Hey there, I find myself preparing to run a game on Warden and I noticed that there's very little in the way of options for buffing or supporting with magic. There's some stuff with barriers and alteration, but none of the stuff I would expect to see (like making someone stronger or weaker, granting special abilities like waterwalking...). I bet my players will want to try some of these, how should I go about implementing it?
You can use the Freeform Spells rules note in the Magic Alteration. By default, they cannot deal damage or inflict conditions, and numerically I would personally make them either work like Aid, except scaling with your Special Proficiency, or grant resistance/other benefit equal to the Special Rank of the caster (like casting an anti-lightning spell).
Duration-wise, if it's primarily combat-focused (like resistances or granting strength), I would make them last 3 turns (i.e an Active Effect 3), and if they're more exploration-focused (protect against Exposure, waterwalking, waterbreathing etc), I would make them last until Refresh.
If they want to cast something that's more "debuff"-oriented, you can increase the Strain or Action cost to cast it from the default 3 I lay out to break the "don't inflict conditions" limitation. I did try to make it so that most conditions are achievable without magic, but spells can obviously be tinkered with Range, AoE, etc.
Thanks! How would you go to implement these high action costs? Above 3 actions would mean more than one turn, with any damage whatsoever breaking Focus and wasting all of it, right? This might be okay for an encounter ending spell, but not for a regular debuff.
Also, wouldn't it be better to make a "Curses" or "Debuffing" school of magic for this?