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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 5473246" data-attributes="member: 41584">I like the notion of making a die roll / caster level check / spellcraft skill check to cast a spell, with the failures having the potential of fatigue-like penalties or even, for really bad failures, nonlethal or lethal damage as the magic unravels in your hands and bites you in the butt (or blows up in your face, whatever). And, a 'critical success' that allowed an enhanced effect, would be a natural corollary to that sort of system.  Like a concentration check, various factors can penalize this roll (violent weather, unsteady footing, being stabbed in the kidney, being grappled, in a swarm, being bedeviled by specific spells designed for this very purpose...), and there might be various factors that could add bonuses to a casting check, such as taking ten times as long to cast the spell (allowing an arcanist to spend a minute casting Mage Armor in the morning, and avoid a chance of an embarassing and potentially hurtful failure, for instance), or having access to specific items (a masterwork 'casting tool' shaped like a wand or ring or amulet or crystal?). Lower level spells that you've mastered, two or three spell levels below your highest level spells, would naturally become easier, until it's almost impossible to fail them, while your highest level spells (or lower level spells that you are metamagicking or 'pushing' to higher levels of effect) would be increasingly risky. The spellcaster would use the same sort of 'roll a die, maybe fail embarassingly, maybe succeed spectacularly' mechanic that a Fighter or Rogue is using. Limiting a generic non-critical failure to temporary fatigue, like that of a Barbarian coming out of Rage, lasting only the remainder of the combat (or 10 minutes, if used out of combat, perhaps), might be a less painful way of having a spell failure manifest than some critical fumble chart or chance of the spellcaster blowing himself, or his allies, or whatever to bit. I'm particularly against any sort of magical fumble that could hurt the other characters. When Bob the Fighter blows it utterly, he doesn't decapitate a fellow PC, so I'd be disinclined to have the party arcanist have a 5% chance per round of accidentally causing a TPK by summoning an uncontrolled demon or detonating a fireball at his feet or whatever.</blockquote>

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