Spell Rules

Following are more advanced rules related to spells.

Casting Spells

A power with the Spell trait is called a spell. Using such a power is called casting the spell. Casting a spell requires speaking a command phrase and making hand gestures, which usually make it obvious that you are casting a spell. All spells implicitly have the Concentrate and Manipulate traits.

Casting spells requires an arcane focus, which is a handheld item you use to channel your magic. You can meditate or focus for 1 hour to designate an item as your arcane focus. Bonding to a new arcane focus severs your connection with your previous focus. You can pick any item as your arcane focus - a staff, a book, a crystal gem, a sword, or so on. You must hold your arcane focus in one hand while casting a spell or using the Sustain power.

Mana

All characters that can cast spells have a Mana pool that represents how much magical energy they have available. Your Mana pool stores a number of points, up to a maximum of your Mana stat. When you pay Mana to cast a spell, you must subtract the amount paid from your Mana pool. Your Mana pool can never go below 0. Your mystic origin determines your Mana stat and describes when your Mana pool replenishes.

All spells have a cost in Mana. You must pay this amount of Mana when you cast the spell. If you don’t have enough Mana, you can’t cast the spell. Some effects increase or decrease the base cost of a spell, as described in the next section.

Heightening and Cost Reductions

You can heighten some spells to increase their effect, at the cost of paying more Mana to use the spell. Spells that can be heightened will have a Heightened block beneath the spell’s text, which describes the ways you can heighten the spell. When you heighten a spell, you cannot increase the final cost above your character’s Mana Limit stat. Your Mana Limit stat is given by your mystic origin.

Some effects reduce the cost of a spell. This decreases the amount of mana you have to spend on the spell, but doesn’t reduce the effect of the spell. You must always spend at least 1 Mana when you cast a spell, or at least 0 Mana if the spell has the Cantrip trait.

Some effects depend on the exact cost of a spell. This is measured in two ways. The cost of a spell is the amount of Mana you pay to cast it. The cost of a spell includes both heightening the spell and any effects the reduce the cost. The power of a spell is the effectiveness of the spell. The power of a spell includes heightening the spell, but does not include any effects that reduce the cost.

Customizing Spells

Spells are flexible effects, and the caster has significant leeway in choosing how the spell is expressed. A powerful spellcaster who conjures vast firestorms could use that same spell to light a single candle. You can reduce the area, range, duration, or damage of a spell as much as you want when you cast the spell, though the cost stays the same. Ask your GM what other parameters you can change for a given spell. Once you cast the spell, you no longer have direct control over the magic, so you have to pick any changes when you cast the spell.

Players are encouraged to describe their spells differently than how they’re described in the rules. For example, instead of describing your Invoke Blast spell as an explosion of flames, you could describe it as a flash of lightning, an intense wave of radiation, or as briefly transporting targets to a Hell dimension. Your unique description for your spell is called the spell’s Trappings.

Trappings shouldn’t change how a spell functions in normal circumstances. The GM might say that Trappings change how a spell acts in unusual circumstances, such as a flash of lightning being more effective than a fireball when the target is underwater. Creatively using spells is cool, and should be encouraged.