We are hopefully approaching the end of a run where I'm going to have about 30 karma to spend. Ive only got a few spells at the moment so I'm thinking of getting a few more.

A bit about my character, I play an Orc Mage, with cursed(2) flaw, he's not the most capable spellcaster and things have gone wrong with him casting spells (only minor things, no critical glitches ) and what I'm planning to do is have him learn spells but they are not the ones he originally thought he was getting.

I've found a random number generator, and I've counted that there are 187 spells in BBB & SM but I feel this gives a too wide selection and I want to narrow it down slightly. Thought about narrowing it down to combat; detection; manipulation etc and then learning a random spell from that "school".

Just wondering if anyone else has had experience with randomly learning spells, how they done it etc and how it worked out for them. This probably isn't the best idea in the world but I feel that this is the way my character would progress given his poor relationship with magic.

Thanks

Does he have a mentor spirit? Maybe he can suggest a couple of good spells for the Orc. Does the Orc have a teacher or instructor that is helping him learn magic? Maybe they could suggest some useful spells. You know your character better than I do, but I just do not see why anyone would randomly choose a spell. They learned by formula or taught to you anyways, it is just like going to the store and randomly buying something in the Electronics section.

Also, something for future note, it is better to acquire spells at chargen, unfortunately. It would be nice if the rules catered more to a player that was not trying to start off with a mage well learned in his profession. The Karma-BP efficiency really kills you here.

Latent awakening would also be neat, if it wasn't a positive quality. So not only do you spend the 5 BP solely to role play a character you should be able to do for free anyways, but now you must suffer a great Karma-BP efficiency loss, and thus be greatly behind anyone else taking the normal route to magic. Double whammy!

I actually am in the same camp as you with my mage, except he is a dwarf with around 35 Karma to spend. As a mage speaking to another mage, I suggest initiating. Whenever you get that much Karma stockpiled as a mage, there is really only one thing to do. That or raise you magic attribute if it isn't already 1 below the maximum(hint, 5 for a mage with full essence).

If you are really stuck on spells, first let us know which ones you already have. That way we might be able to suggest some spells that compliment or supplement the spells repertoire you currently have.

UNRELATED: Where is the accent mark in repertoire suppose to go?

Well my orc doesn't have a mentor spirit or a teacher/instructer, he is basically self taught since he awakened, although I think he will need some assistance in the future. I would love to initiate, but its not what my character would do straight away. So far he has Light, Bugs, Stink, Flamethrower, manabolt and awaken.

I'm trying to not powergame this character and roleplay something which is fun.(always fun to watch the other gamers faces when I roll for casting a spell), I even roll more dice to shoot a pistol than I do casting a spell.

I was hoping that learning spells randomly would tie in with his unique relationship with magic (think Rincewind from discworlds) and I could create a spell formula for stunbolt but it turns out to be armor or something. Doing it this way I may end up with a crap selection of spells, first 3 were Analyse Truth, Astral Clairevoyance and Control Emotions, 2nd batch was Makeover, Fix, Glue. Not exactly the best spells available but I want to stray away from the Imp. Relfexs, Armour, Imp.Invis most mages always have.

UNRELATED : No clue, put it over the P and confuse people

The trouble with random selection is that you could wind up with the "usual" spells. I think you should roleplay him as randomly picking up spells, but from a metagame standpoint, you as the player should pick the spells that would best suit that character.

For example, if he is not that effective offensively, maybe he will wind up with a spell like Napalm which has a ludicrous drain and is complete overkill in most situations. Or maybe he'll find a Slaughter Orks spell, useful against, say, the Sons of Sauron, but sure to get you funny looks from other orks. Or pick some fun ones, like Hot Potato or Ice Sheet. Or useful utility spells that no one usually bothers with such as Catalog. Or spells such as Magic Fingers or Phantasm that you can get creative with, or screw up creatively with.

I'm afraid if you simply randomly select spells, you'll wind up wasting points on spells that won't interest you in any way. I'm not saying a useless or near-useless spell is bad, but it should be a useless spell that's fun for you to roleplay.

I've been thinking of doing up some spell cards, in the same vein as my hacker cards. Would that be something folks would find useful?

If they existed, you could just shuffle and deal your new spells.

To be fair me and Carnage are in the same gaming group and I wouldn't worry about spell's being particularly useful he barely uses them anyway

So far in the 2/3 runs that we have done I think he has only ever tried to cast 1 spell....... and that failed

Its quite refreshing to see someone in our group decide to take a more abstract way to game as the majority of our group are leaning towards the power gaming side, so come on people more ideas please

Take the spells and catergorize them not only by spell type, but by effect. Agony, Mass Agony, Bugs, Orgasm, Orgy etc. would all be together because they make the target feel something physical. Influence, Mob Mind, Control Actions would be together because they make the target DO something. Combat spells are already grouped for you.

Take those groups and rank them by similarity of effect in the smaller groups. Let your character select and learn spells as normal. Whenever you cast the spell successfully Roll a d6. 1 and 2 go 1 and 2 numbers below the intended spell. 3 and 4 cast the correct spell, 5 and 6 cast the spell one or two numbers above the target spell. Of course this might produce a bit more randomness than you want, and if so then have this only happen when you glitch.

If you want to do this and need help ranking spells I'll do my best to offer suggestions.

Chris

EDIT:
Example - Say you ranked the spells 1. Mass Agony, 2. Orgy, 3. Agony, 4. Orgasm, 5. Bugs.

You selected Agony as your actual spell. You try to cast Agony on a thug you see down an alley currently trying to rape some club chick. You roll a 1, you accidently flashed back to a bad memory while focusing the mana and instead of focusing pain down onto the bad guy, you layered the whole alley with it getting the poor club girl too. If you rolled a two then you just made a big mistake and suddenly both the rapist and the rapee start orgasming everywhere. Probably making the whole experience even MORE traumatizing for the poor girl. If you rolled a 3 or a 4 then you hit the thug with Agony and go stomp his testicles repeatedly for attempted rape then release the spell and just when he thinks the hurting has stopped you relieve him of his penis(I do not approve of leniency in rape cases). If you rolled a 5 then the rapist comes repeatedly into his pants and hopefully is satisfied and runs off, or preferably see dealing with rapists in the previous scenario. If you rolled a 6 then the thug starts freaking out and trying to get all the bugs off his penis and you can then commence stomping and severing.

So, random but not too bad. Something at least superficially similar to what you want to happen will always happen, but sometimes you get distracted or the mana seems to resent you and flies out of your control.

I like this idea a lot, its very Rincewindy.....

Like trying to cast invisibility on himself, there is a chance it turns out to be light instead

Well its certainly a good idea, I would probably only let it work for when I glitch. The problem I see is that I would have to know all the spells in a group to even be able to accidently cast them, which is alot of karma.

I would prefer to leave the glitches up to the GM to decide so they can add whatever flavour/hinderences they want. I only need one 1 to glitch so I already have that "rincewind" feel when casting, its just how I could go about learning a spell that would have a bit of randomness to it.

I could apply the same to the spell learning. I choose the spell I want to learn, then have my group pick 2 or 4 similar spells that I could accidently learn, roll D6 2-5 I learn the spell I wanted, 1 and 6 I learn one of the others, or I could chuck all the spells I would like to learn into a hat, add a few bogus ones, and pick randomly that way.

Thanks for your input so far

PS. Woohoo Lunch time..

See that was the point of my post with the way his particular mind works with magic he will accidently channel the mana wrong, or put the wrong emotional flavor on it, or make a snarl in the weave and get an accidental effect. So you LEARN one of them, and most of the time that's the one you cast, but sometimes he fucks up or the universe hates him or whatever and he gets an unintended effect. It would only work if you roleplayed it correctly though. I know some people that would try and do this and then sit there recasting the spell they learned in the hopes of getting a similar effect they wanted so they wouldn't have to pay for both spells. I mean, sometimes the randomness could work out to the good, but mostly it would be neutral or mildly negative and since there are varying drain values possibly injurious. It would really work best with a d8. but I said d6 since SR uses all d6's. With a d8 1 and 2 are one and 2 down 3-6 are normal and 7 and 8 are 1 and two up. Gives you a 50/50 chance of casting the spell you reach for. Maybe even use a d10 and do 60/40 to cast correctly.

Chris

I certainly like the idea, I'll have to run it through with my group and make sure its ok.

The groups I reckon should have opposing effects to the original spell and/or area effects. Can't think of anything off the top of my head but I'll work on something.

Sustaining spells could prove difficult as I could just drop them straight away, unless I think that the spell was the correct one for the duration, when infact it wasnt etc.

Seems there is plenty of room for abuse though :/

Which is why you shouldn't abuse it. Keep in mind this is magic gone unintentionally awry, even if you try to drop the spell, if it wasn't the original one maybe it continues to draw mana through you in a painful fashion to feed itself power till (Force) combat turns are up.

The reasons I was keeping the groupings filled with similar spell effects is to limit abuse. In my previous example, no matter what spell you got, you succeeded some it had the kind of intended effect and it is unlikely to have mattered much which one except for hilarity/roleplaying value and area/single target effect. As for just dropping sustained spells, if you don't like the above reasoning then think about it this way, if you cast levitate and get magic fingers instead, you will know, be frustrated and drop the spell. You still took magic fingers drain so it was still a frustrating loss, but not too bad, HOWEVER if you cast say...armor and got deflection instead you are not going to know the difference till someone tries to punch you in the face. Same for manabolt and stunbolt if you don't have time to check for signs of life, an unconscious person and a dead one look similar to non-astral sight and since they are both mana spells I would think the obvious effects would be similar. Bleeding from the nose/mouth/ears/eyes and defecating oneself at the end.

So, sometimes yeah, you could drop it, and once your character learns what may or may not happen he might be able to come up with clever ways to exploit it. If you are worried it is too predictable then just go with something like 1-2 lower, 3-4 intended, 5-6 higher and if you get lower or higher roll 1d6 and move that many spaces on your similarity chart. Unless you cast ALOT of spells it is unlikely he will find all possibilities and it is unreliable enough to be difficult to exploit.

Chris