abilities.
Spell level is often abreviated SLx for Spells and GSLx for Greater Spells,where x is a number from 1 to 6 (2 to 6 for Greater Spells).
Mini-FAQ
Empty for now
The world
It is a very interesting question whether most world denizens, e.g. in the Ärth setting, recognizes the existence of Greater Spells as a phenomenon separate from non-Greater Spells.
They certainly recognize the fact that all Spells are not equally easy to cast. It is obvious to any spellcaster that some Spells are harder than others. Take longer (on average) to cast, are more challenging, and hurt more when Fumbled. That much is abundantly clear.
If told to compare a specific 2nd level Spell they know with a different-Realm 4th level Spell that they also know, any such caster would unfallingly say that the 4th level Spell is more difficult. Ask the same with a 2nd and 3rd level Spell, and perhaps 95% would say the 3rd level one is harder, 4.9% perhaps would say they are equally hard, and perhaps a remainder of 0.1% would say the 3rd level Spell is easier to than the 2nd level Spell.
There might perhaps be a tendency to refer to Greater Spells as "complex spells" in-character. And at the same time to higher level Spells as being "greater" than lower level Spells. But for the sake of easy play, this should usually be avoided.
World impact
The Ärth setting
Talk about how this trait appears and functions in the Ärth historical fantasy setting.
Design Notes
Sagatafl's spell magic system differs starkly from many other fantasy RPG magic systems, in that a character's power is in no way measured by the number of Spells he knows.
"I know a powerful Fire Bolt Spell!" "Yes, but can you cast it?"
Note the distinction between know and can cast. Obviously, if the character has a Skill level of 1 or better in the Fire Magic Realm, and if he knows that particular Fire Bolt spell (e.g. Fire Bolt III), then he can attempt to cast it, but unless his Fire Magic Skill is a lot higher than 1, the person he is threatening has nothing to fear (provided he is out of range of a potential Fumble Lash-Out).
The real measures of Power are two-fold: Having a high Skill in one or more Realms (and higher Skill is always better - there is no point where more skill doesn't help in some way), and having a Focus item to lower the RD of Spellcasting. These two combine to enable a character to cast those Spells that he knows, and which belongs to the Realm(s) he has Skill in, and which are covered by his Focus, with relatively speed and a fairly low risk of Fumbling.
In contrast, knowing a Spell is nearly trivial. They are quick to learn (especially low-level non-Greater Spells), and can even be cast when Partially Learned (unless other Lores), although that results in an RD penalty and a positve modifier to the Spellcasting Fumble Outcome Roll.
One effect of this is that Spells cannot be used by the GM, by letting cooperative players finding many Spells they can learn alng the way (similar to spell scrolls in AD&D) as a reward, and by punishing roleplaying players by withholding spell finds completely or almost completely, as a form of Skinnerian training.
Instead, players can purchase all the Spells they want during character creation, and then have their characters progress in power through increasing their Realm Skills via natural usage (see Character Advancement).
As a last resort, players can even have their characters invent Spells that turn out to be needed during the pursuit of their characters' goals. A standard spellcaster is not well suited to inventing Spells, especially Greater Spells or higher level Spells, but with a few not-too-expensive twists during character creation, a typical spellcaster can be tweaked to also be a reasonable capable Spell inventor: Raise Mystical Intelligence, increase Creativity, and increase the Magic Theory Skill. Maybe even addan Enchantment to the character's Focus item that gives a bonus to Creativity, or a bonus either to all Magic Theory or only to Magic Theory when using it to Invent Spells.
Other RPG systems gives the GM tools to control what Spells the player characters know, and enables him to withhold Spells from them covertly, but there is no legitimate need for the GM to have such a tool, and therefore Sagatafl doesn't give it.
In addition to the above, the Skill-is-central concept also feels much more realistic and organic to The Designer, than the more traditonal approach where each Spell is a separate thing that stands alone, unconnected to a larger framework of magical lore (as represented by a Realm Skill).
The Realms
Dividing Spells into Realms, and gathering the Realms in Categories, is also a very deliberate decision, made to empower players and GMs to create themed characters. Many RPG systems offer the option of creating a narrowly themed character, analogous to a character who in Sagatafl is skilled only in a single Realm, but either there is no opportunity to create a character who is broadly specialized (without being a genaralist caster), or else the cost is unreasonably high.
Sagatafl offers this. Characters can be generalists (although this is very expensive and leads to a dynamic characterized by great flexibility of spell effects producable, but also low power and low ability to use Casting Options), or they can specialyze as broadly or narrowly as they wish. A single Realm, or in some cases a Realm Pair, or a Category, or even a sub-Realm. Even a single Spell. The later is often a bad idea, but not always.
Johan the Trickster, for instance, is probably the most skilled and powerful illusionist spellcaster in the Ärth setting, and he is specialized in exactly two Greater Spells: Illusion III and Illusion V.
Specialization takes two forms: Concentrating Skill Points in a few Realms (or even just one Realm) instead of spreading them over many Realms, and secondly on Enchanting a Focus item to give a big RD bonus to a narrow subset of Spells (e.g. a single Realm) rather than spending a roughly similar amount of Essence on getting a smaller RD bonus to a broader subset of Spells (multiple Realms, or a Category or two) or on getting a very small RD bonus to all Spells.
The exact Categorization and definition of each Realm will (hpefully) be dealt with in the article on Realms.
The Spells themselves
Obviously many Spells have not yet been created, but there is a (semi-) coherent vision behind the Spells in Sagatafl, and it can be said to be based on two principles: Inclusion and Omission.
Inclusion principle of Spell Design
Many RPG systems have a stuck-in-the-dungeon mentality, when it come to magic, and offer only Spells (and other magics) that are useful for dungeon crawling and other tactical-scale militaristic endavours. If it gets sophisticated, intrusion and detection magics are also included, suitable for thieves, spies, rogues and assassins.
Sagatafl goes beyond that, takes several steps back, and looks at the world as a whole, and as magic as being influenced by Human concerns, including concerns such as health, agriculture, personal safety in non-militaristic situations, and fertility and sex. As such a much greater variety of Spells are included, compared with traditonal fantasy RPGs.
Instead of giving only dungeoncrawling-relevant Spells, and then pretend that yes there are other magics used by the druids in their groves to bless the crops but we can't be arsed to actually design them, Sagatafl includes much. Obviously all imaginable Spells cannot be designe and documented, but existing Spells can often be used as model or as modifiable examples.
Also, world impact is given consideration, unlike dungeoncrawling systems which care only about the tactical-scale adventures of the PCs and can with much fairness be described as not taking place in a world. The best example of the wrongness of the dungon-myopia is probably the Cure Disease spell from AD&D and D&D3, which was a 3rd levl spell (on a spell level scale from 1 to 9 in AD&D and 0 to 9 in D&D3) that could cure any disease whatsoever, with no exception. That's so profoundly retarded a game design "decision" that The Designer is at a loss for words. At the very least the AD&D guys could, with a minimum of thought given to the world outside of the dungeon, have come up with Cure Minor Disease, Cure Major Disease and Cure Critical Disease, each assigned a proper place on the spell level scale.
Omission principle of Spell Design
In combination with the inclusion principle above, there is a principle of deliberate omission of certain Spell effects and types of Spells, for various reasons.
One such reason is when the effect of the Spell is simply undesirable in a general sense. Such magical effects can perhaps be described as counter-conflictual. They prevent conflict and allow routine circumvention of adventure, e.g. by making remote sensing trivially easy, or allowing the magic user to see events of the past.
Others are generally undesirable in a game context (but would work in non-interactive fiction, such as written stories, movies or TV shows), such as having the ability to see into the future.
Other Spell effects again are undesirable from The Designer's subjective point of view, in that they are incompatible with his vision of what a good fantasy world is. This can either be effects completely omitted from the magic system, such as visually blatant low-level magics that leave no potenial for doubt as to whether magic has been used or not (although there are some execptions, perhaps most notably Light I being a 1st level Spell yet clearly magical in nature, and the various Weapon Buff Spells some of which start at 2nd level - granted they're a bit gimped in the Duation department but they're there and they are blatant).
In other cases, such effects are omitted only from the Spell system, while being available elsewhere in the magic system. One example of this is Item Abilities, such as Shrink Item. The Designer simply does not want that available as a Spel, but since any Item Ability costs Essence (and since this particular Item Ability can only be used by the Enchanted item itself), there will be limited occurence of the effect in world terms. It won't be everywhere. It may end up being relatively common, because of its usefulness relative to the cost, but every single instance of t will still be notable, rather than routine.
Another example is with non-traditional magic, which tends to cover everything that isn't Spellcasting or Endowing, or at least everything which cannot be reproduced with Spellcasting (i.e. many think of Familiar as being traditional, even though there are non-Spellcasting ways of getting one).
to be continued...
Quick mini-glossary
SL2 means a 2nd level non-Greater Spell.
GSL4 means a 4th level Greater Spell.
AL3 means a 3rd level Item Ability (analogous to a Spell, but cannot be cast by a character, only an item; see Investment).
GAL5 means a 5th level Greater Item Ability (analogous to a Gr. Spell, as above).
Progress is the gradual accumulation of points towards completing a task, such as an attempt to cast a Spell or Greater Spell. See Task for the general rules on Tasks, and see Spellcasting for the ways in which casting a Spell differs from other Tasks.
Investment is an Enchantment that enables an item to cast a Spell, Greater Spell, Item Ablity or Greater Ability, with a base number of charges per time unit, depending on the level of the Spell or Item Ability, and whether it is a Greater or non-Greater Spell or Item Ability.
Activation Roll is a roll that is required to activate an Investment. It may cost one or several Charges, whether successful or not, or may result in an unpleasant outcome known as an Activation Fumble. Investment Levels can be spent to make the Investment activate faster, or to make it more safer, or give more charges per time unit, and to improve the Investment in several other ways. This is explained in the article on Investments.
Fumble in this context means an Abortive Fumble during a Spellcasting Cycle, or a Fumble on an Activation Roll to cast a Spell, Greater Spell, Item Ability or Greater Item Ability that has been Invested in an Item. Specifically, Minor Fumbles (F-2) do not lead to Spell Fumble (or Item Activation) Outcome Rolls.
See also
Include links here, to other articles that are highly pertinent to the subhject matter of this one. Remember
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