[magic] casting spells of unknown cost

[mirtexxan]

There are several instances when you start to cast a spell but you DON'T know a priori the total energy cost (e.g. a lot of meta spells, which cost depends on the cost of the subject-i.e. target-spell).

So, when you actually are charged the energy cost? I assume at the end of the casting time, just before you roll for success (Magic, p.8).

But... what happens if the cost is TOO high to be payed? Or you simply decline to pay that?

Can you "abort" a spell after your last second of concentration, just before paying the energy cost and then rolling for success?

If not, what does it happen? (In this case I would assume that you are forced to pay FP until you fall unconscious).

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by mirtexxan

There are several instances when you start to cast a spell but you DON'T know a priori the total energy cost (e.g. a lot of meta spells, which cost depends on the cost of the subject-i.e. target-spell).

So, when you actually are charged the energy cost? I assume at the end of the casting time, just before you roll for success (Magic, p.8).

But... what happens if the cost is TOO high to be payed? Or you simply decline to pay that?

Can you "abort" a spell after your last second of concentration, just before paying the energy cost and then rolling for success?

If not, what does it happen? (In this case I would assume that you are forced to pay FP until you fall unconscious).

As per Magic p. 8, Energy Cost, you pay the cost when you cast the spell and as per Magic p. 7, Casting Spells, the spell is cast at the end of the last second of concentration.

There is no option which allows you to decline to pay the energy cost of a spell. You can "abort" a spell at the last second before casting it (Casting Spells: Time Required Magic p. 8). Aborting a spell doesn't cost you energy but neither does it tell you how much energy you would have spent if you had cast the spell.

Exactly how much energy you have to pay varies. If the spell fails and would have cost any energy, it will cost you 1 FP. However if the spell was an Information spell, you pay the full cost of the spell, whether successful or not. Area spells and other variable cost spells can be nasty. If there is a finite upper limit to what you can spend on the spell, you can't exceed that limit. If there is no finite upper limit, you can spend as much energy as you want.

In the case of Area spells, if the energy cost after taking reductions into account exceeded the energy available to the mage, I would assess the energy cost as follows: The mage automatically spends all his remaining FP on the spell. If that isn't enough, the mage must roll vs. IQ+ Magery to avoid burning HP, at which point the mage will burn HP until either the cost is met or he falls unconscious.

In the event the spell is an Area spell, the spell takes effect over the area actually paid for, with the mage getting to choose the actual area affected as long as it remains clustered, e.g. a circular area would still have to be roughly circular, no matter how small; it couldn't become a line.

[Varyon]

Here's a thread from earlier in the year that discussed the same concern, although there was no official word on how to handle it. An idea that didn't occur to me at the time (and that I didn't see suggested with a quick perusal of the thread) is that you could have the character set a limit to how much FP he or she will spend on the spell - if it winds up not being enough, either the spell fails outright (just like the mage rolled a normal Failure), or the spell is cast, the character spends all the FP allotted... and nothing happens, because that simply wasn't enough power.

[David Johnston2]

Personally I'm fond of "You collapse with a nose-bleed". You didn't get into combat magery because it was so safe.

[mirtexxan]

Originally Posted by Varyon

[url=https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=180063]... you could have the character set a limit to how much FP he or she will spend on the spell - if it winds up not being enough, either the spell fails outright (just like the mage rolled a normal Failure), or the spell is cast, the character spends all the FP allotted... and nothing happens, because that simply wasn't enough power.

Lawful good (first variant) or lawful neutral GM (second variant).

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Personally I'm fond of "You collapse with a nose-bleed". You didn't get into combat magery because it was so safe.

Lawful evil :)

Personally, I think that both solutions are consistent with the Magic system. But the "evil" one is closer to RAI, as the Magic system is very much old-school.

I think I was acting Chaotic Good myself, by giving the chance of a last-second abort XD

[Anaraxes]

The expenditure takes you down to 0 FP, at which point the spell fails because you don't have enough energy -- not to mention that you're likely unconscious, though you might make some Will rolls and cling to consciousness long enough to gasp out your astonishment at the overwhelming power of the magic.

If you want to make unknown variable casting really risky, recall that you can power spells from HP; also, losing more FP than you have automatically converts to HP injury (B426). Lose all your FP and as many HP as it takes to power the spell. This might wind up calling for some death checks or just plain death if you make it to -5xHP. Also, you're again going to go unconscious as soon as you fail a Will roll, so you have a very short time to do anything with the results of your spell, and similarly aren't likely going to be conscious to pay maintenance on it once the initial duration runs out.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

An idea that didn't occur to me at the time (and that I didn't see suggested with a quick perusal of the thread) is that you could have the character set a limit to how much FP he or she will spend on the spell - if it winds up not being enough, either the spell fails outright (just like the mage rolled a normal Failure), or the spell is cast, the character spends all the FP allotted... and nothing happens, because that simply wasn't enough power.

That's the way I've house ruled it in the past.

Unless the GM wants the process of spellcasting to be really vicious and dangerous, it seems fair to let the mage's player set a skill penalty threshold and an energy threshold before the cast the spell, in the same way that a mage casting a Missile spell can choose how big the missile will be and who to aim it at.

If the skill penalties and/or energy costs go beyond the stated threshold, the spell just fails as it is aborted. No chance of CF but the energy is lost.

As a slightly less generous option, allow the caster to abort the spell if it would cost them HP to cast, rather than just ER/FP. The caster just falls unconscious and learns a valuable lesson about proper target reconnaissance prior to spellcasting.

A third optins is to let the spellcaster substitute HP for some or all of the missing FP/ER beyond a certain point, up to a preset amount, and/or let them choose the order in which ER/FP/HP is lost when they begin casting the spell. E.g., A mage putting it all on the line to cast a potentially expensive spell who doesn't want to knock themselves out or die might specify, "Drain ER first, then drain FP to FP/3, then drain HP to HP 1. After that, let the spell fail."

Per RAW, there's absolutely nothing preventing a mage from inviting serious magical backfire if they underestimate skill penalties (e.g., casting a spell to affect a subject at an unknown but large distance) or knocking themselves out or killing themselves with FP/HP losses if the energy cost to cast the spell is too great.

[edk926]

If you are going to die casting it, than I hope the GM is willing to have the casting be successful at least ... like for Banish.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Varyon

An idea that didn't occur to me at the time (and that I didn't see suggested with a quick perusal of the thread) is that you could have the character set a limit to how much FP he or she will spend on the spell - if it winds up not being enough, either the spell fails outright (just like the mage rolled a normal Failure), or the spell is cast, the character spends all the FP allotted... and nothing happens, because that simply wasn't enough power.

You really have to do it this way, because characters have options that can enable them to spend more energy (say by black magic, or spending HT, or spending *someone else's* HT through some sort of link like to a familiar) that clearly need to be voluntary.

I've always treated this as pick the maximum you are willing to spend. You can after all obviously control how much energy you pump into all kinds of other effects, say for variable area of effect, why would it be any different here? Stop pumping and you get a lesser effect, which in often nothing, though in the case of the prototype for this (Counterspell) works just like the area spell case, giving you a smaller area, since the spell description specifically allows you to counter partial areas. Of course that one also isn't genuinely unknown, since you have to know the spell (and hence it's base cost) already, but same principle.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by mirtexxan

There are several instances when you start to cast a spell but you DON'T know a priori the total energy cost (e.g. a lot of meta spells, which cost depends on the cost of the subject-i.e. target-spell).

For stuff like counterspell or suspend spell that's why I don't like the idea of being able to cast them without knowing what the spell is ahead of time, in which case then you are specifying a fixed intended cost ahead of time.

Originally Posted by mirtexxan

So, when you actually are charged the energy cost? I assume at the end of the casting time, just before you roll for success (Magic, p.8).

Just after, technically, since the roll determines if you might just pay 0 energy (crit success) or 1 energy (a normal failure for non-info spells)

1) Except I think in the case of Burning HP, pretty sure you need to specify how much HP you'll burn ahead of time and you don't get that back even if you roll a crit success and didn't need to spend any energy at all.

That or at least you have to suffer the spell penalty as if you burned HP even if you didn't because that could cause weird feedback loops.

2) also with Missile spells it's a bit weird as well, since some of that energy can be put in on successive turns, with the implication you can "choose as you go"

IE if you got a crit success you might as well go for max dmg since it costs you nothing, but if you got a normal success you might opt for a mere 1-energy missile spell (the bare minimum) and keep crit-fishing for that free giant fireball later.

Originally Posted by mirtexxan

But... what happens if the cost is TOO high to be payed? Or you simply decline to pay that?

Can you "abort" a spell after your last second of concentration, just before paying the energy cost and then rolling for success?

You can abort any time prior to making the success roll, but not after, AFAIK

Otherwise people would just casually abort their critical failures - and we have an enhancement called "Stable Casting" for attempting something like that.

Given that Stable Casting gives a chance to turn crit fails into normal fails, it might be interesting to have a similar enhancement for "allow me to abort a normal success if I only want critical successes".

That should def need a similar sort of success roll as Stable Casting though.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Here's a thread from earlier in the year that discussed the same concern, although there was no official word on how to handle it. An idea that didn't occur to me at the time (and that I didn't see suggested with a quick perusal of the thread) is that you could have the character set a limit to how much FP he or she will spend on the spell - if it winds up not being enough, either the spell fails outright (just like the mage rolled a normal Failure), or the spell is cast, the character spends all the FP allotted... and nothing happens, because that simply wasn't enough power.

The dilemma of energy needed for counterspells is addressed in M60-61 under spellstone, where you can only create counterspells to counter a specific spell.

This is mandatory since you need '20 times the spell's casting cost' which is basically 10x the cost of whatever spell you are countering.

If we just require pre-specifying the energy we instead get 1-energy counterspell flops for spells costing 3+ rather than weirdness like a mage thinking he's canceling something simpel getting KOd because the spell cost 50 energy.