Magic

Magic is a powerful force, present since time immemorial. While difficult to control and even more so to master, the rewards are great, for a powerful mage is capable of altering the very fabric of reality.

Casting a Spell
"Be aware, young apprentice, that the arcane arts are not meant for the faint of heart. You need to be able to visualize your spell's effect on the world, to believe it real, and through force of will, make it so. This is taxing, however; unless you take a moment to rest your mind and focus yourself, you may pass out from the mental strain."

Spellcasting follows four simple steps. All spellcasting, with the exception of cantrips, requires Clarity to perform. Magic is shaped by the raw will and focus of the mage imposing his desire onto the real world; as such, the difficulty of shaping magic reduces the caster's Clarity, representing the lucidity of their perception, and thus makes further reality shaping difficult or strenuous.
 * 1) Determine the augments for your spell. Typically, these augments will be from the Range, Target, Duration, and Effect categories, though some spellcasters also have access to Elements.
 * 2) Deduct the Clarity cost of the spell from the caster's Clarity. If the cost would reduce the user to 0 Clarity, the spell is cast, but the caster loses consciousness; if the cost of the spell is greater than the caster's current available Clarity, the caster will also receive a -1 penalty to their Spellcraft check and receive two wounds.
 * 3) Roll a Spellcraft check; this is done as a standard action on the caster's turn.
 * 4) The spell is cast. This is done during the attack action on the caster's turn.

Understanding the Spellcraft Skill
"Magecraft is a talent not granted to everyone, my apprentice. You must take care to nurture this skill, that it may flourish. With a simple exertion of your will, you can create what lesser men would deem 'miracles'-- or, if desired, prevent them. But beware: the forces of magic are dangerous and unpredictable. If your abilities falter, the consequences could be disastrous. Always keep this in mind."

The Spellcraft skill is available only to classes under the Mage archetype, or to individuals with the Touch of Magic trait. Far and away the most common use of Spellcraft is to cast a spell; however, Spellcraft can also be used to counter an opponent's spell. The act of counterspelling should not be considered spellcasting in itself. It can be understood in this way: if casting a spell is the result of a mage imposing his will on reality, then a counterspell is the result of another mage imposing reality on his opponent's will, effectively working to keep things the same as they are.

A counterspell may be cast as a swift action any time an opponent casts a spell. In order to counter a spell, make a Spellcraft check; however, instead of adding your Savvy to the roll, add Will to the roll, to represent an attempt at resisting another's magic. If the counterspell Spellcraft check has a degree of success equal to or greater than that of the opponent's Spellcraft check, the opponent's spell is not cast; if the counterspell is a success, but not a greater success than the spell is opposed, then the opponent's spell is still cast, but at a reduced Potency.

Owing to the chaotic nature of magic, a Spellcraft check may have effects other than the intended effects of the spell. If the check has a high degree of success, for instance, the spell may be cast at an increased Potency or with additional effects; if the check is a marked failure, the spell may be cast at a reduced Potency, or potentially not at all. Some gamemasters may wish to use a spell failure table; one is provided below in the event of catastrophic spell failure (for instance, failing a check by -3 or more). Gamemasters may also choose to disregard the above table, and are encouraged to tie the effects of magical success or failure to the storytelling of the scenario. For instance, a Chronomancer may wish to send an object ahead in time a few minutes so that her enemies can't obtain it; if she should fail, the spell may still function, but at an abnormally great effect, launching the object decades into the future. A Warlock attempting to melt the lock on a door with a fire-based spell may get an Exceptional Success on his Spellcraft check, and as a result, casts his spell with such precision that the locking mechanism is destroyed, but the rest of the door left intact, making his infiltration almost unnoticed. Gamemasters are heavily encouraged to be creative with both spell failure and success, as the story requires.

Focusing
"After strenuous magecraft, it is necessary to rest and recover. You have your amulet on you, yes? Good, never lose track of it. Should it be lost, you will be unable to ease your mind, making the task of magic a more daunting prospect. Simply take your amulet in your hand, close your eyes, and direct your mind towards it. Let the troubles of the world slip away. Feel it in your hand; memorize its weight, its texture; let these thoughts ground you and solidify the line between the mundane and the magical. When you are again in touch with reality, we shall resume your training."

A mage who has lost Clarity due to spellcasting can regain it by focusing. To focus, the mage must make a full-round action while holding (or being in physical contact with) his focus item; this action can be sustained as long as desired, but no other actions may be taken while focusing. While focusing, the mage recovers Clarity equal to their Resilience each round.

The mage's focus item can be any object that he has a strong mental or emotional attachment to. It can be virtually anything; some mages choose wands, amulets, or rings, while others have been known to choose articles of clothing, stones, books, and other such trinkets. Often, the object is small enough to be held in one hand, but need not be by necessity, as long as it can be carried by the mage from place to place.

Should a mage lose his focus item, he will be unable to focus until it is recovered; the mage will, however, have a spiritual "link" to his focus item, and will be able to feel its general location at all times. Should the item be irretrievably lost or destroyed, he will need to acquire a new focus item and bond with it; this process will take roughly a week of prolonged meditation with the object to be bonded with.

Focusing will end all currently active spell effects the mage is maintaining. The mage may choose to maintain his spells while focusing, but this will cause him to recover Clarity at half the normal rate.

Augments
See also: Augment

"There is great power in magic, student. But the craft can be considered less an art than a science. You may recall the formula I taught you already, to create a magical barrier. But observe: if I but alter part of the incantation, and channel the magical energies in a subtly different way... the barrier becomes not a wall of force, but a wall of flame. The formulae of magic can be changed with almost limitless permutation, and with a bit of care and attention, incredible spells may be cast."

The base component of a spell is its Augments. An Augment is a specific part of a ritual spell that denotes an effect; they represent a single part of a complex magical formula that may be comprised of a series of hand gestures, incantations, and magical energies, as part of a ritual designed to help the caster focus their will towards a single purpose. All Augments come in one of five categories: Effect, Range, Target, Duration, and Element. A spell may be considered somewhat like a mathematical formula, and each Augment as a variable. If we follow that example, a spell would most often be cast with the formula:

(Effect * Potency) + Range + Target + Duration

If one wanted to cast a spell that would enable flight on themselves for a short period of time, the augments used would most likely be:

(Flight * 1 Potency) + Point Blank + Self + Short

However, changing just a single part of that spell--

(Flight * 1 Potency) + Point Blank + Single Target + Short

--would enable the spell to be cast on any single individual the caster is in physical contact with, granting someone else flight instead. This principle is true for all magic, making spellcraft extremely modular. For instance, a Warlock may cast a lightning bolt with these Augments:

(Damage * 3 Potency) + Medium Range + Single Target + Burst + Lightning

But by changing two of those Augments:

(Damage * 3 Potency) + Medium Range + Area + Burst + Fire

...he would create a potent Fireball spell that would detonate the specified area in a torrent of flame.

The Potency of a given spell is rated from 0 to 5, based directly on the caster's ranks in Spellcraft. A mage with 2 ranks in Spellcraft can cast a spell at 0, 1, or 2 Potency, but not 3, 4, or 5, for instance; a mage with 4 ranks in Spellcraft can cast anything short of a Potency 5 spell. As the Potency of a spell increases, the effects of the spell scale up with it.

Cantrips
A cantrip is any spell with an extremely minor effect. Its effect on reality is so slight that the caster need not concentrate on its use, and does not expend Clarity to do so. As such, casting a cantrip can be done as a swift action and does not require a Spellcraft check.

To cast a cantrip, the mage chooses one or more Augments he knows, and creates a minor effect out of them. Cantrip will last no more than a brief instant, and will be unable to directly cause harm. They have application, however, as demonstrated:

''Merasmus wishes to light a torch on the far side of a crowded room. Being unable to walk through the dense crowd, he decides this would be a fine time to use magic for his aims; however, he knows that any sort of proper fire spell may incinerate the crowd and draw unwanted attention to himself, so instead, he chooses to use a cantrip. He chooses only two Augments: Fire element, and Medium range. With a little focus, the torch flares to life-- without any risk of accidentally immolating hapless bystanders.''

Improvised Magic
"Remember always that a spell need not be the time-tested rituals of our forebears; working magic need not necessitate the use of gestures or words, or of elaborate performances. These are merely tools to focus your mind to the task at hand. The only things required to shape magic are your will and your knowledge; if you can combine those, you can accomplish anything."

Magic spells, in addition to the ritual magic cast by combining Augments, can also be improvised on the spot. Improvising a spell is somewhat different than casting ritual magic. Whereas ritual magic requires choosing several Augments and combining them with a Spellcraft check, improvised spells only require the mage to make a check on any of his trained skills, or any skill he has selected for the Research class feature. This skill will use dice from Will instead of their normal linked attribute. The effect of the spell will be somewhat weaker than if an Augment had been used, and will be dependent on the user's ranks in the chosen skill; the benefit of this, however, is that the mage may use their magic in a way that their augments might not normally allow. For instance:

''Thoth-Amon has been chased through the city streets by an unknown assailant that he cannot seem to escape. Though an invisibility spell would be of great use at the moment, Thoth-Amon specializes primarily in offensive magic, and knows no rituals of the sort; instead, he desperately attempts to use his knowledge of the world to conjure a spell on the fly. Rather than Spellcraft, he rolls his Stealth skill-- with a mere rank of 1-- and adds his dice from Will, for a total of 3 dice. Fortunately for him, his attempt to work this magic is a success, and as he rounds the next corner, he cloaks himself in the shadows of the alleyway. His pursuer continues on past him none the wiser.''

The Clarity cost of an improvised spell is equal to the spell's potency, multiplied by 5, and can have any of the duration, range, or targeting Augments the caster knows at no additional Clarity cost. Below is a rough guide to what the potency of an improvised spell will be, based on the ranks (or bonus points from Research) the user has in the skill they choose to base the spell on:

Ongoing Magic
While it is possible to have long-duration magic and enchantments, such as through the use of duration Augments, they are a strain on the caster's willpower. A mage can only have a number of magical effects concurrently active equal to his ranks in Spellcraft + his Savvy. For instance, a Hexmaster with Spellcraft 2 and 1 Savvy can only have three curses active at a time. If he already has two long-duration curses active, he can cast only one more curse, whether it's a long-lasting spell or one with a Burst duration. Should one of his spell effects end, he will be able to cast another in its place, but if he has three curses active all at the same time, he can cast no more spells until one of his active spells has ended.

Stigma
See: Stigma