WHAT Spell Casting

Caster Class

Unlike other RPGs, Warrior Heroes Adventures in Talomir (WHAT) from Two Hour Wargames has only one Class for those who cast spells whether they are Wizards, Witches, Sorcerers, or Necromancers – the Caster Class.

Casters are created like any other characters. They can be of any ancestry (race) and can be male or female.

Generally, Alignment is ignored in most of my games, however, it is important for Casters. Casters can be Red Sun, Black Moon, or Twilight aligned. In this article, a Caster of each Alignment and an NPC Caster will be discussed.

Types of Spells

Most RPGs and games in the fantasy genre have dozens of spells. WHAT distills all of those spells into three types – Damage, Defense, and Dazzle.

Damage Spells are the spells that cause physical damage. These are your fireballs, ice missiles, earthquakes, and so on. In game terms, Damage Spells can cause an opponent to Duck Back, Halt in Place, go Out of the Fight (OOF). or become Obviously Dead (OD).

Defend Spells are those that offer protection against attacks such as force fields, barrier walls, ice shields, etc. How this is reflected in the game is that the target, whether star or grunt, gains Star Power dice which it can use the first time it is wounded.

Dazzle Spells are spells used to daze, confuse, or distract others. These are spells that create illusions, freeze movement, and temporary blindness for example. This is done in the game by causing an opponent to halt in place and losing either its current or next Activation.

Casting Prerequisites

“If he ain’t a breathin’, he ain’t a castin’.” – Old Dwarven proverb on how to deal with magic users.

Before casting his or her spell, your Caster character must meet the following requirements:

• Received Magic Power dice before the start of the encounter.
• Can only cast one spell when active.
• The Caster must have line of sight (LOS) to his or her target.
• Spells are cast on a target up to five times the Caster’s Rep in distance. For example, a Rep 4 Caster can cast a spell up to twenty inches away from the Caster.
• Spells can have a Spell Effect Circle. This circle has a diameter up to twice the Caster’s Rep in inches. A spell from a Rep 5 Caster could have a Spell Effect Circle of up to ten inches in diameter. The primary target of the spell is the center of the Spell Effect Circle.
• A spell can target one, some, or all figures in the Spell Effect Circle.

Magic Power Dice

Each Caster, regardless of alignment, receives one Magic Power die per point of Rep at the beginning of an encounter. A Rep 4 Caster would receive 4 Magic Power dice.

Once a Magic Power die is used, it is lost for the remainder of the encounter.

The Magic Power dice is used to improve the result of the Casting a Spell table. The dice are rolled one at a time until the desired result is achieved or the Caster decides to stop. Why would you decide to stop? Well, you may have rolled a 6 on a Magic Power die.

Rolling a Six

Rolling a six on a casting die simply means that die roll has failed. However, rolling a six on a Magic Power die not only means the die roll has failed but something has gone terribly wrong for the Caster.

• Rolling a six on one Magic Power die means the Caster has been knocked down.
• Rolling sixes on two Magic Power dice means the Caster is Out of the Fight (OOF).
• Rolling sixes on three Magic Power dice Means the Caster is Obviously Dead (OD).

Magic Power Dice and Alignment

When a Caster of the Red Sun alignment rolls a one on a Magic Power die, she receives an additional Magic Power die.

The advantage of being a Black Moon aligned Caster is a double-edged sword. Whenever a Black Moon Caster rolls a six on a Magic Power die, she not only takes the damage of rolling a six, but an additional die is rolled in its place which does not affect the number of dice left in the pool. For example, a Caster rolls one of her Magic Power dice leaving three dice in the pool. The result is a six and she is knocked down and another die is immediately rolled, but does not count against the pool, so she still has three dice remaining in the pool.

NPC Casting

So far, all of the Casters in this article have been Star Characters, but what if the Caster is a NPC or a grunt in your band?

If the NPC Caster is a member of your band and within two inches of the Star Character, she casts spells under the Star’s direction. If you as the star want the Defend spell cast, then the NPC Caster casts the Defend spell on the Casting Table, likewise if your Star wanted to cast a Dazzle or Damage spell.

However, if the NPC Caster is an enemy or is a band member more than two inches from the Star, then the Caster must roll 2D6 against her Rep on the NPC Spell table to determine what kind of spell she is casting.

Spell Casting as a Tool

I recently needed to build a bad ass character who would be a worthy opponent in a campaign. She’s a Medusa, Vondra the Death Seer, and there are no Medusae in the WHAT bestiary. We all know that the Medusa’s stare turns people to stone and the stare could be represented in the game as a ranged weapon. BUT, to make her more interesting as a character, I decided to make her a Caster, thus elevating her from being a mere henchman or minion.

Maybe someday I should do an entire post on how to expand the bestiary in WHAT to include other creatures and character ancestries.

Summary

The rules for casting spells in WHAT are on pages 26 through 28. I hope this post has been helpful in illustrating the rules and have provided useful examples. Let me know what you think, your comments are always welcome and helpful.

If you have any questions about spell casting in WHAT, drop me a line or leave a comment.

What better way to end a post than with the Sanderson Sisters: