Master of the Art: Wen or Uriath Dosahl

* These casting marks require conditions to be true in order to be obtained. The condition is found to the left of the ⇒ whereas the amount gained if the condition is met is on the right. Bold T represents your current total of casting marks.

With the fundamentals of casting control understood you finally learn how to wield your substance for combat. Casting combat comes in two primary forms; Vis Powered Attacks and Upheld Casting Attacks.

Vis powered attacks are expensive but effective, often leaving the caster spent afterwards. Techniques learnt in control, like substance trail, fall under this category.

To those unable to channel Vis through a substance, many attacks made by casters result in lethal and unavoidable injury. As a caster however, you have a natural defense against attacks from your own kind. Your arcane skill represents your natural defense, similar to how skin gives a natural AC of 10. This natural defense can be enhanced through techniques like Way of the Crab and Purified Emanation.

When a Vis powered casting attack is made, another caster can attempt to counter it. This counter has no time cost and is either taken or ignored directly after the incoming attack regardless as to whether you are the target.

When an enemy caster attacks, the amount of Vis put into the attack is divided by 10. This acts as the incoming Casting Hit roll against your natural AC. If the hit roll surpasses your natural AC you can attempt to neutralize it in any way you see fit, expending an amount of Vis equal to the incoming attacks along with a substance cost of the DM’s choice.

Both sides Vis input and substance are burnt in this process.

Upheld Casting attacks are the far more common kind of attacks for trained casters to use and are widely considered more efficient for long-term combat.

To begin an Upheld Casting attack, the caster produces a weapon base made from their preferred substance. The Vis cost required to initially shape the substance into its weapon form becomes its base uphold cost. Its base damage mimics the weapon type plus its additional casting bonuses. Vis can then be added in a 10 to 1 ratio to the uphold cost to give the Upheld weapon a damage bonus.

E.G. If you make an upheld short sword, it costs 20Vis and 240units of substance to begin with. The current uphold cost per/turn is 20Vis and its base damage is 1d6+dex+your casting bonus. For every additional turn after this, for a bonus action, you can add Vis to the uphold cost to increase the damage of the upheld weapon. You add 100 Vis to the uphold cost and the weapon now has a +10 damage bonus (Its base damage is now 1d6+dex+your casting bonus+10) however, it now takes 120Vis per turn to uphold.

Failing to uphold this kind of Casting attack causes the weapon to re-absorb and you lose any damage bonuses it has built up to this point.

An upheld weapon cannot be ranged, the caster must be continuously making contact with the material of the weapon in question.