Spellcaster success rolls + target saving throws?

[Stan Shinn]

Should spellcasters be required to do a success roll to see if they can successfully cast the spell? And then, if the caster is successful, should the target (let's say a monster is being targeted with a "magic missile" spell) be allowed to make a saving throw against the magic attack?

I'm wondering if you should make two rolls like this -- one for a successful attack, and another for successful defense against it. Should there instead by just one roll to adjudicate results, and who makes it -- the caster or the defender?

-- Stan

[Solomoriah]

BFRPG requires no roll to cast a spell successfully, unless the spell itself prescribes one (I can't think of an example offhand). Most spells which can be cast offensively in some way or another allow a saving throw, but Magic Missile does not.

In general, any attack's success or failure should rest on the sling of just one die, either attack roll or saving throw. Thus, the cases where attack rolls lead to saving throws are few and far between. The exact results (i.e. damage) may involve additional rolls, but the question of whether or not the effect worked should be resolved with a single die roll.

[SpyderTattoo]

I might make a house rule on this. Roll 1d10 and on a roll of 1 the spell cannot be cast ( fumble ). On second thought, maybe same thing on a 1d20 roll to give a 5% chance of failure. 5% sounds reasonable. It will almost never happen, so the origonal idea of automatically casting a spell is pretty much maintained, but there is that small chance the spell won't work.

[SmootRK]

The Deadlands d20 game had a casting success roll, based upon a Spellcasting skill check. The target number was (i think) 10 + spell level against a d20 roll plus the skill rank of the caster. I think there were a few situational modifiers as well. It seemed to work well overall, but low level casters were made even weaker by this, at least until they could pump up their skill level to a reasonable number.

I think, if you really needed it, you could use the same sort of mechanic (ability check instead per rules).. perhaps with some modifiers for level of spell. I think a rule like this could be useful, especially for a gritty low magic sort of game. One need not rule out magical classes, but make them a tad harder to pull off successfully.

[Solomoriah]

One of the "meta-rules" of BFRPG is that few, if any, actions should allow both an attack roll and a defensive roll. Anything that has an attack roll (including a spell-casting roll as is given here) should not allow a saving throw, and vice versa.