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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 8049990" data-attributes="member: 8495">In both <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/magic/" target="_blank">GURPS Magic</a> and the <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/dungeonfantasy/" target="_blank">Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game</a> (a fantasy-focused GURPS variant), if you critically fail a spell roll, something bad happens. There is a default critical spell failure table that ranges from relatively minor effects like "Spell produces nothing but a distracting sensory effect – flash, moaning, rotten smell, etc. – that advertises caster’s presence (and miserable failure!)" to more serious consequences (e.g., the caster takes injury, summons a demon, or forgets the spell for a week or more). The rules encourage the GM to "improvise instead of using the table, but shouldn't kill the caster outright." A typical beginning caster will critically fail on a 17 or 18 on three dice (just shy of a 2% chance). More advanced casters with higher skill levels might only critically fail on an 18 (0.5%). But, if your effective skill drops, the chances of a critical failure can go up. So a wizard trying something desperate might swallow a lot of penalties and increase their odds of a critical mishap.In addition, <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/thaumatology/" target="_blank">GURPS Thaumatology</a> (one of my favorite books) is all about customizing a magic system to suit your campaign vision. It includes numerous options for changing how successes and failures work with different magical traditions. Of note is Appendix B which includes eight alternate critical failure tables for the standard magic system. Examples include a table for Celtic magic, clerical magic, diabolic magic, illusory magic, etc. If you want to see two worked examples, the <a href="http://www.warehouse23.com/media/SJG31-0107_preview.pdf#_ga=2.113093830.376497196.1595993927-2046460636.1529206875" target="_blank">preview PDF</a> has a page from the appendix that includes the clerical and comedy tables. I've attached the page to this post.</blockquote>

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