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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Planesdragon" data-source="post: 2272721" data-attributes="member: 11133">To use an old standby, "that's not a bug, that's a feature."If you're playing Merlin, the 20th level spellcaster with a +20 in various spell-skills, you would expect to be able to do piddly little stuff without any chance of harm.  Just like a 20th level marksman can take shots that a 1st level mook could never take without fear of accidentially hitting something else nearby.The "right" way to limit magical power in a setting is to simply limit magical skill.  Allow only to a certain skill-rank without specific campaign events.  Like favored class and core-class restrictions, this would be one of those easily tweaked variables that does next-to-nothing to game balance but everything to game feel.  Yes, an elf from the wyld can learn 15 ranks and Hectate's daughter can learn 20 ranks, but your man-off-the-street can learn only 1-5, maybe a bit more if he's got a strong mystic background.FWIW, though, I agree with your assessment about the natural 1, but for a different reason.  It's a simple question of die parity--if a natural 20 is better than 19+1, then a natural 1 must be worse than 2-1.(Although I'm not a huge fan of "my magic drains me" style systems, mostly because they don't feel magical to me.)</blockquote>