Degrees of Magic

[Veknironth]

Well, I was wondering how much a spell caster can modulate the effect of a spell. For example, can an 8th level wizard cast a fireball that only does 1d6 damage? Can said wizard pull a punch, so to speak? Can a caster make a smaller than normal cloud of whatever or a smaller wall of whatever? Could a devious mage cast an Armor of Ithan spell with less SDC?

The same question for psionics.

For magical or psionic healing, how much control does the person have? For instance, could a person heal an injury and yet leave the appearance of an injury? Could someone heal a wound but leave the bruising? Could you heal a sprained ankle but leave the swelling to fool someone?

-Vek
"Tell, the truth you rolled your eyes when you saw me post something."

[Zamion138]

Id say sure, I am a good shot with a rifle, i can suck if i want to hahaha
Nothing weaker than lv1 though,

[Whiskeyjack]

I allow damage moderation. SO if they can do 10D6 with a fireball, I'll allow them to choose how many die they want it to do.
Same for creation spells. If they want a 2' high wall, they can stop it there.
For the psychic healing, I would have them make an IQ roll to be able to only heal a certain area. That could pretty tricky to pull off. I would also consider them only being able to do it if they have a medical skill that would give them in depth knowledge of the body.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Well, I was wondering how much a spell caster can modulate the effect of a spell. For example, can an 8th level wizard cast a fireball that only does 1d6 damage? Can said wizard pull a punch, so to speak? Can a caster make a smaller than normal cloud of whatever or a smaller wall of whatever? Could a devious mage cast an Armor of Ithan spell with less SDC?

The same question for psionics.

For magical or psionic healing, how much control does the person have? For instance, could a person heal an injury and yet leave the appearance of an injury? Could someone heal a wound but leave the bruising? Could you heal a sprained ankle but leave the swelling to fool someone?

-Vek
"Tell, the truth you rolled your eyes when you saw me post something."

The magic and psionics text do not say these are possible.

GM's have the leeway to let a mage (and only mages) to adjust the damage of their attack spells. But talking to the GM about it before 'doing it' is key to getting a positive outcome.

Pulling punch, the only ones I would let a magic user deflect their own spell at the last moment with only things like fireball where the char controls a physical manifestation all the way in.

Healing Q….If I was the GM and the player "talks to me" about his or her intent, I would let them do it. Maybe with a skill control roll of some sort.

I talk my GMs when I want to do something with spells that is within the "Idea" of the spell but is not within the "spell text" to see if he/she would allow it.

defining the word Mage: a magic user that had to learn how to make magic. examples: LLW, Wizard, Mystic Study.
Antonym'ic examples: priests, warlocks, witches, chaos wizards.(I.O.W. intuitive and granted magic magic users.)

[say652]

I defer to the heroes unlimited ruling on Energy Expulsion, yes at 4th level you can moderate the power you put in.

[eliakon]

Purely house rules here.
I allow regulation of damage in level increments, though I often require level 3 or 4 for the privilege (you need the practice to know what your doing)

I might allow a healer to make a roll against say Medical Doctor to "just heal the injury and nothing more"... possibly with making them make a "pull punch" roll (if they don't pull then they heal everything)

I, as a GM though would be a fairly leery of the healing issue (or the like) as I would be worried about both it being abused and it turning into a slippery slope.

[Reagren Wright]

I allow for what I call overcasting. You pump +50% more P.P.E. into a spell and you
can add two extra level into it. This of course only works for certain spells. You can
pump +50% more P.P.E. into an Escape Spell as it doesn't do anything different from a
person who has it at 1st level as compared to 3rd. Spells like Energy Bolt are not
helped either doing an over cast as the damage is set. It espeically use for mages at
first level, so if they learn a spell like Fireball, its not doing 1D6 (lame).

I also allow for mages to redraw P.P.E. if the spell they cast expires within 30 seconds.
That way if you cast a Carpet of Adhesion and you kill the goblin the same or following
melee, your not out (10 P.P.E.) it also allow them to have more P.P.E. for spell casting.
No you cannot redraw if you cast a fireball or energy bolt. Once it hit, the spell is
gone. You also cannot redraw any spell that requires a great amount of P.P.E than you
have as a P.E. attribute. So no you can't redraw a 80 P.P.E. spell. It defintely gives
mages a few more points to play around with.

[kiralon]

Lol, like RR I allow overburn, range extension (to the point of a single target spell becoming AOE) and damage enhancement (any 1's rolled on a d6 are counted as 2 up to 1-3's are counted as 4's however it costs 3 perks and they have a level requirement as well), however they are from perks and players get a limited number of perks, and they all cost extra ppe.
So yes I also allow incremental damage up to the level of the caster.

[Veknironth]

Well Reagren, I like all of those ideas. I also like combining them with Kiralon's ideas to allow for extra range or duration of a spell. As far as drawing PPE back from a spell is there a % you recoup? I imagine that for the Carpet of Adhesion example, if it lasts for 10 rounds but you cancel it after 5, you can recoup half of the initial PPE spent.

Another question I just thought of is more aesthetic. Can spells look different? For example, fireballs of different color. There are a lot of possibilities with this. You could have all of the military mages for the Western Empire have fireballs of a certain color, which shows they all learned that specific fireball spell. Globes of Daylight or Blinding Flashes could be used a signals and different color ones could signify different commands on a battle field.

It also seems to me there could be other variations of spells. An Invulnerability spell that has a greater duration but fewer SDC. A fireball with greater range but which does less damage. It could lead to mages seeking a particular alchemist or mage to teach that version of the spell, or certain deities granting different versions of a spell.

-Vek
"I might be going too far down this rabbit hole."

[Razorwing]

Another question I just thought of is more aesthetic. Can spells look different? For example, fireballs of different color. There are a lot of possibilities with this. You could have all of the military mages for the Western Empire have fireballs of a certain color, which shows they all learned that specific fireball spell. Globes of Daylight or Blinding Flashes could be used a signals and different color ones could signify different commands on a battle field.

It also seems to me there could be other variations of spells. An Invulnerability spell that has a greater duration but fewer SDC. A fireball with greater range but which does less damage. It could lead to mages seeking a particular alchemist or mage to teach that version of the spell, or certain deities granting different versions of a spell.

-Vek
"I might be going too far down this rabbit hole."

Generally, such variants are uncommon as to do so requires a mage to create the variant. It is a little easier than creating a whole new spell as one is modifying a spell that is known to work, preserving the "belief" that the magic will work (if one doesn't believe, magic won't work). This doesn't mean that the spell will be easy to create... just that it is easier than creating a whole new spell. It is up to a GM as to whether they exist... and if you were able to learn any of them as part of your training (I would allow players in my game to have learned a specific color variation for their initial spells, but not a mechanical variation... such as a less damaging fireball with greater range; they will have to either find or create those variants).

This is referenced in Mysteries of Magic.

[Zamion138]

Lol, like RR I allow overburn, range extension (to the point of a single target spell becoming AOE) and damage enhancement (any 1's rolled on a d6 are counted as 2 up to 1-3's are counted as 4's however it costs 3 perks and they have a level requirement as well), however they are from perks and players get a limited number of perks, and they all cost extra ppe.
So yes I also allow incremental damage up to the level of the caster.

Are these perks some house rule or am I missing something? Like your refrence the bad rifts (savage rifts)?

[kiralon]

Lol, like RR I allow overburn, range extension (to the point of a single target spell becoming AOE) and damage enhancement (any 1's rolled on a d6 are counted as 2 up to 1-3's are counted as 4's however it costs 3 perks and they have a level requirement as well), however they are from perks and players get a limited number of perks, and they all cost extra ppe.
So yes I also allow incremental damage up to the level of the caster.

Are these perks some house rule or am I missing something? Like your refrence the bad rifts (savage rifts)?

House rules, idea started with the fallout 2 rpg game that came on the fallout2 cd. Attack spells were mostly short ranged (90ft max), so I put in some things to help with the range as the non-men at arms in my games don't get automatic parry (Except there is a perk to let them get auto parry with a particular weapon type, like short sword or Hercules club, but then they aren't picking perks that enhance their magic , so the fighters in the party do have to keep them covered.
Not sure about bad rifts, I remember saying something about the land of the damned book having the random chart for where a rift can end up, but its too early in the morning.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Well Reagren, I like all of those ideas. I also like combining them with Kiralon's ideas to allow for extra range or duration of a spell. As far as drawing PPE back from a spell is there a % you recoup? I imagine that for the Carpet of Adhesion example, if it lasts for 10 rounds but you cancel it after 5, you can recoup half of the initial PPE spent.

There is already rules for changing the stats (range,damage,duration) in one of the rifters. Magic specializations I think is what you'd be looking for.

Another question I just thought of is more aesthetic. Can spells look different? For example, fireballs of different color. There are a lot of possibilities with this. You could have all of the military mages for the Western Empire have fireballs of a certain color, which shows they all learned that specific fireball spell. Globes of Daylight or Blinding Flashes could be used a signals and different color ones could signify different commands on a battle field.

It also seems to me there could be other variations of spells. An Invulnerability spell that has a greater duration but fewer SDC. A fireball with greater range but which does less damage. It could lead to mages seeking a particular alchemist or mage to teach that version of the spell, or certain deities granting different versions of a spell.

-Vek
"I might be going too far down this rabbit hole."

color of spell effects….Depending on how your GM see things…If it is variable then you just stick the 'color' into the descriptive text of your actions. If static, then you'd need a whole other spell to case as a different color. Writing in what color each listing is on your char sheet.
(For me it is the former, but it does require the player to Not Be Lazy, and fully describe the effects.)

If you peruse the fan made spell topic you will find variants of the fireball spell and the Carpet of Ad. spell.

[drewkitty ~..~]

level 5 edit

[mirithol]

House rules - Our group considers magic wild and chaotic, but malleable for those with the skill to change it. We also use over-burn, etc. and as a G.M. I allow some latitude for effects, distances, etc. This is one of the advantages of a point-based rules system over spell slots.

However, we also use a magic fumble table when doing something out of the ordinary such as over-burn. Base chance for a magical fumble on a D00% is: 10% - mage level to a minimum of 1%. Even Gandalf can whiff a spell occasionally. Then situational factors are added/subtracted to generate the chance of a fumble. For example, each extra die of over-burn damage increases the fumble chance geometrically. 1D6 adds +2%, 2D6 adds an additional +4%, 3D6 adds an additional +8% (a total of +14% (+2+4+8) added on to the base fumble chance) and so on. This assumes the P.P.E. is available, of course. Minor changes, such as the color of a fireball, may only add +1% or perhaps 0%. Higher level spells, combat casting, etc. may also affect the chance of fumbling. There are too many situations, especially with creative players, to list so G.M. judgement is required.

A few notes:
1) If a player has an idea, we try to work the numbers/rules out ahead of the game.
2) In our group a mage under 5th level has a 5%-mage level of magic fumbling while casting in combat. By 5th level the mage is Cool Hand Luke and is used to battle.
3) 2 above applies only in combat situations. Just like a player character does not have to roll to cross a street, mundane situations where the mage can focus with little distraction require no checks.
4) We have a max fumble chance of 33%. If the fumble chance is 33% or would be greater than 33% and a fumble occurs, then the mage rolls D00% on the fumble chart and must use the highest combined die roll. Since the lower results on the table are "less bad" and the higher results can be really bad, having to take the highest result can be very dangerous.
5) The mage knows his chance of fumbling before the roll, and may choose to cast as normal instead. Peer pressure keeps the mage in line with regard to slowing the game down by changing their minds too often.

Anybody else use magical fumble tables?

[say652]

I used to allow powering up a spell with additional ppe.
Example paying 15ppe to Call Lightning, then an additional 15 ppe to double the damage.
All it took was one player at level 10 dumping 300ppe into a Mega Call Lightning spell (200D6md) to never allow this ability again.
My first GM still allows this ability, though he also plays a TPK (Top Party Kill) style game.

[mirithol]

I used to allow powering up a spell with additional ppe.
Example paying 15ppe to Call Lightning, then an additional 15 ppe to double the damage.
All it took was one player at level 10 dumping 300ppe into a Mega Call Lightning spell (200D6md) to never allow this ability again.

That's why you need a geometric progression on the fumble table. The character would max out the fumble (33%) and have to roll 2D10 taking the highest roll as the "10's" number. A "Do you feel lucky" moment. In addition, that much lightning might spill over doing residual damage to EVERYTHING around. Good luck on enemy treasure. Finally, such a display of energy might attract unwanted supernatural attention, cause a rift, etc. And the offending mage is presumably out of juice.