Some people are satisfied with the Everway magic rules as written. This article will not be to their taste. The Magic Formula aims to provide players and gamemasters a systematic guide for designing Everway magic schools and using them in play. To this end, the system resorts to - numbers. However, in the spirit of Everway, the numbers are small and the most complicated mathematical operation is subtraction. Values are themselves approximate, as will be seen. The Magic Formula steals equally from the old DC Heroes RPG (now Blood of Heroes) and Boyle's Law, with a further swipe from Runequest 3rd Edition. It's the Everway version of a magic system I developed for a Theatrix campaign a couple of years ago.

The bedrock philosophy behind the Magic Formula is that magic should be _efficacious_. When a player creates a magic-wielding hero, she is sinking substantial points into what amounts to a fifth, comparatively-restricted, element. She is necessarily sacrificing between four and six points that would otherwise go into powers and elements. She should get something for that. By clarifying, in general terms, what can be done with magic, I hope to minimize the sorts of misunderstandings and resentments I've seen crop up in actual Everway play. To wit, I've seen a number of mages feel they got shafted. This is by no means always the GM's sole fault. (See THE MAGIC FORMULA AND SCHOOL DESIGN below.)

The MF assumes a preference for the Law of Karma.

THE MAGIC FORMULA

Prowess + Performance = Target + Duration + Effect

Actually, that's the simple version. Two more terms may be added  P + P [ + Bonus ] = [ Penalty + ] T + D + E

That is, the GM may decide that things are easier or harder (or easier and harder) based on circumstances.

PROWESS - Sum the Mage's Magic score and its governing Element. The ready-to-run hero Serenity has 5 points of Flux Magic. The governing element is Fire, and her Fire score is 5, so her Prowess is 10. The Amberway hero Starwind has 4 points of Windspeaker magic and 6 points of Air (the governing element). Her Prowess is likewise 10.

Note: Prowess doesn't change much and is easy to remember. You only have to figure it once. (Until the hero's scores change.)

PERFORMANCE and DURATION - These usually represent time - Performance is how long the mage spends casting the spell (chanting, meditating, dancing etc as appropriate to the school). Duration is how long the spell lasts. Like the four Everway elements, Time is represented on a scale - in this case from 0 to 10 rather than 1 to 10. Time is the Formula element most subject to the mage's control.

Like the element scales, the time scale increases exponentially. But but it does not simply double. The values are also approximate - nobody in the Thousand Worlds has a stopwatch.

Example: Feels His Oats has been cursed to stutter until he convinces an outcast woman to marry him - in other words, until he moves into his next life stage. The span of time is the moral equivalent of a decade (Duration 8), though he might succeed in his quest tomorrow, or might never succeed.

TARGET - Spells are cast on something. Target represents the resistance value of whoever or whatever or wherever is at the business end of the mage's attention. In the case of a single creature it will probably be the creature's Earth score. In the case of multiple creatures the rule of doubling may come into play. (e.g., two Earth-4 opponents resist at Earth-5.)

Some spells are cast on regions rather than beings. So we need another scale. Like Time, the Space scale runs from 0 to 10.

Again, increases are variably exponential. 0 does not mean "no space." It is the smallest value of space that, magically, matters. (Think of 0 too as an exponent. Any number to the power of 0 equals 1.) Definitions are approximate. A Great Lake might count as a sea (8) rather than a lake (7). "Locations" should not be confused with the people in them. If you are bringing rain to a village on a knoll, the Target value is indeed 6. If you are trying to bring instant death to all the residents, they probably count as a platoon (7) or company (8).

EFFECT - In practical terms, this is the value left over after you take the others into account. Like everything else in Everway, it's on a 1-10 (or 0-10) scale. The Effect scale is generic:

Example: Talks to Himself wants to make it rain. If the effect of the spell ends up being 1, he accomplishes little more than a light mist. 3 would be good-for-the-crops. 5 would send people scurrying for shelter. 7 would be the sort of storm people tell their grandchildren about. (Think Hurricane Agnes.) 10 would give rise to terms like "antediluvian" to describe the time before this transforming deluge.

Note: For each specific school, GM and player should probably discuss what different Effect values mean for the mage's various abilities.

Two of the six values - Magic and Element - don't change. And the way characters are generated, they're usually the same number. So just add them once and remember the value. The Casting Time spent is up to the player, within reason - It's hard to chant over and over if someone clamps a hand over your mouth. You can't do your magic dance if your legs are in irons. If someone snaps your head around, so much for fixing your baleful gaze. And eventually fatigue sets in. (See THE MAGIC FORMULA AND THE ELEMENTS below.)

The values on the right side of the equation interact in more complex, somewhat voluntary ways. Generally, the mage decides what his or her aim is. The mage determines the target. The mage generally determines either the level of effect desired (e.g. I want to kill them) or the desired _duration_ of effect (e.g. I want it to rain for at least an hour). Once two of the elements are fixed, the GM calculates the third.

Example: Let's go back to Talks to Himself. He wants to impress the inhabitants of a village with his might, so he's going to call down a rainstorm using Words of Summoning. His Magic is 4 and his Air score is 6. He's going for a flashy effect, so he'll just say his Word once and gesture impressively. (Performance Time = 0). So

Prowess(4+6) + Performance(0) = 10

What is the target? The GM says that Talks needs to blanket the entire hillside on which the village sits - it would actually be more difficult to exert the fine control that calling rain down on, say, just the village square would entail. So the Target value is 6. Now Talks needs to decide whether he wants to fix the storm's Duration or its magnitude (Effect). He decides to go for Duration - if the rain lasts for a watch or more, it should start to wear on people's nerves. So the Duration is fixed at 2. So

10(remember?) = Target(6) + Duration(2) + Effect

which means the Effect value is 2. (Aren't these nice, easy numbers to work with?)

Alas, 2 is not a very impressive rainfall. It's a noticeable drizzle, but that's about it.

Now, if Talks figures he can chant his word for about a minute before someone decides to stone him, his new Value is 11, that is

Prowess(10) + Performance(1) = 11

So his effect now increases to 3, which is rather more impressive.

The other feature of time worth noting is that an increase in Performance time can have an outsized effect on spell duration.

Example: Talks to Himself is content with the strength of rain he is getting (3 - Average) after chanting his Word of Summoning for a minute. But he decides he'd like to prolong the storm. If he chants for a _watch_ (about an hour and a quarter) rather than a minute, his Performance time increases to 2, so his overall spell value is 12. If

12 = Target(6) + Duration(?) + Effect(3)

then Duration = 3, or an entire day! An extra hour's effort has netted him an extra 22+ hours' result.

Moral: Ritual is good. If you can get away with it.

The element governing your magic school figures directly into the formula. The Earth score of your target may well function as the resistance to your spell. Other elements matter as well.

Earth determines how long you can Perform a spell before keeling over completely. The simplest system is to say a mage can spend units of time equal to her Earth score in ritual vigil. That means a mage with 3 Earth can spend an entire day performing (dancing, gazing balefully, inhaling essences etc). Then she passes out. This means a 5 Earth mage could spend a month invoking a single spell - the ready-to-run hero Cleft could spend the entire month of the Spading Moon blessing the crops of a village. This may bother some GMs. You might prefer to think of the month as incorporating breaks for light nourishment and even short catnaps. GMs may wish to rule that certain schools are limited in the lengths of rituals possible. They may also decide that certain schools require minimum casting lengths. For instance, Elric of Melnibone's Friends in High Places magic may require that Elric spend at least one minute (one point) of casting time on every invocation.

The number of "instant" spells (Casting time = 0) possible for a given Earth score remains undefined.

Other elements may come into play as necessary. Example: Smoke Too Much casts illusions. The Effect value determines who can see through them. If a particular illusion has 6 Effect, then those with 6 Water have a chance of feeling that something about the illusion is amiss, and those with 6 Air might notice inconsistencies in the presentation. Someone with 7 Water or Air would almost certainly see through it, while those with scores of 5 or below would be completely taken in.

Every effort has been made to keep the system simple enough to use _quickly_. Numbers are kept small, and abstruse math like multiplication and division <g> has been shunned. Because the units of time and space are defined in terms of common experience, it should be possible to minimize mechanic-speak.

Some GMs will look at the numbers and worry that the Magic Formula opens the door to a level of flashiness they'd rather not see in their campaigns. The MF can still work for them. The simplest hedge is to play with the concept of spell duration: what, for instance, is the _duration_ of an instant death spell? Is it 0 (instantaneous?), or 9 (the rest of the life the target "should" have lived)? Or maybe by definition it needs to be 3 (a watch), 4 (a day) or 5 (a week) - the length of time it takes for the opponent's soul to decide that it really ought to separate from the body. So long as you clarify this kind of thing with your magic-wielding player in advance you should be covered.

One last thing: the Magic Formula aims to be scalable. Can that Sorcerer Supreme (9 magic, 9 element) put a Legendarily-powerful (7) curse on an entire realm (9) for an Age (10)?

9 + 9 + Casting = 7 + 9 + 10 = 26

If he spends a decade (Casting = 8), yes. Or if he adds Something Else to the mix (see BONUSES AND PENALTIES).

The most obvious use for the fortune deck is to modify one of the desired results - Duration or Effect. A good draw might increase the value by one; a bad draw lower it by a like amount. Particularly germane cards might herald some prodigy of success or spectacular failure. The fortune deck may also determine whether the mage succeeds in casting the desired spell at all.

Many real schools I've seen designed by players and approved by GMs are much narrower in scope than the examples provided in the Everway game itself. Consider Cleft's Soil and Stone magic. He can Aid against sickness, Speed healing from wounds, Ward against magic or physical danger, Bless crops, Counter poison and Counter curses. That's a lot.

Using the Magic Formula, school design does change slightly. Since the degree of effect of a particular action (spell) is determined by the MF, the school writeup focuses on 1) HOW one performs the magic (rhymes? dance? meditation? study? prayer? ingestion? touch?) and 2) what new things can be done at each new level. Soil and Stone magic might then look like

Other abilities included in the book writeup are simply greater Effects of existing abilities. For instance, "let[ting] a mortally-wounded person recover (slowly) from wounds" is simply a more impressive "Heal wounds." The MF determines how impressive a result the mage obtains.

Every school of Magic should have at least a half-dozen distinct abilities available as the magic level increases. This tends to match the sample schools available in the rulebook.

NOTE: BY PROVIDING NEW CAPABILITIES WITH NEW LEVELS OF MAGIC, YOU GIVE THE PLAYER AN INCENTIVE TO SPEND MORE ON MAGIC ITSELF, RATHER THAN JUST INCREASING THE MORE VERSATILE ELEMENT SCORE. A mage with 7 Element and 1 Magic has the same Prowess as a mage with 4 Element and 4 Magic. But the Mage with 4 Magic is more versatile by far.

Now is the time to talk about Bonuses and Penalties. These will vary with the situation and the school. Bonuses and penalties can be treated as modifications to the mage's Performance. Possible bonuses include:

Calendar Effects - What if a spell can only be cast under a full moon? Only at the spring equinox? At the precise moment of a planetary conjunction that happens every 10 years? Give a bonus up to the value of the period of time represented by the calendar phenomenon. A spell that must be cast on any solstice or equinox is restricted to once per Season (6); one that can only be cast on Midsummer's Eve is restricted to once per Year (7)

Example: There are three days of full moon per month (5). So the bonus for spells that must be cast during the full moon would be less than 5 - either 3 or 4 make sense.

Extra Effort - This could get cheesy, and a player who invokes extra effort too often may need a talking-to. "Extra effort" should carry some tangible negative effect, such as a loss of consciousness or loss of face. Which brings us to

Sacrifice - There are all kinds of possible sacrifices. A given set of GM and players will be comfortable with different sets of them. They range all the way from token destruction of materials (powder of rhino horn e.g.) to an entire cohort of an opponent's army. Note that, however squeamish the idea makes us, the concept of offering life to supernatural powers was once current throughout the globe. As a general, non- moralizing rule, use the Earth or Water score of the sacrificial victim(s). The rule of doubling applies.

For non-living sacrifices, scale based on the generic Everway 1-10 scale. Value may well depend on context - a wineskin "sacrificed" outside a vintner's may not be worth anything. The same wineskin sacrificed in the Trackless Wastes, when it's the group's last drinkable liquid, may be more precious than life itself.

What if a 5-Earth Mage offers the permanent sacrifice of a point of Earth? That might be worth a 5-point bonus right there. (And should make a dandy role-playing moment.)

A sacrifice assumes some power that will be moved by it. Depending on the Mage's school, the prevailing circumstances and the campaign's cosmology, such a power may or may not exist.Sacrifice: it's not just for lambs and virgins any more.

Other bonuses - at the discretion of the GM.

Penalties may result from any number of circumstances.

Levels - GMs wishing to complicate their lives may penalize tasks that are close to the limit of a mage's ability (or give bonuses for easy tasks). For instance, Cleft's ability to Aid the ill is Level 1, while Countering curses is Level 5. Since Cleft's Magic score is 5, the GM may subtract points when Cleft counters a curse or add points when he aids the ill.

Example: Smoke Too Much has offended his god. His magic derives from his god. Smoke Too Much is in for some penalties.

Example: Greyhawk Flotsam is trying to hit a soldier with a lightning bolt. Since the lightning bolt is a physical attack, the Target value is the soldier's Fire score of 3. But the soldier is on the other side of a field. Since the Space value of "a field" is 6, Flotsam suffers a six-point penalty - the Soldier's Target value is raised to 9.

Example: The GM decides it's harder for Talks to Himself to make it rain in a desert than in a swamp, harder if the sky is clear than if it is overcast. If it is Dry, Clear and Hot, the mage's first 3 points of Effect merely make it Humid, Overcast and Cooler. The fourth point of Effect brings the suggestion of a drizzle. It takes a full 6 points to summon a rain worthy of the name.

So how do you cast a spell that lasts longer than an Age? How do you cast a curse on more than one sphere at a time? In short, how do you get a supernatural effect "off the scale."

There are two approaches. One is to make such effects entirely at the whim of the GM. The other is to rule that one can only get off the scale with some kind of Bonus, most commonly a sacrifice or calendar effect. Now you know why those priests are tossing everyone into the volcano during the perigee of Halley's Comet.