Post originally by Lizard at 2004-01-12 12:16:01
Converted from Phorums BB System

If your character has more than one or two spells, I think you're better off buying magic skill to obscene levels, and ignoring the skill descriptions.

I don't have my books with me, so, this might be bogus, but, assuming the following:

Magic skill is an int-based 3/2 skill (3 for 9+int/5, +1 to roll for 2 points)

You average mage is going to have int 18.

So, three points gets you a 13 or less. Another, say, 20 points gets you a 23 or less. This lets you cast those -18 spells on a 5 or less, which is a bit sucky, but that -5 spell will only fail on a natural 18, if your DM is using that as a 'crit fail' option, as some do. So you've spent 20 points to pretty much cast most common spells at will. If buying the master version of a single spell costs you 6 points, then, you've "broken even" by your third spell. The more spells you know, the better the deal becomes to buy up magic. Now, with the divide-by-3 rule for the sample setting, this break even point moves, but, unless you're just a dabbler in magic, you'll still hit it fairly soon.