Elven Everyday Magic (widespread Magery)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Even with a skill of 15 they will have a ~0.0064% risk of summoning a demon with each spellcasting attempt

As I said, I was speaking of how dangerous magic is without the demon summoning chance. And it's not very.

[T.K.]

The OP seems to be looking at a society something along stuff like Harry Potter world magical side world or Magnostadt city, from the Magi anime...where wizards would use magic to clean up the house or do daily stuff.

That type of setting might require some setting setup, indeed...either to get "normal" elves around the required effective level to have a great chance of casting aka 12-13 or have something in place that make these castings trivial.

Could be:

- City-wide aura/buff/enchantment that increases elves capabilities for spell casting, increasing effective level by 3 or 4

- Foci-based casting that pushes critical failures off the table and increase casting skill, like...a magical oven where you can cast create fire/shape fire/season...basically something alike "coincidental magic"

- Allow extra time casting to increase skill while inside their city or in specific places

- Allow materials to stabilize casting..."This red gemstone can be used to cast fire spells with +5 effective level"


That said...how hard is for a human to learn how to (and how disastrous are the failures of such) jump, ride a bike, do some specific dancing moves, sing a particular song...

Magic in a setting like this, to me anyway, would totally be something akin to these.

[Flyndaran]

With realistic man-powered accidents, you can rarely suffer more rebounding energy than you put in.
Perhaps, one could do that, such that a critical failure can't throw back more energy than you put in.
Trivial 1 pt or "negligible" power spells can't cause more harm than tripping over your own feet while walking could. Not counting combat violent energy spells, of course.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

With realistic man-powered accidents, you can rarely suffer more rebounding energy than you put in.
Perhaps, one could do that, such that a critical failure can't throw back more energy than you put in.

A sound notion.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Trivial 1 pt or "negligible" power spells can't cause more harm than tripping over your own feet while walking could. Not counting combat violent energy spells, of course.

Of course, tripping over your own two feet can indeed kill you depending on how you fall and what you might fall into... which brings us to a commonly used example: what can happen when you critically fail the base level Ignite Fire Spell? Besides wasting some Energy (which shouldn't be shortchanged), going through the chart on p. B236:

• You take 1d of injury.
• You ignite something on you without realizing it; unless the nature of the failure allows one to ignore the usual requirements for igniting (doing so would not align with what Flyndaran just said) you're probably going to ignite (for example) the documents you are holding which you just tried to light a candle to see better.
• You ignite something on someone nearby... this actually could be quite scary; imagine igniting your baby's stuffed toy or clothing or blanket! Hmm... important papers would also be at risk.
• You ignite something you didn't meant to; as before this could be utterly trivial, embarrassing or quite dangerous!
• You take one point of injury; this isn't likely to kill you, but it might make you a bit "gun shy" of the spell in the future.
• Being mentally stunned might be a bit traumatic for non-adventuring types but is probably more embarrassing than anything else.
• The "loud noise and/or smoke and/or smell" result is unpleasant, embarrassing, and grossly inconvenient, but at least not overtly dangerous.
• The "shadow" of the spells intended effect is only an issue if you're not careful to make sure the spell actually worked; a brief "phantom flame" that provides no light or heat (and probably can't spread) shouldn't take too long to notice and again, be more inconvenient than anything else.
• I'm not sure how else to reverse the effect; making something freeze doesn't quite feel right, though perhaps making the object temporarily resistant (more resistant) to fire?
• A more dangerous, convincing "fake" fire, but if you need it for light or warmth it won't provide those things so... yeah you should still notice pretty easily since we are talking mundane situations. In industry it could be a problem.
• Here I can give a "reverse effect" since the target is wrong: you snuff out a nearby flame of comparable strength (or unknowingly make another candle or the like harder to light). Probably more annoying than anything else, though potentially dangerous (or at least awkward) if you go to light a candle to read something in your room and you accidentally extinguish grandpa's candle he's using to help him find his way down the stairs at night.
• Forgetting the spell is both embarrassing and inconvenient, and potentially crippling depending on how this hypothetical magical society works. If you know Create Fire it probably isn't so bad, but its like flipping on a light switch and not only does the light not go on, you can get any other regular lights to work until you make a successful IQ roll.
• This is the result that some have suggested should be flat off the table; depending on the setting, I'd just have it summon something more appropriate, or perhaps I should say "attract": I'd go with a creature attracted to magical fire, namely a potentially problematic one. If you try to ignore it, it could cause big trouble, but mostly it means... well I've seen two main takes on magical salamanders; in one case you'd have to get rid of it because it'd quickly "consume" any fires you tried to light and the other is a problem because the creature itself is ablaze.

So... even without summoning a demon or the like, critical failures via the chart aren't something to ignore. However I also can think of several pieces of technology that can have pretty bad results that should arise due to the periodic critical failure. I'm thinking it best to make it clear that this chart should only apply to "adventuring" situations (as a setting thing) or go with the Enchantment based society: the latter would certainly echo how most of us use a lot of technology in place of mundane skills from lower TL settings.

[johndallman]

There's a solid solution to this in the Convenience Casting perk from Thaumatology: Magical Styles.

[Verjigorm]

Is there some reason to ignore Ceremonial magic? With a population completely composed of mages, I imagine there has to be some basic instruction on spell-use, and if you get even 1 point into a spell, you can suddenly generate 3 energy points for ceremony. That's a lot of essential earth and plantgrowth spells you can throw down for a very, very high yield for small gardens.

Enchanting also seems... interesting. Relatively cheap, but potent items are likely to exist.

The big question for me is how common Magery 1 is. Is magery 1 as rare as magery 0 with humans, or is magery a large minority? Magery 1 is necessary for the really groovy magic, I think.

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Is there some reason to ignore Ceremonial magic? With a population completely composed of mages, I imagine there has to be some basic instruction on spell-use, and if you get even 1 point into a spell, you can suddenly generate 3 energy points for ceremony. That's a lot of essential earth and plantgrowth spells you can throw down for a very, very high yield for small gardens.

Enchanting also seems... interesting. Relatively cheap, but potent items are likely to exist.

Very good point! It would be more difficult with high-prerequisite spells like Essential Earth, but it does explain how spells like Shape Plant can be done on a mass level. I am sure the Pyramid Quartermaster Mage article would be an excellent source of ideas.