Spells

Ah, magic! It's what makes fantasy RPGs fun. And it's what makes them hard to design.

I never liked resting in D&D. It had to be done, of course. Couldn't have wizards blasting everything in sight 24/7. All the same, it strongly discouraged me from playing caster classes.

Wizards of the Coast recognised this flaw and have attempted to fix it in 4th Edition (and a limited fix via warlocks in 3.5). Now, I can't say for certain, but my assumption is that magic has been weakened as a result.

There's something else I didn't really like about magic in D&D and that's how casting was an automatic process, with no real input from the player and no particular risks or challenges associated.

What I did like about D&D was the spellbook. So many spells, so much variety. Allegedly, somewhat curtailed with 4th Edition.

The Magic of Elements Eight

In Elements Eight, magic has Aspects, such as "Area", "Range", "Damage" and so forth.

And then there are the spells themselves. Each spell has an effect (for example, "cause fire damage") and a number of Aspects (say, Area, Range, Damage) which are required components of the spell.

The caster, then, begins by choosing a spell to cast. Each round, they get to roll their skill and add an Aspect. Just one though. They choose the aspect (e.g. Damage), they choose the level they want to try for, and they make their skill roll against the difficulty for the Aspect of that level.

The more Aspects a spell has, the longer it will take to cast. Once all the Aspects are complete, the caster can launch the spell.

Spells, then, scale up as caster skill improves, in the sense that the caster can cast higher level (or more reliably cast lower level) Aspects. With the exception of Rituals (see later), there are no restrictions on casting a spell. The weakest caster can cast the most powerful spell. However, said weakest caster is unlikely to get a high enough roll for the Aspects for the spell to have an effect (for example, a fire ball dealing zero damage).

Spells take time to cast. Spells usually have three to five Aspects, and failures will lengthen the spell casting time still further. This gives plenty of time for Duelling to take place.

Spell Skills and Duelling

When rolling for Aspects, casters make use of one of two skills, depending what the Aspect is. Spell Energy (based on Intellect) handles general oomph of a spell; while Spell Finesse (based on Coordination) is used for more subtle qualities such as Persistence.

There's one other magical skill. Counter Spell (based on Perception) allows the caster to remove Aspects from (or even sometimes add Aspects to) a spell that someone else is casting.

This will, I hope, make for exciting magical duels. I envisage that, as the melee rages, two casters battle for supremacy. Evil wizard begins to cast a fireball. Good priest tries to counter the aspects as they are cast. Evil wizard perseveres and is winning the back and forth. But then good priest gets lucky and has an opportunity to add an Aspect to his enemy's spell. He sabotages it so that it will only hit the evil wizards friends. The evil wizard curses. Not only is his spell countered, but he needs to roll high on the Range aspect in order for it land far enough away that it won't hit his allies.

A Spellcasting Example

Jerik the Necromancer is having trouble with a local noble. Jerik doesn't want to antagonise the authorities, but his attempts to intimidate the noble haven't been working. Fortunately, Jerik has the solution.

Jerik the Necromancer is going to cast the spell "Mortality". The description summary for the spell reads as follows:

Changes target's Acting Motivation to Survival. The Target can Resist Charm to negate this effect.

• Defend; +1
  
• Persistence; 1 hour
  
• Range

The bullet pointed items are the Aspects.

Jerik starts with the Range Aspect. Range Level 3 is plenty (50 metres). This has a difficulty of 17. Jerik rolls 1d10 and adds his Spell Energy skill of 15. Almost certain to succeed. Sure enough, Jerik rolls a 4 and the Aspect is set.

Next round, Jerik tries to add the Defend Aspect. When the Target attempts to resist the spell using their Resist Charm skill, they will be opposed by the Defend Aspect. It's an important Aspect. Fortunately, it's based on the Spell Finesse skill, and Jerik's Spell Finesse is 19. Furthermore, the +1 in the spell summary indicates that the Level of that aspect is treated as one level higher. Jerik decides that a Defend Level 5 is good enough. Because of the +1 Defend Level, Jerik only needs to cast a Defend Level 4. The difficulty for this is 22. Jerik rolls 1d10 and addes his Spell Finesse of 19 and successfully completes the Aspect.

Next round, Jerik adds the final aspect; Persistence. Now, Persistence determines the percent chance of the spell disappearing, check once per hour as per the spell summary. But if Jerik can get the Persistence to Level 7, the spell will be permanent! The Difficulty for this is 36. Such a spell is too hard for most casters, and even Jerik's 19 Spell Finesse won't get him there. Time to use some Wonder (one of the Gifts, see earlier articles). Jerik rolls 1d10 and adds his Wonder of 31. He rolls a 6. The final Aspect is complete and the spell is cast. The noble fails to resist the spell and is now permanently saddled with Survival as his Acting Motivation (unless some kindly priest comes along to heal him of his curse). Jerik's Wonder is reduced to 30.

Jerik cackles evilly.

Some Last Bits and Bobs

You're possibly wondering... is it really possible to describe the infinite possibilities of spells with a finite number of Aspects? It turns out that it is. There are about ten Aspects, and one of them is a catch-all "Magnitude", the specific impact of which is detailed in the spell description.

I have tried my best to create spells which are more than just a set of numbers. I love the idea of a druid casting a spell which will set the will of the countryside against his pursuers (reducing their Stride skill); or a Magician stopping the rain; or a Sorcerer coaxing a guard into a new frame of thought; or a Priest blessing a weapon. These are the sorts of spells that really grab the imagination.

Hopefully, you have read my earlier article about character progression in Elements Eight. I won't describe Gifts all over again, but in case you haven't read it, essentially the more powerful Aspects are near impossible to cast without using up your limited resource of Wonder.

There's an additional restriction associated with the Ritual aspect. The Ritual aspect takes time to cast; hours instead of a round; and, depending on the Ritual level needed, may have other costs such as components, acolytes, requiring an altar and so forth. This is for the truly awe inspiring spells; spells such as Lichedom (turns caster into a Liche), Awaken Forest (creates an army of walking trees) and so on.

I've yet to see how the system works in practise, but I'm expecting it to be adequate - yet not ideal. It does have some advantages:

• custom spells
• nice mechanics for magical duels
• no resting
  

However,

• I've a feeling that the ability to customise spells, while theoretically good, might in practise be counter-productive. Players may not fully explore their options, instead just sticking with a few particular techniques. I'm reminded of that fellow crying "Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!"
  
• I'm also not satisfied with its complexity. Because of the flexibility of the system, it's hard to intuit how difficult a spell is to cast, and balancing the spells is even harder.
  

So the jury is still very much out on this magic system. It's quite possible that it will be heavily altered or even abandoned entirely.

An Alternative Magic System

The name of Elements Eight derives from the main schools of magic; Life, Death, Spirit, Nature, Fire, Water, Earth and Air. An earlier incarnation had a slightly different system of magic. I abandonded it, in the end, but I'd like to mention it because as a system it still intrigues me.

In this earlier incarnation, all spells required a component of the element that the spell was associated with; and more difficult to obtain components allowed more powerful spells to be cast. For example, the components for fire spells were "Flicker", "Flame", "Fire" and the most powerful "Brimstone"; while the components for air spells were (from memory) "Breath", "Wind", "Storm" and "Sky". The idea I had was that, instead of carrying around a bag full of batwings, casters would draw the components for the spells from the surrounding environment. I had an idea in my head of a caster snatching the flame from a torch and turning it into a bolt of fire. This was restrictive enough that spells could be suitably powerful.

The reasons I abandoned it:

• Too much hassle to keep track of all the candles in a room, all the branches of wood on the ground (for nature spells) and so on.
• There were some rather barren spots for casters. If you're in a desert, you're not going to come across much water for water spells, and other similar things.

Nevertheless, I'd like to revisit it one day. As I said, the idea intrigues me. I fancy it would work rather well as a computer RPG spell system.