Spell books in fantasy roleplaying games are very intriguing things. Mechanically, they are usually sources of new spells. Game-wise, though, they are sources of setting color and story hooks. But what does that mean for Blades & Black Magic?
The Mechanics of Spell Books
In general, spell books are created by wizards to save various spells that find particularly valuable. This is so they can memorize them again later, pass them on to apprentices or to help them when casting the spells later.
Mechanically, this provides some benefit to a wizard character. Either it enables him to memorize a spell or it gives him some form of benefit when casting the spell (die roll modifier, etc.)
For example, in my Middle Lands house rules, when a wizard casts a spell from a spell book, it take 2 turns, but the sorcerer gets a -1 die dice roll modifier–the player rolls 1 less die for success. That can be a big deal. But that’s the point: give the player a reason to use a spell book instead of just casting a spell from memory.
Spell Books In Low Fantasy
Aside from the mechanical benefits of casting spells from spell books, there is the issue of how to use them in low fantasy settings. The key to remember is that all spell books will be rare.
Why? Well, if magic is rare, so will the books that contain it. In settings where magic is either rare or just evil, spell books will not be found at the local garage sale. Just like other magic items, they will be named and have legends that have grown up around them. They will be the objects of adventures or quests–they will be hard to find and well protected.
And that is important: in low fantasy settings, spell books really are more about story hooks for the players, not as tools for player wizards. Whether an adventure is about finding a long lost spell book, or preventing an evil sorcerer from obtaining one, spell books are important story devices, and need to be treated as such.
How To Use Them In Blades & Black Magic
But what does this all mean for Blades? Obviously we don’t know the exact rules for spell books yet until Black Magic is published, but we can have some ideas and make some guesses.
As I said, in my campaign, I use my improvisational magic house rules. Those allow a wizard to cast up to his IQ of spells in his spell books. When casting those spells, it takes 2 turns, and gives the caster a -1 die DRM when rolling for success. The intent is to encourage sorcerers to cast from dusty tomes, slowing the pace down a tad–but giving them the opportunity to be successful at more powerful spells.
For a more traditional spell system like that in The Fantasy Trip or Heroes & Other Worlds, the same two modifications can apply: add time to the casting time, and give a DRM to the player when rolling for success.
I’ve toyed with the idea of simply doubling the casting time instead of using an arbitrary "2 turns," and will probably modify my house rules to do that.
For the DRM when using a traditional spell system, I considered different modifiers for different IQ spells. In the end, though, I think a flat modifier of -3 is the way to go. That gives the player a bonus for using the spell books, but is also just plain simple to use.
And keeping things simple is what Blades is all about to me.
To be honest, though, I have a fascination with spell books. I got that bug reading Ed Greenwood’s articles in Dragon magazine back in the day. That gave me inspiration to use spell books beyond mechanical tools and more as part of the setting and campaign. It is also why I keep wanting to use them with Blades–they are just fun!
How do you use spell books in your campaigns? What ideas do you have for using them with Blades & Black Magic? Let me know!
Marko ∞
(Originally published on middle-lands.com, on 5/3/2019.)
