Spell Design: The Thread Before the Grimoire

I was thinking of:

The Perdo Ignem guidelines says: "For every five points by which the fire's damage exceeds +5, add one magnitude to the spell's level." The question is, about how much damage do you think an immense forest fire is going to be doing? +10, +15, +20? I wouldn't think it would be more than +20 at the most, but it should probably be more than +5.

Sorry the language, but to quick understanding, it is a spell like this Naruto's Jutsus:
youtube.com/watch?v=C56txN9W1hQ

The Gift Remade
MuVi , Level 40
R: Per , D: Sun , T: Ind
The Caster alters his Gift to make it either Gentle or Blatant.
Choice is made at the time of casting.
If you already have the Blatant Gift , you can choose Standard Gift or Gentle.
Base 30 , +02 Sun

Quite a few people think Muto is the "i can do anything" technique ,
as long as you make the change unnatural enough.
MuCo Level 30: Turn a human into an insubstantial object , page 132
MuMe Level 25: Make a mind or spirit solid , page 150

Just copying this spell from the Gaining the Gentle Gift thread.

Crest of the Earth Wave ReTe Level 20 , page 156 (ArM 05)
Push of the Gentle Wave ReAq Level 15 , page 124
Waves of Drowning and Smashing ReAq Level 30 , page 124

Crest of the River Wave
ReAq Level 35
R: Voice , D: Sun , T: Part

Creates a wave in the river beneath the prow of a ship you are standing on ,
that travels out to the range of your Voice in a designated direction.
It starts as a small , curved wave and grows for the first 10 paces , reaching its full size of 5 feet high and 30 paces wide.
It moves at 50 paces per round.
Unlike the Terram spell , this wave is designed for movement , not damage.

Base 04 , +02 Voice , +02 Sun , +01 Part , +02 Size
(page 124) Level 04: Control a liquid in a forceful but calm way , such as a fast but constant current.

This one from the Improving the Navigation of a River thread.

As i have no idea what draught a ship might have
then a size increase may be needed to make a wave greater than 05 feet.
It would also be slower , if going against a prevailing current.

Bite of Winter's Touch

Pe/Ig Level 5
R:Touch, D:Mom, T:Ind

(base 4 chill a person to lose one Fatigue, +1 Touch)

Much like the well known spell of a Voice range, this spell was design specially for a shape-shifting magus who would would take the form of a river otter and bite the target of the spell.

((Two questions. 1. If he gets a successful bite and draws blood, can he use the blood to help as a Penetration bonus? 2. Can this spell be multicasted? Somehow I feel casting three spells at once to reduce three levels of Fatigue with a Level 5 spell seems a bit off, but no one complains about Pilum of Fire being cast three times for damage, so... I simply imagine the otter biting the victim and since he has quiet and subtle casting casting three spells with the bonus of having drawn blood. I am fuzzy on the use of AC of blood immediately drawn from the target.))

Depends. Per the RAW I would say you can. However, this came up in my saga, and we ruled against it. You cannot keep chilling a person below certain level so it keeps losing fatigue levels. It needs to rise its body temperature again in order for the spell to be effective again. So IMS we determined that you can only cast this spell once per diameter. Otherwise you need a higher base effect. But that is how we play it, not how it is written :slight_smile:

The spell being used with the blood sounds perfectly fine for me.

Cheers,
Xavi

The Exposure and Frostbite insert on page 105 in Rival Magic could be useful to look at.

I think i would prefer to add Co and Me as requisites to this, as the gift is an innate part of the person you´re changing, ie. the spell needs to change all "sides" of the magi to change the effect of the Gift...
That would push it up to level 50, the highest you can go without forced into Ritual spells by RAW.
If it was level 40 and just MuVi, that would make it reasonably easy to use for a lot of magi, which would make the social interference of the Gift less pronounced.
Up it to 50 and add the need for Me and Co as well and you probably cut down the number of magi who might be able to use it by a severe amount. And you also make it impossible to give it a longer duration without going ritual, again emphasizing how it can be very useful temporarily, but isnt a universal solution.

As do i , which is why i quoted the guidelines for MuCo and MuMe.
Using 30 as a base makes it sufficiently high that people dont automatically dismiss it as being too low ,
but not so high that Ritual specialists are needed to cast it.
Ghost magi can use spells , so i dont really see why , other than game balance , any requisites are required.
This isnt a spell i would use , ims.
As was suggested , a Breakthrough would be required , at least.
If it's that easy , why isn't everyone doing it? , he says rhetorically.

Call Lightning - Looking at The Incantation of Lightning, this Level 35 spell has an extra 4 magnitudes in it since its wholly unnatural to fire lightning from your hands.

But clearly it isnt unnatural for a lightning bolt to fly out of a lightning storm - So a Call Lightning spell (usuable outdoors, in stormy weather) would only be Level 15?

And how unnatural would it be for a lightning bolt to strike from a dark cloud, or even a cloudless sky?

Except that you'd then need range sight because that's the range to the clouds.

Is it? Wouldnt range be from the caster rather than the clouds?

I think it's even given as en example in the book.
You'll need the longest range between A)the caster and your target OR B) The caster and your clouds.
After all, the magic pulls the lightning bolt from the clouds, neh?

The interesting part of using existing storm clouds is that you might (noble's parma...) be able to:

a) do it with Rego instead of Creo (if you are better at Rego) and
b) if making it an aimed spell, have a perfectly natural (and thus not magically resisted!) lightning bolt.

The Hyperborean Clay
CrTe 05
R: Touch , D: Ring , T: Ind

A base individual of clay (10 cubic paces) is created with the property of being attracted to light.
This is the same as the attraction iron has to lodestone.
The reverse is not true , however , light is not attracted to the Hyperborean clay.
The stronger the source of light , the more forceful the attraction.
Light from a single candle , starlight , light of the full moon , sunlight at noon in summer on a day without cloud cover.
The Hyperborean clay may be worked in the same manner as normal clay.
Rego Craft magics would be useful , as the clay needs to be worked in the dark or low-light conditions.

Base 01: Create clay , +01 Touch , +02 Ring , +01 unnatural property.

reposted from the Self-Centred Clay thread.

I'd say:

  • A storm going on: base guideline, as this is perfectly natural to have lighting then.
  • Grey to dark clouds without a storm: +1 magnitude (this is "slightly unnatural")
  • Little to no clouds: + 2 magnitudes ("very unnatural")
  • From your hands, in a cave or building: +4 magnitudes ("wholly divorced from its natural context")

There's something to be said about range, but as I'm working from serf's parma, I'm not sure at all. I'd say maybe you'd need to create these in the sky (sight) and redirect them to the earth through Rego, so I'm not sure that'd be more efficient.
Of course, you could probably, with rego and range sight, try to "seize" existing lightning and make it fall on someone, but good luck with the finesse on that.

I'd say:

  • With a storm cloud above, whether it's already raining or not, +0 magnitudes (it's perfectly normal)

  • From clear blue skies, either +0 or +1 magnitudes. Bolts "out of the blue" or "out of clear sky" are sufficiently "normal" that they have become an idiomatic expression in many languages (modern science knows that they are not really out of the blue, and instead arch down from a storm cloud that can be miles away - but this is a different story)

  • in a cave or building, +1 magnitudes (the guidelines specifically give "indoors" as an example for this magnitude modifier).

  • from your fingertips, +4 magnitudes (again, that's what the guidelines say).

+1 at least. It's rare enough to've made an idiom.

Yeah, specifically as an expression of something totally unexpected... How that is supposed to be "normal" is far beyond me.

I can see both sides of it though. It feels as though a cheap way to drop three of four levels of fatigue on someone with a very light weight spell, but then again if someone were to come up with a Level 10 Cr/Ig spell that did +5 or +10 damage and then multicast it four times, the damage would stack.

But there are other examples where multicast would possibly not work, ie. making a animal +1 size (Beast Outlandish Size)... multicast five times and suddenly you have a beagle the size of a small elephant.

While cheap, it feels to be a vindication for getting hit with PoF three times and having to take three damages. Sneak up and zap zap zap... you now are freezing cold and down three fatigues. I am coming off unconvinced on either side... but if I can get away with it, and a penetration of +32, I could easily become a wonk of wonks.