Creating and Casting Spells
In the Second World, creating magical spells and abilities is a collaborative process. Each player may author their very own spells, but all players and the GM should agree on the spell's costs and power.
What Spells Can Do
Spells to Enhance Skill Rolls
The base Fate system uses skills as the foundation of Fate's Four Actions: Overcome, Create Advantage, Attack, and Defend. Spells can be created that allow the caster to add their magic bonus to a skill-based role. Some examples include:
- A fire mage may have a Scorching Ray spell that adds their Fire Magical Mastery as a bonus to their Shoot skill when making an attack action.
- A healing mage may have a Diagnose spell that adds their Life Magical Mastery as a bonus to their Medicine skill when attempting to diagnose medical issues.
- A barbarian may have a Iron Muscles spell that adds their Earth Magical Mastery as a bonus to their Athletics skill when making an overcome action to lift heavy objects.
Spells for Area of Effect Attacks
In the base Fate system, when attacking or otherwise affecting multiple targets, all parties involved make a single roll. The attacker then splits the value of their roll across multiple targets.
Spells can be created that allow the results of their single roll to affect multiple targets equally. For example, a fire mage might create a "Fireball" spell that allows them to make an attack against all hostile targets in a zone using the same roll.
Spells to Recover from Stress & Consequences
This section is mainly pertainent to Life spells, but it also applies to any spell that involves recovery of stress or consequences. Players may create spells that recover stress and consequences, but spells may not remove consequences completely. Healing spells that deal with consequences should, at most, reduce the severity of a consequence by a single level.
Anything else!
The Second World magic system is intended to be flexible and allow players to be creative. Follow the Golden Rule of Fate when creating spells, and be sure to collaborate with other players and the GM to first design the spell and then find mechanics to achieve the spell's desired thematic effect.
I'm Feeling Uninspired!
Creating new spells can be a daunting task for new players as it requires some familiarity with the mechanics of Fate and Fate Second World. It might also be difficult for new players to assign proper levels and costs to spells. When feeling uninspired, it might be a good idea to check out the Example Spell List for ideas and inspiration.
When in doubt, one can just take spells of the list as their own.
Creating a Spell
Creating a spell is a six-step process.
Select School and Essence
First, select the spell's school and essence.
A spell should belong to one of the nine schools of magic. Select
The school and essence should match the theme of the spell.
Select Spell Level
Create Spell Description
Next, create the spell's description, or, in other words, what it does and how difficult it is to pull off.
The Spell Enhances an Existing Action
If the spell enhances one of Fate's Four Actions, then spell creation is very easy. Write some flavor and select a skill that this spell enhances to add the caster's Magical Mastery bonus.
The Spell Affects Self or Others and is Harmless
A spell that affects others but does not incur any harmful or otherwise undesirable effects, then several possibilties exist for how the spell expressed in terms of game mechanics. Most likely, the spell is an overcome roll against a set difficulty. If the spell is sufficiently weak or simple, then representing the roll as an Overcome action might not even be necessary. Pick what works for the spell.
The Spell Affects Others with Intent to Harm
A spell that harms others directly is expressed as an Attack action that adds both a skill with the character's Magical Mastery.
The Spell Affects the World
If the spell affects the world by creating a situational aspect or some other related change, casting the spell will likely be an Overcome action against a static difficulty. Consider how powerful the spell is to assign a fair difficulty to it. See the below table for Fate's standard difficulty chart.
The Spell Does Something Else Entirely
Deal with this on a case-by-case basis.
Components
A spell's components describe the actions a caster must take or materials that must be expended in order to cast the spell. Select one or more from the below components:
- A Focus is a component that catalyzes a spell's casting. It is required to cast the spell, but is not expended during the cast. Spells that require a focus imply that the caster can access the focus on their person while the spell is being cast.
- A Material component is an item that is spent during the casting of a spell. Material components must be accessible by the caster while the spell is being cast. If the material component is rare or otherwise nontrivially expensive, the character must also have the component on their sheet.
- A Verbal component is a magical phrase that must be verbally and coherently spoken during the casting of the spell.
- A Somatic component is a precise motor movement. The caster must have a free hand.
Spell Level
Based on the strength of the spell, assign the spell a level.
Additional Costs
Important other factors to consider in creating a spell is its casting time. Unless noted in the language of the spell, a spell is assumed to be fast enough to cast in a single round of combat. However, it might be fitting for a spell to take a longer time to cast. Balance is another factor; a spell that is particularly potent in effect when compared to other spells at a similar mastery level could be given a longer casting time to make up for it. Spells intended for use in combat should be given a discrete number of rounds for the spell to be cast.
GM & Player Approval
Once the spell is designed, present it to the players and GM for approval.
Even if the players and GM agree on the spell concept, it is possible that balance issues can be revealed during play. Spell design is game design, and game design is almost always an iterative process, so stay open to making continuous changes for the health of the game.
Advanced Spell Creation
Multiple Schools
Spells might belong to multiple schools.
Casting a Spell
To cast a spell, you need to fulfill the criteria:
- Have Magical Mastery in the spell's school.
- Have sufficient spell slots to cast the spell.
- Must be able to fulfill the spell's components.
- Possess any additional other costs listed on the spell.
Reactive Spell Defense
Magical entities can use their magical potential to reactively defend themselves against attacks. Any magic character can spend a magical stress shift to add the equivalent shift value to a Defense roll. This can happen reactively without creating a spell, but you must declare that you are using Reactive Spell Defense before you have made the Defense roll.