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All in all I love the changes of the rules. But, oh my god! Magic is extremely dangerous. To the casters.

The new mishap rules are fine, but I can't find anything about casting a lower level spell is safer. In the alpha you could ignore a mishap per level lower. Not now.
Which means that magic is pretty much a no go now. Why risk dying just to heal a wound or make someone misplace their keys?

The idea with the magic system is not to cast to just heal a wound or to find your misplaced keys. That is perhaps what you do in other games. You do heal someone if that person really needs it or you do cast a spell to find your keys if it is critical that you find them. In other situations you use your skills just as anybody else.

The mishap table is not that extreme. Result 11-46 is bad but totally something that can fairly easy be manageable. Sure 62-65 can be harsh and 66 is of course a not fun but the chance anything that bad will happen if you cast a one WP spell is 0,5-2%.

Don't get me wrong! I love the magic system.
But I really think that the safe casting rule needs to get back.
A really good caster should be able to cast "easy" spells with lesser risk.

Don't get me wrong! I love the magic system.
But I really think that the safe casting rule needs to get back.
A really good caster should be able to cast "easy" spells with lesser risk.

I have played system that have a similar chance of bad things (even death) that will happen to the caster with no problem.
That said. I would have no problem with a rule where you can negate a bane if you cast a spell of lower ranking. Perhaps a good houserule if not official.

Or perhaps a Talent? This way you can cast safe, if you really train for it.

I actually am starting to think a Sorcery skill would be the best way to handle Sorcery, similar to how the Mystic Powers were handled in Coriolis. 

Oh well, far too late to work that into Forbidden Lands, though worth considering for hacks made under the OGL...

I am really enjoying my read of Forbidden Lands. I do agree that the new magical mishap rules go too far. The chances of a catastrophic mishap will mean that anything but the most powerful or vital spells will never be cast, as it just isn’t worth the risk. In that case, why even have minor spells in the game at all?

I’m not sure what the solution is, but the odds of an awful mishap result (51+ on the table) need to be made much more rare somehow, or else there should be some sort of option for safe casting of lower powered spells.

On another note, I see some people have argued that the mage profession  should go back to being called Spellbinder rather than Sorcerer. Please don’t! The word Sorcerer suggests hidden lore and dark dealings, which fits the profession perfectly. It is the more sinister magician, compared to the more natural Druid. “Spellbinder” is a goofy word that suggests fakery or being captivating/entertaining (e.g. “holding the audience spellbound”). It just sounds hokey.

For lower level spells, you could allow the player an optional reroll on the table. Making magic always potentially dangerous, but for simple spells for a master almost completely harmless.

For lower level spells, you could allow the player an optional reroll on the table. Making magic always potentially dangerous, but for simple spells for a master almost completely harmless.

That sounds like a good higher-level Talent for a Sorcerer. Or maybe reducing the severity of mishaps by 10.

How about ruling that mishaps on spells on a lower level than your talent level allows you to roll one extra pair of mishap-dice per level lower, only the lowest roll counts.

So someone with level 3 in a magical discipline rolls one set of dice for a mishap on a level 3 spell, two sets of dice on a level 2 spell and three sets of dice on a level 1 spell, always counting the lowest result. What do you think?