Making spells feel more like skills

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

That seems less like a normal non-spell skill then if you spent that time learning the secret rules of magical fire, the true names of the flame spirits, and stoking your inner fire, in order to be able to do lots of different fire magic effects.

What if the normal non-spell skill was Running? It is true of course that the kind of thing you describe is the reason why improvisational magic exists as an option.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What if the normal non-spell skill was Running? It is true of course that the kind of thing you describe is the reason why improvisational magic exists as an option.

I have taken Running classes, we didn't just run but learned exercises and about nutrition, injuries, shoes and recovery.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I have taken Running classes, we didn't just run but learned exercises and about nutrition, injuries, shoes and recovery.

But there are plenty of people with Running skill who haven't, and even for those who have, most of their training time actually consists of going out there and running.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It would be the same as the "200 hour class" in any exotic skill. You learn "kiai" by meditating, practicing your breathing and then shouting. You do it again and again until you learn how to do it effectively. In the case of fire ball, most of the time spent learning it would consist of shaping fire into balls. Again, and Again and Again. Now it would be fair to let someone who has invested hours of training into Fireball but doesn't have a full point in it to do something that reflects their incomplete mastery, like a fireball that only travels five feet and then dissipates if it didn't hit anything but of course if you're actually using fireballs in combat you ain't gonna need no 200 hours to get the hang of it. You'll learn, and you'll learn fast.

What I did in Worminghall was this:

You're a magic student, so you start out by learning Symbol Drawing, which is the notation you use to define spells and focus your mind on them. Once you have that, you can learn the symbols for a particular spell. In the time required for familiarity (8 hours, conventionally), you learn just enough to be allowed a default roll at IQ+Magery-6. What this represents is you trying to focus your mind on the imperfectly remembered structure of the spell—and likely failing a lot of the time. But if you're not under pressure, you can make a Symbol Drawing roll, taking up to 30 seconds for up to +5, and that gives you a bonus to cast the spell; typically you write your pentacles and esoteric scripts onto a wax tablet, slowly and carefully, trying to get everything right.

The standard magic system says that you can cast most spells in combat, meaning they take one second. That's about long enough to enunciate 15 phonemes ("hackertybackertyone") and make a few gestures. But there's also getting the right stance and intonation and rhythm; in a way, it's a performing art. It may be like trying to play a simple tune on the piano, and training yourself out of hitting the wrong note or having the wrong rhythm. Even though it's IQ-based, magic as presented seems to be more like a physical skill in many ways.

Oh, and if you use this to cast Ignite Fire in combat, at the penalty, you may be able to claim "learning under stress" to justify going straight from initial familiarity to a point of skill. But you won't get that for casting the spell in class, under a teacher's supervision, with 30 seconds to sketch the symbols, and with no danger if you take too long or fail to cast the spell (though there is the risk of critical failure, of course).

[Prince Charon]

In general, I tend to prefer the various forms of Ritual Magic (not the main version, for reasons noted in the link below, but Path/Book Magic, RPM, et cetra) or Sorcery over the standard magic system, though I have some fondness for a variant on the No School Grognard blog: Spells are easy, college is (very) hard. I don't agree with all the changes, personally, but I do think that it's better than the legacy standard system.

One much simpler variant I'm fond of is to just make all the Hard spells Easy, and all the Very Hard spells Average, while also allowing the casters to be somewhat creative in how a spell manifests and/or is applied, when that's an option. Anything that fits the spell description, is not too close a fit for another spell's description, and would not add utility in general, but might add a little in this specific instance, would be allowable. So would making a spell do something that is pretty similar (but generally somewhat inferior) to another spell that it is a direct prerequisite for (e.g. using Create Fire and Shape Fire to make a ball of fire to attack with; not as good as a proper Fireball spell, but close enough, and implies how the Fireball spell might have been invented, and indeed, how it might be taught). I'd also have spells default to their prerequisites (e.g. Fireball would default to something like Create Fire-4 and Shape Fire-3).

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I think they ought to be broader. It is hard for me to imagine why Fireball requires the same course of study that Physics does. If they were more like skills I would think they would be more the like Ritual Magic colleges-as-skills approach.

For me it's hard to imagine why changing thermodynamics should be easier than understanding it. Which brings me an idea of Physics (thermodynamics) defaulting to any fire spell, should the need arise.

I liked the Ritual Magic in theory, but in reality, I'm unimpressed, at least as a player - some spells having a penalty of -20, without a standard way to get a bonus of at least +10, makes Ritual Magic ridiculously hard (actually far harder then spells-as-skills approach, where you can invest just around 20 points in magic to be able to cast Utter Dome). So Ritual Magic is a good starting point, but needs a lot of tweaking as well.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Would it be broke to allow the extra/less time bonus/penalty system if you wanted to cast 1 spell per 2 sec or 2 spells per 1 sec?

Oh yes. But one thing I do which does make it more like a skill is that instead of high skill levels letting you automatically drop elements like gestures and incantations, instead I have omitting the elements as task difficulty modifiers

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Would it be broke to allow the extra/less time bonus/penalty system if you wanted to cast 1 spell per 2 sec or 2 spells per 1 sec?

A spell involves pronouncing a phrase and moving your hands. So say that phrase is "eenie, meenie, chili-beanie!" (which you can plausibly say in the 1 second standard casting time). To get +5 to skill you need to take 30 seconds to say it, and I'm just not hearing that as making any sense. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie, chillllllllllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiii beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie"? And saying it in half a second, let along a tenth of a second, seems unlikely too. I'd say no, you can't.

The mechanics I described from Worminghall do provide you with a way of doing this, sort of: Get a bonus to spell casting from Symbol Drawing, and get a bonus to Symbol Drawing from drawing the symbols slowly and carefully. Now that I think can be visualized in a way that makes sense.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

I was thinking more like dramatic pauses between words to think on their pronunciation and meaning rather than dragging out syllables.

I don't find that plausible, personally. I think that instead of letting you think of the whole spell, it would have it break into discrete units for the different words. Reading something extremely slowly does not aid understanding.

Now, if I'm editing something, and I want to check it carefully, I read it aloud, perhaps slightly slowly. But that seems to me to be already covered by the requirement that a spell be spoken aloud until you attain a high skill level. The casting without speaking corresponds to the way I normally read.

[Gnomasz]

Well, I'd be very wary of allowing using Time Spent with spells overall, but just doubling the time and adding gestures and words for +1 actually has a precedent in the alternate rituals rules. I don't see it as prolonging the magical words the caster speaks, but actually using more words (just like at skill 15 the caster needs to speak fewer words than at 14).