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Message: <blockquote data-quote="s/LaSH" data-source="post: 874615" data-attributes="member: 6929">Essentially, you declare the basic gist of the spell (in terms of whatever components you're using), then you roll for it. You then spend the successes on each component you included (you have to do this, unless you didn't roll enough successes to cover them all at 1 each). The number of successes you put into each component dictates how powerful the effect of the spell is.Most of the spell effects operate by overcoming basic qualities of the target such as the Body stat or an attribute. Beat it by however many times and you get however many repititions of the effect. For example, if someone has a Strength of 8 and you score 20 successes, you can modify their Strength up or down by two fifths (because you scored over twice the attribute).The default spell affects only the caster, and only for a moment. You can drop dice from your pool before rolling (thus reducing the effect's eventual power) to increase range, area and duration.That's the basics of the system. It's possible to modify it to d20 (I did it myself, although it's a quick hack), and is intended to do nearly anything, although I'm sure anyone could find holes in it if they wanted.The thing about the Spheres is that they describe broad approaches to magic. Altogether, they represent the 'elemental' school of thought. If you want to rebuild them, one Sphere per magical tradition might not be the best approach - that concentrates an awful lot of power under one skill. The point of a skill component is that it's a very specific application of that skill, and more importantly, it's something only that skill does for you.Two or three Spheres per tradition might be more apt; in the case of the Byurinese, perhaps one Sphere devoted to deception and another to curses (both things these Byurinese witches apparently do well). The existing components can be easily juggled about to fit into these Spheres of Deception (things like Illusion, Modify (self-only) and Telepathy) and Curses (things like Enhance, Scry (to find a target) and Sigil to mark a cursed one). It's only two Spheres, of course, but they're limited in application and taking one skill won't make you uber-powerful. Further, specialising into those components will allow for a great deal of customisation. No two Byrurinese witches need be quite the same in their talents.I did write a section in the full version cautioning against reconfiguring the Spheres, as simply giving the ability to summon fire elementals to the Fire Sphere would completely change the meaning of that Sphere and reduce the utility of the Water Sphere which is supposed to be the summoning skill. Be careful if you want to change this.Does that pique anyone's interest? I don't think I should reveal more about the magic rules, because I think they're pretty cool and if at all possible I'd like to charge through the nose for the full thing. (sigh) Times are tough, after all.</blockquote>

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