Minor magics for wizards

[warhorse11h]

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[ecz]

Originally Posted by warhorse11h

For my campaign, I borrowed an idea from another game system and created a group of minor magical effects called cantrips. Yes, I borrowed the name too.

Cantrips are treated as a single spell, costing one IQ point to learn. The wizard can know his IQ-4 cantrips and can learn new ones as he gains IQ. New cantrip effects do not count against spell totals. It costs the wizard one ST per day to make use of the cantrip spell for that day. He can use as many of his cantrips as he wants to during that day.

There are a lot of cantrips, providing very minor and usually beneficial effects. A firefinger to light a pipe. A glowing ball of light like a candle to light the way across a dark room, summoning a single bee or fly and having it fly toward the nose of an adversary, causing him to save vs IQ or be DX -1 for that melee, etc. I can provide the full list if anyone wants it. I have found it a way to get wizards to become very inventive in finding ways to use their cantrips and hang onto their spells, making them more useful and less limited.

The way I have employed them is that they do not require a to hit roll, they just work. It doesn't have to be that way.

I would rather use this same concept to give something to a cleric/priest character leaving the "Sorcery" per RAW .

[Mike P.]

Originally Posted by warhorse11h

There are a lot of cantrips, providing very minor and usually beneficial effects. A firefinger to light a pipe. A glowing ball of light like a candle to light the way across a dark room, summoning a single bee or fly and having it fly toward the nose of an adversary, causing him to save vs IQ or be DX -1 for that melee, etc. I can provide the full list if anyone wants it.

Hi warhorse11h! These Cantrips sound cool! I would love to see your full list.

[fisherro]

Thanks for posting those, warhorse11h! I use some cantrips in my B/X D&D games, so I’ll certainly be considering something similar for TFT.

[Tenex]

I do like the idea of cantrips. Minor spells that just make life more pleasant without usurping skills or "real" spells are great. Primarily though, I think of them as enhancing role-playing rather than affecting combative or competitive game play.

So something that improves the taste or quality of food would be ok, like your freshen and spice cantrips. You are eating better than you paid for. For instance, turning a 1 silver meal into a 10 silver meal.

However, you have some cantrips that alone or in combination replicate skills and I'd stay away from that.

Dry, Dry wood, Edible plant, Firefinger: This combo covers much of what the Woodsman talent does. With these you could dry out the inside of a poorly built shelter, dry wet wood and start a fire in a rainstorm and create edible plants.

Snatch: Pickpocketing is 1/2 of the Thief skill and the way you have this written it might be superior to the pickpocket skill in some situations.

But I really like all the gather, freshen, clean, minor light, polish etc. type cantrips. These ease the daily drudgery of life, which typically isn't combative or competitive in nature. Those seem right on the mark.

YMMV, rock on. Thanks for the list!

[CardDiceian]

Cool list,and some really useful ideas here.

I think the 'minor spells' that reduce an opponents DX by one seem overly powerful - But without playing them in a real game I guess it's difficult to see how much of an effect they would have.

[Tenex]

I like the interpretation of yawn, etc. and their effect on spellcasters. I also agree with the view that wizards are sensitive to the presence of magic. For slightly different reasons, but the conclusion is the same.

[larsdangly]

This is great; I snagged them into a file for use in my game!

[Kale]

It seems like you could buy a batch of these with the Dabbler(Cantrips) perk for anyone with magery rather than making it 1 pt for IQ-4 Cantrips. I would also limit the number of total Cantrips by the caster's skill in Thaumatology or possibly link it to Magery levels in some way?

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Kale

It seems like you could buy a batch of these with the Dabbler(Cantrips) perk for anyone with magery rather than making it 1 pt for IQ-4 Cantrips. I would also limit the number of total Cantrips by the caster's skill in Thaumatology or possibly link it to Magery levels in some way?

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