Magic
Spells and casting
Magic is open to every class: how casting costs work, which spells you start with (it depends on your skills), and which skills cheapen a spell.
Magic is open to every class. Every class can cast, and the cost of a spell depends on your skill in its school, not on your class.
Keys
The casting keys (see Controls): Backspace casts, Q recasts the last spell, ` aborts a cast and U uses a magic item.
What a spell costs
Each effect in a spell is priced from its duration, chance and magnitude. The game turns that price into spell points like this, for each effect:
spell points = price × (110 − your skill in the effect’s school) ÷ 400, rounded down
So each skill point in the right school makes the spell cheaper. The effects are added up, and the total is multiplied by the spell’s target, rounded down again:
| Target | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Caster only, or by touch | ×1.0 |
| Single target at range | ×1.5 |
| Area around caster | ×2.0 |
| Area at range | ×2.5 |
No spell ever costs less than 5 spell points. The cost stored in a spell’s record is not what you pay; the spell database shows what a cast really costs at four skill levels, and the spell cost calculator works it out for your own skills.
Which spells you start with
By default your starting spells come from your skills, not your class (Roleplay & Realism: Items). The game looks at your three primary and three major skills. For each magic skill among them it gives a short list of spells, and a longer one if the skill is a primary:
| Skill | As a major skill | As a primary skill, too |
|---|---|---|
| Alteration | Gentle Fall | Jumping |
| Destruction | Arcane  Arrow | Minor Shock |
| Illusion | Candle | Chameleon |
| Mysticism | Knock, Knick-Knack | Fenrik’s Door Jam, Recall |
| Restoration | Salve Bruise | Smelling Salts, Balyna’s Balm |
| Thaumaturgy | Buoyancy | Rise |
A class with no magic skill among those six starts with no spells. The same table is in Starting spells, with each spell linked.
The spells
All the classic spells, with element, target, cost and effects, are in the spell database along with the nine the overhaul adds, and every effect the spellmaker can use is in spell effects.
Magic without spell points
Potions give you effects for ingredients instead of points. Every recipe is in Potion recipes. Magic items carry enchantments and have a limited number of uses; see Artifacts and the “uses” column in magic items.
Category: Magic