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Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Thu 16 Jan 2020, 16:51
by Texanstoryteller
Hello
I was wondering if it would be possible to get an official statement about magic rules from the editor? So many people are confused about them and started to make home-brew stuff.
The basic rules are ok but when it is about safe casting, grimoire and scrolls, at the moment I think I get it, I turn even more confused. Would it be possible to get an errata of the rules with more examples (example for safe casting, grimoire, etc) and a different verbiage ? Pleeeeease.

Re: Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Thu 16 Jan 2020, 18:37
by Slam Hammerfist
I'm not with Free league but I'll try to help.

Safe casting is only in affect when you cast a ranked spell lower than your level in that magic. So if I'm level 2 in blood magic and I want to cast a rank 1 spell, like firewalker, then I can choose to roll one less die, because that's the difference between my talent level and the spell rank. But I don't have to it's entirely up to me if I want to roll less dice.

The opposite of this is chance casting where you can cast a spell 1 rank higher than your spell level, but you automatically get a spell mishap.

Grimores make what ever spell you have written in it one rank less then what the players book says it is. Again I'll use firewalker. If I'm level 2 in blood magic and I cast firewalker that is written in my grimore that makes it a rank 0 spell nstead of rank 1. Meaning if you spend 2 willpower points you don't have to roll any dice, because two is the difference between my talent level and my spell rank.

Man that is confusing, hope that sort of helps.

Re: Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Thu 16 Jan 2020, 18:38
by Fenhorn
The half-elf Nirmena has the Path of Blood talent to Rank 2. This mean that she can cast Blood Magic spells up to Rank 2. Nirmena wants to cast the Immolate spell (Blood Magic Rank 2) at a Rust Brother that is near her. She has the Immolate spell written down on a parchment (low-budget grimoire). It takes a fast action to readying the grimoire so Nirmena must spend her entire round casting the spell (one fast action to readying the grimoire and then a slow action to cast the spell). Thanks to that she uses a grimoire when casting the spell, the Immolate spell counts as one Rank lower than normal (it counts as a Rank 1 spell). This means that she can Safe Cast the Immolate spell by reducing the number of Magic Mishap dice by one (the difference between the Rank in the Path of Blood talent and the (now adjusted by the use of a grimoire) Rank in the Immolate spell. If Nirmena decides to use 1 WP to cast the spell (effectively counts as 2 WP because of the Psychic Power talent since she is an half-elf), this would normally mean that she has to roll 2 base dice when she cast the spell to see if the spell Overcharge or causes a Mishap. But due to the safe casting she can choose to roll one less die, making the spell safe (or safer at least) to cast. She can also choose to not use her half-elf Psychic Power talent so the WP is not increased. In this example, the spell would only be a WP 1 spell and thus when safe casting don't require any Overcharge/Magic Mishap roll at all.

I used a more complex example. Hopefully I didn't make things more complicated.

Re: Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Thu 16 Jan 2020, 19:11
by myrsloken
I personally find the rules clear but convoluted. What you need to be careful with is the terms SPELL RANK and POWER LEVEL and realize they are not tied to each other at all.

First of all, you know all spells of equal RANK to the talent rank you have in that school. Out of these spells you pick one, decide on a POWER LEVEL. Note that POWER LEVEL is not tied to RANK, either in talent or spell. Any level of caster can put any amount of power into any spell he knows. POWER LEVEL is determined mainly by the amount of willpower you spend, but you can also get 1 extra POWER LEVEL by using applicable reagents.

The amount of willpower you spent determines the amount of dice you roll to check for overcharging and mishaps (Note that this is basically the same as you roll dice equal to power level except the extra level you got from reagents as that's the only way of increasing power level outside of spending WP in the players guide). This is where safe casting comes in, as it allows you to decrease the amount of dice rolled (not the POWER LEVEL!) equal to the difference between your talent rank in the magic school and the RANK of the spell you are casting. This is also where a Grimoire comes in as they reduce the RANK of the spell, and thus let you roll one less dice.

I think the main culprit here is the fixed mishap table where all mishaps are equally bad, which forces the introduction of the convoluted safe casting rules. I wish they had simply made the roll for mishap/overcharge based on power level and had a table or mechanic where the worst mishap results were only possible if you rolled many (like 3+) mishaps at the same time. I think that would have been much easier to write and would have made more intuitive sense to a large amount of players.

Re: Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Thu 16 Jan 2020, 23:14
by mafusael
I think the main culprit here is the fixed mishap table where all mishaps are equally bad, which forces the introduction of the convoluted safe casting rules. I wish they had simply made the roll for mishap/overcharge based on power level and had a table or mechanic where the worst mishap results were only possible if you rolled many (like 3+) mishaps at the same time. I think that would have been much easier to write and would have made more intuitive sense to a large amount of players.
I use such rules in my game just because it was very difficult to introduce those rules to my players-mages. I've created new mishap table with more severe injuries but now it depends of power level of spell tightly.

Re: Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Sun 26 Jan 2020, 05:14
by Texanstoryteller
Thank you for all answers, that really helped. Difference between power level and rank level is very important.

I will follow the rules as they are with just a little modification. If the player cast safe or with grimoire, we will use a d12 on the mishap table, if the player wants deliberately to overcharge, we ll use the d66. I wont change the mishap table.

I ll give it a try for my next 2, 3 adventures and I ll tell you.

Re: Magic - rules - official statement from Fria Ligan

Posted: Wed 29 Jan 2020, 02:44
by BrianNZ
I think the main culprit here is the fixed mishap table where all mishaps are equally bad, which forces the introduction of the convoluted safe casting rules. I wish they had simply made the roll for mishap/overcharge based on power level and had a table or mechanic where the worst mishap results were only possible if you rolled many (like 3+) mishaps at the same time. I think that would have been much easier to write and would have made more intuitive sense to a large amount of players.
I use such rules in my game just because it was very difficult to introduce those rules to my players-mages. I've created new mishap table with more severe injuries but now it depends of power level of spell tightly.
Could you post those? I was thinking of changing the mishap table to have (say) 15 results just numbered from 1-15. You roll a number of D6 equal to the nunber of mishaps you rolled and add them together. Thus if you only got one mishap, you would get between 1-6 on the table. Two would give you from 2-12, and 3 would give you 3-18. The top result would be the 15+ which is the "you ded" result, but to get that you have to get 3 mishaps on a spell AND roll 15 or more on 3 dice, so it's a lot less likely than 1/36. I haven't actually DONE this yet, just been idly thinking about it, would love to see what you did.