Steve Jackson Games Forums - [Incantation Magic] Creating Food and Water

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[Incantation Magic] Creating Food and Water

I have been thinking about how to build a "create rations" spell in incantation magic. Some things seem clear:

Uses Elementalism (mentioned on p. 30 as the food college; p. 12 lists several food-related things as Elementalism)
Uses Create (p. 12 "make temporary weapons, armour, or gear")
Requires subject weight
Probably requires Duration
Requires a skill roll (p. 15, "When creating anything but raw materials...")

However, open questions for me are:

How long do I have to make the duration?
Is housekeeping the right skill for this?

Especially on the topic of duration, I'm unclear. RPM, which served at least as an inspiration to Incantation Magic, requires food to last three days (T:RPM11), yet DF19 states that "Durations longer than a day are not normally allowed".

My current attempt at this spell would look like this:

Quote:

Daily Rations

Spell Effects: Create Elementalism.
Inherent Modifiers: Duration + Subject Weight.
Skill Penalty: Path of Elementalism-1.
Casting Time: 5 minutes.

Creates up to 100lbs ($4, 0.5lbs each) of rations. These disappear again after 12 hours (so are available during a daily march). Roll against Housekeeping -6 to create them. Often, you will decrease the number of rations to increase skill: 2 rations are at Housekeeping, 10 rations at -2, 50 at -4.

Typical Casting: Create Elementalism (6) + Duration, 12 hours (10) + Subject Weight, 100 lbs. (2). 18 SP.

Yet, the spell cost for this seem quite low for the 200 meals you get.

The same thing applies to Create Water, which won't even require any housekeeping rolls:

Quote:

Drown The Sea

Spell Effects: Create Elementalism.
Inherent Modifiers: Duration + Subject Weight.
Skill Penalty: Path of Elementalism-2.
Casting Time: 5 minutes.

Creates five tons of water.

Typical Casting: Create Elementalism (6) + Duration, 12 hours (10) + Subject Weight, 5 tons (6). 22 SP.

Is there anything I'm missing, or is it really that cheap?

Re: [Incantation Magic] Creating Food and Water

Quote:

Originally Posted by kreios (Post 2170237)

RPM, which served at least as an inspiration to Incantation Magic, requires food to last three days (T:RPM11), yet DF19 states that "Durations longer than a day are not normally allowed".

DF19 says that the GM can assess longer durations a fair value if necessary. 3 days is long enough to avoid having the food disappear from the eater's gut. For me, this simplification is enough to justify bending the duration limit a little.

The duration table has a 1-3-6-12 progression. Thus, I'd call +12 SP to be a fair value for this spell's 3 day duration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kreios (Post 2170237)

Is there anything I'm missing, or is it really that cheap?

This does appear to be a cheap effect. Changing the duration to 3 days won't increase the cost too much from where it is. You could treat this as granting Doesn't Eat or Drink as an altered trait for 10 SP. But that would only apply an additional -1 penalty to the casting roll.