This is partly a comment to the anti-aging spell that was posted recently. Some of the comments down in that thread made me wonder, so I'm throwing a few ideas out here:

a) Automatic aging
Why do the magic-pool-refresh spells incur automatic aging? I understand it's a game-design method to prevent them being used over and over and over again, but IMHO it punishes spellcasters way too much.

One alternative idea would be to say that magical energy comes from somewhere - the surrounding, environment, whatever. i.e. the amount you can draw is limited. A simple game-mechanic solution would be to raise the CTN by 1 for every time the spell has been used within the last (hour, day, whatever time frame you think is appropriate for your setting).


b) Magic not rare enough
One comment was that magic is said to be rare, but actually every single player has it available.
Personally, I wouldn't allow magic for new players (players, not characters). People should learn TRoS without magic first. So the idea would be to have magic a 7th priority. Since you only get 6 (A-F) initially, no new player can play a sorcerer. However, once you got some insight, you get additional priority letters, and so you can.

Magic priority:
A: Powerful sorcerer (+1 all magic pools)
B: Sorcerer
C: Weak sorcerer (-2 all magic pools)
D: Hedge magician (no spells-of-one, 1/2 magic pools)
E-F: no magic


Just a rough idea. I'm looking forward to your comment.s

As a GM I've always prefered magic rare settings. I don't handle this with any specific mechanics though, just with style and feel during games. If one or more of my players wants to be a sorceror, I will allow it, but I make sure they understand that they are rare, special, and probably feared and hunted because of it. One of my best campaigns revolved around a character who was trying to come to terms with their new found magic skill in a world where magic users were hunted by the peasants and enslaved by the government.

Tom--you should take a look at my post on "a new way of dealing with Race & Sorcery." I think my proposals might mean a somewhat more high-magic world, but one thing I've gotten rid of, or am in the process of doing, is having any two letters be the same. The chart you present here has E & F being exactly the same, which is one better than the book, but still.

I agree with your a) comment, btw. But I do see a problem with b), aside from E&F being the same in your schema: what do you do with your letter F as a beginning character? Are you making "Race" a separate category from Sorcery? In that case, I'd say you need to buff up the other Races by ALOT, and make more of them.

Matt