Spellcasting

The act of drawing on one's own magicka reserves in order to generate some kind of effect in the physical world is called "casting a spell". The Psijic Order consider it an intensely personal exercise. No two mages weave their spells in exactly the same way. Like painting or sculpting, each artist has their own distinctive style.

Spells can be used to create, change, destroy, or manipulate the world and the beings within it. Casting spells requires a **combination of physical components (typically precise hand motions), verbal components (incantations or words of power), and the mental component of channeling one’s magicka into the desired effect**.

Learning a spell takes a number of days equal to the level of the spell, and typically requires a character to study from a spell tome or learn from a teacher.

### Casting a Spell

#### Step 1: Caster Declares Spell and Target

First the caster must choose a spell to cast from among those they know. If the spell has a target (or targets) other than the caster, they must choose them now provided they satisfy the spell conditions (range, etc).

#### Step 2: Casting Test

The caster makes a skill test with the skill corresponding to the school of the spell (the Destruction skill for Destruction spells, and so forth).

This test suffers a **-10 penalty** for each point by which the spell level exceeds the character’s effective rank in that skill. If the character is untrained in that skill, they cannot cast the spell.

If the character cannot speak they suffer a **-20 penalty** to the casting test. They suffer an additional **-20 penalty** to the test if they do not have two free hands, either because they are holding items or because their movement is restricted in some way.

If a character critically fails when casting a spell, or fails normally when casting either an unconventional spell or any spell with a spell level above their skill rank in the cooresponding school, then they suffer a magical backfire.

#### Step 3: Resolve the Spell

Pass or fail, the caster reduces their magicka by the listed cost of the spell. If this would reduce the character’s magicka to below zero, then the spell is not successfully cast.

If the caster passed the test, resolve the effects of the spell as written. If the character is casting a multi-part spell then resolve each part of the spell simultaneously (meaning that none of the parts benefit from the effects of any of the other parts). Any spell that requires a test of the target(s) cannot be willingly failed.

### Spell Restraint

On a successful spellcast, a mage can use their will to limit excessive use of magicka. This is known as **Spell Restraint**, or restrained spellcasting. A character can choose to reduce the cost of a successfully cast spell by their Willpower bonus (minimum 1).

While typically this is desirable, sometimes not holding back with a spell can have extra benefits. Some spells have the Overload attribute, which will state certain extra effects the character can benefit from if they **choose not to restrain** the spell when casting it.

### Attack Spells

Spells with the attack attribute count as attacks. They are resolved as appropriate for an attack of that type (either ranged, melee or direct).

* The casting test for the spell is also the attack test, and the caster’s degrees of success are compared to the defender’s.
* Spell casting tests can suffer from circumstantial modifiers that the GM rules are appropriate.
* Spells cannot gain or benefit from advantages.
* Spells cannot be parried or countered, only blocked/evaded.
* Critical successes cause spells to deal maximum damage.
* Spells cannot benefit from Stamina points.
* Spells with the AoE attribute are resolved as AoE attacks.