Magic tweaking

[Ingenious]

Complications furthered. What if a sorceror sneezed during a spell because the stupid ass barbarian character let in a local stray dog, to which the sorceror was allergic? How would this affect spell-casting? Would the spell be less powerful? Would you consider the sneezing a 'fumble' of some-sort? What if a sorceror was in mid-spell and a rather sizeable spider came down in front of him? Etc.
Other shit like maybe having an intense itch or need to use the bathroom... in which case roll WP against a TN according to intensity of aforementioned sensation...

I'd like to see that explored a bit more, it would bring a bit of comedy to the table.. as well as some realism. Sorcerors are humans too, some of them anyways... so why would they not have humanistic behaviors to given stimuli?? Allergies, itching, fear, paranoia... etc.

-Ingenious

[deltadave]

A different option than Paka's is to point out that when the PC's start throwing around magic it could bring them to the attention of magically aware creatures. The fact of their presence spreads like ripples in a pond.  The fey and sidhe may not be common but they would defintiely want to know who is disturbing  the neighborhood.

Another good one is to have the spirits of the dead flock to the magically active player. subtle but disturbing effects like seeing anguished faces out of the corner of your eye, finding small things moved from where you left them, cold drafts of wind wherever you go, shadows on the wall with nothing to cast them, etc. after a while other people will start to avoid you.  I added up all the CTN's of the cast spells and when that totaled more than 20 this sort of thing started to happen, becoming more intense as the total went up.  I also reduced the number by one in any week when the player used no magic...

[Pyske]

Yet another option would be to have "soaked" aging stage down into something lesser, but which still has a price.  Fatigue is the first thing that comes to mind.  This might reduce the incidence of casting chains of spells, since the fatigue would affect the subsequent castings, but it's not a permanent impairment.  Then again, I might also apply fatigue for when the aging roll is failed, too... I feel like there needs to be a bit more immediate consequence to suddenly aging a year.

One problem with this idea is that it will give an incentive for the sorceror not to go along with this group into dangerous situations, since casting spells is guaranteed to leave them weakened.  

 . . . . . . . -- Eric

[Dave Turner]

I've just finished reading a book called "The Darkness That Comes Before" and I'm incorporating some of its ideas regarding sorcery into an upcoming game.

The first has already been mentioned: sorcery is considered wildly heretical and sorcerers are reviled and feared.  Even consorting with a sorcerer is thought to put your soul in jeopardy.  As a result, many would consider sorcerous solutions to problems to be the option of last resort.

The second is that there are items in the world called Chorae.  They are small balls of iron engraved with sigils.  They have two effects.  The first is that they make any one who wears or bears one immune to sorcery.  Magic just washes off them like water off a duck's back.  The second is that a single touch from a Chorae will destroy a sorcerer, usually by starting a reaction the burns them from within in a matter of moments.