So basically they begin play with read magic (which is the only 0-level spell in the supplement) plus three randomly determined 1st-level spells.
The magic-user has access to all spells known, but is limited in spells castable per adventure by the charts in the Holmes rulebook (and I guess for beyond level 3, I'll just use the charts for the wizard from the d20 SRD, since Men & Magic already has a discrepancy at 3rd level, and that bothers my OCD side).
Interesting that I'm using Dying Earth spells and not requiring memorization, isn't it? Do you see the irony? DO YOU!?!?!
So now the question becomes "How does the wizard advance the number of spells he knows?" Well, I figure all additional spells will be gained by learning them from scrolls or spellbooks found while adventuring. I've put together a pretty basic procedure for attempting to add a found spell to the collection of spells known. It is loosely built around Holmes' scroll creation rules, but I figure the time component will just always be one week. We generally assume one week of time passes between dungeon expeditions, so the magic-user will get one roll between each session of play. They can opt to wait additional weeks if they want, I guess, which reminds me, I need to make an events chart of stuff that happens in the dungeon and surrounding areas to make downtime matter. One event per week seems like too much, so maybe a 1 in 4 chance of an event each week, which would make things roughly monthly. Anyways, I digress. Here is the procedure for learning new spells:
Showing my true nerd colors with this flowchart |
Another thing I'm thinking about, but haven't quite figured out yet, is corruption. After playing DCC, I don't know if I could ever play without corrupting magic again. Just an idea off the top of my head that will require further thought:
X in 30 chance of corruption per casting, where X is the spell level.
Spell levels 1-2 = Minor corruption
Spell levels 3-4 = Major corruption
Spell levels 5-6 = Greater corruption
Then there's the cleric. Not sure what to do about clerics yet, but we currently don't have any, so I don't think I'll bother spending much brain bandwidth on that until we actually get one.