Fantasy HERO Grimoire

[Nightshade]

I don't know if this has been answered, but I wondering what groups of spells were actually in the Grimoire. I was sure I saw alchemy and necromancy, but what else? I am wondering as I am working on my campaign and would like to know what may already be "done", since my buying the book is a forgone conclusion. :cool:

Thanks.

Nightshade

[Steve Long]

The "arcana" covered in the book are:

Alchemy
Conjuration
Divination
Druidry (nature magic)
Elemental Magic (the standard four, plus some others)
Enchantment (magic item creation)
Necromancy
Sorcery (mind magics, illusions, etc.)
Thaumaturgy (shape and force manipulation/alteration)
Witchcraft
Wizardry (everything that doesn't fit elsewhere ;) )

And then there's a section on divine magic (spells for priests).

In total, there are about 400 "base" spells in the book. When you count all the variations, options, and such, the total comes to about 4,500 spells.

As a comparison, by my count the 3rd Ed. D&D Player's Handbook has 473 spells.

[AnotherSkip]

Geee.... let's only give people 10x the options why don't we?

On a more somber note (though not an actual slam) there are only about 60 spells in the FREd... and since the two books actually mentioned are actually a main book and a supplement there are some differences.

[tetsujin28]

Is there a "default" magic system that is assumed by the grimoire?

[Steve Long]

It's nominally related to the Turakian Age magic system, but only nominally. First, I chose that "system" because it's (a) close to the "average" system in the "average" FH campaign (the only odd thing about it, the final step of dividing a spell's Real Cost by 3, isn't performed in the FHG), and (b) it's easy to work from this very simple system to adapt the spells to more unusual systems.

In fact, as you can tell from the numbers above, the spells have a lot of options and variants -- the average is about 12 per spell. That's because a lot of them are "standardized" for easy adaptation to other systems. For example, just about every spell has options for removing Focus, or Incantations, or Gestures, or the Required Skill Roll. Thus, if your magic system does not require (or forbids) RSRs, you just tell the players, "always take the "Master's Version" option for a spell."

I have to ground the book in some setting, because otherwise it loses too much structure and usefulness. But the book's been constructed to make it as useful and helpful to as many FH games and gamers as possible. ;)

[Nightshade]

Steve;

You are the man. I cannot wait to get this baby in my hands!

Nightshade

[Steve Long]

Well, hopefully we won't have to keep you in suspense too much longer. Andy's supposed to get me the first layouts tomorrow, so I can start final edits, make additions and corrections based on playtester input, all that sorta thing. With luck it'll head out to the printer early next week. ;)

[JakSpade]

Originally posted by Steve Long
It's nominally related to the Turakian Age magic system, but only nominally. First, I chose that "system" because it's (a) close to the "average" system in the "average" FH campaign (the only odd thing about it, the final step of dividing a spell's Real Cost by 3, isn't performed in the FHG), and (b) it's easy to work from this very simple system to adapt the spells to more unusual systems.


Is the division of the Real Cost by 3 including all the lims on the spell, or some other ruling of fuction of the magic system?

If I know that all the spells in a certain magic system have a -2 lim on them, I can customise the limitations to fit the system.

Jak

[Talon]

It's a separate step: First determine the Real Cost for the spell, then divide that by 3. It provides much more savings than a -2 Limitation in nearly all (if not all) cases.

[keithcurtis]

Originally posted by JakSpade
Is the division of the Real Cost by 3 including all the lims on the spell, or some other ruling of fuction of the magic system?

If I know that all the spells in a certain magic system have a -2 lim on them, I can customise the limitations to fit the system.

Jak

From what I've read, it is a function of the magic system. All spells have their final real cost divided by 3. The system is briefly described in the back of fantasy hero near the Mage write-up, IIRC.

Keith "no limitations" Curtis