Schools and caster styles

Every spell belongs to one of seven schools of magic: evocation, necromancy, abjuration, restoration, transmutation, enchantment, and divination. A school is the kind of magic a spell is. You do not train a school, and it has no ranks.

A spell’s school matters for:

• Keen mind and School focus, which you take for one school (or one element) and which help only its spells;
• your class’s affinity with each school, which makes its spells easier or harder to learn;
• the colour of a spell circle.

How well you cast depends on your stats, your talents, your items, and the caster style a spell is cast in.

The schools

The Magic page

The Magic page is page 6 of the info pages, between the weapon skills and the quest log. Open any info page and press 6, or Tab to it. It has no key of its own in play. It is one column, which scrolls (↑↓) when the window is too small for it. From the top, it shows:

• your mana, as the status bar does;
• the caster styles, each with your rank and a faint bar of your marks toward the next, with a • on Battle caster while your armour hinders casting (“• the style you cast in now”). They are shown to anyone who knows a spell or has trained a caster style;
• every spell you know, by level then name, with its rank and the roll it makes now and its mana, as the abilities menu shows them (“Magic missile rank 1 4d4 force, 4 mana, aimed”).

The page is for reading only: spells are cast from the abilities menu. Looking at it takes no time. A character who knows no spells sees “You know no spells.”

Caster styles

The spell you cast decides your style. A caster style is a fighting style of its own:

• A spell that rolls to hit and is a touch is cast as a Toucher.
• A spell that rolls to hit and is anything else (a ray, a bolt) is cast as a Sniper, wherever you aim it, even at the creature beside you.
• A spell cast in armour that hinders casting is a Battle caster’s, whatever the spell.
• Every other spell, out of such armour, is cast in no style: a burst, a cone, a line, a bolt that never misses, a heal (a touch heal too), a buff, or a hex. It trains no style, and no style helps it.

Every spell you cast with your own mana trains the style it was cast in, whether it lands or not, just as every blow trains its style. It earns marks toward the next rank: more when it lands, more against a strong foe, and fewer as your rank rises. When you have enough marks you gain a rank.

A spell lands when it does what it is for: harm to someone, a hex that takes hold, a heal of a hit point or more, a buff on you, a cure, an item identified.

• A spell that lands earns the marks of an attempt and of a success.
• A spell that misses (a ray or a touch that rolls to hit and fails), or finds nobody, earns only an attempt’s marks.

The marks are weighed by the strongest creature the spell struck at. When it struck at nobody (a buff, a bolt into an empty corridor), they are weighed by your own level. The marks and their weighing are the same as for weapon skills, on a slower curve of their own (the Caster columns there). Nothing limits how often you may train. A spell read from a scroll or used from a wand trains no style: the magic is the item’s.

• Sniper: a ray or a bolt that rolls to hit, out of such armour. It hits more often, and better still against a target five cells away or more, where its critical range is wider too. From rank 5 these spells reach a cell farther, and from rank 9 two.
• Toucher: a touch that rolls to hit, out of such armour. It hits more often, its critical range is wider, and its criticals roll the damage up to twice more. From rank 4 it does a point more harm, pressed home; from rank 7 two, and at rank 10 three.
• Battle caster: any spell cast while you wear armour that makes spells cost more (mail, plate, a great helm, a large shield), a buff on yourself as much as a bolt at a foe. Its spells that roll to hit hit more often, and it shrinks your armour’s extra mana cost for every spell you cast. From rank 4, a spell that lands wards you with a point of Defence until your next action (Spell guard). A Mage-wrought piece eased so far that it makes spells cost no more does not count as such armour: in it you cast as a Sniper or a Toucher.

A touch reaches only the creature beside you. Nothing makes it reach farther: not School focus, not a style, not an item.

The wizard and the druid start in Sniper, the witch and the priest in Toucher, and the paladin in Battle caster. Any caster may advance in any of them by casting that way.

The Magic page marks Battle caster as the style you cast in while you wear such armour. Sniper and Toucher depend on the spell, so it never marks them.

What each rank gives, exactly: To hit far away and Critical range far away count from five cells. Reach is cells farther (a range). Every roll is a point on the roll. Armour’s extra mana cost is the percent taken off what your armour adds.

A Sniper’s target is far away at 5 cells or more (the larger of the two distances).

Sniper: a ray or a bolt that rolls to hit, out of hindering armour; marks on the caster curve.

Toucher: a touch that rolls to hit, out of hindering armour; marks on the caster curve.

Battle caster: any spell cast in armour that hinders casting; marks on the caster curve.

What a rank teaches, as with a weapon style (What a rank teaches). Only Battle caster teaches an ability:

See also: Magic, Learning spells, and Miscasts.