Memorizing spells in Cairn
A wizard juggling a lot of books mid-combat to find the right spell is a funny picture, but not one that settles with my image of a spellcaster. Even if there is a rule to represent the audacious act of opening a book and reading it while an archer is launching an arrow into your chest (roll, or a spell failure happens), it still didn't set the right tone for my campaign.
I wanted an image of a wizard (PCs and NPCs alike) who, with the quick and simple flick of their fingers and just one word, can put a crowd to sleep or entangle an enemy. For me, this feels far more powerful and mysterious, even if the rules for casting spells are still practically identical to the core rules.
Let’s get to it.
Memorizing spells from grimoires
To memorize a spell, you need both of these conditions:
Time alone and in tranquility (a watch, a night's sleep, a long rest, whatever).
A grimoire from which you memorize the spell.
Limitations
When you memorize a spell, that spell occupies an inventory slot the same way any material object would.
You can memorize any number of distinct spells.
You cannot memorize more spells than your maximum inventory slots.
You cannot memorize the same spell more than once.
Casting a memorized spell
To cast a memorized spell, you need to:
Have one or both hands free.
Be able to talk.
When you cast a memorized spell from a grimoire, you can choose to do it in two ways:
You preserve the memorized spell but gain 1 fatigue after the casting.
You don’t get fatigue, but you forget or lose the memorized spell.
Forgotten or lost spells can be re-memorized in the same way explained above.
Why an inventory slot?
Because the spell weighs you down. It has a mass of its own that not only affects your mind but also your body, it requires physical effort and energy to maintain its power within yourself.
Also because I didn’t want to break the system too much :P
Fun situations
This opens up a lot of opportunities to play with verisimilitude in the game world. Now your necromancers don’t carry a lot of books with them, but instead have a secret study full of grimoires which you can steal, borrow, burn, or share. Maybe your setting has public magic libraries that you can access for a fee. Your wizard PCs or squires have even more reasons to build a study, guarded by mercenaries or monsters to protect their knowledge. Hirelings can now serve to carry your grimoires if the adventure site is very far and you need spells for days or weeks of travel.
You can even maintain the original casting in Cairn if you really like it, so now the characters have three ways of casting spells!