Inventing New Spells

These are Guidelines and not an exact science.

Combat Spells:

• In general, 1 point of energy buys 1d damage, 2d knockback, 1 point of fatigue damage or one second of blindness.

Irritating and Incapacitating Conditions:

• Spells causing Irritating conditions cost about 2 points of energy
• Spells causing Incapacitating conditions cost about 5 points of energy

Ability Enhancements:

• 1 point of energy buys 2 skill levels or 1 point of a secondary characteristic
• 2 points buys 1 point of an attribute.

Hazards or Obstructions:

• 1 point of energy creates an area which people must leave or take damage (poison gas clouds, radiation fields, etc)
• 2 points of energy creates an obstruction that cannot be easily passed across or through.
• 3 points of energy allows a subject to ignore a certain type of obstruction and pass through it freely
• 4 points of energy renders a subject immune to a certain type of hazard.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

• Spells that grant an advantage or disadvantage cost 1 point of energy for every 3 Character Points of the advantage or disadvantage.

Information:

• Most cost about 2 points of energy
• Spells that reveal secrets cost 4 points of energy or more.

Special Effects:

• Spells that have no significant effect or long-lasting effect should cost 1 point of energy.

Missile Spells have a default Max range of 80 yards (but can be adjusted).
Spells that change or control living aware beings should usually be Resisted.
Powerful spells should have long lists of prerequisites, or be Very Hard, or both.
New spells could be commonly available to learn, or esoteric mysteries only known to a handful of NPCs or in a hidden book of secret lore.

Player Created Spells
Use the New Inventions rules. The skill to design new spells is Thaumatology.
Spells do not have Complexity ratings
There is no final "product", so there is no production stage for the development of spells.
The Concept roll is made against Thaumatology instead of Complexity.

• Subtract the prerequisite count for the new spell, apply a -5 penalty for any spell in a college in which the researcher knows no spells.
  Once the Concept phase has succeeded, the researcher must invest a Character Point