More tales from the table as we experimented with Casting Time, which turned out to be a real hoot. In the end, we had some characters casting spells as others protected them or maintained concentration. The casters got to unleash some hell with beefed up versions of simple spells when they were able to get them cast. Likewise, our frontline fighters used something similar for Weapon Arts to build up big attacks to unleash on scads of enemies.
Here’s what we did:
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Create a base spell, like a simple Fire spell that deals Magic Effort to a single enemy in FAR range (or something similar, simplicity for the example)
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Build on the base spell and pump up the jam a little bit: Magic Effort Fire to all enemies in NEAR of the original target. Then assign that power level a number of HEARTS.
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Make an even bigger version that really lets mages bring the thunder! Fire to all enemies in NEAR of the original target, but the damage is ULTIMATE Effort! Mwahaha!
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Put it all on a scroll, lodged in a crystal, or memorized as a single spell.
When a player wants to cast the Fire spell, they can instantly cast it, but if they want to pump up the Fire spell a little bit to deal with more enemies they begin to roll Magic Effort in between people’s turns and keep a running total. When they reach the amount of HEARTS assigned to the spell’s power level they cast the buffed up version of the spell! *Always between players turns, never interrupting. Now if a caster has this particular Fire spell they can take pot-shots if that’s all the time they have, but if their comrades are willing to protect them while they complete the Casting Time they can blow a hole in enemy lines!
You can assign a power level to any spell and when the caster fills up the HEARTS with Magic Effort the spell goes off. Pretty simple, and it gives the person casting the spell the feeling of actually casting a spell. How does this impact game play? Here’s what we found when we tried it out:
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You could immediately tell the difference between a character who put increases into Magic Effort versus those that didn’t. A boss that had a higher Magic Effort was able to complete spells much quicker, and so was one of the players.
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The players technically had less spells, but knew them more intimately and felt like they could play the way that their tactics/situation allowed.
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The difference in casting ability made players who didn’t invest in Magic Effort really feel like they were outpaced in Magic Effort by those that had. They quickly changed their tactics to try to overwhelm the enemy casters while trying to protect their own.
This needs a lot more play testing to find a balance, increase the spell list, and explore more ways to shape spells, but we had a blast testing out Casting Time. I was inspired by the tiers of spells from Final Fantasy games like the Bolt 1, Bolt 2, Bolt 3 progression, and also a concept Hank reminded me of in a podcast episode a while back: the real currency of the table is the time you spend at it. I wanted to leverage that for spell casting.
What does that mean for the table?
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Players aren’t limited to spells per day. I always hated that.
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You must be diligent about the ramifications of spells introduced. Healing spells mean that when players enter combat they will always have full health. I personally don’t have a problem with that since most parties I’ve rolled with will break for camp at the drop of a hat to replenish their abilities. Which leads me to…
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Less down time and player empowerment. Players don’t need to rest regularly to reacquire their abilities, and they will more regularly be at the top of their game, which means you’ll be able to throw more at them and have big epic fights without disturbing the pace of the game.
Like I say, it needs a lot of work, but the initial findings at my table changed the dynamics of play and solved some of the things that irked us about ttrpgs (per day abilities, I’m looking at you). Thoughts? Post 'em! 
