Threshold Magery

Threshold Magery is a magic system that eschews the regular FP system (or "energy magery") for a tally system (see below), with higher tallies incurring more dangerous, calamitous side effects.

The Process

By default, the power tally starts at 0. The listed cost of a spell adds to the power tally. At the threshold (standard is 30), magic becomes unstable, inducing a Calamity Check. At sunrise each day, the Tally is reduced by 8. Rapid Magical Recovery can clear tallies faster.

Related Advantages

• Increased Threshold (5/level): each level increases threshold by 20%
• Rapid Magical Recovery (5/level for +25%; 1/level for +5%): increases tally recovery rate
• Safer Magical Excess (10/level): each level doubles the number of points needed for a +1 on Calamity Checks. So 1 level is 10 points, 2 levels is 20, and so on.

Special Limitations

• Reduced Threshold (-10%/level; max 5): -20% to threshold for each level
• Seriously Calamity-Prone (-10%/level; max 4): each level subtracts 1 from the number of points needed for a +1 on Calamity Checks. So 1 level 4 points, 2 is 3 and so on
• Slower Magical Recovery (-10%/levell max 4): each level reduces tally recovery rate by 25% of the campaign default

Variants on Variants

There are a few different ways to combine variant rules, if you're feeling creative:

• Ritual Magery and Spell Magery are opposites (spells as techniques vs spells as skills)
• Energy Magery and Threshold Magery are opposites (spells fueled by FP vs spells fueled by Tally)

Four possible types of magery are discussed, which would work out to:

• Energy+Spell (normal magic)
• Energy+Ritual (alternative present in basic)
• Threshold+Spell (normal threshold)
• Threshold+Ritual (alternative)

There are even more, if including Path/Book Magery! Presumably, Path/Book could be fueled by Tally rather than Energy as well.

See Also

• Threshold Magery: Auras(?)
• Automatic Maintenance