I have a player who is interested in playing a character who can cast spells through their weapon, a.k.a. a magus.

We looked into ruling it like two-weapon fighting, only you use a magic skill and a combat skill, and the advantages to activate the secondary weapon actually go to triggering the magic. The difficulty increases for casting that spell are applied to the attack as usual.

But I worry this breaks some action economy and gives the character what is, essentially, two powerful actions on their turn.

Any thoughts or ideas how to make this work, or should I keep casting and attacking separate?

What do you mean by "cast spells through their weapon"? Like using it as an implement? Or attacking with a weapon and hitting them with magic at the same time?

If the former, my best suggestion is to look at Rune magic and put a runeshard in the weapon so you can cast with your weapon.

If the latter…you already found out that you can't use two-weapon combat with magic, so take the scepter implement (RoT98) for the free close combat effect and either the lightning or poisonous for that "extra hit" effect. Or come up with an effect that grants Linked 1 for +PP or something so they can hit twice with the same attack.

It's specifically for the case of attacking with a weapon and casting a spell simultaneously. It's a popular game-play style in my roleplaying group for other systems.

Ah, I see. Then I would point you to this tier 4 talent:

Casting a spell and being able to attack with a weapon is a powerful ability and Genesys frowns on making more than one dice roll each turn. Hence all the limits (tier 4, once per encounter, Story Point cost).

The two-weapon fighting idea has legs, but I'd flip it; let the player spend advantage on the magic check to score a hit with their wielded melee weapon, the same way as you'd activate a second hit when two-weapon fighting. Obviously you'd need to give some consideration to game balance in terms of what difficulty pool to assign and etc, but I think the basic idea could work.

On 8/30/2019 at 10:06 PM, Tom Cruise said:

The two-weapon fighting idea has legs, but I'd flip it; let the player spend advantage on the magic check to score a hit with their wielded melee weapon, the same way as you'd activate a second hit when two-weapon fighting. Obviously you'd need to give some consideration to game balance in terms of what difficulty pool to assign and etc, but I think the basic idea could work.

I like this idea. Maybe even tie it into a talent called Magus . Giving him a new spell effect for his attack spell that is say... +2 difficulty and allows him to cast in Melee and spend 2 advantage to hit with a melee weapon he's wielding.

Maybe make it a sub effect under close combat. Kinda like autofire is under the lightning effect.

So under close combat add increase difficulty by 1 to spend 2 advantage for a hit with an equiped weapon.

Or something similar. Should be as balanced as autofire

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Casting a spell and being able to attack with a weapon is a powerful ability and Genesys frowns on making more than one dice roll each turn.

Yeah, this was my initial worry. Making the additional check was hugely advantageous.

As for all the suggestions, I'll definitely be working with the system to see if there is some merit to allowing for magic + weapon combat; I'll keep you updated as we playtest.

I agree with making it a talent that allows a melee hit with two advantage on the casting. I would also require them to cast with the lesser of the stats and skills of magic and melee. So a character with Arcana 2, Int 4, Brawn 2, and Melee 4 would cast with 2 Yellows (Brawn and Arcana). Otherwise you run the risk of major skill imbalance being abused (either using high melee and Brawn to cast spells or high Int and Magic to land melee hits). If they're supposed to be experts in magic and combat they should have to keep both skills up to be good at combining them IMO.

My suggestion.

Nice but it lacks some strain cost and it seems to me too powerful for a T3 talent. Ama, such a powerful ability should be T5 with 1 or 2 strain more than the amount spent for casting normally a spell. For a character who wants to be a melee fighting mage, it's the ultimate talent to possess. The one that combines both melee and magic in a single action.

3 hours ago, WolfRider said:

Nice but it lacks some strain cost and it seems to me too powerful for a T3 talent. Ama, such a powerful ability should be T5 with 1 or 2 strain more than the amount spent for casting normally a spell. For a character who wants to be a melee fighting mage, it's the ultimate talent to possess. The one that combines both melee and magic in a single action.

Please consider All the moving parts here. I actual Think t3 was to high might be T2. Since All it does is autofire as engaged range.

You still Pay the strain cost for the spell and take a setback for not having a free hand.

Compare this to the lightning effect which for 1 diff adds autofire.

Its not ultimative nor really powerfull compared to autofire

Minor nit pick, @Archellus , but it should be Activation: Active (Incidental). Passive talents are always on, no choice in the matter (Grit, Toughened, etc). When there’s a choice it’s always Active. Otherwise it’s a solid talent.

Personally, though, I would have it mimic Two-Weapon Combat and only allow one hit from the melee weapon instead of treating it like Auto-Fire. But again, personal opinion. As-is it’s a good starting point for playtesting.

1 hour ago, c__beck said:

Minor nit pick, @Archellus , but it should be Activation: Active (Incidental). Passive talents are always on, no choice in the matter (Grit, Toughened, etc). When there’s a choice it’s always Active. Otherwise it’s a solid talent.

Personally, though, I would have it mimic Two-Weapon Combat and only allow one hit from the melee weapon instead of treating it like Auto-Fire. But again, personal opinion. As-is it’s a good starting point for playtesting.

Thanks good catch 😀 i will throw this at some players see how it works. Reason for autofire was simplicity and since its still at its core a magic action it resembles the lightning attack option in terms of difficulty and power. Also consider the damage output you need good stats in both brawn and int.

Two weapon fighting would take alot to assemble the dicepool since it derives from 2 different skills.

If you want to limit the amount of hits you could mimic linked instead and strike the allow to spend multipel times part. Ill try and make a version with that later.

1 hour ago, Archellus said:

Thanks good catch 😀 i will throw this at some players see how it works. Reason for autofire was simplicity and since its still at its core a magic action it resembles the lightning attack option in terms of difficulty and power. Also consider the damage output you need good stats in both brawn and int.

Two weapon fighting would take alot to assemble the dicepool since it derives from 2 different skills.

If you want to limit the amount of hits you could mimic linked instead and strike the allow to spend multipel times part. Ill try and make a version with that later.

Maybe "mimic" was the wrong term. But be inspired by . So it's still a magical action, you just have the option of spending to hit with your weapon. So no cross-wonkery with lower of two characteristics/skills. The + would account for the increased difficulty to hit with both.

And not treating it exactly as TWC has the benefit (drawback?) of not allowing the Dual Wielder talent (CRB76) to remove that .

15 hours ago, Archellus said:

Two weapon fighting would take alot to assemble the dicepool since it derives from 2 different skills.

This is precisely why it should mimic Two-Weapon Fighting. Because, when it comes down to it, that's exactly what it is. You're suggesting that someone should be able to cast a spell and attack with a weapon easier than, say, attacking with a sword and a dagger?

It'd do something like this:

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A character may opt to cast an attack spell while also wielding a melee weapon, increasing their volume of attacks at the expense of accuracy. When attacking with a spell and a melee weapon, the character must be using a weapon that can reasonably be held in one hand, or suffer 1 penalty for not having a hand free. If it's unclear whether or not a weapon can be wielded one-handed, the GM makes the final determination.

To make this attack, the player performs a modified magic attack check. Build the pool for the magic attack as usual, increasing the difficulty of the combat check by one. Then the check is made. If they succeed, they hit with the magic attack in the normal manner. They may spend or to hit with the second weapon, as well. If both weapons hit, they may spend or to activate item qualities from the melee weapon. Each hit deals its base damage plus one point of damage per uncancelled .

... which, I believe, is pretty much how @c__beck was describing it.

4 hours ago, Simon Retold said:

This is precisely why it should mimic Two-Weapon Fighting. Because, when it comes down to it, that's exactly what it is. You're suggesting that someone should be able to cast a spell and attack with a weapon easier than, say, attacking with a sword and a dagger?

Maybe you misread my talent entry. I say while using the closed combat effect so in this case your allready increasing the magic attack by 1 you can opt to increase it by +1 more to achieve the effect. So the total pool becomes a hard check for a standard magic attack.

Well at this point the only difference between C_beck and mine is the ability to spend 2 advantage multiple times rest is the same in terms of difficulty. The setback with a magic check comes from the the magic rules of not having a hand free which in is own scales well with this talent since you can option 1 not use a implement now i have a hand free but less damage with the spell or use a 2 hand weapon now i have setback and more damage from the weapon or the balanced option setback with damage from both weapon and implement.

I dont suggest attacking with spell and weapon is easier. First of all attacking with a sword and dagger does not cost you 15 xp you can do it anytime. 2nd they use the same stats optimizing around brawn is easier then trying to do both brawn and int in this case. 3rd attacking with sword and dagger does not cost you 2 strain and 4th attacking with sword and dagger could benefit from dualwielder or dualstrike talents.

Also i try to compare it to other options for a spellcaster when you do that this talent is more visual flavor then anything. Consider the Scepter implement from ROT or even just a plain old wand of lightning now stand in melee range add the close combat effect and you end up with a Hard arcana check with the option to autofire. Which in most cases will yield you higher damage then this talent.

Hmm other option to consider is to modify the unrelenting talent from ROT but that has a strain cost 4 which on top of the spell would be brutal 😀

Third option would be to make a series of minor talents that let you do magical effect when strikning. So add stun or burn or whatever

Using a weapon in its main hand and another weapon in its off hand in a fight only needs some training to coordinate both weapons. For an already trained fighter it's intuitive to use their off hand. But using a weapon to fight while casting spells at the same time is something completely different. It isn't just a matter of coordinating your hand, but it's a matter of making your mind able to practice magic and focus on the fight.

That's why it must be a T5 talent. Only a seasoned character should have access to such a powerful talent. Because it's potentially a lot more powerful than auto fire. Many spells deliver a lot more damage than any weapon could do. Even if for the mechanical part of the talent it could work like auto fire or like two weapons fight. The point isn't how the mechanic works but how ithe talent impacts on the game balance. It really has a great potential to seriously unbalance the game if it's a too lower tier talent. With the pyramidal talent system in Genesys, making it a T5 talent means it'll cost 25 + 40 + 45 + 40 +25 (5*5 + 4*10 + 3*15 + 2*20 + 1*25) = 175 XPs. That's enough to make it rare and valuable talent.

20 hours ago, WolfRider said:

Using a weapon in its main hand and another weapon in its off hand in a fight only needs some training to coordinate both weapons. For an already trained fighter it's intuitive to use their off hand. But using a weapon to fight while casting spells at the same time is something completely different. It isn't just a matter of coordinating your hand, but it's a matter of making your mind able to practice magic and focus on the fight.

That's why it must be a T5 talent. Only a seasoned character should have access to such a powerful talent. Because it's potentially a lot more powerful than auto fire. Many spells deliver a lot more damage than any weapon could do. Even if for the mechanical part of the talent it could work like auto fire or like two weapons fight. The point isn't how the mechanic works but how ithe talent impacts on the game balance. It really has a great potential to seriously unbalance the game if it's a too lower tier talent. With the pyramidal talent system in Genesys, making it a T5 talent means it'll cost 25 + 40 + 45 + 40 +25 (5*5 + 4*10 + 3*15 + 2*20 + 1*25) = 175 XPs. That's enough to make it rare and valuable talent.

well try it on for size its not as powerfull as you think they way i worded it. Autofire from spells is available to anyone with just 1 rank of arcane. Ill try and example here.

Say there are 2 twins we will call them Cam the Magus and Rais the Wizard. Cam has a brawn of 3 and a int 3 and Rais a int 4. Lets give Cam the Magus a scepter implement from ROT and a longsword and we will give Rais a wand of lighting. Their respected ranks in arcane and melee dosent really matter but just put them all at 1.

So travelling along the road they are beset by goblins. Cam the Magus gleefull eyes looks to his GM "i want to use my magus strike" Rais the Wizard calmly says i point my wand at the group and blast at them. Ok lets roll it up

Cam will be making an Attack spell. Base difficulty is 1 purple now his implement gives him the close combat effect for free but from magus strike he adds 1 more difficulty ending up with a total difficulty of 2 (average) Note he will aslo have a boost dice for implement and a setback for not having a free hand he uses his maneuver to get to engaged range.

Rais the wizard will be using the attack spell also base diff is 1 his wand of lightning adds the lightning effect for free but he will use autofire so add 1 difficulty he could aim also but lets ignore that so total difficulty of the check is 2 (average)

So Cam will be rolling 2greens 1 yellow 1 blue vs 2 purple+1black and Rais 3 greens 1 yellow vs 2 purple. For the sake of argument lets say they both succeed with 2 success and 4 advantage a great roll for the twins.

Rais damage is 4 from int + 3 from wand+2 for succes = 9 he activates autofire 2 times scoring 9+9+9 = 27 damage (auch his GM rolls his eyes looks down at his carefully planned encounter cards and sighs)

Cam damage is 3 from int +2 from scepter +2 for succes = 7 he activates magus strike 2 times for his brawn of 3 +2 for sword +2 for succes =7 damage this gives a total of 7+7+7= 21 damage completely obliterating the 2nd group of minions (his GM gives up flips all his story points and opens ROT to page 195 and yells "DRAAAAAGOOON")

You can play with the above example give Cam some more int or brawn different implements and weapons go nuts. But ill doubt its uber powerfull or imbalanced or warrants a T5 talent.

@Archellus I think the talent comes out great. It's the simplest and cleanest solution.