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As you know, not all spells are equal, and some are more effective than others. I made this list so that Keepers and Players can have a rough idea on how useful a given spell is likely to be to PCs. I've only included spells in the Keeper's Guide, and omitted spells found in the Grand Grimoire and other sources. Note that of course, Keepers are free to modify spells in any way they wish. The ratings assume that the spell are used as described in the rulebook. I use the following color scheme: Sky Blue: AmazingBlue: GoodBlack: DecentPurple: BadRed: Horrible Combat Spells Breath of the Deep: Good combat spell against creatures that need to breath and have low POW & CON. Best used for stealthy assassinations - can be cast from far away and without sound. Unfortunately 8 magic and 1d6 sanity is rather high. Clutch of Nyogtha: Requires concentration, does slow damage (1d3 a turn), has a high magic cost, & require a POW roll each turn. The 1D20 sanity cost kills it. Create Mist of R'lyeh: Smoke bombs that only cost a mere 2 magic points, no sanity, and can be cast instantaneously! Black if actual smoke bombs are readily available Death Spell: Absolutely awful spell that's pretty much strictly worse than Breath of the Deep. Absurd magic & sanity cost, high casting time, constant POW rolls, ridiculously low range. It's junk, and possibly unusable because of the 24 mp cost. Dominate: "Shoot/stab yourself" make great commands. An instantaneous casting time, a mere 1 sanity & 1 mp cost makes this amazing. Dust of Suleiman: Powerful spell against planar beings - but the main difficulty is locating the Egyptian mummies. Dread Curse of Azathoth: The 4 mp cost & 1d6 sanity cost is high - it's probably best to outright cast a combat spell instead of merely reducing the POW of a target. Sky Blue if used to setup a Mind Transfer spell. Enthrall Victim: The main issue is that the enthralled creatures is easily relieved of the trance. Low magic (2mp ) but high sanity (1d6) cost make this ok. Evil Eye: Excellent debuff, especially against enemies using firearms. Can't be resisted, but making the caster bleed breaks the spell. Wonderful combo with Flesh Ward. Fist of Yog-Sothoth: Best used to knock off enemies into environmental hazard or out of cover. Decent change for a knock-out if 10+ mps are used and the target isn't heavy. The high mp & sanity costs make this difficult to use regularly, though. Implant Fear: The lack of save makes this quite useful. Keeper may determine that determinant opponents can overcome their fear. Too bad it takes 12 mp and 1d6 sanity to cast Mindblast: Bouts of insanity are unpredictable, and cultists & mythos creatures can't experience bouts of madness. Costs 10mp & 1d3 sanity Melt Flesh: 5 rounds casting kills the spell. Red Sign of Shddle M'ell: Could potentially paralyze multiple creatures and do damage to many more, but high (1d8) sanity cost. Best used against melee enemies or while under heavy cover. Separate Binding: Amazing if facing the corresponding horror that is unbounded - the 1 sanity cost is super cheap. The odds of finding the corresponding creature unbounded is low, though. Shriveling: Good damage to mp ratio but high sanity cost makes this only usable in very dire circumstances. Song of Hastur: Takes 3 turn to cast. 1d4 sanity each round is really harsh - I would only use this defensively Wither Limb: Does 1d8 damage for 1d6 sanity, and presumably impairs the affected limb. If not, Shriveling is better. Wrack: Paralyzing spell that disables a target for at least 3 minutes, and costs a mere 3 mp & 1 sanity. Buffing Spells Apportion Ka: Makes you unkillable - until someone figures out they can destroy your brain. With this on, you'll likely survive all fights unless your party straight up abandon you once you fall unconscious. The lungs are probably best to remove so to become invulnerable to suffocation - you'll be able to spam toxic gases, smoke, and the like on your enemies. Easily worth 5 POW and 2D10 sanity. Body Warping of Gorgoroth: Useful for a disguise, but the 5 POW & 2d6 sanity cost discourages its routine usage Bless Blade: Niche spell, but highly useful if facing enemies that can't be harmed by mundane weapons. Chant of Thoth: Occasionally helpful when soling an intellectual problem, but the 1d4 sanity cost discourages its use Consume Likeness: The 5 POW cost and especially 1d20 sanity cost means you should only cast this if the identity is desperately needed. Even then, the illusion is broken if you lose any hitpoint. Flesh Ward: Amazing! 1d4 sanity is nothing for a spell that can possibly quadruple your effective hp. Plus, you don't actually take damage while under this spell's protection, so no CON roll to stay conscious. Voorish Sign: Highly dependent on Keeper, but I would assume the effect to generally be worth at least 1 sanity. Utility Spells Brew Space-Mead: How much do you want to journey through space? For almost all campaigns, not at all, but for a few that might be the whole point. Cause/Cure Blindness: Cure Blindness is invaluable if you do face the condition. Cause Blindness can impair a tough enemy, at any range. High casting time and sanity cost discourage routine use. Cloud Memory: Low cost spell best used to infiltrate or steal without raising an alarm Create Barrier of Naach-Tith: High sanity cost (1d10 to each caster) and high casting time (1 minute) make this situational. Curse of the Putrid Husk: Let me get this straight - you lose 10 sanity, for a chance to make the victim lose 1d10 sanity?! Elder Sign: Probably the best way to close a portal, but the 10 POW cost is going to hurt. Green Decay: Highly dependent on the Keeper letting the target accept the green leaf willingly. With a 10 POW cost, it's hard to justify this unless absolutely needed. Mental Suggestion: Creative suggestions can bring a lot of value, and unthreatening suggestions are cheap. 3 rounds casting time means it is best used out of combat. Mind Exchange: The 1d3 sanity cost to both the caster & target kills the spell. Mind Transfer: Good if you can capture a physically strong creature with low POW and steal their body. The chance of losing the character outright make this best used by very old or maimed characters. Sky Blue if Dread Curse of Azathoth can be used to lower the target's sanity first, Red if the caster is too moral to make use of it. Mirror of Tarkhun Atep: Could be used to gain clues on where the target is hidden. Cost is mercifully low. Powder of Ibn-Ghazi: Amazing against invisible creatures, but the availability of the ingredients is fully dictated by the Keeper. Resurrection: Bringing back someone to life is invaluable, and almost always worth more than 1d10 sanity. Warding: Really neat spell that let you set up all kinds of remote alerts for a few mps and no sanity. Wave of Oblivion: Require being near the ocean, a casting time of 1 hour, and 1d8 sanity per caster. Super niche, and most Mythos creatures don't care much about being undersea. Words of Power: Used creatively, can be extremely powerful. You can incite mass riots or convince a group of cops to help you. Unfortunately, using this spell may bring unwanted attention to yourself, and the targets may retaliate if they understand they have been manipulated. Summoning/Contact/Banishment Spells Banishment of Yde Etad: Cheap spell, and can be cast far from the target to straight up banish it permanently. Won't work on high POW creatures, and low POW creatures may not be worth the hassle. Call Deity: Leave it to the cultists. Contact Spell: Low cost spell, but require substantial research & resources to strike a proper bargain Contact Deity Spells: Leave it to the cultists Create Zombie: High magic cost makes this impossible to cast for most characters; the zombie is dumb, does low damage, and has low brawl skill. Not sure how you can make any use of it. Enchantment Spells: Highly dependent on the usefulness of the related summoning spell. If a POW roll is required, the character who enhance the object should give it to another character with full POW. Dismiss Deity: Highly effective provide you can teach this to a large group. No checks except a flat % percentile roll that increases with magic point spent. No sanity cost as well! Prinn's Crux Ansata: Powerful ankh that can banish creatures with an opposed POW roll for 1 mp, or for more mps with the possibility of getting an extra dice for the POW check. The required 3 round chants to use the ankh is unfortunate, however. Summoning Spells: Highly dependent on how many POW rolls the Keeper requires - excellent if the Keeper doesn't require any. Value also depends on the specific creature summoned, how it behaves, and if the corresponding Enhancement spell is available.

I'm running a Southern Reaches MW campaign and have re-read the various spell descriptions. When I come to the Walking spells (Wind-Walking, Wave-Walking and Earth-Walking) I find the caster seems to have no means of walking through that element (Flame-Walking is an exception to this). It seems a bit pointless that Wind-Walking doesn't allow the caster to fly, for instance. I'm thinking of tweaking these spells so the caster can (perhaps with a POW roll) control the distance and direction moved. I know that Southern Reaches Erdebroc Dwarfs can move at quarter speed when using their innate Earth-Walking ability and worry that allowing a Human caster to move through earth would, in some way, devalue that talent. Have you any experience with these spells? If so, would you care to share what you've learned? Thanks, Colin

Is it me or is the spell Enchant Brazier missing from the Keeper's guide? It is alluded to in the description of Enchant Knife. From what I can infer it is supposed to help summon Fire Vampires?

The spell Cause Blindness doesn't seem to have a range. Am I right to assume the range to be infinite?

Hi, I am curious of the supplements for legend, specially the arcane and blood magic, does they contain spells for summoning demons, elementals? And what does equipment book contain? Rules for henchmen?

So I'm feeling the World of Greyhawk is a great setting for starting a homebrew fantasy campaign utilizing Magic World. Here are my initial thoughts on hacking this classic D&D setting for a BRP based game; Character races available; Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling. The three demi-humans use the bestiary stats for characteristic rolls. Otherwise follow regular character creation steps. However you qualify magic ability for starting characters establish the "schools" of magic for the type of magic wielding "classes". Wizards/Sorcerers use the school of magic known as Sorcery. This is established in the MW rulebook so you have your mechanics. Create some "academies" where sorcerers come out with specific known spells. Utilize MW, old Rolemaster Spell Law Essence lists, and TSR's Player's Handbook for custom spell lists. The other sorcerer school would be "shamanism". A specific, hand me down or self-taught path of spell casting. This would need a limited starting spell list customized by the player and the DM. Don't forget to blatantly rip off Palladium for the summoner and use the Stormbringer mechanics for demons to iron out the mechanics. In true MW fashion new spells would have to be acquired through adventure. Clerical or Divine magic I would use Jennell Jaquays' fabulous Revised & Expanded Petty Gods and make the PC pick a deity if they are unhappy with the standard Greyhawk pantheon. Useful as well for Paladins and Druid-like characters. Once again customize a starting spell list specific to the conception of the god/servitor chosen. Lamentation of the Flame Princess is a good place for inspiration here and the DM would be wise to keep future acquired spells a bit of a mystery while at the same time allowing the player to craft future spells per the rules. Rolemaster's spell law book "Channeling" is useful in crafting custom spell lists. The important thing here is not get hung up on what further spells will be available from the "Cleric's" god. The PC should be required to define their deity's wishes and attributes through play. Then appropriate future spells will naturally occur to both the PC and DM. What about those f#$ing demi-humans? You will need an additional school of magic and call it Fey. Here the magic is inherent to the race. Not learned. Both spells and rune magic would need to be defined. Runes for those stubborn dwarves. Elves and halflings just eat berries and smoke weed and fart magic out of their ass. Dwarves need to crush metal and burn ore to get their magic rocks off. The mentalism book from Spell Law and the druid spell lists from the Player's Handbook are good resources here. Of course you will want to rip off the Diabolist from Palladium for the Dwarves. While you are at it steal liberally from the Alchemist rules for an additional school for the Wizards/Sorcerers. You do all this and you should be able to use Magic World rules for a very Greyhawk fantasy experience built on BRP. Magic World is aptly named, as this is what gives the game its unique stamp. So why is the book so light on magic? I think Magic World should see the magic section just massive. DCC has shown that a very thick fantasy rulebook is saleable. Magic World could really show how a b-i-g fantasy rpg rulebook is done.

View File Magic World & Advanced Sorcery Spell Index A collated list of the Magic World and Advanced Sorcery spells. Arranged alphabetically by category (Sorcery, Necromancy, Rune Magic, etc. MP cost Effects Range Source and page number. There is a field for "Type" that you are free to use or ignore which is for a house-rule I use for keeping track of Black Magic, and affects to Allegiance through spell-casting. The .docx file can be used to add/delete whatever want . Submitter Nick J. Submitted 10/19/2016 Category Magic World  

Stumbled on this document I put together years ago, that had converted some effects familiar to World of Warcraft players into RQ3 terms. Maybe someone finds them interesting. The Death Knight ones I used for abilities of some of Delecti's Lieutenants, the Druid for a player that wanted to be a healer but not "just another Chalana Arroy". Yes, some of the effects are fiddly and will require things like tokens marking effects - for example a green d20 for plague, a red d20 for tracking bleeding, and a blue d20 for tracking frost effects. For that purpose, I'd typically say that the status effects like that are non-stacking with themselves - for example you either have the frostbite effect or no, not that you could be affected multiple times with frostbite. Depending on your preference, you could say they're exclusionary - you couldn't have both plague and frostbite at the same time. This management burden may constrain the use of some of these. For example I wouldn't (as a DM) want to try to manage more than one NPC with Death Knight abilities at a time. OTOH, if you have a player with lifebloom, let THEM track the stuff, so they work fine for player abilities. They're meant to be reasonably balanced according to RQ3 power levels - typically 1 Spirit mp= 1 disrupt = 1-3 nonignorable damage or = 1 point of immediate healing. Ergo, Lifebloom (as a 1 point spirit spell) heals 3 points which may seem overpowered, but it does it over 6 rounds starting NEXT round. Moonfire (2 point spirit spell) does 1d6 damage and rolls on the missile to-hit location at +10 (so likely head), but you need to roll to-hit, and armor protects. They also work well as magic-item abilities, for example a dagger shaped like an icicle may give the wielder the ability to cause Frostbite for 1mp on contact. Or a magical willow twig, that if broken, casts Nature's Grasp on the user. Anyway, enjoy. If people like these, I could certainly do more. RQ3 DK and Druid.pdf

How many spells do players really need? I tend to think you need a variety to cover most styles of play and making new ones up should not be hard for people. But how many spells feels about right?

An interesting list of psychic abilities. Some useful ideas for psychics or magicians. https://lucidastralthirdeye.wordpress.com/all-types-of-psychic-arts/ Hemokinesis in particular has a lot of disturbing implications.

Random Call of Cthulhu Spell Table: (For tomes, ect. Roll d100) 1 - 2 Black Binding: 3 - 4 Bless Blade: 5 - 6 Cast Out Devil: 7 - 8 Command Animal (choose variety): 9 -10 Command Dhole: 11-12 Command Ghost: 13-14 Consume Likeness: 15-16 Contact Deep One: 17-18 Contact Ghoul: 19-20 Contact Gnoph-Keh: 21-22 Contact Mi-Go: 23-24 Contact Rat-Thing: 25-30 Contact Deity - 1-2 Contact Cthulhu: - 3-4 Contact Nodens: - 5-6 Contact Nyarlathotep: - 7-8 Contact Tsathoggua: - 9-10 Contact Y’Golonac: 31-32 Create Gate: 33-34 Create Mist of Releh: 35-36 Create Scrying Window: 37-38 Create Zombie: 39-40 Curse of the Stone: 41-42 Deflect Harm: 43-44 Dominate: 45-46 Dread Curse of Azathoth: 47-48 Dust of Suleiman: 49-50 Elder Sign: 51-52 Eye of Light and Darkness: 53-54 Find Gate: 55-56 Fist of Yog-Sothoth: 57-58 Flesh Ward: 59-60 Grasp of Cthulhu: 61-62 Heal: 63-64 Levitate: 65-66 Mind Transfer: 67-68 Powder of Ibn-Ghazi: 69-70 Red Sign of Shudde M’ell: 71-72 Resurrection: 73-74 Send Dreams: 75-76 Shrivelling: 77-78 Soul Singing: 79-80 Summon/Bind Byakhee: 81-82 Summon/Bind Child of Yig: 83-84 Summon/Bind Dark Young: 85-86 Summon/Bind Dimensional Shambler: 87-88 Summon/Bind Fire Vampire: 89-90 Summon/Bind Hunting Horror: 91-92 Summon/Bind Nightgaunt: 93-94 Summon/Bind Servitor of the Outer Gods: 95-96 Summon/Bind Star Vampire: 97-98 Voorish Sign: 99-00 Wither Limb:

We finally gave the magic/wizard rules in the core book a full shot and were surprised by how well thought-out and balanced they were. Are there other books with extra spells that use the same system? Where is the "Grimoire" mentioned in this thread? http://basicroleplaying.com/basic-roleplaying/grimoire-monograph-finished-2307/2/

If you haven't seen, we just released the 5 cults that I published on my website for free in a single downloadable PDF: Legendary Factions: Common Factions 1. If you like this kind of "try before you buy" style of publishing, be sure to pick up these cults. If this first publication is a success, we'd like to continue the free item a week and bundle it up into a new product. We've got a number of ideas: New Monsters: I've published 2 monster books for Pathfinder and I am thinking about converting them over to Legend. NPCs: Would you like to see a book of NPCs? My thought would be start off with common NPCs like a town guard, captain of the guard, beggar, thief, black smith, nobleman, etc and then later publish a villain and his/her henchmen. How does that sound? Cults: As you've seen but with more customization. Spells: Common, divine, arcane, blood, etc. 2-3/week. Traps/Poisons/Diseases: This is more of a miscellaneous category of dangers. Magical and mundane. Other: Please share your thoughts.