I am a big fan of Mage: The Ascension and its magic system. Despite some infamous issues (Is pulling that laptop out of your empty backpack vulgar or coincidental?) it was a fairly straightforward system, relatively easy to understand compared to what it could achieve. I always thought that the d20 rules would work fairly well for a similar, spontaneous magic system. The heart of d20 is Stat + Skill + d20 against a difficulty number, which has a lot of similarity to Ars Magica, also well know for its spontaneous magic system. You would simply come up with some spellcasting skills, and a spell would be a mix of factors—range, duration, damage, effects, etc.—given numerical value. Add those values up and you would have the difficulty number for the spell.

This is where Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth (ME) comes in, for this is essentially what it does, and on many levels, it does it well. Based on the d20 fantasy supplement Elements of Magic Revised (EoMR), ME presents a spontaneous spellcasting system based on skills and feats, allowing it to be plugged into many different d20 games. It is written primarily for d20 Modern by Wizard’s of the Coast, but because it is based on feats and skills rather than classes it is relatively easy to port to other d20 flavors. Note that the parent book Elements of Magic Revised is not needed to use this supplement; the two systems are related, but ME is otherwise self-contained. Still, EoMR could be used to expand on ME.

This review is for the PDF version of ME. I believe there is a print version available as well.

Before I dive into the review. I want to point out that ME is a book with an identity issue. I find the title misleading; to me Mythic Earth implies an Ars Magica-like setting, or something similar. The cover does not do a good job of conveying what the book is about. Some of the content discusses myths and legends. But, none of this is particularly important to the heart of the book, which is its spontaneous magic system, which could be used for a wide variety of settings, including generic fantasy. I point this out because I originally passed up ME when it first came out because I thought it was something other than what it is.

The Book & The Look
Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth is a 64 page PDF. This includes front and rear cover and a page of Open Gaming License info. There are no ads. For those interested in such things, just about everything in this book is open gaming content. Only the art, logos and a few select terms are closed.

ME is a very well put together PDF. The designer made use of the layer capabilities of Acrobat to create multiple versions of the document in a single file. There are three versions of the top and bottom bars (color, B&W, and simple line & text), plus you can shut off images and backgrounds. This eliminates the need for different files for on screen and printing. It is also bookmarked. The layout is good. In most cases it is not cramped, and very readable. Art in the book is mostly average, made up of pencil sketches. Nothing really caught my eye, but none of it was distracting, either.

Chapter One: Myths
There are four chapters in the book, plus an appendix. The organization of these chapters are odd, as they split up the two chapter on magic with a chapter for a sample game setting. Because of this I will be going over them out of order.

The first chapter is a treatise on myths, legends and the monomyth of the heroic journey. It is about six pages in length, and I have to say it feels like filler. There is not much depth here, and there isn’t much to tie it into the system of spellcasting. It adds to the identity issues of the book, since the magic system in itself is relatively generic. Other than this article, I am not sure why the book is subtitled Mythic Earth at all. The magic traditions often cover real world magic beliefs, but with some minor tinkering you could use the system for a more gritty occult game, for example.

Chapter Three: The Magic of High Fantasy
This chapter is a brief overview of the High Fantasy setting. And by brief, I mean really brief! The actual setting information is less than three pages, and most of this covers two organizations that characters can belong to or interact with: The Knights of the Round and The Bureau. Of note is the fact that agents of both groups are referred to as knights, which is a very odd choice.

The premise of the High Fantasy setting is that reality is separated into two worlds: our world of Terra, and the world of Gaia, where magic, fey and other fantasy elements exist. If this description seems short, that’s because there isn’t much more to comment on. If the setting piques your interest, you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Also in this chapter is a mage advanced class, a few magic items specific to the setting and sample NPCs. The mage advanced class is out of place here; there is nothing setting specific to it, and could easily be used for other games using the system. It should have been in Chapter Two for general use. The NPCs are nice in that they each have an array of sample spells they use often. These sample spells are very handy for showing how the system works.

Chapter Two: Spellcasting and Magical Traditions
In this chapter we start to dive into the heart of the book: spellcasting. This chapter outlines the basic rules for how to cast both ritual spells and spontaneous magic, and offers up the different approaches to magic, called traditions.

Spontaneous Magic
In order to use spontaneous magic, you need two things. First, you need one of the tradition feats, which give you a selection of magic skills as class skills, plus grants some bonuses and penalties to spellcasting or similar benefits, outlines aspects of ritual magic, and offers suggestions on what happens when a spell mishaps. Second, you need ranks in the spellcasting skills, of which there are ten: Attack, Charm, Create, Cure, Defend, Divine, Illusion, Move, Summon and Transform. Divine refers to divination, not divinity.

Once you have those, you can cast spontaneous spells. This makes for a nice simple approach, that is also massively unbalanced compared to most feats and skills. See Balance, below, for more on this.

Mythic Earth offers up 25 magic traditions:

• Animism: spirit-granted magic, this tradition grants access to all ten magic skills, but is at -2 to all rolls; jack of all trades, master of none.
• Anime-ism: magic based on emulating anime. Grants access to Attack, Move and Transform.
• Blood Magic: magic based on the power of blood, including blood sacrifice. Grants access to Attack, Defend, Summon and Transform.
• Christian Healer: healing magic through the power of God. Grants access to Create, Cure, and Defend.
• Christian Magus: magic power through faith in God. Grants access to Charm, Cure, and Divine.
• Classical Fey: magic of the fey. Grants access to Charm, Illusion, Move, and Transform.
• Dreamtime: magic stemming from a magic journey. Grants access to Create, Divine, Move, and Transform.
• Elder Mysteries: Cthulhuesque magic. This tradition grants a +2 to all spell checks, but all spells have a drain on Wisdom, making it powerful in bursts, but hard to sustain. Mishaps result in insanity. Grants access to Charm, Defend, Divine, Illusion, and Summon.
• Feng Shui: Chinese geomancy. Grants Cure and Defend.
• Freed Mind: the magic of sheer will over reality. Grants Charm, Create, Illusion, and Move.
• Hoodoo: control over spirits to attack or grant knowledge. Grants Attack, Charm, Summon, and Transform.
• Kabbalistic Alchemist: mystical science of divine words and formulas. Despite the name, this tradition does not otherwise involve alchemy in the normal fantasy sense. Grants Create, Cure, Divine, and Summon.
• Necromancy: the magic of death, undeath and the dead. This tradition grants Attack, Charm, Divine, and Summon, but the last three skills are limited to dealing with undead or spirits of the dead.
• Norse Runecasting: magic based on norse runes. Grants Attack, Defend, and Divine.
• Psychic Sensitivity: this is an example of using the system to portray psychic power. Grants Charm, Divine, and Illusion.
• Spanish Inquisitor: a rather specific tradition, this could also represent modern day “witch hunters” and similar concepts. Grants access to Attack, Charm, Defend, and Divine.
• Squirrelomancy: here is a direct quote... “You believe you have unlocked the secret to the powers of the singular squirrel — renowned for its immortality and ability to be multiple places at once.” Grants Charm, Illusion, Move and Transform.
• Stage Magic: if Criss Angel was a real spellcaster, this would be his tradition. Grants Charm, Illusion, and Move.
• Technomancy: magic via understanding of technology and science. Spontaneous magic does not require any technology, but you can craft tech devices to empower your magic. Grants Create and Divine.
• Telepath: another example of using the system for psionics. Grants only the Charm skill, but gives +4 bonus for typical telepathic uses, such as mind reading or telepathic commands
• Voodoo: similar to hoodoo, but is more oriented towards channeling spirits into people. Grants Charm, Cure, Defend, and Divine.
  Wicca: pagan magic based on spirits. Grants Cure, Defend, and Divine.
• Witchcraft: archetypical evil witch magic, with mishaps resulting in demonic possession. This tradition allows for the summoning of a familiar. Grants Attack, Charm, Illusion, and Summon.
• Wuxia Sorcery: magic based on combat prowess. Grants Attack, Defend, Illusion, and Move.

The tradition feats cover a wide range of magical themes, but if none of these quite fit your setting or story, you are on your own. There are no rules or guidelines for creating tradition feats. You can use the given traditions as examples, but a GM needs to be careful, since not all the traditions are equal. Some of the traditions are underpowered, such as the two psychic traditions, whose benefits do not outweight their limitations. Several of the feats seem clearly superior, especially for combat-oriented characters. Wuxia Sorcery has a very nice mix of magic skills with no drawbacks, and has some nice benefits. Blood Magic has a nice mix of skills, offers up access to affliction magics, and has a benefit that will see a lot of use.

It is possible to take multiple tradition feats and switch between their use, though it does take an action to do so. There is a feat that allows a spellcaster to use all his tradition feats at once without penalty.

The basics of spontaneous spellcasting is this: each spell has a given level, which is added to 10 to get its difficulty. The caster rolls the appropriate skill, and if the roll is equal to or higher, the spell is cast successfully. If the roll is a failure, but still within five of the difficulty, you still cast the spell successfully, but receive a penalty of -1 to all future spellcasting rolls until you rest. This penalty is cumulative. If the roll fails by 6-10, the spell is not cast, and you receive the -1 penalty. If you fail by 11 or more, you gain the penalty and there is a mishap.

As mentioned, each tradition offers up suggestions or rules for mishaps, but the basic rule is that the caster takes damage equal to the spell’s level. Note that spell level differs from typical d20 or D&D spell levels, and can range from 1 to 50 or more. If you are using ME in d20 Modern, which uses a massive damage rule, you could die from a mishap, even if at full health, when casting powerful spells.

Spells are split into two separate types; normal and signature spells. Signature spells are spells the character has attuned himself to and can cast with more ease. A character can have a number of signature spells equal to his level plus his Intelligence bonus. Signature spells are fairly specific, such as a lightning bolt with a predefined damage, range and so on, and are similar in concept to rotes in Mage: The Ascension (predefined effects in a spontaneous magic system). The primary difference between signature spells and other spells is that signature spells take a standard action to cast, and all other spontaneous magic takes two full rounds to cast.

Yes, that is right, two full rounds. That means that if you are going to cast a non-signature spell on the first round of combat, it will manifest on your turn in the third round. Ouch. I have to admit I am not fond this rule. It seems to hobble an otherwise excellent system by encouraging characters to stick with predefined effects during action scenes, rather than dive in and take it for a spin. As we will see below, creating spells is fairly easy for many effects. I’d think a single full round action for most spells, and a standard action for signature spells would have been fine for balance.

Ritual Magic
In order to use ritual magic, you use the Knowledge (arcane lore) skill. You also need a copy of the ritual to work with. Rituals are essentially equipment you buy or find. There is no limit to the number of rituals you can have. You must make ten successful Knowledge (arcane lore) rolls. Each roll covers a round (six seconds), and two failures in a row means the whole ritual fails and causes a mishap. There are rules for having assistance in rituals, as well as taking more time.

The point of rituals is to be a form of spellcasting for those without spontaneous magic, or for those who do not have the proper skills to cast a spell that needs to be cast. The book says “Ritual spells are difficult to cast, but can be very powerful if the caster is willing to take the risk” but for people who have the proper magic skills, there isn’t much reason to cast ritual spells, unless you sink a number of feats and talents into Knowledge (arcane lore) and have a lot of friends to help you out. Mathematically, rituals are rather hard to pull off. I discussed this with the author of the book, and he believes that in retrospect, the two failure rule is harsh, and thinks going with three consecutive failures for the entire ritual to fail and mishap is a better approach.

If a spontaneous caster wants to take longer to cast a spell he can otherwise cast, he can take 10 minutes to cast the spell, which nets him a +2 bonus. I think more rules for group spellcasting would have been nice, allowing groups to cast more powerful effects by combining their efforts, without resorting to rituals as outlined in the rules (non-ritual rituals!). That’s probably the Mage fan in me talking.

Chapter Four: Spells
Where Chapter Two dealt with the overview of how spells are cast, Chapter Four has the specifics for creating spells and effects.

All spells have a base to them. Here is the base spell, right from the book:

Duration: Up to one minute (D). You can hold a charged spell after casting it, waiting to release its effect, but the duration is still tracked from the moment it is done being cast.Range: Touch.
Target: A creature, object, or point in space.
Area of Effect: Up to one 5-ft. square.
Affecting Targets: When you cast your spell, choose a creature, object, or point-in-space within range. This is the center of the area of effect. If you choose a creature or object, the spell is anchored to it, and the area of effect moves wherever it moves. If you choose a point in space, the area of effect is static and unmoving. Also, instead of a 5-ft. area, you may choose for the spell to simply affect one creature or object. Thus, if your friend and an enemy are grappling and in the same square, you could target a Charm spell to affect only the enemy, instead of a 5-ft. area.

That is the base spell. Onto this you pile enhancements. There are general enhancements and skill enhancements. General enhancements do not require any given skill, and include increasing area of effect, range, duration, and other basic spell components. For example:

Range (Varies). The spell has a range greater than Touch:

• Range, Short (+1). The spell has a range of 30 ft., or generally the size of a small melee combat.
• Range, Medium (+2). The spell has a range of 150 ft., or generally the size of any close- to medium-range gunfight.
• Range, Long (+4). The spell has a range of 800 ft., or generally far enough to reach people who can see you, at about the limit of clear vision.

...and so on, up to worldwide range.

Then there are enhancements specific to one of the ten spellcasting skills. For example, here are a few enhancements from Defend:

• Antimagic, Targeted (+1). Choose one type of magical skill. The area of effect becomes suffused with antimagic targeted against that type of spell. Casting a spell of that type in the area requires a caster level check against Spell Resistance 10. Ongoing magic effects of that type that enter the area are affected as if they took 10 on their caster level check. Each 1 additional level increases the SR by 1.
• Armor Class (+2). Affected creatures gain a +1 enhancement bonus to armor class. This enhancement can be improved by 1 for each extra spell level, to a maximum of +5 at 6th level.
• Damage Reduction (+2). Affected creatures gain DR 1/magic, meaning that the damage reduction can only be bypassed by attacks with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus. Each 1 additional level increases the DR by 1. For 2 additional levels, the DR can only be bypassed by some other, less obvious substance, like silver or wood.

Each skill description is a list of enhancements that add to the spell level. You can have no more levels in a given spell than you have ranks in the skill. So if you want to cast a 5d6 fireball with a range of medium and area of affect of 20’ radius sphere, it would take +2 for Range, Medium, +2 for Area, Radius (20’) and +5 for 5d6 damage. Total level is then (2+2+5) 9, would require 9 ranks in Attack and would have a DC 19 to cast. The caster would have to be 6th level to cast it with max ranks (level +3). It is possible to cast spells up to 5 levels above your ranks, but you suffer Strength ability burn and will have more chance of a mishap.

This is how all spells are built. Most of the skills have a decent array of enhancements covering many typical situations, which allows you to build spells easily. If an enhancement is not there, the GM makes decisions on the level cost.

Things are not perfect, though. Here are a few oddities I found while reading over the skills:

With the Attack skill, you have to pick a form of attack to use, such as force, fire, lightning, and so on, for each tradition you have that grants access to Attack. This seems rather constraining; why can’t an Animist call the spirits of the storm to cast forth lightning, or the spirit of flames to cast a fireball?

There are enhancements in the Attack skill that you cannot take unless your tradition specifically allow for them. These are called affliction enhancements, and include things like ability drain, paralysis, fatigue and so on. There is no way to gain access to affliction enhancements without the proper tradition, meaning the spell is more useful for some people than others. Affliction does not include negative levels, despite the fact there is a way to cure them. I know there are d20 monsters that do this, but it otherwise seems like an oversight.

There are skills such as Attack and Charm that have a critical effect when a 20 is rolled to cast the spell, but it requires no confirmation like a combat critical hit, which means all spells have equal chance of critting, regardless of caster skill.

In order to control the undead with Charm you need a feat, or you need the Necromancy tradition, which only works with undead. Seems like there should be an option for anyone to pick one or the other, then get the opposite with a feat. Also, you cannot make permanent memory alterations to a person without a feat. I mention these because they are examples of absolutes that seem unnecessary in a flexible system. Why not make some effects have very high enhancement costs, then offer feats to make them cheaper? Finally, Charm does not have an enhancement for telepathic conversations (to and from a non-telepath), though it can be extrapolated from the other enhancements.

The Cure skill seems underpowered and less useful than most of the other skills. It has a number of enhancements for less common issues, like fatigue, ability damage and poison, but straightforward healing is very difficult. At first level you can heal a person 1d4 points of damage, once per day. Healing someone of 1d6 points of damage is +10, with each additional 1d6 adding 2 more levels. While I understand the reluctance of making healing too easy in a system where magic can theoretically be used many times and without penalty, I think they went overboard.

A number of effects under Cure require Craft Points (see below for more on Craft Points) to cast, such as curing blindness, paralysis or bringing back the dead. That goes back to the idea of absolutes, and I think a higher level cost with the ability to reduce the cost via CPs would be a better idea. This is the only case of needing CPs to cast basic spells that I know of.

Do summoned creatures that are listed with equipment come with that equipment when summoned? If I summon an orc, does it come with a falchion and some armour, or do I have to combine it with the Create skill?

The Move skill has more examples of absolutes. There are four types of enhancements—flight, haste, incorporeality, and teleportation—that you cannot use unless you have a feat, and you need the feat once for each type. Again, why not increase the level cost and then give a feat that reduces it? Give all teleport effects an extra 10 levels, then have Teleport Mastery to reduce the cost by 10. On the bright side, there is a feat available, as compared to the Attack skill lock-in.

Create cannot create electronic devices unless you have the Technomancy tradition. There is no other feat to gain this ability. This seems like a needless limitation.

The Transform skill seems incomplete. It covers changing into a creature, but not changing parts of your body for other reasons. Want to sprout wings to fly, gills to breathe underwater, claws to shred your enemies, a metabolism that allows you to regenerate like a troll or a thicker skin for natural armour? There are no listed enhancements for this. It suggests using Create if you want to transform an object into something else, but what if you want to enhance an object? What if I want to make my car more fuel efficient, my windows bullet proof and my tires spring fourth spikes to get over the ice better? If all that falls under Create, that seems to make Create a more powerful skill.

There seems to be no way for warding out creatures from an area. For example, you cannot create a ward against undead, nor can you create a summoning circle to summon a demon within, so you can bargain with it. There also seems to be no way to create force fields that provide protection and keep people out physically. Sounds like a Create or Defend effect, but there isn’t much help to figure it all out. Overall, I think the magic skills could use some expansion, covering more effects.

Magic Items and Permanent Effects
Chapter Two has rules for creating magic items and permanent effects. The rules are based on expending action points to gain Craft Points, which are in turn used to pay for magic items. Action points are a concept found in d20 Modern, and are a finite resource used to modify rolls. Using them to power magic item creation is an interesting idea, but the down side of this is that it makes it more difficult to use the system in d20 games that do not use action points. There is an option for using XP to create items found in the D&D conversion appendix, but there are d20 games that also don’t use XP, such as True20.

There are rules for creating permanent effects that are basically the same, including cost. This seems too generous, since having a permanent effect on you is more handy than having an item. Which would you rather have, a belt that gave you +6 to Strength, or a permanent magic effect that simply makes you six points stronger? The former can much more easily be taken away.

Appendix One: Mythic Fantasy d20
This appendix is guidelines for using the ME rules in a typical d20 fantasy game, most likely Dungeons & Dragons. It has some suggested rules changes to work with D&D, a mage class and traditions for fantasy settings. Traditions include spider-worshiper magic, bard-like magic, Dark-Sun-like defilement magic, and shadow magic. Missing from this is the generic wizard concept, which seems really odd.

Balance
Is ME balanced? I look at it from two perspectives.

The first perspective is inner balance. If everyone is playing a Mythic Earth spellcaster, is the system balanced within itself? That answer to that is “mostly.” Some of the traditions seem notably better or worse than others. Also, some of the magic skills seem either underpowered (Cure) or don’t have much to them (Transform). But, I would say that as long as the player and GM work together to avoid the obvious problems, it is fairly well balanced.

The second perspective is outer balance. If you play a d20 Modern game and simply toss ME in as an option, is it balanced with the other d20 Modern options? Well, I have not play tested it, but I can’t see it as being at all balanced, or even close. All it takes to be a decent spellcaster is a single feat and a few skill choices.

For example, the Fast Hero class from d20 Modern starts with two free feats and has 5 skill points per level. If he takes the Blood Magic tradition and the Attack and Defend skills, he has given up only a feat and a 2 skill points per level. Sure he lacks the true variety of a dedicated spellcaster, but he now has capabilities far beyond what a single feat and two skill points is going to give him. He gets signature spells based on level, so he keeps gaining those. He cannot identify the spells of others for countering, but that is not his schtick anyway.

Plus, if you put it into D&D as written, human rogues who don’t take the Woven of Midnight tradition feat and put a few skill points into Illusion likely don’t see the potential there!

Summary
Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth is an excellent book filled with potential. The magic system is nicely done, and if someone was looking to play a Mage-like game of modern magic, or some other game where everyone is a spellcaster, it should work out quite well.

Still, I can’t quite bring myself to give it more than a 3 for Substance. There is a fair amount of material I perceive as filler. The rules are not balanced at with other feats and skills in your typical d20 system. More examples of spells would be handy. Some of the absolutes need to be removed or approached differently. And, finally, I think the ten magical skills could use some revision and expansion.

In the end, I still give it a thumbs up, and heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a spontaneous magic system for their d20 games.