FHG and Schools of Magic

[bryanb]

Hi there Everyone,

 

I have a quick question I am hoping some astute FH readers/players can answer.

 

The FHG is broken into schools of magic and each school requires a different skill roll. I like this idea but I have a problem with slotting spells into specific schools - for example if a divination spell has a fiery effect could it not be classed as elemental magic (maybe the Wizardry school spell detect magic creates a fiery aura - is this not elemental magic)?

 

What I am trying to get at is if a character wishes to he could create spells that have, for example, an elemental effect but belong to another school - do they also belong to the elemental school as well?

 

Let me know if I am not making sense and I will try to clarify..

 

Thanks

 

Daz

[Ghostkat]

If I'm grokking what you're getting at, you're asking something like 'Can the same spell belong to more than one school?' To that I'd say Heck Yeah! Lots of things defy a singular classification, the more complex the more things you can classify something as. (Hmm, that was an obtuse statement, oh well).

 

To use another evil game, often referred to M&M I believe , lots of spells in that crazy system belonged to 3 or more different schools of magic. A Fireball fell into something like Elemental, Evocation, and of course good old Combat Magic.

 

As far as I'm concerned a School of Magic is nothing more than the way someone learned to cast spells. The spells themselves don't really care that much (usually).

 

Edit: Oh yeah, and in the case of HERO SFX rules all. ie, a Clairsentience Divination that shows the past in a ring of fire could easily count as an elemental spell as well. It just depends on how you define it.

[Talon]

There are many spells in FHG which are explicitly cross-school. (They only list them once, but refer to them in the intro text for the other school.)

[Steve Long]

The FHG is broken into schools of magic and each school requires a different skill roll.

 

This statement isn't really accurate, and that may be the root of your troubles.

 

First, the "arcana" in the FHG aren't exactly "schools" in the sense of the old, 4th Ed., FH products. They're not far different, but as Geoff notes there is plenty of discussion about using spells from one arcana in another arcana as appropriate. It's a tool for ease of organization more than anything -- to make the book easier to approach than if it were just one long list of spells.

 

Second, in the Turakian Age setting, characters do have to buy a Magic Skill for each arcana. But that's not a requirement for anyone using the book. It's just a collection of spells for you to use however you want. While I did vary the name of the Magic Skill in each arcana for clarity, you could easily substitute "Magic Skill" for all of those. Or use the spells in a system that doesn't require rolls (just select the "Master's Version" option). Or use 'em in a system where spellcasters buy a Skill for each individual spell.

 

In short, it's all up to you! While our Fantasy setting books are certainly going to have one magic system and stick to it, for a general use product like the FHG we generally prefer to just give you the resources and let you decide what to do with 'em. That's why the FHG spells have so many options -- so you can easily adapt them to various magic systems.

[shinrin]

In a magic system I am working on for a FH campaign I plan to run, I adapted a concept from Columbia Game's Harn setting. In their system, magic is conceptualized into a Wheel of 6 "schools" of magic, however, each of these "schools" can represent various magic principles. For example, the Lyahvi school is associated with the element of air, but also illusion, light, gas and sound. Each of these principles is related to the concept of air. So instead of pidgeon-holing a particular school as having one kind of magic, it could represent a set of related SFX.

[tkdguy]

You could always just buy the Magic skill once and use knowledge skills to show how familiar your character is with a school (ex. KS: Alchemy, KS: Runes). That way, you have just one source of power and many different ways to apply it.