GURPSよろず

　This variation on standard spell-based magic detaches spellcasting from physical stamina and permits nearly any wizard to crack castles or destroy armies . . . at the risk of personal obliteration or worse! Because it gives wizards the option to cast spells of almost totally unrestricted power - at a vast potential cost - it’s sometimes known as the “unlimited mana” system. While it has its own distinctive flavor, it uses the standard system’s spell lists and additional features almost “as is.”

　Divorcing magic from physical vigor lets wizards be, for instance, enfeebled old men and still be formidable tactical magicians. It also means that wizards who’ve overreached themselves will be largely incomprehensible when their mundane allies ask why they can’t cast spells. They aren’t simply tired - their problems are more arcane: “To draw too deeply on my Gift can lead to madness and death. Do not demand of me what you do not comprehend.” Thus, threshold-limited magic may be better than the standard system for simulating fantasy fiction.
If threshold-limited and standard magic coexist, then Threshold Magery and standard Magery are separate advantages.
See Varieties of Magery (p. 65).

　Spells cast under this system don’t cost FP. Rather, when a wizard casts or maintains a spell, record the listed cost in a running total - his power tally. All the normal rules that modify energy cost (reduction for high skill, etc.) remain in force, modifying the amount added to the tally instead. If the spell has a variable cost (e.g., an attack spell where the energy invested determines damage), then the caster can vary the amount added to his tally in exactly the same way.

　Example: Hieron the Magus is trapped in a besieged city.
He hasn’t used magic in a while (his tally is 0), and this is an emergency. In his attempt to escape, he casts a huge Mass Sleep spell, with a total cost of 21, on a group of guards.
Three are unaffected, and Hieron casts Entombment on one of them, which increases his tally by 10 points, to 31. Two guards remain . . .

　A rising tally reflects increasing distortion in the wizard’s metaphysical relationship with the universe, which is visible to anyone able to perceive magical auras (using the Aura spell or other methods). Someone with a high tally - and especially anyone well over his threshold (see below) - may have a “deformed” or “turbulent” aura. This enables wizards and seers to tell when their colleagues have been overdoing their magic.

　Threshold-limited castings, being powered completely by ambient energy, may be easier to maintain than standard magic spells. Optionally, a maintainable spell is always maintained automatically, increasing the caster’s tally, unless the wizard consciously denies the increase and ends it. If he’s unconscious or asleep at this point, his tally increases one more time, but then the spell ends automatically after half the usual maintenance period. A spell that costs 0 to maintain will continue indefinitely without increasing tally, even if the caster is asleep or unconscious, but the caster can end it at any point at the cost of +1 to tally.
All continuing spells end automatically the moment the caster dies.

　A wizard’s tally “heals” over time. The suggested standard recovery rate is 8 points per day, with recovery occurring at sunrise. A wizard can improve his recovery rate by taking the Rapid Magical Recovery advantage (p. 79), if the GM permits that. No other traits reduce tally in any way.

　Every wizard has a threshold score, defining safe limits on his magic. The suggested standard threshold is 30. If a wizard’s tally remains at or below his threshold, then everything’s fine. If his tally exceeds his threshold, then bad things can happen. He must make a Calamity Check - a roll on the Calamity Table (below) - on any turn that he goes over his threshold for any reason. While he’s over his threshold, he must also make a Calamity Check on any turn that he casts a spell (even one with zero cost) or adds to his tally to maintain a spell.

　To keep wizardly insanity under some control, the GM can set an absolute upper limit on how much any wizard can add to his tally with one spell. Five or 10 times the caster’s threshold should suffice.

　To make a Calamity Check, roll 3d and add 1 for every full 5 points by which tally exceeds threshold after this casting.
Calamities take effect immediately, but their nature may not always be apparent to the wizard (see the table for details). Calamities don’t normally cause the spell to fail.
However, if the Calamity Check total is 29+, then the spell does fail unless the caster can make a Will roll at a penalty equal to the bonus to the Calamity Check.

　Example: Hieron (above) has a threshold of 30. He exceeded this when he cast that Entombment. This requires a Calamity Check. Since he exceeded his threshold by only 1, there’s no modifier to the roll. If he decides to entomb the other two guards, each new casting will trigger a fresh calamity, and modifiers will begin to apply.

　To make wizards a little more powerful and active, reduce their current tally by 1 for every full 2 points by which their Calamity Check total exceeds 10. For example, a total of 17 reduces tally by 3, as well as having the effect listed on the table.

　This table is a suggestion. The GM can adjust and expand it to suit campaign flavor and style, perhaps having hubristic magic summon hostile entities, affect the weather in dramatic ways, and so on; see Appendix B (pp. 256-260) for inspiration. For a dark and dangerous setting, the results might be more severe, and include injury or the acquisition of physical disadvantages. In a comedy game, calamities should be inconvenient and bizarre, but usually temporary.
Even within the same game world, the effects may vary by location (“the universe seems less forgiving in the Dark Lands”) or by time. And the industrious GM could create a separate table for each race or magical tradition.

　Remember to consider calamities’ effects on the game world. For example, if a fairly low roll reduces a wizard’s Appearance, then there will be a lot of ugly wizards.
Wizard-friendly games might include spells that can repair calamity effects - with large tally costs of their own, of course.

　As with other magical disaster tables, anyone trying to trigger a calamity in the hopes of seeing a specific result should find that this doesn’t work. Magic can seem willful and perverse - and its disasters, doubly so. Suicide cults attempting to bring down global curses through wild magic will instead find their magical abilities destroyed and their dark gods no longer hearing their prayers. Provoking enemies into overreaching themselves, on the other hand, can be an effective if dangerous trick!

　Note that Luck-related advantages cannot modify Calamity Checks. See Critical Magical Failures and Luck (p. 30).

3-10 - Nothing happens - this time.
11, 12 - Wizard suffers from the Nightmares disadvantage (p. B144), with a self-control number of 9, for 4d days.

13 - Wizard’s grasp of his own magic weakens. Reduce his threshold by 2d+5 for the next 1d weeks. The wizard is aware that his threshold has fallen, but not by how much.

14 - As 13, but threshold reduction is 4d+10 and the effect lasts 1d months. In addition, all of the wizard’s spells are at -3 to skill for 2d weeks.

15 - Wizard’s Magery gains the Radically Unstable Magery limitation (p. 26) at the -30% level. If he already has this, then it becomes the -50% version. If he already has that - or if he lacks Magery - then any attempt to cast a spell results in an automatic critical failure. In all cases, the problem lasts for 1d+1 weeks.

16 - Caster gains a -5-point disadvantage of the GM’s choice. After 3d days, he has the option of buying it off for 2 bonus character points (it simply fades away). If he lacks the points, or doesn’t want to spend them, then the disadvantage becomes permanent. Any disadvantage is possible - the wizard can become ugly, marginally insane, etc., at the GM’s whim.

17 - As 16, but the disadvantage is worth -10 points, and costs 5 points to buy off.

18 - As 16, but the disadvantage is worth -15 points, and costs 7 points to buy off.

19 - Wizard loses the ability to cast a single spell, chosen at random from his spell list, permanently. He still knows the spell, and it can still count as a prerequisite, but he can never cast it.

20 - As 16, but there are multiple disadvantages worth -30 points in total, and costing 15 points to buy off.

21 - As 15, but the problem lasts for 1d+1 months. At the end of that period, the wizard must roll against Will + Threshold Magery. Failure means that the condition becomes permanent. In extreme cases, this can cause the permanent loss of useful spellcasting ability.

22 - Roll again with the same modifier. The result affects a randomly chosen companion of the wizard! If it’s one that affects spellcasting and the wizard has no casters among his companions, or if the wizard is operating completely alone, then roll twice (with the same modifier) and apply both results to the wizard himself.

23 - Wizard permanently loses 1d\5 points of advantages, attributes, and/or secondary characteristics. Determine what’s lost randomly.

24 - Caster becomes a living “mana-scar”! Within a 3d-mile radius of the wizard, casting and maintenance costs double (in terms of tally additions and, if regular spellcasting is possible in the setting, energy cost), and tally recovery halts. This effect lasts for 3d weeks. It also ends in the event of the wizard’s death. Enemies or impatient allies may decide on a quick solution . . .

25 - Wizard’s skill with all spells is reduced by 3d+5. This penalty “heals” at a rate of -1 per day.

26 - As 25, but “healing rate” is only -1 per week.

27 - Wizard ages 2d+13 years.

28 - A plague or a curse (locusts, storms, etc.) descends on the region, lasting for 3d weeks. No one will be able to trace this to the wizard, but he’ll be aware that it’s his fault. This can drive a benevolent wizard mad as he witnesses the suffering and destruction. Even vicious wizards may be inconvenienced - and worry that they’ll somehow be blamed. The GM should be grotesque and cruel.

29 - Wizard permanently loses the ability to cast spells (but not the knowledge - small comfort). The generous GM can treat this as a Divine Curse disadvantage (p. B132); the wizard might have a chance of eliminating the problem, given heroic effort or perhaps impressive and profound thaumatological research. Remember: at this level or higher, the spell may fail.

30-39 - As 29, plus something permanent happens to the state of magic in a large region around the place where the casting went wrong. Perhaps all spells are cast at -2 in that kingdom from then on, or a certain class of spells functions erratically. The GM should be creative! If the wizard is found to be the culprit (and every concerned and able group will have a diviner on the job), then he could be a hunted man. Others may assume that killing him will remove the curse; they might be right. The wizard cannot get rid of the personal effect (if at all) without removing the problem from the region, and vice-versa.

40+ - As 30-39, but the change is global. In addition, the wizard must make a HT-6 roll. Failure means he’s consumed in a backlash of magical energy and explodes: he dies automatically (reduced to -10\HP) and the explosion does (Will + Threshold Magery) dice of crushing explosive damage! Success on the HT-6 roll means a lessdramatic backlash: the wizard takes 2d dice of damage and doesn’t explode. If this kills him, then the global change may fade over a period of weeks or years - or it may stand as a memorial to his folly.

　Cumulative Effects: If the wizard rolls a temporary effect from which he’s already suffering, then both any quantitative penalties suffered and the duration of the effect are cumulative. If the wizard rolls an effect (temporary or permanent) that’s a version of a problem he already has, then increase the problem’s level or intensity; reduce a relevant self-control number by one step, where appropriate; or reroll, if neither is possible.

　The numbers above should result in an overall wizard power level roughly equivalent to that under the standard rules - but different in style! Wizards can’t cast nearly as many smaller spells, but they can sometimes manage large magic; Area spells, in particular, are more of an option in combat, and more-strategic magic becomes possible. Most wizards won’t risk a lot of big spells, but they can live dangerously in emergencies. Trivial “utility” spells, on the other hand, may seem like too much trouble. Professional wizards-for-hire can’t offer as many simple services, but might be more flamboyant. Careful energy-management strategies are no longer an option, likely rendering some Quick and Dirty enchantments less viable and making magic items rarer overall.

　The basic numbers are all wide open to adjustment, however.
Threshold and recovery rate defaults are a campaign decision for the GM. A threshold of 50 and a daily recovery rate of 1 would allow wizards to cast the occasional really powerful spell safely, but cripple them on a day-to-day basis.
A threshold and recovery rate of 40 each would make for truly formidable wizards, at least on the tactical level, and it might be necessary to charge them a significant Unusual Background cost to keep them balanced with other characters.
At the other extreme, a threshold and recovery rate of 5 each would create a distinctly low-magic world, but wizards could still use mighty magics in times of dire need - at huge personal risk.

　The assumption that threshold recovery occurs daily, at sunrise, is also entirely variable. Even with a standard daily rate, wizards might have their own “hour of recovery,” chosen at character creation. Alternatively, a campaign might feature recovery - at a proportionately adjusted rate - hourly, weekly, or monthly. The latter could lead to odd behavior around “payday,” especially if all wizards share the same recovery day (perhaps when the sun moves into a new astrological house): just before, some wizards will find themselves low on options and others, with lots of margin left, will cut loose with a “use it or lose it” philosophy; just after, they’ll all have a greater capacity to work magic.

　A few new advantages can help distinguish individual wizards in a campaign that uses threshold-limited magic.

5 points/level
　Each level of this advantage increases your threshold by 20% of the campaign default. For finer distinction, the GM may permit a 4% increase per 1-point level.

5 points/level
　Each level of this advantage increases your tally recovery rate by 25% of the campaign default. For finer distinction, the GM may allow a 5% increase per 1-point level.

10 points/level
　With one level of this advantage, your Calamity Checks are at +1 per 10 points of excess tally instead of +1 per 5.
Each additional level doubles this effect: +1 per 20, +1 per 40, +1 per 80, and so on.

50 points
　If threshold-based and fatigue-based spellcasting coexist, then the usual assumption is that each casting style has its own spells; see Threshold-Limited vs. Standard Spells (p. 81). The GM may wish to allow the possibility of casters who can use either option with the same spells - that is, without learning each spell twice. Such wizards must take this advantage, as they gain considerable tactical flexibility: when FP run low or tally runs high, they can simply switch styles.

　The cost for this advantage is a suggestion. The GM can vary it according to the style of the campaign. For a game world full of powerful, versatile wizards, or if mana levels are generally low or worse (making magic hard to use anyway), he can reduce the price to 20 points. If “hybrid” wizards are rare, legendary, and likely to blindside and confuse opponents, he should raise it to whatever level seems reasonable; in effect, it includes an Unusual Background.

　It’s perfectly possible to have this advantage without having any type of Magery. In that case, using one or both casting styles simply requires a local mana level of high or better.

　Certain spells from the Healing college behave differently for wizards who use threshold-limited magic:

●Lend Energy restores the subject’s FP while increasing the caster’s tally. “Threshold wizards” may cast this on themselves, restoring their own FP at the expense of their tally.

●There’s no threshold-related version of Recover Energy.

●Share Energy lets another wizard add twice the cost of spells that he casts to the tally of the one who cast Share Energy instead of to his own tally, to a maximum of 10 points added (that is, 5 points’ worth of effect) per second.

　The GM may permit mages to take the following limitations on Threshold Magery.

• 10%/level

Each level of this limitation reduces your threshold by 20% of the campaign default. Five levels (the maximum) make your threshold 0! This is incompatible with Increased Threshold (p. 78).

• 10%/level

　Each level of this limitation, to a maximum of four, subtracts 1 point from the amount of excess tally that gives +1 to your Calamity Checks: one level means +1 per 4 points; two levels, +1 per 3 points; three levels, +1 per 2 points; and four levels, +1 per point of excess tally. This is incompatible with Safer Magical Excess (above).

• 10%/level

　Each level of this limitation reduces your tally recovery rate by 25% of the campaign default. Four levels (the maximum) means you cannot normally recover at all! This is incompatible with Rapid Magical Recovery (above).

　Magic items can exist in settings with threshold-limited magic. If they would cost no FP to use in standard-magic games - “always on,” have the Power enchantment (p. B480), etc. - then there’s no problem. If they would cost FP, then there are two options:

　●Items add to user’s tally. Everyone, wizard or not, has a tally, a threshold, and a recovery rate - although only people who use magic or magic items have to worry about them (still, this may mean extra bookkeeping). This is liable to make all magic items seem a little uncanny and worrying from the normal person’s perspective: use them too much and you don’t get tired - strange things happen to you! Penalties to cast spells also apply to rolls to activate magic items, and calamity effects that remove the ability to cast spells may render non-wizards unable to activate items instead (GM’s decision).
Non-spellcasters may have a lower threshold, since magic really isn’t part of their nature.

　●Items have their own tally. Every item has its own tally (which increases each time it’s used), threshold, and recovery rate. The suggested base threshold for items is 1/3 of the default threshold for human wizards in the campaign; the recommended recovery rate is half the wizardly default.
Enchanters may incorporate buffer objects (see below) into magic items, using the rules for “Dedicated” Powerstones (GURPS Magic, p. 70), to increase their effective threshold and recovery rate. Calamities suffered by an item might apply to the item or the user, as the GM deems appropriate. This can earn some items a reputation as “jinxed” or “cursed,” especially if they have an unusually low threshold.

　It’s also possible to combine approaches. Perhaps the enchanter decides when making an item whether it has its own tally or “feeds through” to the user. Alternatively, most items can add to the user’s tally, but those incorporating buffer objects gain their own tally and recovery rate, with base values of 0 before adding the buffer. These options add complexity, but can make items more idiosyncratic and varied.

　If the GM decides to permit them, buffer objects are the threshold-limited magic counterpart to Powerstones (Magic, pp. 69-70). Each can absorb a number of points that would otherwise go to the user’s tally, thereby increasing his effective threshold. The Powerstone spell creates buffer items instead (in a game where threshold-limited and standard magic coexist, it becomes two spells: one to create Powerstones, one to create “buffer stones”). For each point of energy capacity that the spell would give a stone, it instead confers 2 points of buffer. Buffer stones lose absorbed tally at half the rate at which Powerstones recharge energy - that is, 1 point/fortnight in low mana, 1 point/2 days in normal mana, and so on.

　Threshold-based casting raises many special concerns and permits numerous optional rules.

　In some settings, wizards may start with widely varying thresholds and recovery rates, but the base values of these two things - before modification by advantages, limitations, or special circumstances - must always give the same product when multiplied together. For example, a wizard could have threshold 30/recovery 8, threshold 20/recovery 12, or threshold 40/recovery 6; all multiply to 240. This can produce wildly different characters. The GM may prohibit extreme cases, such as the threshold 120/recovery 2 wizard who casts the occasional game-wrecking spell and then spends weeks recovering on the sidelines.

　When casting a spell ceremonially using this system, a caster or an assistant counts as knowing the spell at a given level if he can cast it at that level as threshold-based magic.
Participants are considered “mages” if they possess Threshold Magery. Assess additions to each participant’s tally exactly as you would reckon energy contributed in the standard system. A spectator who opposes the casting reduces the effective total contributed by 5 but adds 5 to his personal tally in the process - becoming actively entangled in magic-working, for or against the casting, brings a cumulative danger of calamity!

　In some game worlds, wizards might normally use standard fatigue-based magic but be able to draw additional power “out of the ether” at any time, applying the thresholdbased magic rules. The catch is that the campaign threshold is zero and cannot be improved! Thus, every such “free lunch” casting automatically causes a Calamity Check. Recovery rates should generally be restricted to the low range (1-10 points daily).

　It’s possible that not all wizards can use this option. If some can’t, then those who can must take a 10-point Unusual Background. Either way, this option makes magic slightly more powerful - but not without serious potential drawbacks.

　Threshold-based magic can be combined with the optional rules under Trading Energy for Speed and Skill (p. 39) and Adjustable Spells (p. 39), allowing wizards to exchange additions to tally for speed, skill, and/or enhancements. This makes casters with high thresholds even more formidable, as they can afford to be extremely flexible when they need to be.

　The GM may permit wizards who use threshold-based casting to spend FP to help power their spells - at the cost of 4 FP per point of “spell energy” that doesn’t add to tally.
Thus, wizards won’t bother using FP for most castings, but in an emergency they can exhaust themselves for a few extra energy points that won’t increase the risk of a calamity.

　With this option, every spell cast successfully - and every critical failure on a casting - costs 1 FP, in addition to increasing tally. This limits the number of spells that a wizard can cast in a given scene without limiting his power. It also gives wizards some incentive to preserve their physical fitness!

　Some regions or entire game worlds might be “variablethreshold zones” where the default threshold changes like the weather, more-or-less predictably, perhaps even on a fixed cycle. Likewise, threshold can vary from place to place, making heavy magic use safer in some lands than in others. Wizards may or may not be aware of the current local level; those with Magery might be able to sense it, while Information spells might exist to analyze it. If it’s often unknown and unknowable, wizards are likely to be very cautious.
In all cases, the Increased Threshold advantage and Reduced Threshold limitation modify the current local threshold value, for the individual wizard only.

　Instead of tally recovery being a flat rate, the GM can determine it with a die roll. The suggested value is 2d+1, which averages to 8 but makes recovery less certain. The Rapid Magical Recovery advantage should then give a flat bonus to the roll: +2 per 5-point level, if using the default value.

　Applying Non-Mages Casting in Lower-Mana Areas (p. 58) to threshold-based magic means that “mundanes” casting spells in normal or lower mana may be taking a large and unpredictable risk. Instead of merely getting very tired, they’re quite likely to burn out - perhaps literally - after a spell or two. Before then, though, they can at least work some minor magics without physical collapse.

　Daily tally recovery needn’t be automatic. Perhaps wizards must burn incense and meditate - or, in a dark fantasy world, perform animal sacrifices or demonic rituals.
Likewise, there might be some rituals that allow additional recovery beyond the daily standard, with difficulty and at some kind of cost. Highly prized magical herbs could offer similar benefits.
　Individual wizards who want this kind of additional recovery should take the Rapid Magical Recovery advantage with limitations such as Preparation Required and Trigger.

　Familiars can provide an extra buffer for additions to tally under this system, much as they can supply an external reserve of energy for wizards who cast fatigue-based magic. Adapt the suggestions under Familiars (p. 50) as desired. A familiar serving this purpose will have its own tally, threshold, and recovery rate, and will eventually suffer calamities - much like a human wizard.
The familiar may draw the consequences of a calamity entirely upon itself, saving the wizard from personal inconvenience.

　This certainly fits well enough when the problem is, for instance, a threshold reduction. However, the GM can always declare that the close mystical link between wizard and familiar means that some calamity effects pass through the familiar to the wizard. This may be a fixed rule, but the GM might instead decide on a whim (but hopefully without personal malice!) who suffers the problem when a calamity occurs, or even let the wizard choose. Outcomes such as loss of spellcasting ability should usually affect the wizard and not the familiar (who might not have such ability to begin with).

　As with other variant systems, if threshold-limited casting is available alongside the standard system in a campaign, then each of the two will usually have its own type of Magery (“Spell Magery” and “Threshold Magery”).
However, the GM has the final say. For thoughts on this, see Varieties of Magery (p. 65).

　If the two styles are fully distinct, then wizards who learn both must declare when learning a spell whether it’s to be cast as “standard” or “threshold-limited.” They may choose to learn some spells twice, once for each style. The ability to use the same spells with either style is an advantage; see Variable Energy Access (p. 79).

　It’s up to the GM whether students of magic can use the same magical texts to learn spells in either style, with the logic that the basic principles are common and it’s just a matter of adapting them slightly. If this is true, then individuals who know spells in one style should be able to spend character points to learn them in the other without the need for a teacher or similar external help. Each spell might even default to its counterpart in the other style - at, say, -3.

　The existence of threshold-based magic might reflect the presence of a different type of mana, perhaps actually called “unlimited mana.” Whereas standard mana obliges the wizard to draw on his own reserves of energy, this alternate variety feeds energy in but distorts the wizard’s relationship with the universe in the process - until something metaphysically snaps. Unlimited mana should come in all the same levels as standard mana.

　If the two styles of spellcasting coexist, then they might both be possible in the same places. The same local mana level may apply to each, or mana levels applying to the two types of casting may vary independently. In the latter case, the Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer advantages (pp. B67-68) might come in two forms as well, each affecting one variety of mana - although it’s probably better if such traits affect both sorts of mana equally, making them uniformly annoying or important to all wizards.

　Threshold-limited casting is an excellent match for clerical magic (see Clerical Spell-Magic, pp. 65-71). After all, the idea that working what amounts to divine miracles should be physically tiring is rather strange - the power comes from the god, not from the miracle-worker! Likewise, it seems entirely plausible that calling for such favors eventually stretches the god’s patience, or pushes the limits of creation, until finally the deity, or reality, smites the hubristic mortal.

　An obvious option is to give secular wizards standard fatigue-based casting (“calling on their own resources”) and priests the threshold-limited system (“calling on divine power”). In this case, “unlimited mana” is actually sanctity (pp. 68-69), not a special variety of mana. The GM should make the traits described in New Advantages (pp. 78-79) available to clerics instead of to wizards, and allow the modifiers under New Magery Limitations (p. 79) to apply to Power Investiture. Increased Threshold, Rapid Magical Recovery, and Safer Magical Excess would imply a more tolerant deity or fabric of reality; Variable Energy Access would probably be unavailable (one cannot usually consider spells and miracles to be the same thing); and limitations would imply a god who is miserly with his divine aid and doesn’t like being pestered.

　Combining ritual magic with threshold-based casting is also fine. Indeed, a campaign could involve four subtly different types of wizard: fatigue-burning or thresholdlimited, spell-based or ritual, in any combination. This might lead to a game with four versions of Magery - although the GM may elect to have just two, either “Ritual Magery” and “Spell Magery,” or “Energy Magery” and “Threshold Magery.”

　Threshold-limited ritual magic is liable to lead to wild wizardly behavior. Ritual magic permits wizards to attempt a huge range of major spells at default in emergencies - but with fatigue-based casting, success merely means that the magician gets tired, and perhaps loses HP. A threshold based caster who manages to cast a big, powerful spell is likely to generate weird, broad-area side effects while staying on his feet - and may be tempted to try something huge that would cripple an FP-burning wizard, because most calamities are less-than-lethal.

　For example, a ritualist with Weather College-15, faced by a large group of enemies, might attempt a Spark Storm for the first time in his life. He’d have to roll 8 or less - not great odds, but hardly impossible. If he chose to give the spell maximum damage and a five-yard radius, he’d add 30 to his tally on casting and 15 per minute thereafter, and probably pass his threshold very quickly.

　A scarier example would be a magician with Healing College-16 who decides to try to cast Resurrection on a fallen comrade. He’d have to roll 9 or less. If he succeeded, his tally would rise by 300. Even if it was previously zero, and assuming default parameters, he’d have to make a Calamity Check at +54! He would automatically trigger the worst possible result on the table, probably die, and certainly cause a lot of collateral damage - but a romantic or deranged wizard might try it. Most FP-burning casters simply couldn’t make the attempt without an external energy supply (meaning that few would bother to learn the spell).

　Cornered, desperate, or crazy ritual magicians can thus be dangerous for everyone, if able to use threshold-limited casting. To avoid excessive wild magic, the GM might put an upper limit on the amount that can be added to tally with a single casting. At the very least, he should require Will rolls, at heavy penalties, even to try stunts like those in the examples.