Sorcery skill
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Sorcery is new magic skill added in DR 3.0. Your Sorcery skill indicates your ability to use Mana types that you're unfamiliar with. This is used instead of your Primary Magic skill to determine if you're able to cast a spell that uses a different mana type. Training this skill is NOT, in and of itself, illegal. However, some spells are still illegal to use in any town's Justice zones, and if you use them (or explicitly teach Sorcery) you can be charged with Forbidden Practices.
Your Sorcery ranks have three effects:
- It serves as an alternate primary magic skill for any off frequency spell. Keep in mind that in most cases, "frequency" is a broader concept than "guild." A Bard would use Sorcery to power Clear Vision (a Lunar spell), but use Elemental Magic to power Fire Shard (an Elemental spell, even though it is not taught by his guild). If there is an extreme difference in skill, a fraction of your PM and Arcana may be used in place of Sorcery, though with none of the other benefits listed below.
- It reduces the chance of a sorcerous or necromantic backlash occurring.
- Clerics, Moon Mages and Warrior Mages will need to meet minimum Sorcery requirements to permanently learn their guild-based sorceries.
Sorcery is by definition a MU-only skill: it is the skill of casting outside the magician's frequency and is irrelevant for characters that do not have attunement. NMUs cannot learn or teach Sorcery.
Training Sorcery
- Very early learning (up to about 70 ranks) can be learned from FOCUSing on runes outside your mana type.
- Note: Runestones with basic tier spells (e.g. Protection from Evil or Refresh) teach better than runestones with intro tier spells.
- Listen to a Primary Magic class from person with a different mana type (e.g. a Warrior Mage teaching Elemental Magic skill to a Cleric)
- Listen to a class in Sorcery skill. DO NOT do this in Justice zones.
- CAST spells from other mana types that you find on scrolls or runestones. Beware of backlash.
- Through magical research (e.g. RESEARCH SORCERY). Requires 250 Arcana skill. Beware of backlash.
- Targeted Magic spells from different mana types will teach Sorcery if the cast is challenging, rather than if the attack is challenging. Beware of backlash.
- backfire and backlash are independent, in that spell difficulty and spell danger are calculated separately. The amount of mana used in the cast has no impact on backlash chance or severity, only the casting realm and base spell difficulty are calculated for backlash.
Note: The Sorcerous Patterns feat will reduce the severity/backlash of CAST spells, but not from magical research. The backlash chance from Targeted Magic and Debilitation is lower than non-combat spells
Mana inefficiency
- 100% of mana from sorcery when using the PREPARE command will be used in sorcerous casts, but only a percentage of mana used from HARNESS or cambrinth will be applied to the spell even though the mana appears to be used normally.
- The percentage of wasted mana increases as the caster moves further from their native mana type. Because this affects the difficulty of the cast, it is important to understand how much mana to use for training. Use the following chart to determine how much mana from HARNESS or cambrinth will be used in your spell.
- NOTE: This inefficiency is reflected even when no mana from cambrinth or harness are used in the spell pattern. Casting a spell in your native realm at 100 base prep will take far less attunement than casting a spell outside of your realm at 100 base prep. The amount of wasted mana is commensurate with the chart below.
| Risk level | Mana used |
| Least dangerous | 67% |
| Somewhat dangerous | 50% |
| Most dangerous | 40% |
- Example: A warrior mage prepares the Finesse spell at 5 mana. Because Lunar Magic is the Most Dangerous realm for a native elemental user, the warrior mage can max out the spell pattern by putting 237 mana in cambrinth and/or harness. (237*.4)+5~=100
Difficulty multiplier
- Sorcerous casts are more difficult than casting within one's native realm, and like the inefficiency penalty this difficulty increases the further one moves from their native realm.
| Risk level | Difficulty increase |
| Least dangerous | +50% |
| Somewhat dangerous | +100% |
| Most dangerous | +150% |
- The approximate mana that can be used in the cast of a sorcerous spell can be determined by applying this multiplier to the ranks for the base difficulty of the spell.
- Explanation: A moon mage wants to cast Sentinel's Resolve. They have 600 ranks in both Augmentation and Sorcery. How high can they cast this spell? Assume no buffs to skills, stats, or magical feats.
- Skill range: 10-600 (basic difficulty)
- Modifier: +%50 (least dangerous)
- Modified max difficulty: 900 ranks
- Divide this new max difficulty by the user's skill, and we see that they are capable of casting at approximately 2/3 power. The mana range for the spell is 5-100, so 2/3 power would be ((100-5)*.67)+5=68.65
- NOTE: There is some random element to success on casting contests, so at this mana level there may still be a chance of backfiring.
Spells and abilities that boost Sorcery
Spells and abilities that decrease Sorcery
None