I love this game, but magic still seems pretty costly, especially if you're playing in a high fantasy setting. As it is currently, a starting character who wants to be vaguely functional as a magic user needs to drop all their skill points (3d6) into Magic. On their first roll, regardless of whether they pass the check or not, they have a 42% chance of losing 1 or more magic dice for the rest of the day. Once you're down to 2 dice, there's only a 1/36 (less than 3%) chance of rolling a 10 without rolling another 6 in the process.
I'm trying this rules tweak, and I wonder what you all think:
- Magic is a Specialist skill, so unless you put dice into it, you have a default score of 0
- Putting 1 die into Magic (or any other Specialist skill) gives you a starting score of 3d6, which is basic competency
- Rolling a Magic check:
- On a failure, there are no consequences unless you roll three 1's (critical failure)
- On a success, if any of your dice come up 6's, lose 1 die (total) from your magic pool (so even if you roll all 6's, you only lose 1 die)
- When making a Magic check, you can choose how many Magic dice to commit to the check
- Multiple Targets or AOE effects: Sacrifice Magic dice to affect additional targets on a 1:1 basis. Targets must be Close to one another
- After each encounter/scene, if the character has a moment to rest in relative safety, they can make a single Resolve check to recover 1 Magic die lost in that encounter.
This keeps the basic mechanics the same, doesn't introduce any other systems to keep track of, and seems to make Magic more cost-effective without becoming overpowered. It also introduces a bit of Magic economy in that sometimes it might be wise to roll fewer than your maximum dice to lower your chances of losing one.