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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Quixote" data-source="post: 9766490" data-attributes="member: 694">Beyond the Wall / Through Sunken Lands. Most would point to the playbooks or the "build the village" mechanic as the selling point, but for me, it's the magic system.BtW/TSL is like a B/X clone that caps at 10th level, with three core classes (fighter, rogue, and mage, where the mage also covers the cleric's role by being overall very druid-flavored). The magic system divides arcane abilities into cantrips, spells, and rituals, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.• Cantrips are low-powered but flexible, meaning that you can stretch what they do at the risk of making them more likely to miscast or backfire; they're otherwise unlimited in use, but a backfire can really ruin your day, so overusing them is a bad idea.• Spells are roughly equivalent to D&D 1st–2nd level spells; a mage can cast one per day per experience level (no memorization/preparation involved). They're rote and reliable.• Rituals are leveled (1st–10th, corresponding to experience level). Like cantrips, they need a roll to cast, but a failure doesn't cause a backfire so much as a DM-fiat twisting of the magic's intention. They require various material components (often rare or expensive) and take 1 hour per level to cast, unless they've been "memorized" ahead of time or scribed onto a scroll. A mage who knows how to memorize rituals (not all do) can only have a handful readied at a time, and doing that is super volatile and potentially dangerous.In other words, it genuinely feels more properly "Vancian" than D&D's magic.</blockquote>

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