Mage

The Mage is one of the primary magic using classes in the Alterverse The Mage uses Arcane Magic and usually starts the game as a fairly weak player, however relatively quickly if played right the Mage can be one of the most powerful classes in the game, and can very easily handle themselves in the most dire situation’s. The key to making a good solid Mage is the choosing of the right skill’s and most importantly the right spell’s. The choice of spell’s is important because the spell is the most commonly used way a Mage does things, and engages in combat, and thus the Mage’s most prized possession is his or her Spell Book. Thus this needs to be carefully taken care of, the Spell Book is covered below. The player will have to decide on what kind of Mage that they are wanting to play, are they going to be the mysterious cloaked one… or are they going to be the adventuring Mage that is the protector of the innocent, or are they going to be a mixture of both. It’s up to you to mold your Mage.

One of the most sought after abilities of the Mage is their ability starting at 5th level to prepare and make magical item’s. This is a skill that is multi part, meaning that there are several skill’s that are needed in order to do this, thus it takes several skill slot’s of the Mage, but once done this skill comes in handy, and can prove to be one of the Mages most sought after skills by other’s. The mage has several abilities that set them apart, and also several limitation’s that effect their adventuring. This is covered below. The Mage has certain skills that they start with or gain over time that other’s do not, they automatically gain the following special abilities and skill’s due to their training and innate nature.

The Familiar

One of the most sought after abilities of the Mage is their ability starting at 5th level to prepare and make magical item’s. This is a skill that is multi part, meaning that there are several skill’s that are needed in order to do this, thus it takes several skill slot’s of the Mage, but once done this skill comes in handy, and can prove to be one of the Mages most sought after skills by other’s. The mage has several abilities that set them apart, and also several limitation’s that effect their adventuring. This is covered below. The Mage has certain skills that they start with or gain over time that other’s do not, they automatically gain the following special abilities and skill’s due to their training and innate nature.

If a familiar is killed or in some other way die’s, the PC cannot ever gain another back. However the familiar can be resurrected via the standard resurrection rule’s. (see the rules on resurrection).

Spell Use

We are going to cover the basics of Arcane spell casting in the Alterverse. Spell casting is a integral part of this game system, as Arcane spell caster’s gain spells they will want to of course cast them, and to do this they have very specific rule’s that they must follow, this we are going to address here. The first thing to remember is that Mage’s have to have a Spell Book, where they record all of their spell’s. If they lose the book, it is stolen or otherwise destroyed, they lose their ability to cast their spell’s. PERIOD! So, the Mage will guard their spell book very carefully. There are rule’s about the care, creation, and maintaining of a spell book, however we are going to explain these in the section on Spell Casting later on in this manual.

All spell’s fall under one of the six Task Level’s. These are fully explained under Skills and Tasks, but for reference the six task levels are SIMPLE, EASY, NORMAL, HARD, EXTREME, and HEROIC. Now as they gain level’s they gain the ability to better cast these spell’s. To help them increase their chances of successfully casting one of these spells they use magical arcane energies. This energy is called Mana, Casters gain Mana at a pre determined amount per level, plus they gain a [Mana]] bonus based on the Intelligence Score. This is totaled up and the caster has their total Mana that they have available to use. Basically a player can try to cast any spell that they choose, level does not bar a player from trying to cast a spell, however the player will notice that each spell’s task level gives a base task roll that they will have to meet, and this roll can be virtually impossible to make for low level Mage’s, thus the balance of the game is ensured. Now the player can increase their chance’s with Mana.

For more information on spells, and how it relates in the game, you can look at the Open Magic System rules.