Okay, I've been using Sandy's Magic system for my Seshnelan hero wars campaign. The system has created a lot of discussion and gnashing of teeth in our group. I have a few questions / concerns that people might wish to ponder.
Multispell: Wow this is really powerful. Using ceremony one of our wizards can damage resist the entire group for ~8 points. With the presence he can maintain it for however long. Most times our mages usually always multispell, cause for one extra point they can increase their effect twofold. Does anyone else think a party of characters each with a Damage Resist 8 up is unbalancing?
How does multispell really work? How can a single extra spell increase the effect so much? It isn't an area-of-effect type of skill, 'cause it doesn't follow the law of conservation of magic. They Multi-spell should instead be called Multiply.
What we will probably do in out campaign is that Multispell allows the caster to cast multiplespells with only one extra presence and SR per extra spell. In essence the caster builds the spell construct then uses it repeatedly to cast copis of the spell quickly. The means that each copy must be paid for in MP but not in time, or presence. The multispell levels will increase presence but not MP. I.E Jed casts his Palsy 4 one 3 briands who are jumped out of an alley. He pays 4MP for the base palsy 4, then uses multispell 2 to get the other two guys. So, the time to case is DEX SRM + 4 (base palsy) + 2 (multispell). Presence is 4 (base palsy) + 2 (multispell) = 6. MP is 3 4-point palsys for 12 points.
This solution doesn't solve the problem of a whole party Damage Resisted level 8, except maybe they can't get enough MP.
Presence: Wow, essentially permanent duration. While being easy to conceptualize and easy for characters to use, it strikes me leading to non-gloranthan sitations. I.e. The Ecclesiarh of Seshnela decrees that all wizards will maintain a 2 point light spell on his cathedral at all times, demonstrating his glory to Malkion. Or Guilmarn has each wizard maintaining a light spell in the capital. While these are simple examples, let your imagination roam.
Maybe to solve this presence should be bound by initial casting range? That means that maintaing spells on oneself are easy, but on others are really dangerous.
As a comment on posts made long ago sand talked about using Multispell to increase a wizards chance of Dominate. I was pretty sure that the results of Multispell couldn't be used on the same target if they were the same spell. If they can, then that is *really* unbalancing. The first thing my wizards will do is multispell 6 point lightning bolts into the same guy.
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