Elven Everyday Magic (widespread Magery)

[Dwarf99]

Originally Posted by Railstar

Short version: In a society where everyone has Magery, what kind of spells would you see everyday? (assuming a conventional fantasy TL 3 or 4 setting)

I see lots of Standard Magic answers, so I though I'd change it up: I see either a lot of elves with a few Power Perks from just about any source on Powers or Magic that you can find... OR those that use Sorcery from whichever Pyramid article it's from with 1 level of Sorcerous Empowerment improvising any power perk appropriate to their Sorcery.

[T.K.]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Magic is probably to dangerous to use for trival tasks. Especially for those with unexeptional IQ+Magery and only a few points in spells since that makes the risk of critical failure higher than for a skilled specialist.

Magic should probably be mostly used by specialist in fields where magic makes a large difference. For other people it may be appropriate to learn some spells for emergencies. For examples a healing spell for first aid and Great Haste for in case they are attacked.

Whaaaa...?? A "normal" elf would have IQ 10 + Magery 1, giving every member around skill level 9 or 10 with barely any training or pratice.

Considering everyday use, these often used spells would certainly reach around nh 11-12 which is more than enough even for professional "realistic" use.

OP, the best way to get around this is thinking what a higher TL society would have access or would have a priority for and find what spells would deal with those problems/necessities:

Main problems of primitive societies:

- Diseases/Food Shortage

Body-Reading
Cure Disease
Cure Poison
Heal Plants
Bless Plants
Plant Growth
Predict Weather
Rain
Animal Control
Beast Speech
Identify Plant

- Quality of Life

Recover Energy
Haircut
Hair Growth
Strike Numb (mothers use to reduce pain when child gets injured/cut/bruised/needs to take injection...)
Sense Emotion (Teenagers, merchants, parents...)
Telepathy (Cel)
Shape Earth
Earth to Air
Create Fire
Extinguish Fire
Shape Fire
Season
Test Food
Mature
Cook
Stop Bleeding
Minor Healing
Simple Illusion
Measurement
Tell Time
Alarm
Find Direction
Tell Position
Detect Magic
Mage Sense
Mage Sight
Light/Continual Light
Night Vision
Clean
Copy
Haste
Apportation
Lighten Burden
Magelock
Watchdog
Purify Water
Create Water
Shape Water
Umbrella

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by T.K.

Considering everyday use, these often used spells would certainly reach around nh 11-12 which is more than enough even for professional "realistic" use.

Only if you allow spells to take TDMs for routine use and have some mechanism for mitigating critical failures. Which is fine as a setting switch, but without that people aren't going to cast spells unless it's pretty important (which means spells like Haircut probably oughtn't even exist...).

[Mathulhu]

Originally Posted by T.K.

...barely any training or practice...

200 hours of practice are comparable to one skill point

IQ/H [1] 10-2 +1 Magery gives Skill 9 about 40% chance of success

To get a skill of 12 you need 8 points roughly equivalent to 1600 hours of practice.

I think they would look into something that allowed them to negate critical failures, then they can just rely on repeated attempts to overcome the small chance of success.

[Railstar]

Thanks for all your answers, especially T.K for the list and SCAR for pointing me towards the Short Chains. Those answers are really helpful. :)

On the risk of critical failure, I have to wonder… How does one practise a spell safely? If you avoid casting it unless the situation merits the risk of demon in your face I think it would be very difficult for an apprentice to learn at all.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Railstar

On the risk of critical failure, I have to wonder… How does one practise a spell safely? If you avoid casting it unless the situation merits the risk of demon in your face I think it would be very difficult for an apprentice to learn at all.

You can learn and improve your skill with spells without casting them. Otherwise you would not be able to learn the first point in a spell and learning would be very slow since you would have to recover FP between castings.

[Randover]

Originally Posted by Railstar

On the risk of critical failure, I have to wonder… How does one practise a spell safely? If you avoid casting it unless the situation merits the risk of demon in your face I think it would be very difficult for an apprentice to learn at all.

How I read Magic rules is that 1FP basic spells like Ignite, Light can't possibly summon demon. Making their failure more spectacular failure. For Ignite setting fire on your homework, or creating a burnmark on table. For Light creating such a pathetic light creating strange smell along with it.

Both spells make life in low TL so much easier that they are almost given.

As for time learning them. Wasn't there a perk in Thaumatology that gave six basic spells to apprentices at max. 1FP to play with?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Randover

How I read Magic rules is that 1FP basic spells like Ignite, Light can't possibly summon demon. Making their failure more spectacular failure. For Ignite setting fire on your homework, or creating a burnmark on table. For Light creating such a pathetic light creating strange smell along with it.

For ignite fire they get a summon daemon failure what they would get would the fire element comparable to how much fatigue there were putting in. If they're treat the spell like a match, they they would get such a tiny fire elemental that ti could be snuff out easily if they catch it.

But I use the following modification to to the Standard system. Fatigue Reduction is based on Effective Skill not Base Skill, and allow +4 TDM for routine non-combat casting [such as lighting the same candle in the same place in your home]

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Only if you allow spells to take TDMs for routine use and have some mechanism for mitigating critical failures. Which is fine as a setting switch, but without that people aren't going to cast spells unless it's pretty important (which means spells like Haircut probably oughtn't even exist...).

There's already a mechanism for mitigating critical failures. If your intent is wholly benevolent in casting a spell, then demons won't show up. So as long as elves cast spells like cooking and healing on behalf of each other without any mercenary intent then there's no risk beyond "Oh no, the souffle is ruined!"

[Zeta Blaze]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There's already a mechanism for mitigating critical failures. If your intent is wholly benevolent in casting a spell, then demons won't show up. So as long as elves cast spells like cooking and healing on behalf of each other without any mercenary intent then there's no risk beyond "Oh no, the souffle is ruined!"

That dose interesting things to there culture promoting a sense of charity and unity. I like it it gives them a reason to be stereotypical hippies.