Reworking Incantation Magic

[Christopher R. Rice]

Some comments as the author.

Originally Posted by Anders

1. Remove indirect damage. This is a big one - it means that spells will work more like curses. The only exception to this would be something like Create Fire, which makes flames spring up in an area. Those spells would still take the normal range penalties + the cost for area. They are not cast like fireballs - they still work like normal spells.

That seems doable. It would certainly fit the world more. I don't see any issues removing it or any impact it might have on the other bits of the system.

Originally Posted by Anders

2. Introduce paths for Animals and Plants. Since there are no druids to be niche-protected, there is a need for these paths.

I'd have one Path for both instead of two.

Originally Posted by Anders

3. Likewise with Healing. Priests will use another system entirely for magic - Divine Favor - which hopefully is somewhat balanced against this.

It more or less is. You don't really see a lot of healing though. I'd limit max healing to 3d or 4d at most.

Originally Posted by Anders

4. Remove the 15 points Unusual Background required, but in exchange for this spells also add to Threshold. They add 1 per -1 modification on casting, so small spells are not dangerous to cast. But I want magic to feel dangerous to use.

Do note that that UB is Magery 0 + Adept (Connection) under the hood. If you remove it, remember to add those back in to the campaign. Adept (Connection) is especially important for things like damaging curses otherwise you're going to take penalties.

Originally Posted by Anders

5. Demonology and Necromancy is even worse to use. They do not add threshold - instead they use the Spirit Assisted Magic from Thaumatology. Such spells - even if cast for good purposes - rely on evil spirits to work and carries a commensurate price. You need a contract with an evil spirit to work this kind of magic. On the other hand, they are IQ/Easy to learn...

Hmmm. So they are not real magic coming from the caster, but more like supplications to evil beings? That's generally how SAM works when you lower the difficult of the spell like that. Even then...IQ/E is probably TOO generous. I'd go IQ/H or MAYBE IQ/A.

Originally Posted by Anders

What kind of threshold and energy recovery do you recommend?

I cover this in Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic