Magic & Spellcasting

Magic is the art of making the world an offer it cannot refuse. Two great traditions practice it: the wizard, who learns magic as a scholar and memorizes it like an arsenal, and the priest, who is granted it by a power higher than themselves and prays for it at dawn. They feel different at the table, and the difference matters.

The wizard's way — memory and the spellbook

A wizard's power lives in a spellbook, a frail and precious thing, and in a mind prepared overnight. To cast, a wizard must first memorize a chosen spell into an open slot. Preparation requires rest and quiet study (about fifteen minutes per spell level), and once a spell is cast it is spent from memory until the wizard prepares again — which is to say, until the next morning.

So the wizard's resource is not mana but choice made in advance. A wizard who prepared sleep cannot suddenly reach for a fireball. This is why wizards hoard scrolls, buy backup spellbooks, and guard their few prepared spells jealously. It is also why a clever wizard is a marvel and an unprepared one is a liability — and why the party's life so often depends on asking the right thing before the day begins.

Learning spells is hard. A wizard must find them (on a scroll, in a captured book), then attempt a learning check shaped by Intelligence. High Intelligence means more spells known, higher spells mastered, and a better chance of learning a new one. The eight schools of magic — abjuration, alteration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy — organize this accumulated power, and specialist wizards dedicate themselves to one school at the price of forgoing its opposites.

The priest's way — prayer and the spheres

A priest's magic is granted, not learned. The priest holds no spellbook; instead, at a time of prayer (around fifteen minutes per spell level), they ask their deity for the spells of the day from the spheres that deity commands — healing, protection, combat, the elements, and so on, set by the god's nature. High Wisdom widens a priest's access and grants bonus prayers.

This makes the priest marvelously flexible: a cleric can pray for cure light wounds today and spiritual weapon tomorrow. The constraint is not memory but sphere — a healing god's servant prays for healing and protection, a war god's for the might of battle. Clerics command broad access; druids draw on animal, plant, and elemental magic. And separately from spells, a cleric or paladin may turn the undead — a holy rebuke that drives the walking dead back or destroys them, counted apart from the spell limit.

The shape of a spell

Whether wizard or priest, every spell in the Spells compendium tells you what you need at casting time:

• Level and sphere/school — how demanding it is and where it belongs.
• Components — verbal (spoken words — gagged or silenced, unable to cast), somatic (hand gestures — bound hands, unable to cast), and material (a pinch of worth and substance; a component pouch or holy symbol holds them).
• Casting time — in segments for the swift or rounds for the ponderous; it is added to your initiative, so the slow spells go late.
• Range, area, and duration — how far it reaches, whom it covers (beware allies in the blast), and how long it lasts. Some endure a round per level; others are instantaneous; others permanent until dispelled.
• Saving throw — the roll a target makes to resist. Some spells say half damage, some say negates, some grant no save at all.

Casting under fire

Casting takes concentration, and combat is loud with interruptions. If you take damage, fail a save, are grappled, silenced (for verbal spells), or have your hands bound (for somatic), the spell is lost for the day — components spent, effort wasted. The art of the combat caster is positioning: shield yourself, cast your defensive spells first, stand behind the warrior, and keep your allies between you and the enemy's reach. A wizard's best friend is a fighter who values them enough to stand in front.

Reversible and counter-magic

Many priest spells are reversible — the same prayer turned to harm. A good priest's cure wounds and a dark priest's cause wounds are the same coin's faces. And for every spell there are counters: dispel magic undoes enchantments, spell turning hurls magic back at its sender, and wards and globes shelter their casters from whole tiers of hostile power. The deeper truth: magic in this system is a ladder of preparation, choice, and counter-choice. The wizard who knows what is coming, and the priest who prayed for the right mercy, are the ones who bend the world.