The Path of Magic, is a sentence missing?

question
#1

Honestly super confused here, and the other stuff I have seen discussing it hasn’t really worked for my group.

Is there a sentence missing someplace about whether spells are part of inventory, or if you need to prepare/memorize spells? Am I just missing the key phrase? There are multiple places in the path of magic section that references things like this, but without actually seeing what is supposed to be referenced is making this confusing. I understand that we can and should workshop things to work for our table, and we have been, but this has seemed to be a sticking point for us.

Some examples of what is confusing us:

  • pg. 74, there is a bullet point for each of the three magic user types, that discusses spells and their relation to inventory, for example: "“Spells occupy no inventory, stored in memory alone.” To us this implies the default is that spells are stored in inventory.

  • pg. 78, for the description of the Raven Quill: “…to inscribe 1 memorized spell.”. This implies the mechanic of memorization of spells, but how does that work and relate to the concept of spells and their relationship to inventory? Does the Ancient One get access to all Basic Spells and only the ones that are in their inventory are “memorized”?

  • pg, 79, for the Ironpage Grimoire: “…newly learned spells are written therein, and use no further inventory space.”. This gives us more confusion. This alludes to the concept of spells taking up inventory again, but since it says “newly learned” and not “memorized” does that mean there isn’t a distinction between spells known and memorized? Or is is just a turn of phrase?

  • pg. 80, for the Spell Rememory: “Choose a basic spell, but upgrade its die…” Does this mean that the three Wizard paths should all have access to all Basic Spells? Or would their first spell essentially be obtained by getting Spell Rememory?

We are really digging this book, the inspiration from Burning Wheel is huge and that’s one of my favorites, but we are really struggling on having a unifying perspective on the magic system that makes sense with the other mechanics like equipment and skills. First post here, would love some assistance on this!

#2

Spells themselves are not an inventory item. They can however be considered inventory if the spells is “in the form of wands, staves, rings or scrolls” per page 37. Keep in mind you those examples do not need to be the only items that can hold spells in an inventory slot.

For the prepare/memorize spells again you can look to page 37 where they talk about “Casts and Expend”. "By default spells include 1 cast. So once that spell is cast it is done and would need to be prepared or memorized again. But note that was by default and there can be customized versions of the spell that have the “Additional Cast” effect (page 40) once, twice, or even three times that would provided up to 4 castings of that spell.

On your question for page 74 the bullet you talk about in the Scorcerer-Just the Basics section is talking about the fact that yes for the Scorceres spells will never be in the inventory slot as they have not way to move the spells from their memory into an item that such as a scroll or ring. Also on that page in the Mage-Custom Spells Expert section is where you see they have the bullet “Spells CAN be bound to inventory, or not, depending on build details” this is because a mage may or may not have the ability to move spells to items such as scrolls. But it doesn’t mean they lose the ability to have spells in memory. Then for the Wizard-The Path-Walker they like the mage have an option to have spells in inventory items or memory.

For having spells that take up items it would be a spell with the “Linked to physical object” limitation described on page 42. So a Mage or Wizard would have the ability to customize a spell that is linked to an item but a Scorcerer would not as Scorcerer can not customized spells in a way that would be in an inventory slot.

On page 78 for the Raven Quill it is a way to get one more casting out of a spell by using the Raven Quill to create a single cast version of a spell the character has memorized. So the Raven Quill will take up an inventory slot and the scroll it creates will take up an inventory slot. Then once the scroll is used it will be out of the inventory unless it is created again.

On page 79 asking about the Ironpage Grimoire I’ve used that as an example of where spells can be stored in inventory. What the ironpage Grimoire does is allow for the storage of all the characters spells in one place rather than having to have one item per spell. So if you never take the flaw mentioned on page 42 “Linked to physical object” the spell doesn’t need to be stored in the book but if the character wants to save a few hero points when creating a spell they can take that flow and enter the spell into the Ironpage Grimoire.

For Spell Rememory on page 80 no all spells would need to be purchased using Hero Points. So wizards do not have all basic spells. Spell Rememory is an advancement they can take (at most 3 times) that allows the demonologist to “Remember” how to cast a basic spell with an single boost to the damage die for the same cost of just learning to cast the basic spell