As a Unicorn right off the bat we have two paths to down, being a One Trick Pony and becoming massively powerful with a single spell, or not being one and being an average caster of a normal number of spells. Later down the line one has the options to build towards having more potency or versatility, but all in all the progression is basically to become a more powerful caster. So good so far...
But there exists almost a mirrored void of options, almost every build path has an unrealized alter-ego.
What about Unicorns who instead of casting more powerfully, want to cast more readily. That is to say Unicorns who would favor sacrificing effective potency or versatility in favor of being able to cast more often. Unicorns for whom the basic level of the spell is good enough and casting at a lower effective potency is worth the saving in strain, in the most extreme a One Trick Pony who knows one basic level spell only, and instead of casting it more and more powerfully they cast it at lower and lower cost.
Options for strain builds are practically non-existent at present and for good reason, simple perks for reducing strain cost would overpower all existing Unicorns. But I have an idea on how it could be done safely...
In my sights: The Mighty Spell perks.
One Trick Pony, what is it that we get from taking it and sacrificing all ones spells bar one? Access to Mighty Spell (rank 2) and above of course. The mechanism there being to limit the most potent of the perks to the most specialized Unicorns.
What I am proposing is simple in itself, merely a bizarro version of those 4 Mighty Spell perks, lets call them "Provident Spell" perks, provident of course meaning to provide for future needs, to be economic or frugal. Lets take a look at ranks 1 and 2 to get a feel for how it might work.
Mighty Spell (rank 1): This perk is available to any Unicorn and only applies to one single spell so our first rank of Provident Spell will have to act likewise. What this perk does is allow one to spend half-again as much strain to cast at an effective double potency. The economy of the deal isn't startling nor should it be given any Unicorn could take it, akin to a "Buy one, get another half-price" sale. Our bizarro perk would do the opposite, allowing us to reduce the strain cost of a single spell fractionally, at the cost of reducing ones effective potency and/or versatility fractionally.
Mighty Spell (rank 2): Rank 2 of the chain is limited to One Trick Ponies so the Provident Spell chain would act also. Here the economy of the deal is "Buy two, get two free!" which given its the first exclusive deal is much more appetizing. And so on and so on, up to rank 4 the gains of the deal get bigger and bigger.
But herein lays the issue, it is easy to double or quadruple a number, but to take a fraction away from that number is more of a challenge. With natural Potency and Versatility we are looking at a variable that has a maximum of 5, and the strain costs for basic spells come in flavors 1 - 20 (1,2,4,8,10,15, 20).
- We could say you are casting with an effective -1,-2,-3,-4 in INT/END for Potency and Versatility purposes and your strain cost is -20%, -40%, -60%, -80% rounded up, but I consider it a little embarrassing to have to tell players to work out percentages and then round.
- Of course given the known strain costs we could just work out what the changing values and list them 10 = 8, 20 = 16, etc.
- Or one final option, to treat those 7 strain costs as strain "brackets" and instructing them the strain cost is now one bracket lower, the only problem there being that the values at present do not progress smoothly, +1, +2, +4, +2, +5, +5, respectively, but that could be something that can be fixed.
What say you, fellow ponies?
(tldr) Bizarro Mighty Spell perk chain allowing for the building of Unicorns that although weaker casters can cast much more often and not be so quickly depleted and reduced to conventional means.
