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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beholder Bob" data-source="post: 1253153" data-attributes="member: 12866">Speed killsI am working on something similar – for flavor I would like spells to take longer then a few seconds to whip off, but I can not afford to cripple the class, or none would play it.  My decision was to go for spell failure – casting a spell always requires a skill roll.  Failure results in the loss on the spell.  Taking extra time greatly increases the chance of success – so a caster can still ‘whip off’ a spell, but not w/out risk.  Some casters will instead opt for a better chance, spending more time.Now, in exchange for this penalty (spell failure) – I needed something to offset it.  On an extremely good roll to cast a spell, the caster retains some spell power, but 1 level lower (a good roll while casting a 4th level spell allows an additional casting of a 3rd level spell that day), using the mechanics for a pearl of power for that additional casting.  If you took extra time to cast the spell, any retained spell power is reduced in level  (otherwise casters who take their time would take forever to run out of spells). Also, a caster can add meta-magic on the fly – but with a far more serious chance of failure, and the inability to take 10.  Failure not only costs the spell in question, but inflicts damage on the caster.</blockquote>