Sample Rules part 2 thoughts on spells and combos

Another aspect of the game that I wanted to delve into are spells and combos.  I am not a huge fan of free form magic such as that found in Mage.  I don't want to rule it out as many people really like that sort of thing but I also wanted to keep something like AD&D spell.  Magic that has the same very specific effect time and time again.  The combos I am talking about are similar but for melee combat.

In general when you use magic you are are making a skill roll and then purchasing effects from a list.  These could be damage , area of effect, distance the list goes on.  It can be free form where you and the GM decide the cost or you can have a big of things you can purchase with successes.  A spell instead is a preconstructed set of effects that has a prescribed cost.  It usually can not be extended beyond its description though some may have minor upgrades that can be applied.  Spells are usually the first step of magic with the more free form style being more difficult and costly. 

A spell may give you a requirement of one or more successes needed to cast, if you don't have enough it doesn't work, that's it.  When you succeed it follows the description and the only available success purchases you can make are those within the description.  All extra spell points are lost unless you have some extra purchased ability that specifically allow you to do something else with them.  There are "Feat" like abilities that allow you to purchase magic stones with your extra successes but these will not effect the spell itself.

As for Combos and combat actions they are similar but allow for actions that would not be possible otherwise.  In some ways they are like the linked actions I mentioned in the sample rules section but go beyond that.  They are a specific mapped out attack or attack and movement that require miniatures and a combat grid to fully use.  The idea for these come directly from video games and you may recognize a few of them.  One example is an attack to the hex directly in front of you then moving two hexes forward followed but an increased damage attack to the hex directly in front of you.  Mechanically you would require an acrobatics success and two melee combat successes.  The could be accomplished in a number of ways.  A strong melee with no stones by make an acrobatics roll and then carry over their automatic melee successes.  A character with plenty of stones may make a standard melee attack role and then take two clear stones to make an acrobatic success.