B-Grade Magic, Miracles & Rituals

Founding principles

1. Magic should be fun and easy to use.
2. Spellcasters should be able to cast as many spells as they can (and this can be kept in check with a risk/reward system)
3. Not every can cast spells. Limited to certain templates only. For humans, spells are more ritualistic in nature. For monsters, spells can be more dnd-like

MAGIC

CASTING SPELLS

• In B-Grade, spellcasters roll their dicepool to determine whether they have successful cast a spell.
• Resist is equal to the average of Spirit and Spellcasting
• Every character has a resist value (works similar to threat in combat). Resist may change according to circumstance.
• To successful cast a spell against/on another character, roll Knowledge + Spellcasting
  • Width 2 sets work only if they are equal to or greater than the enemy's resist. Eg. a 2x6 set spell will work on someone with a resist of 6 or less. It won't work on the foe with a resist of 7
  • Width 3 or greater sets do NOT need to roll equal to or over resist. (Otherwise spells are too underpowered)
• To successful cast a spell that is not against a foe (non-offensive), then generally there is no difficulty number to beat. Any set will mean a success.

• There are also circumstance modifiers that affect the chance of casting spells
  • under no/minimal pressure to cast the spell (eg. not in combat and not time critical) +1d
  • casting the spell in a ritual-like manner (with preparation time, ingredients and paraphernalia, etc) +2d

ACTIVELY RESISTING

• Actively resisting does not involve dice, it is a full round action, and cannot be used in a multiple-action. Sets of all widths that round must be equal or greater than resist to hit (e.g width 3 sets must now be equal or greater than resist (which means that critical effects are less likely. In effect, actively resisting doesn't do anything *in reducing the chance of a minimal success, but has a huge effect on minimising the chance of experiencing critical effects)

FAILED SPELLCASTING

• If the spell fails (dice pool has no successes or does not beat the resist value), then the spellcaster has a -1d penalty to all future spellcasting rolls (until the caster has rested/meditated). This penalty increases by an additional -1d for every successive failed spellcasting roll.
  • eg. a spellcaster with 7 dice pool fails at casting a magic missile. From now on, his dice pool is 6. He next tries to cast a fireball with 6 dice pool, and succeeds. His dice pool stays at 6. If he then fails at casting a sleep spell, his dice pool would now be 5. After resting for the night, the spellcaster's dice pool resets to 7. (with this system , there is no need for a mana mechanic or fixing the number of spells that can be cast per day. Also, the spells with the greatest effect (greatest width), are spells cast when the spellcaster is his freshest. As he casts more spells in a day, his chance of success lessens, as well as the strength of his spells. i.e. unsuccessfully casting spells is fatiguing).

SPELL RESULTS

The quality of a success is different in B-Grade Magic (and is akin to combat). Each spell has a table that details the result of different width successes. Width 2 = minimal success, Width 3 = adequate success, Width 4 = Good success, Width 5 = Spectacular success

EXAMPLE SPELLS

• Magic Missile
  • diff = Resist of foe
  • • Width2
    • Width3
    • Width4
    • Width5

• Burst of Light
  • diff = No difficulty
  • • Width2
    • Width3
    • Width4
    • Width5

Miracles

Founding principles

1. Miracles should be fun and easy to use. Performing miracles should feel different to spellcasting (i.e. a different mechanic)
2. Faith casters should be a bit more discerning when calling on their god as compared to spellcasters.

PERFORMING MIRACLES

• In B-Grade, miracle workers (such as priests, shamans) roll their dicepool to determine whether they have successful performed a miracle.
• Unlike spellcasting, miracles generally do not need to beat a foe's resist difficulty. Instead, miracles must beat the miracles focus difficulty (this means that the chance of performing a miracle is independent of the foe's strength , unlike spells that must equal or beat a foe's resist).
• To successful perform a miracle, roll Spirit + Faith
  • Width 2 sets work only if they are equal to or greater than the focus of the miracle. Eg. a 2x6 set miracle will work on a foe if the miracle has a Focus6 difficulty or less. A Focus7 miracle wouldn't have worked.
  • Width 3 or greater sets do NOT need to roll equal to or over focus. (Otherwise miracles are too underpowered)

• There are also circumstance modifiers that affect the chance of performing miracles, changing the dicepool of the caster
  • performed in front of a congregation (at least 20 people) +1dicepool
  • the recipient of the miracle is from the same faith +1d
  • the recipient of the miracle is of a similar faith (e.g an anglican performing a miracle on a pentecostal) OR has no faith (athiest) or is uncommitted (agnostic) +0d
  • the recipient of the miracle is from a completely different faith (e.g. an anglican performing a miracle on a taoist) -2d

ACTIVELY RESISTING

• Miracles cannot be actively resisted unless the character has the faith skill as well. It is a full-round action of denouncing the opposing faith and results in increasing the focus difficulty of the miracle by +2. Also, sets of all widths must now beat the focus difficulty to work (such as width3 sets).

FAILED MIRACLES

• If the miracle fails (dice pool has no successes or does not beat the focus), then the miracle worker cannot perform THAT same miracle again until he/she has communicated with God and performed a penance. After the penance is complete, access to that miracle is restored. The penance is directly related to the Focus difficulty of the miracle. For example, a failed bless miracle with focus3 would need only a nights rest + rosary in the morning (for catholics) or 20min meditation (for buddhists) to be restored. A failed Faith Healing with focus6 would need a more severe penance such as donating a week of community service in the name of your god, or a 3 day fast with nothing but water/juice (with an associated penalty to the body stat while fasting).

MIRACLE RESULTS

Each miracle has a table that details the result of different width successes (in general Width 2 = minimal success, Width 3 = adequate success, Width 4 = Good success, Width 5 = Spectacular success).

EXAMPLE MIRACLES

• Bless
  • Focus3
  • • Width2
    • Width3
    • Width4
    • Width5

• Faith Healing
  • Focus6
  • • Width2
    • Width3
    • Width4
    • Width5

• Cure Disease
  • Focus7
  • • Width2
    • Width3
    • Width4
    • Width5

• Exorcise
  • Focus9
  • • Width2
    • Width3
    • Width4
    • Width5