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--- magic:spell-tiers [2023/01/07 00:05] – created pinkgothic
+++ magic:spell-tiers [2023/05/13 18:40] (current) – Fix confusing sentence. pinkgothic
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-Spells can be powerful, hard-hitting monstrosities, like high-tier spells:
+Spell power tends to lie on a smooth gradient, but sorcerers usually use a classification system that splits them into three simple **spell tiers**: Low, medium and high.
+As a general rule, the more powerful a spell, the more fleshrunes you’ll need to cast it. //In theory// this limits the amount of power a spell can have. //In practise//, if you have sufficiently compatible pawns… or clones…
+===== High =====
+A spell is considered **high** tier if it uses seven or more runes.
+High-tier spells can be powerful, hard-hitting monstrosities:
   * Blacken the sun for three consecutive days.
@@ Line 10: / Line 18: @@
 Which doesn’t mean everyone adheres to those norms, of course. Insert the setting-equivalent of the [[https://shyriath.a2hosted.com/public_html/avishraa2/wiki/doku.php?id=culture:organization:hzataalar|Hzataalar Kaea]] here, basically.
-Medium-tier spells exist and are the majority of spellcasting, generally considered as having a sweet-spot between risk and pay-off. This is usually where you handsomely pay a professional sorcerer to do something that e.g. would take your culture maybe a decade of menial work to achieve (maybe significantly diverting a river to a more convenient spot), or e.g. does useful alchemical things such as “make lots of fuel for this space ship we have from this lake of water”.
+===== Medium =====
-Low-tier spells exist, but are usually not considered worth the risk of botching them. But in theory you can e.g. light a fire with spellcasting, or carry around an orb of artificial light, or commune with an animal (although it sure will be a very weird mental experience, since animals do not think like you at all).
+A spell is considered **medium** tier if it uses four, five or six runes.
-As a general rule, the more powerful a spell, the more fleshrunes you’ll need to cast it. //In theory// this limits the amount of power a spell can have. //In practise//, if you have sufficiently compatible pawns… or clones…
+Medium-tier make up the majority of spellcasting, generally considered as having a sweet-spot between risk and pay-off. This is usually where you handsomely pay a professional sorcerer to do something that e.g. would take your culture maybe a decade of menial work to achieve (maybe significantly diverting a river to a more convenient spot), or e.g. does useful alchemical things such as “make lots of fuel for this space ship we have from this lake of water”.
+Practically all alchemy sorcerers use in practise, be it mass-preserving or otherwise, is medium-tier on the high end, usually requiring five to six runes.
+Note that it's usually comparatively easy to turn a medium-tier alchemy spell into a high-tier alchemy spell, as the structure of spells //"instantly turn the entire core of this planet to gold"// is remarkably similar to //"slowly turn the substance under the runes to gold until you run out of substance or I tell you to stop"//, about equivalent to adding a suffix to a word, although care must be taken to pick the right suffix.
+===== Low =====
+A spell is considered **low** tier if it uses one, two or three runes.
+They are usually not considered worth the risk of botching them (although single-rune spells usually just have the risk of misspelling the rune and doing something completely different). But in theory you can e.g. light a fire with spellcasting (one rune), or carry around an orb of artificial light (two runes), or commune with an animal (three runes, although it sure will be a very weird mental experience, since animals do not think like you at all).