Power Modding Made Easy!

[The Shadow]

Originally this thread was going to be entitled "New Powers Made Easy!" because I thought I could readily use the M&M system to design new powers for True20. I quickly found that this was more difficult than I thought; the two games are sufficiently different in genre assumptions about powers that translation is not always easy. Some True20 powers are amazingly powerful in M&M terms (Teleport, for example), while others are almost absurdly weak (Wind Walk).

I haven't given up on the idea of using the M&M system for designing True20 powers, but it's going to be a good deal more work than I previously thought. However, the two systems are close enough in basic assumptions that it seems relatively easy to *tweak* powers for your setting using the M&M model. In other words, granted that a given power has a certain "bang for the buck" in the True20 system, it's not hard to see how to adjust how the power works in minor ways. (Note that I mean all this for Narrators, not players. It's for tweaking powers to suit a particular setting; most True20 settings aren't as free-wheeling and open as superhero games when it comes to powers.)

My basic assumption: One rank of powers for an Adept is equivalent to an M&M rank of the "Magic" power, and individual powers are the equivalent of "Alternate Power" feats for Magic. (More or less. The correspondence is not exact, but it did work out beautifully for my "New Roles Made Easy" thread.) Thus a rank 10 True20 power should be worth 20 M&M points - even if, in True20, those points buy more or less effectiveness for a given power than they would in M&M. This opens the way to apply M&M Extras and Flaws to powers. I'll continue using the example of a rank 10 power for simplicity, though the math works for all ranks.

Adding an extra to our rank 10 power would raise its cost from 20 to 30. Adding two would bring it up to 40. Adding a flaw would lower it to 10; adding two flaws would lower it to 5. Extras and flaws of course cancel each other out one for one.

M&M Alternate Power rules are that you can't have an AP costing more points than the original power. So we can't go over 20 points. If we add extras, we have to at least cancel them out with flaws.

Practically speaking, it makes sense to leave a power at 20, 10, or 5. That corresponds to getting 1, 2, or 4 powers per feat slot expended. Any more than that is just silly. I don't even recommend four per feat, unless you want to use my idea for "skill-like powers" below. (Strictly speaking, in M&M you could combine varying powers with different ranks, but I don't think we want to go there with True20. Though I'm playing with encoding True20 power DC levels that way, it's going to take a good bit of work. For now, we'll let that slide.)

The basic modifiers to powers in True20 are Fatiguing, Concentration, Maintenance, and Mental Contact. Let's examine each of them, saving Fatiguing for last.

Concentration is simply M&M "Concentration duration". Maintenance is simply M&M "Sustained duration". Powers that lack both are largely "Continuous duration", though True20 sometimes specifies a duration for such powers. (Suggestion, for example.) Some, like Elemental Blast, are clearly Instant.

Mental Contact is pretty clearly a flaw, though a custom flaw; as an M&M GM I'd call it "Limited" if I had to classify it and call it good.

Fatiguing is an interesting case. It's basically a modified version of M&M's "Side Effect", but in the end it's weaker than M&M's Tiring. And it's fundamental to True20's balance. True20 *needs* for certain powers to become harder and harder to use repeatedly. There needs to be a consequence for using them.

Therefore I propose that the "Fatiguing" modifier not be removable, save under carefully-thought-out circumstances. However, the consequence it inflicts need not be Fatigue; it just has to be something sufficiently unpleasant if you fail your save. For purposes of this thread, I propose calling it the "consequence save" rather than the "Fatigue save". I'll get into that in the next post.

Now for the good stuff! I'm going to assume that the reader has access to the M&M extras and flaws; I'm only to comment on those I find unsuitable to True20 or that need tweaking or comment.

Action: As an extra, this is like Quicken, only with no increase to the consequence save. As a flaw, one level past full-round is, say, a minute. (Or a minute per rank, maybe?) One level past that is an hour (per rank?). Good for ritualists. If you only need the ritual to get access to the power, using it freely for a scene, I'd say halve the number of flaws and round down.

Affects Corporeal: I'm a little reluctant to use this one, as we already have Ghost Touch. But I do see a niche for defining your Fire Shaping as "spiritual fire", for example, so I think it's OK.

Area: Treat as Widen, only with no increase to the consequence save.

Aura: Elemental Aura demonstrates this needs to be toned down. Use with great caution.

Distracting: A nice flaw for powers that take a full round or longer, or that require concentration or maintenance. It's a freebie on anything else.

Duration: As an extra, this turns "Concentration" to "Maintenance". As a flaw it goes the other direction: adding "Maintenance" or turning it to "Concentration". Past Concentration, a power becomes Instant - usable only for a single round. (This won't always be worth a flaw. But it turns Suggestion into D&D "Command", for example.) In principle, as an extra it could turn an Instant power like Psychic Blast into a COncentration one; but I recommend treating that as two extras, if you allow it at all. Likewise, in theory as an extra it could remove "Maintenance". In M&M, this would make the power Continuous; in True20, the example of Suggestion indicates that some fixed, longish duration should be chosen instead. If you really and truly want a power that lasts indefinitely, it should probably cost at least two extras beyond the removal of Maintenance.

Fades: As written, it's not very suitable; who wants to clutter True20 with the rank-bookkeeping round by round? But! I see a very nice use for it based on the d20 conversion appendix. Fades in True20 makes a power act like the paladin's "Lay On Hands" ability. You can use your total number of ranks in a day - spreading them out at least one rank at a time. After that, you're out, though you can spend a point of Conviction to recharge it early. (For powers that don't use ranks, divide up adept levels similarly.) I recommend that this version of Fades be two flaws; one flaw would give you double (maybe triple?) your ranks per day. You can't use more than your rank at a time, of course. (I wonder if you should get to add your key ability in to your ranks?)

Feedback: True20 doesn't yet have any powers that would make this appropriate. It may at some point, though, in which case this flaw should work fine.

Limited: Almost infinite possibilities for this one. Just bear in mind it should take away about half or more of the power's effectiveness.

Penetrating: Completely unnecessary, as True20 doesn't have Impervious Protection.

Permanent: Not really in the spirit of True20.

Range: Monkeying with powers' range can have unforeseen consequences... be careful. Treat Perception range as "use the Familiarity table". Carefully consider requiring Mental Contact for such powers. Reducing things *from* Perception range for a flaw is interesting... sometimes, like with Mind Touch, it might be more fair to use the Sense Minds range DC's rather than an ordinary range increment.

Restorative: Doesn't fit into True20.

Selective Attack: Very bad idea. Disallow.

Sense-Dependent: This is nice limiter for powers you've removed the need for mental contact from.

Side-Effect: Many, many possibilities; however, this sort of thing is built into the "consequence save" already. See the next post.

Sleep: We've already got a Sleep power, so try not to step on its toes.

Tiring: This will probably be nice for powers the Narrator doesn't want to see routinely used.

Total Fade: No use for it in True20.

Uncontrolled: Though in M&M this is one flaw, I'm tempted to say it's worth two in True20. Individual feats and powers are much more precious in this game; to hand one over to the Narrator hurts more. As a *consequence*, though, it has lots of potential. See next post.

Unreliable: Best used for the consequence save, I think. See the next post.

Vampiric: Definite uses for this one! Especially for Harm...

Don't forget the custom extras and flaws! M&M Healing is virtually identical to True20 Cure, so there should be no harm in allowing Total and Empathic. As for M&M "power feats", I think these are best modeled as new "supernatural feats", not built in to powers.

Now for some custom True20 extras and flaws:

Grapple For Effect: I stole the idea for this flaw from the new Mastermind's Manual because I love it. When applied to a power that requires mental contact, it requires you to pin the subject in a mental grapple before you can use the power on them. For two flaws, if the other person pins *you*, they can use the power on you for a round! (This works well for Mind Probe, for example. Instead of getting to ask them a question, they get to ask you a question! Sort of like a Vulcan mind-meld that way.)

Affect Immune: You can affect a creature type normally immune to a given power. Use with some caution.

Easier DC: A single particular use of the power has a DC easier by 5. Be careful with this; it's best combined with Remove Ability to produce a specialized power.

No Consequence Save: Don't bother to roll. You suffer your consequence every time you use the power. For standard adepts, this is the same as Tiring; it's mainly needed only for adepts with different consequences. If this makes no sense and/or makes the power completely unusable, interpret it instead as failing your save automatically every time you fail to use the power properly... you don't make your DC, you miss with your attack roll, the subject makes their save, whatever.

No Mental Contact: This double extra removes the Mental Contact flaw. The power uses the Familiarity table as normal. It doesn't necessarily remove the Mind Touch prerequisite for the power, though; anyone who can reach through space to affect someone's mind can probably talk to them too.

Remove Ability: This only makes sense for powers with multiple uses. One or more of them is missing from the power; enough to reduce the power to at most one-half of its previous usefulness in the Narrator's opinion. If the power is left severely crippled (like, you only get Illuminate from Light Shaping) this might be worth two flaws.

Total Levels: With this extra, you can apply your total levels to a power, rather than just adept levels. For two extras, anyone can buy the power by giving up a general feat slot in any role! This means such "accessible" powers will be considerably weaker than adept-only powers, of course.

Finally, some examples:

Beast Shape: This is the Beast Shape power I posted. It's Self-Shaping with Limited x2 (one form only, and you can't change how it looks), a custom extra that lets you use the power without risk of going feral, and another to remove the prerequisite of Body Control 12.

Creature Ward: You can hedge out most kinds of supernatural creatures. This is Ward with Remove Ability (Ward Powers) and a custom extra letting you pick several kinds of critters to ward against.

Daylight: This is Light Shaping with Remove Ability x2 (down to Illuminate) and an extra letting the light count as sunlight for those beings that can't abide it. This minor spell costs only half a feat rank, and could be bought along with another similarly-limited spell. You could also take Easier DC to give yourself a little more leeway with the radius.

Dominate Undead: This is just Dominate with Affect Immune (undead) and Limited: Undead Only. Of course, you'll probably need Mind Touch Undead, as well... Though you could remove the need for mental contact and apply, oh, Sense-Dependent and Distracting. The undead will have to meet your eyes (or perhaps hear your voice), but that's nice and traditional anyway.

Empathic Healing: This is Cure and Cure Disease, each with Empathic, stuck together to make a single power. Alternatively, you could define this as Cure with Total and Empathic.

Force Telepathy: Telepathy is severely restricted in the Star Wars universe. This is Mind Touch, with the Range flaw (to Sense Minds DC), a double Limited and/or Remove Ability flaw (short phrase and emotional state only), and Instant duration. At this point, it is so flawed (10 ranks cost 4 points) that I say just add it on to Sense Minds as a new option and call it good. Maybe counterbalance the extra points with saying Telepathy is a fatiguing use of the power.

Lay On Hands: This classic paladin ability is just Cure with Total Levels x2 and Fades x2. Anyone can take it, but they have to spread their ranks out over the course of a day.

Mental Invisibility: This is Light Shaping with Remove Ability (no Illuminate or Visual Illusion) and a Limited flaw allowing a Will save as per Illusion to see through the invisibility. Add on the Easier DC extra twice, and you have the power to cloud men's minds! Personally, for color's sake I'd take off one of those Easier DC's and add on the ability to make objects of your choice in a 10 foot cube blurred or invisible for +5 to the DC, with an additional cubes for +5 each as well.

Plague: Harm with the Contagious and Disease extras, and the Distracting and two Action flaws. By taking a minute, you can inflict a horrible disease on someone. Which will spread. (Take off Contagious and replace the flaws with Fades x2, and you've basically got the dreaded Dim Mak, usable once per day - or more often if you use fewer ranks at a time.)

Finally, I mentioned above the possibility of "skill-like powers". If you apply two flaws (net) to a True20 power, you can buy four per feat. This is the same cost as skill ranks. I could imagine a campaign in which all powers were flawed down to that level; Adepts would still max out each power they bought (4 per feat), but anyone could buy ranks of any power using skill points. You might even eliminate the adept and just have Experts and Warriors buy powers as skills.

At 4 per feat, I would expect to see a lot of really specialized powers; more like "spells" in the d20 sense. It would be a good bit of work, but it could be fun!

[The Shadow]

This post covers not so much modding powers, but how powers work for a given sort of adept.

As mentioned above, certain True20 powers require a "consequence save", and that's just the way it is. If you fail the save, you suffer a flaw of some sort. Spending a point of Conviction will avoid the consequence, once. An individual adept should probably have the same consequence for all his powers, or at least all powers of the same "source".

In standard True20, the consequence is the Tiring flaw. Since flaws are roughly balanced against each other, you should be able to substitute certain other flaws in there without throwing the system out of whack. (Not all flaws are suitable as conssequences, of course. They're good limits on a power, but don't really discourage actually using the power. Action and Duration are good examples.) This first post will deal with other possible consequences. Here's some possibilities, based on the canonical M&M flaws. (In some cases tweaked.) Note: Consequences should probably not be chosen freely by the player! Rather, the Narrator should create different types of adepts with distinct consequences, and the player chooses which kind he wants to play.

Side Effect: This one is a rich mine of consequences! Pick a suitably nasty other power (it doesn't have to be one the Adept actually knows) and apply it to him every time he fails his consequence save at his own power rank. It should be the same power each time. Some possibilities: (Note that your "consequence save" *is* the save against the power in question - as with Fatiguing, you don't add your key ability to the DC.)

* Elemental Blast: The Adept gets zapped when he fails his consequence save. Elemental Resistance doesn't help (except to change damage to non-lethal), though armor does.

* Harm: Nasty, especially since adepts don't have good Fort saves. I'd give the Adept brave enough to take this some sort of perk - an extra power, maybe. This might also make a good consequence for Corrupt mages. (One more reason not to give in to the Dark Side...)

* Mind Shaping: A bizarre idea, but what if you lose some of your memory every time you fail your consequence save? Probably not balanced except for an exceptional player. If a brave Narrator does go for this, I'd say it's cumulative. ie, the first time you fail, it's like one round of Mind Shaping. After you've failed ten times, it's like a minute's worth, and so on. Worse yet, what if it's not memory loss, but alteration? Some*thing* might be shaping you into a certain mold...

* Move Object: Use your imagination.

* Pain: It lasts until you make your save. You've already failed for the first round.

* Plane Shift: Not for the faint of heart - either player or Narrator.

* Plant Shaping: The Plant Growth option, of course - it only affects you.

* Psychic Blast: Straightforward enough. Psychic Shield doesn't help.

* Severance: See Ward, below.

* Sleep: This one's a bit amusing. I doubt any player would be willing to play a narcoleptic adept, but it might work for certain comic-relief NPC's.

* Suggestion: An unpleasant and/or mischievous spiritual force gives you a Suggestion. At first it's something pretty minor... then not so minor. After this happens a few times, it might upgrade to Dominate.

* Ward: Doesn't exactly make sense to apply the power as written. Instead your effective power rank goes down by, say, 1/4 every time you fail. If you get zapped again when you're at 0, you suffer the effects of Severance. Recover as from Fatigue, unless you got Severed.

* Drain (from M&M): When you fail your Will save, one of your ability scores (chosen at character creation) goes down by one. To be fair, this should probably be either your key ability for powers, or else Constitution. You can recover as per Fatigue.

Other M&M powers, like Stun, could be adapted over.

Uncontrolled: Your power goes out of control, as per the old Wild Talent. Also like Wild Talent, you're stunned for a round. This makes a dandy D&Dish sorcerer.

Unreliable: Your power stops working until you recover as from fatigue. Your other powers still work (though they still have the cumulative penalty to consequence saves you've built up). A point of Conviction will revive a dormant power.

[MisterPunch]

Simply brilliant! You are doing work that I planned on doing but, instead, I can just yoink your work!

[razorwise]

Cool stuff.

I'll be keeping a keen eye on this thread for certain.

What got my attention the most is the following:

Fatiguing is an interesting case. It's basically a modified version of M&M's "Side Effect", but in the end it's weaker than M&M's Tiring. And it's fundamental to True20's balance. True20 *needs* for certain powers to become harder and harder to use repeatedly. There needs to be a consequence for using them.

I'd just like to say that this is the best way to effect the level of your world's magic. By altering the difficulty of saves and the duration of cumulative penalities to Fatigue saves, you can determine whether the magic is high or low.

I'm looking forward to more of your observations as you continue to deconstruct M&M.

Regards,

Sean

[The Shadow]

Thanks, guys!

I'd just like to say that this is the best way to effect the level of your world's magic. By altering the difficulty of saves and the duration of cumulative penalities to Fatigue saves, you can determine whether the magic is high or low.

Absolutely. Tinkering - carefully - with the Fatigue save is also the easiest way to flavor an adept without creating a new "class".

[Doctor J]

What if a power requires the expenditure of a point of Conviction to be used?

Just another flaw?

[The Shadow]

What if a power requires the expenditure of a point of Conviction to be used?

Just another flaw?

Personally, I don't like the idea of a flaw that requires spending Conviction. To me, Conviction is a player-level thing, not a character-level thing. It's the player that spends Conviction, not the character. I suspect this is the reason why the "Heroic" flaw got taken out of M&M 2e. (Hero Points are M&M's version of Conviction.)

I use the "Tiring" flaw for this kind of thing... in effect, the power requires extra effort. If the player wants - as they often will - to spend Conviction to offset the fatigue, they may.

But if you really want a "Requires Conviction" flaw, I don't see any reason why you couldn't do it. It should be balanced... While Conviction is required (unlike with Tiring) there's also no fatigue issues.

[Doctor J]

Leaving aside the issue of your dislike for the concept...

Are you sure that a Conviction cost would be equivalent to "Tiring"? A character who must spend Fatigue has at least 6 uses of his power every day -- three levels of Fatigue and three points of Conviction. He may choose to use one or the other as necessary, and can both rest and "Act his Nature" to regain Conviction. In effect, he has two sources of energy, both of which he can draw on.

But a character who must spend Conviction has only one such source. He cannot, for example, choose to Fatigue himself rather than spend Conviction. And if he has no Conviction, he must either wait a day (when he gets back a single point) or Act his Nature.

[The Shadow]

You raise good points. I was mainly going off the fact that "Heroic" (ie, "Requires Hero Points" - M&M's version of Conviction) and "Tiring" were both -1 Flaws in M&M 1e. ("Heroic" no longer exists in 2e.)

Not all M&M flaws are equivalent. They're not very fine-grained. However, in True20, upon reflection I can see a case for "Requires Conviction" being a -2 Flaw. Conviction is more of a life-or-death issue for True20 heroes than Hero Points are for M&M ones. On the other hand, they're easier to get back... (Hero Points were only regained at the end of an adventure in 1e. In 2e, they have to be earned through setbacks and heroic deeds.) Also, M&M has only 2 levels of Fatigue before unconsciousness, rather than True20's 3.

If you really want to do this, I think a -2 is not unreasonable.

[Shimeran]

Sorry for raising the dead, but this system is pretty similiar to one I've been tinkering with lately. Basically I assumed powers have a "complexity" rating. Limitations lower complexity while extra benefits raise it. The player can them spend a feat to buy any set of powers so long as the total complexity is no great than X times the number of times the feat is purchased. (I used 10 for X, but that's mostly because it's a nice round number with plenty of room for fine tuning. I did cap minimum complexity around 2-3 to avoid too many purchases per feat).

While working on this, I started with some modifiers to make things more "spell-like" so I could mimic settings that support ritual formulae over supernatural skills. How would you handle the following modifiers?

Level Limits: The spell has a minimum and maximum level. If your adept level is below the minimum you can not use this spell. If it's above the maximum, you gain no benefit from those extra levels when using this spell.

Fixed Effects: This spell does not combine with power modifying feats such as widen power and quicken power.

Required Feats: This spell always uses certain power modifying feats. If you don't know the feat you can't use the spell.

Bonus Feats: As with required feats but you can use the modifier feat even if you don't normally have access to it.

[The Shadow]

Wow! Another blast from the past! :)

How would you handle the following modifiers?

Level Limits: The spell has a minimum and maximum level. If your adept level is below the minimum you can not use this spell. If it's above the maximum, you gain no benefit from those extra levels when using this spell.

Minimum level strikes me purely as a flavor thing. Maximum level could *maybe* be a flaw if it's quite low (ie, less than 5 or so), but it's probably just flavor too. (And for some powers - ie, Supernatural Weapon - this flaw is meaningless and should be utterly disallowed.)

Are you intending to implement different "level" versions of the same power? ie, a 5th level Elemental Blast and a 10th level Elemental Blast? If so, I wouldn't bother. True20 powers just plain implement this functionality differently. It's more a model where you learn a spell, and then pour more power into it as you get better at it.

Fixed Effects: This spell does not combine with power modifying feats such as widen power and quicken power.

Again, this strikes me as a Narrator tweak, not a flaw. You have to understand, flaws in M&M are painted with a very wide brush. A flaw should roughly reduce the effectiveness of a power by ~50%. Anything significantly less serious than that is not considered worth codifying in numbers.

Required Feats: This spell always uses certain power modifying feats. If you don't know the feat you can't use the spell.

Ditto.

Bonus Feats: As with required feats but you can use the modifier feat even if you don't normally have access to it.

Now this is a pretty darn good extra, in my book.

[Shimeran]

I know True20 uses inflatable powers and it generally works pretty well. However, there are some settings I can think of where the emphasis is on spells as "recipes" for specific effects. Granted, this can be handled by assuming the character know a variety of specific spells that fill out all the effects of a single power. However, I can also see some interest in having a selection in having specialized power uses statted out as "spells", particularly if your coming from a system or genre that emphasizes this. Slayer's pops to mind as a good setting example. There are wide range of variants on elemental blast, each with it's own name, characteristics, and power level. While I do like the current power set up, I wanted to take a good look at the spell based approach to see how it can be done.

Since the limitations are fairly minor, would it be fair to group them together in one flaw. Perhaps something along these lines:

Fixed Effect: This power is a specialized version of the base power. As such, all it's options are set when the power is chosen and can not be changed later. This includes thing like power level and what power modifying feats are used.

This actually brings me to another point. What if I only want a single sub-power of a broader power? For example, let's say I wanted a power that only used the stone crafting application of earth shaping. That's one out of 4 possible option so technically it looks like 2 flaws, but I'm inclined to only count that as one flaw.

As for the "bonus feat" modifier, it does look pretty nice but an extra seems about right. It's worth roughly a 50% increase, right? That means a power with just that modifier is worth a feat and a half, higher than the 1 feat of an unmodified power but lower than the 2 feats needed for the power and the modifier feat (which could then affect every power).[/list]

[UtilikiltManiac]

So, let me see if I've digested this properly. In essence, a Level 3 Adept could cast a "spell" that was worth 6 Mutants & Masterminds power points (including extras and flaws, though the power rank itself couldn't go above 3 in any case), yes? It would also have a DC 13 saving throw (assuming it allows one).

Is that an accurate translation?

I ask, because I'm putting together a parody of D&D, and the individual spell method would feel much more correct than the True20 core magic system (there's nothing wrong with the core system, mind you, it's just not what I need for this particular setting).

What I'd also like to do is require a skill check in order to pull off a spell. The mage characters, assuming there are any, would be apprentice level, so it seems a bit odd to have their spells work every time. Would that be a flaw, or simply flavor?

Or, here's a fun thought. Perhaps having to roll to cast the spell is the "consequence." Instead of applying -1 to the Fatigue save for every spell cast within the hour, it could be -1 to the casting check instead. The penalty for failing would be fatigue. Hmmm... that gets a bit Ars Magica, which I happily admit I like.

Do you think that would work out well?

[Shimeran]

It's a little trickier than that. Basically if it's an "inflatable" power, one feat lets you get roughly twice your adept level in M&M power points to spend on that power's effects. For many powers, this is balanced by increasing power check and/or fatigue check difficulty. The thing is that the maximum effects tend to increase with adept level. If you want a "spell" that doesn't increase with level you'll need to change the cost to reflect this. In general, this is a limitation since you can't "pull you punches" for reduced effects and costs. You also can't produce the same maximum effect as high level adept with a normal power.

I was going for a similiar effect with the "fixed effect" flaw. I figured it would probably be easier to say "a power where everything but the target is predefined is half cost" than to work out the details of removing adept levels and using straight M&M points.

Adding a check might be worth an flaw. However, keep in mind that some powers already use power checks to introduce an element of uncertainty. So I'd only apply a flaw if you're either adding a power check to a power that doesn't normally require one or adding an another check in addition to any normally required checks.

Shifting the penalty from the fatigue check to the power check is probably balanced, you'll suffer less fatigue, but powers will weaken with use. Adding fatigue as an extra penalty for failure looks like a further limitation, making powers a little weaker overall.

[UtilikiltManiac]

What I was think was some system for learning spells, where your Adept level would set the maximum ranks you could learn, as well as your Power Check. I was thinking something like this:

Power Check to Cast Spell: To cast a spell, you make a Power Check with a difficulty equal to 10 (+ 2 per spell level). This would mean a level 5 spell (having up to 5 ranks in a power) would be difficulty 20. If you fail your check, you take a Fatigue level. It combines the success of casting the spell with the penalty for failure (rather like Ars Magica). There might be finer gradations within this.

I'm not sure how many spells I would like to award at each level, or how easily acquired they are beyond this. I can definitely see a market in scrolls and spellbooks, with price being based upon rarity. For what I'm trying to do, it actually works best to get as close to D&D as possible in order to more accurately parody it, while simultaneously doing it better.

Just rambling at this point. No sleep. Must take nap.