Magic skill advancement and grimoires

[Beast]

Hello dear BRP community.

I am about to start new BRP campaign with fantasy flavor and one question kind of bothers me right now.

As stated in BGB, magic spells are skills and treated as such. Advancement of these skills happens when character overcomes enemy's POW with a spell or similarly resists a magic attack. Ok with that.

Now, the shadow of D&D is looming again over me as I read about spell memorization and dismissal. Although it is quickly corrected with a passage on page 92:

"Your character can cast a magic spell directly from his or her grimoire, but this will take 1 combat round per level of spell effect desired. You can use another character’s grimoire if you can read it (with a successful relevant Language roll), and can make a successful roll of INT x 1 on D100% for every spell you attempt to use.".

So I have few questions.

1. Will the magic skill rating would be the same for readied spells as for spells cast directly from grimoire?

2. If spells are cast from grimoire, are they advanced in the same manner?

3. What are the base chances of new spells that are copied from found/bought scrolls or stolen/captured grimoires?

[vagabond]

Hello dear BRP community.

I am about to start new BRP campaign with fantasy flavor and one question kind of bothers me right now.

As stated in BGB, magic spells are skills and treated as such. Advancement of these skills happens when character overcomes enemy's POW with a spell or similarly resists a magic attack. Ok with that.

Now, the shadow of D&D is looming again over me as I read about spell memorization and dismissal. Although it is quickly corrected with a passage on page 92:

"Your character can cast a magic spell directly from his or her grimoire, but this will take 1 combat round per level of spell effect desired. You can use another character’s grimoire if you can read it (with a successful relevant Language roll), and can make a successful roll of INT x 1 on D100% for every spell you attempt to use.".

So I have few questions.

1. Will the magic skill rating would be the same for readied spells as for spells cast directly from grimoire?

2. If spells are cast from grimoire, are they advanced in the same manner?

3. What are the base chances of new spells that are copied from found/bought scrolls or stolen/captured grimoires?

My take based upon the rules:

1) The magic skill rating for spells read from the caster's own grimoire is the same as the readied spell. The difference between a readied skill and one that must be read form a grimoire is that readied spells go off during the round they are cast in, and spells read from the grimoire go off 1 or more rounds later (i.e. it takes 1 combat round per level of spell to be read).

2) If it is your own grimoire, then yes. They advance just like a readied spell does.

3) INTx3 as stated in the book under Gaining New Spells (based upon my pre-release proof - my print copy is not in my hands at the moment).

Ian

[Chaot]

Your take is basically my take. I need to go back and really look at the various rulesbooks though because it doesn't seem to be as well spelled out as I thought it was.

1. Yes. When casting a spell you are relying on your own magical skill. The difference between reading the spell and having the spell in memory is the amount of time it takes to cast.

2. Yes, because you are casting from your own skill.

3. This one stumped me and I need to look for more on it. Vagabonds probably right here. I think I've also seen beginning spell skill as INT+POW too.

The following is not official in any sort of way and is me reaching back to my D&D days but it strikes me that specially prepared spells on scrolls should be allowed to be cast at the inscriber's skill level rather than the base level to learn a new spell. So if I'm the lucky wizard that finds a Fireball 90% scroll I can do three things with it.

1. I can learn the spell at INTx3% and inscribe it into my grimoire so that I now how skill in the spell, a copy of the spell at my skill level and the 90% scroll.

2. I can keep the 90% scroll handy and use it to cast at my own skill level when Fireball isn't readied in my memory (instead of lugging my spellbook around).

3. I can cast the spell at the 90% skill, burning out the scroll.

It also occurs to me that having a high level spell written out for the aspiring wizard might allow the wizard to learn the spell at a faster rate. Then again, maybe a high level spell takes important information for granted and while useful for casting directly, not so useful for learning.

[Beast]

Thank you a lot for your answers. It helps a lot.