Being a devout fan of Modiphius Conan 2D20, I cannibalized some talents of the Sorcery talent tree for Genesys:

Quote

Protective Superstitions
Prerequisite: True Understanding
Maximum Ranks: 3
When involved in a Struggle to resist the effects of a spell,
you gain one bonus Momentum per rank of Protective
Superstitions.

My Genesys version would look like this:

Protective Superstitions
Prerequisite: Knowledge 3
Tier: 1

Maximum Ranks: 3 (Tiers 1/3/5)
When involved in a Struggle to resist the effects of a spell, the attacker gets a black die per rank of Protective Superstitions.

And here anoher Conan Sorcery talent:

Quote

True Understanding
Prerequisite: Sorcery Expertise 1
Maximum Ranks: 3
You may pay 2 points of Resolve to gain 1 bonus Momentum
on any Sorcery test other than tests to cast a spell. You may
do this once per rank in this talent, paying up to 6 Resolve
in this fashion.

My Genesys version would look like this:

True Understanding
Prerequisite: Magic(Arcana) 1+
Tier: 2
Gain 1 bonus Advantage on any Magic skill test to trigger effects.

True Understanding (improved)
Prerequisite: True Understanding
Tier: 4
Gain 2 bonus Advantage on any Magic skill test to trigger effects.

For clarification:

In Conan 1 Momentum is actually equal to 1 Success in Genesys but changes into a kind of advantage in case of excess successes to buy effects. So Conan talents could be an inspiration for creating Genesys ones.

I like True Understanding, though I've been debating making an Implement with a similar effect so...who knows how that goes balance wise.

I really like True Understanding. I might go with a more generic name like "Spell Mastery" or perhaps lower the rank by one or two and allow the talent to be applied only to a specific effect (although guaranteed burn or guaranteed blast is pretty scary...) under the name of "X specialization". Pyromancer ftw.

Lower True Understanding's rank, but don't let it "Stack". You can only select one additional effect for each rank and cannot select it a second time. Either that or add wording that is essentially "This talent cannot be used to mitigate the Advantage needed to activate a quality added to spell below 1/Can only can as one guaranteed Advantage. " Both are pretty clean overall.

Another option to make the talents less expensive is to only get the bonus advantage on a successful check.

I'd also advise against requiring the advantage to be spent in a certain way, as that can be an irritating memory issue. If you go with choosing specific additional effects, you can make the activation cost 1 advantage less instead of generating advantage that can only be spent on one thing. (And if its an effect that can be triggered multiple times, make it only decrease the cost of the first activation.)

Very good suggestions, you all:

Spell Mastery
Prerequisite: able to cast spells
Tier: 2
Ranks: 3
Lower the cost of one additional effects on any Magic skill test by one ^. The cost cannot lower the ^ cost below one ^ per spell effect. Every additional rank in Spell Mastery must be applied to a different spell effect.

It seems well thought out. I've been kicking around a few others as well in addition to allowing certain existing Talents to interact with magic.

So one of my players is a weather based caster and picked up Heightened Awareness. She asked if she'd be able to use Heightened Awareness alongside Primal for the purposes of predicting weather patterns and incoming storms. I said yes and it added some fun depth to her character.

That said, I'm excited to see some magic specific Talents.

I already created the generic "Magic Talents" to offset the penalties in one of the charts. Gestureless, Non-Verbal, Negate Amor Penalties, and Combat Casting (or active casting, like swimming and casting, etc.). All they really do is negate 1 Difficulty Die from checks made while doing the penalized casting (so it removes the negative effect really).

The Adventure for Runebound seems to set the precedence of "Magic Schools", allowing Talents that reduce difficulty for Fire, Ice, etc., as well as modifications for spells such as with the Necromancy Talent. (All those are noted in NPC stats.)

Two Big Issues I keep seeing:

1.) Tailoring to the Setting. Making Magic Talents too easily for magic to succeed in a setting where magic is limited could break the idea of the setting. Low Magic, Wild Magic, etc. Even in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf wasn't chucking fireballs.

2.) Don't equate Genesys Magic to other games. While it's nice to use the familiar magics of your commonly known RPGs, tying Genesys to another RPG's ruleset/mindset is very hampering of the system. Like Star Wars and Warhammer FRP3e, the Narrative Dice allows for a more freeform play, and the Magic system had to accompany it.

These Talents look great and they add something extra to the short list of talents that appear in the book.

DarthDude, would it be possible to attach your work to Cyvaris's alternate magic pdf? Maybe pocalypseZero can also contribute with the Talents he/she created. This way we can hace a single doccument with all the Alternative magic included.

56 minutes ago, Erahard said:

These Talents look great and they add something extra to the short list of talents that appear in the book.

DarthDude, would it be possible to attach your work to Cyvaris's alternate magic pdf? Maybe pocalypseZero can also contribute with the Talents he/she created. This way we can hace a single doccument with all the Alternative magic included.

It would be cool to have a document with much needed magic talents, if @Cyvaris wants to add them. Where can I find this pdf?

EDIT: Found it and it is great!

Compiling everything into one document would be great. What's the best way to do it? Google drive?

10 minutes ago, Cyvaris said:

Compiling everything into one document would be great. What's the best way to do it? Google drive?

Sounds perfect to me.

20 hours ago, Cyvaris said:

Lower True Understanding's rank, but don't let it "Stack". You can only select one additional effect for each rank and cannot select it a second time. Either that or add wording that is essentially "This talent cannot be used to mitigate the Advantage needed to activate a quality added to spell below 1/Can only can as one guaranteed Advantage. " Both are pretty clean overall.

Is there somewhere in the book that says additional effects cost Advantage to activate? You already pay their cost when you buy the upgrade for the individual spell. The book reads, “Before making a magic attack check choose any number of additional affects listed on {the table}. These effects are added to the attack.”

Note it does not read, “These effects may be activated by spending additional Advantages.”

Remember, these are additional effects, not spell qualities.

(Or did I miss something in the rules that says otherwise?)

26 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

Why do you think additional qualities cost Advantage to activate? You already pay their cost when you buy the upgrade for the individual spell. The book reads, “Before making a magic attack check choose any number of additional affects listed on {the table}. These effects are added to the attack.”

Note it does not read, “These effects may be activated by spending additional Advantages.”

Remember, these are additional effects, not spell qualities.

(Or did I miss something in the rules that says otherwise?)

The Added Effects come in a variety of forms. Adding Weapon Qualities brings the rules for Activating them as well. Otherwise, Mages would be stupid overpowered and use any Advantage rolled to just heal Strain of the spell.

Since I see a wanting for Talents, here are the ones I have created for my Fantasy Setting.

(Talents)
Deflect = Same as Parry against Ranged attacks with Shield Only (Tier 1)
Improved Deflect = Allows Deflect with Melee Weapons (Tier 3)
(Magical Talents)
Battle Mage = No Penalties to Casting for wearing Armor (Tier 2)
Gestureless Casting = No Somatic/Gestures for Spells. (Tier 2)
Quiet Casting = No Verbal/Spoken Requirements for Spells, not possible for Verse magics. (Tier 3)
Combat Casting = Downgrade the Difficulty by 1 for Casting Into, Out of, or while in Melee Combat
(Tier 4)
Quick Concentration = Concentration Action becomes a Incidental Action. (Tier 4)
Agile Casting = Downgrade the Difficulty by 1 for casting while in motion or performing another
activity (does not include combat). (Tier 4)

12 minutes ago, ApocalypseZero said:

The Added Effects come in a variety of forms. Adding Weapon Qualities brings the rules for Activating them as well. Otherwise, Mages would be stupid overpowered and use any Advantage rolled to just heal Strain of the spell.

That may be the case, and if so I wish it was more clear. However, since the book does not directly state that, I’ll wait for a developer ruling on it. Besides, that feature would only make them “stupid overpowered“ once we start adding talents that take away the difficulty mods of spell effects. The difficulty of spellcasting is it’s balancing factor. Any and all reduction in difficulty should be considered very carefully before being implemented.

49 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

However, since the book does not directly state that, I’ll wait for a developer ruling on it.

Is there a way to ask the devs to elaborate on ambiguous rules which can be collected in a FAQ document? For Modiphius Conan there was a guy who collected the devs' public clarifications on community quesrtions which were answered by all the devs. But of what I was told FFG devs do not answer pubicly to rules questions (what is a kind of a pity). Any means known to get official clarifications?

There was/is a Developer FAQ for the Star Wars RPG, so I would think having one for Genesys is possible. Caution though: That sometimes leads to more questions than answers.

24 minutes ago, ApocalypseZero said:

[...] Caution though: That sometimes leads to more questions than answers.

And more questions lead to the dark side.

Maybe @GM Hooly is able to get some clarifications from the masters in their ivory towers.

1 hour ago, Simon Retold said:

That may be the case, and if so I wish it was more clear. However, since the book does not directly state that, I’ll wait for a developer ruling on it. Besides, that feature would only make them “stupid overpowered“ once we start adding talents that take away the difficulty mods of spell effects. The difficulty of spellcasting is it’s balancing factor. Any and all reduction in difficulty should be considered very carefully before being implemented.

There was discussion on this in another magic thread and someone submitted a question to FFG and said they were told you still have to spend advantage to activate weapon qualities for spells like any other attack.

Here's the link . They had a good discussion on this topic as well.

1 hour ago, Simon Retold said:

That may be the case, and if so I wish it was more clear. However, since the book does not directly state that, I’ll wait for a developer ruling on it. Besides, that feature would only make them “stupid overpowered“ once we start adding talents that take away the difficulty mods of spell effects. The difficulty of spellcasting is it’s balancing factor. Any and all reduction in difficulty should be considered very carefully before being implemented.

The rules already have that in the form of implements though. A staff adds +4 damage and makes the first range increase free. Wand adss burn for no difficulty inctease, etc.

I've been thinking of a way to apply a sort of 'Blood Magic' talent. Something like:

Blood Magic (Tier 3, Ranked, Passive) Instead of taking 2 strain to perform a magic action, the spellcaster character may choose to take a number of wounds equal to their ranks in Blood Mage. This adds a Boost die per wound taken in this way, as well as fulfills the requirement of the 2 strain a magic action normally takes.

Improved Blood Magic (Tier 4, Passive, Requires Blood Magic ) The spellcaster can further increase the effectiveness of their spells with their own life force. The character may spend 3 Advantage or 1 triumph to take a wound to upgrade their next magic action check per wound taken.

Supreme Blood Magic (Tier 5, Incidental, Requires Blood Magic ) Once per game session the spellcaster character may make a magic action check and take any number of wounds up to their wound threshold to downgrade the check to a minimum of Easy difficulty.

Sorry for the edit, wanted to format and clarify the requirements and actions.

I really like the idea behind these Blood Magic talents. Blood Mage is solid. Improved Blood Mage is confusing to me. Does the character spend advantage and triumph to upgrade their NEXT spell's skill check? Could you instead trade wounds plus Advantages or Triumphs for successes in some way?

I think Supreme Blood Mage should include "to a minimum of easy".

2 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

I really like the idea behind these Blood Magic talents. Blood Mage is solid. Improved Blood Mage is confusing to me. Does the character spend advantage and triumph to upgrade their NEXT spell's skill check? Could you instead trade wounds plus Advantages or Triumphs for successes in some way?

I think Supreme Blood Mage should include "to a minimum of easy".

Thanks! I agree, I edited to clarify, and the minimum of easy is a good idea.

Blood Magic could be constructed more like Necromancy is in the Terrinoth Adventure (Genesys Support section). Necromancy allows one to Summon Ally (Undead) at reduced difficulty. Perhaps Blood Magic would allow one to suffer a Wound instead of Strain to perform Magic,? (I'd tie it to Primal or Arcane only.) Actually,, this has inspired me to how I am looking to do it in my game.

Blood Magic (Tier 4): Allows an Arcane or Primal Caster to suffer 1 Wound instead of 2 Strain to Cast a Spell. In addition, any Attack or Curse Action taken with Blood Magic has the difficulty downgraded by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

A rule I like to use when creating anything for a system is to use what's been done in system before. While there are rules for "Creating a ..." in the book, if there is an example in the rules, it's the best way to interpret creator's intent. And with the Narrative Dice System, getting inside the head of the creators is a great way to see how things can and should be done.