Magnitude

The magnitude of a spell is an in game reference of the power or strength of a spell or magical effect. When referring to the a worked effect- base level adjusted by range, duration, target, size, complexity, etc.- it refers to level divided by 5, rounded up.

It gets slightly more complicated when adjusting any of those parameters. When you have to increase or decrease the spell level by magnitudes, each magnitude is equal to 5 levels except when dealing with spell levels between 1 and 5. If an increase will take the level to no higher than five, or the decrease occurs from level five or less, than each level is a magnitude. This allows for slight increases to effects from low level base spells without increasing the level to higher levels to quickly.

Above and beyond the magnitudes added to a spell for each base parameter, extra magnitudes may be required if the spell needs a requisite, is particularly tricky or fancy, or needs to affect a bigger target, in which case each extra magnitude multiplies by 10 the number of targets, area or weight that can be affected. Extra magnitudes are also often added to have a spell do more damage, usually with +01 magnitude meaning +05 damage.

References

• ArM5, p. 111.