Editing Landsoftheblacksea:Main Page/house rules (section)

== Magic Use & Spellcasting ==

Spell users do not have to memorize their spells in advance. Such a character may cast any spell he or she knows at any time, so long as he or she has an available "slot" to cast it. If the character does not have an available slot of the correct level, he or she may use an available higher-level slot instead; this gives no bonus, and is referred to as "demotion". This applies to all spellcasting classes (Priests, Wizards, Paladins, Rangers, Bards, etc.). 
“Slots” are assigned per the core rules in the PHB (Table 21 for Wizards, Table 24 for Priests, etc. etc.).

=== Magic Users (including Bards & Illusionists) ===
Mages within the Lands of the Black Sea are typically trained within a Magical School.  These schools are typically located either in large urban settings, or are secreted in inaccessible, difficult to find locales. Some magical schools specialize in certain Schools of Magic (see The Complete Wizard), giving them advantages within that sphere, but restricting them from using spells in the opposition sphere(s).  Illusionists in the Lands of the Black Sea are considered Mages that specialize to the Sphere of Illusion (e.g., no separate class).

Wizards, Bards, and other users of arcane magic still must abide by the core rules that dictate their ability to learn a given spell that is found, based on their intelligence score. An arcane spellcaster must spend some time every day studying from their spell book in order to be able to cast these spells. The amount of time needed for the spellcaster to do so is approximately one hour per day, regardless of the number of spells he has. A simple "I spend some time studying my spell book" announcement by your player is sufficient to consider it done. It can also be divided into many separate sessions of time during the day like in the morning, at lunch, before going to bed, etc. 

If 5 days in a row goes by without the player being able to study his spell book, there is a chance that some spells may be forgotten temporarily. This chance is based on the spellcaster's Intelligence score in the following manner: In this situation, when a spellcaster attempts to cast a spell, a cross-check against the Intelligence of the spellcaster with the "Chance to Learn Spell" column in the AD&D Player's Handbook is made. The percentage shown is deducted from 100%. The result is the percentage of chance that the spellcaster has forgotten the spell. Spells forgotten in this manner are subject to ruling by the DM – spells’ that are frequently or recently used are less likely to be forgotten than a spell the wizard has never actually cast before. The chance to forget a spell is independent of its level. Each day after the 5th that the spellcaster is unable to study their spell book, the spellcaster adds 5% to his chance of forgetting a spell. Spells that were learned and then forgotten in this manner needs to be relearned, but this in a different way than when the spellcaster first learns them. The spellcaster will always be able to relearn such a spell with a (i.e., chance of 100% - thus there is no chance that the spell will be forgotten forever unless a source, such as the characters spell book or a scroll, etc., cannot be acquired). 

Relearning a spell requires a total of 5 hours per spell level must be spent by the spellcaster to relearn a forgotten spell. These hours need not be spent consecutively, but a session of less than 2 hours will not count toward diminishing this time. No more than 10 hours per day can be devoted to relearning spells.

=== Priests (including Druids) ===
The spells that priests, rangers, druids, and paladins will have access to will depend heavily on the diety they worship.  The DM will provide a list of allowed/disallowed spells to the player as part of the character generation process.

When users of divine magic cast a spell, they invoke a prayer to their patron entity or power; usually the lower the spell level, the lower level of minion or servant of the higher power that will be granting the request. Users of divine magic do not need to spend time studying spell books, as users of arcane magic do, but they do need to spend some time in daily prayer to keep their relations with the higher powers on a sound footing. In game terms, this equates to about an hour per day. Failure to do so for a period of days will eventually manifest itself in the form of spells not being granted – the caster will perform the motions and invoke the words or gestures of power, but no effect will manifest itself, and the “slot” will be used. There are no percentages or rules associated with this effect – it is dependent on deity and situation, and is essentially a DM’s ruling. 

=== Spell Failure ===
When spells fail (due to checks described in the spell description or due to interruption from attack, etc.), the DM will consult rules on what the effects of this are. They can range from nothing, to having the spell effects directed at the caster or a member of their party.

=== Movement & Spellcasting ===
Characters can move and cast up to a limit - take the spell casting time and subtract from 10, then divide result by 10 - characters can move up to this percent of their movement rate. Penalty is that characters will suffer an initiative penalty related to how much time they use moving before they cast.

Example: Gabriel is going to cast a spell with a casting time of 3; that means at most he can move (10 - 7) = 7/10 = 0.7 or 70% of his base move (8" = 80 feet per round right now due to light encumbrance). 0.7 * 80 feet per round = 56 feet. But in this case, Gabriel would suffer a +10 modifier to the initiative roll (+3 for the spellcasting, and +7 for using 70% of the round to move first).

If Gabriel decided not to move at all, his initiative modifier would just be the +3 for the spell.

If Gabriel decides to move 25 feet then cast, initiative modifier would be +3 for the spell, and an additional 25/56*7 = +3 for movement, total of +6.

If Gabriel casts and then moves, he can still move up to 56 feet after casting, his initiative modifier is just +3 for the spell; but we would only resolve his movement after the rest of combat happens (e.g., everyone else completes their actions for the round, and if he is still able, THEN he moves to where he wanted to).

I'll do the math for you if you want to do it, but above if how I've always handled movement in combat. 

I do similar things for melee & missile attacks - in melee, weapon speed takes the place of spell casting time (which means for weapons with a speed of 10 or more, you cannot both move and attack). Likewise, for missile attacks with a rate of fire of more than one, it's not usually possible to fire more than one shot and still move in a turn (since the second shot has a modifier of 2x weapon speed, 3rd shot has 3x weapon speed, etc. etc.).

=== Spell Books & Copying Arcane Spells ===
Users of arcane magic must carry a spell book with them in order to study from at least once per day in order to cast spells.  If they haven't studied (had access to) a book with a particular spell in it within the last 24 hours, they cannot cast that spell using one of their slots, even if they have cast it in the past.

* '''Travelling Spell Books''' are 3 lb/ up to 50 pages and not cheap (100 gp/page in rules, 0.06 lb/page); 

* '''Standard Spell Books''' are 15 lb/up to 100 pages and considerably cheaper per page (50 gp/page; 0.15 lb/page).  So half the cost of Travelling Spell Book, but about 3X as heavy. 

If you run out of pages on what you have, you'll have to purchase another blank book to record additional spells. A book can have any number of pages up to the maximumbook (e.g., you can buy a book with 10 pages or 20 pages, I'll pro-rate the weight accordingly.

If an arcane magic user encounters a spell book or scroll and wants to learn and/or copy the spell into their own book, they must:

* Cast ''Read Magic'' on the book or scroll, in order to interpret the writing of another magic user
* Check against the % Chance to Learn (based on INT) for each spell they would like to learn/copy; note there are limits on the total number of spells per level a caster can learn, also based on INT.  
** Characters can check to see if they can learn spells that are above the level they can cast in order to copy them, but they cannot actually cast them until they are of that level.
* The caster may copy the spells from the book or scroll into another book.  This can be done 
** with pen and ink, a process which takes a number of hours equal to the spell level; this method only allows copying of spells at levels that the user can actually cast at their current level; or
** through the ''Copy'' spell, which performs the transcription instantly.   Use of ''Copy'' allows the transcription of spells above the level that can actually be cast by the user, so long as the user was successfully able to learn them.
* Regardless of the manner of transcription, ach spell copied will use up a number of pages equal to (spell level -1) + 1d4.
* If transcribing a spell from a scroll, once the spell is successfully transcribed, it disappears from the scroll itself.  
* Trasnscription from spell books does not alter the original book in any way.