Dispelling in RPM

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by starslayer

You could also make the penalties for critical failures less severe in dispelling, like say, only a time penalty.

That's one way of looking at it, but in most of the wiz vs wiz stories I remember there are scenes where the second mage is examining the spell and having to dismantle it very carefully. This is not usually because it is booby trapped, but because the spell controls a lot of power which could be extremely dangerous unless taken care of correctly (dissipated or grounded or something like that). Or maybe the spell is linked to the inhabitants of a small country and it not only is mind controlling them, but taking a small bit of each person's energy to power the spell, which means that I weaving the spell improperly could kill many of the people you're trying to save.

These are examples from fantasy fiction rather than gaming. Unfortunately they were read in my misbegotten youth back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, so I can't bring up many examples, though Madwand by Roger Zelazny comes to mind.