Casting Magic

Magic Spells

Casting a spell is a fairly simple process.  Spells are incanted (spoken) via words of power, and require no other component to fuel magic.  Spells take a specified number of actions to cast, which may span multiple turns.  With the exception of movement, no other action can be taken when casting a spell, including blocking or dodging.  Movement in this way refers to normal movement, and excludes swimming, jumping, and climbing.

Focus

Some spells require Focus, which requires the caster remain stationary, be unable to take any other action, and must remain conscious to keep the effect of the spell active.  Spells that require focus can be broken in the following ways:

• At will.

• When the caster takes any other action including movement, defending, or interacting with an object or environment..

• When the caster takes damage and fails a contested Intelligence roll to maintain the spell.

• If the caster gains the Unconscious condition.

More On Casting

Casting spells in SURGE! adventures requires uninterrupted vocal incantations. Unless specified in an adventure module, spells are considered by default to be possible by citing words of power. The longer the incantation, the more powerful the particular spell. If a caster is unable to speak, by default rules, they are incapable of casting a spell. Special accommodations for characters unable to speak as part of their back story may need to be made by the GM; such as perhaps they conjure words of power through somatic gestures or through written scrolls.

Spending Actions To Cast A Spell

Every spell presented in the official rules require a designated number of actions to cast them, and they immediately activate once the required actions have been spent to cast. The number of actions can be reduced by gemstones and Intelligence score (See Intelligence and Gemstone pages for details). Some spells may require more actions than are available to a character during their turn. In these instances, the character may utilize multiple turns to cast these spells. There is a cost however, once a character has begun the incantation, it can not be interrupted until completion or the actions used so far are forfeit.  

When casting a spell, the caster only has to commit to a school of magic, not the individual spell itself.  This enables the caster to change tactic as not all spells are a good fit to every environment and circumstance.  Each incantation can result in only one spell being cast but casters may choose to cast a spell during their turn at will, immediately, for any spell that they have achieved the minimum casting actions cost value for, even if the caster has far exceeded the minimum number actions casting and without expending additional actions to do so.  However, once the spell has been cast the incantation ends and a new spell requires starting casting actions over from the beginning.  In other words, even if the caster doesn't use all of the saved up actions to cast a spell in a particular school of magic, they can't bank the unused casting actions to cast a second spell; they must start over from scratch.

Example: A character spends two turns to cast in the School of Fire, with the intention of casting Blaze (5 actions to cast), but finds that doing so may not be as efficient as casting Ember (2 actions to cast).  On the character's turn, they may just immediately cast Ember without expending any more actions to do so.  The remaining actions that were used to achieve the minimum cost of Blaze are now forfeit.

Interrupting a Spell Cast

During the cast time over a number of actions, there are only three ways to interrupt a spell while in the process of casting.

1. The caster’s HP is brought to 0.

2. A spell or ability has silenced the area, or provided an area of effect where magic is prohibited the area.

3. The caster takes any other action, with the only exception being Movement. This last one is important because if the caster so much as attempts to make any other attack, interact, patch up, or even dodge and block—the caster’s concentration is broken and the actions spent casting that spell are lost. This means that a caster must commit to the spell, even if it means automatically losing contested rolls and taking damage. Taking damage itself does not break spell casting incantations.  As previously mentioned, a caster may move in between casting actions, performing any of the Movement types of actions available to them as the environment permits.  

For example, a caster begins the incantation for a spell from the School of Fire - Blaze.  The spell requires 5 actions and the character only has 3 actions per turn.  They spend the first turn casting (5-3= 2 actions to cast remaining), but since their first turn the battlefield has changed and the spell would be more effective 10 feet over from their present location.  On their next turn, they decide to take a Movement action and move 10 feet towards a row of enemies, and spend the last two actions of their turn to finish the cast.  Upon completion the spell activates and the row of enemies are now being attacked by the spell.

Again, once a spell in the process of being cast is interrupted, those actions are lost and to cast the spell again requires starting at the beginning of the casting time, essentially starting back at the beginning of casting.

See Spells to learn more about the schools of magic and the spells found within them.