Casting a spell is an action with a shot cost of 3. It requires a task check against the your Sorcery skill. Difficulties for various magical actions are listed in the magic schtick descriptions given later in this section.
Yuan Guo is casting a Movement spell, Telekinesis. According to the Movement description, the Difficulty of the spell depends on the Body of the object being moved. In this case, he's moving a rock with a Body of 10. Yuan's Action Value for Sorcery is 12. He rolls a +5, yielding an Action Result of 17 and an Outcome of 7. According to the schtick description, he can move the rock with a Move equal to the Outcome, in this case 7.
The rituals required for spellcasting are not so exacting that a few extraneous movements will spoil them. It is possible to passively or even actively Dodge while spellcasting. As with other actions, it is possible to shave shot costs on Sorcery checks by taking a negative modifier on your Action Value see Snapshots.
Sorcery Stunts & Modifiers
Sorcerers, like fu experts and gun maniacs, can achieve useful results by employing stunts as they make Sorcery checks. This is most relevant to spell effects that have an obvious, physical result.
| Condition | Modifier | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple Targets | -1 per target, | MultipleTargets |
| Called Shots | Usually -2 | InteractionStunts |
| Ancillary Effects | Usually -2 | |
| Range | -2 / 20 meters | Range |
| Cover | -3/-5 | Cover |
| Broken Strictures | -5 | Traditions |
| Completely derails the plot | automatic failure | |
| Necessary to advance the plot | automatic success | |
| Boring or repetitive | -2 | |
| Especially entertaining, well-motivated or well-described | +2 |
Repetitive: Many sorcery effects are do-or-die; you either get that piece of information or fly over the chasm between buildings, or you don't. But some sorcerers don't get the message, and will try again when fate, as manifested by the dice, denies their petition. Repeated attempts at doing the same thing suffer a -2 AV modifier, or possibly fail automatically if particularly boring or mundane.
Power of the Script: Because of its flexibility, Sorcery has a unique ability to disrupt he GM's carefully laid plans. This does not work. The in-game motivation is that sorcery is highly tied to fate, and fate thwarts any attempt by a sorcerer to slip out of its grasp. The real motivation is that a watertight set of sorcery rules, that could not derail most any plot, is almost impossible to write. By way of compensation, sorcerers get positive AV modifiers if they advance or add value to the plot. This is usually a ±2 AV modifier, but may cause automatic success or failure.
Defending with Sorcery
Sorcerers with theBlast schtick can passively or actively Dodge using their Sorcery value as the Dodge score. They do so by erecting a barrier of magical energy around themselves; it serves to deflect incoming attacks directed at them. Juncture modifiers to your Sorcery Action Value also apply to sorcerous dodging.
Certain Schticks allow spellcasters to use their Sorcery skill as Dodge. Characters with Movement can interpose large, solid objects as shields against ranged weapon attacks and incoming spells. Needless to say, such objects must be available to the sorcerer. Characters with Flux or Doom can simply cause actions to fail. Characters with Illusion can dioplace themselves and so make attacks mist them. Parrying with a spell has a shot cost of 1.