Say my Thief wants to dabble in magic. How would that work with Jack of all Trades? I gain the profession ability Magic, selecting say Animism. The profession ability says I gain the appropriate magic skill as trained. Say I have an INT of 15, does Animism start at 6 or 12? Do I select 3 rank one spells and tricks as a starting Animist (saying perhaps that I found a grimoire story wise to explain the gain) or do I have to find/learn them separately? What do you all think?
This is a good question. Immediately thought 6 since a new spell school starts at the base level (Learning Magic - p61). The Magic ability (p23) makes it sound like the ability grants 3 tricks and 3 rank 1 spells (along w/ the ability to
cast spells). No mention of skill level.
This works well for recreating hedge-magic “half-casters” (Fahrd & The Grey Mouser, ranger/arcane trickster/etc…).
But this gets muddied by the
Magic text box on page 27, which recycles p23 and says that a starting mage (does someone trying to replicate a ranger, arcane trickster, rando multiclass, etc) count as “starting” when they begin learning magic?
Honestly, I think the text box on 27 should be rewritten. Specify clearly that the Mage’s first magic school skill begins at the
trained level. All additional magic skill (including those “multiclassing” in) begins at the
base level.
Heck, for the half-casting scenario, FL may even want to consider appending the description to say that only 2 tricks and 1 rank 1 spell are granted by JOT.