[UA] Creating new formula spells

[S. Ben Melhuish]

Greg Stolze said:

> One idea I'm toying with is alternative formula spells - some
> boozehounds (for example) have developed formula spells of their own and
> guard them jealously.

That's one question I had, and always forgot by the time I got in to work
and around e-mail.  Did you folks [developers and/or players] have any
thoughts on developing formulas?  My current RPG background is Ars Magica,
which is really big on magi inventing their own stuff.  The UA setting is
radically different from Ars's, so nothing analogous would work.... 

Anyway, without having thought about it too deeply, here are my thoughts.
Perhaps if an adept casts a spontaneous spell often enough, it begins to
get easier and easier until it becomes a formula that the adept knows?
This has the advantage of being under GM control, as the GM always
dictates how many charges a given effect costs, and so can control the
rate of formula creation.

How does one learn a new formula?  Perhaps another adept could teach you
in [x] weeks, along the same lines as learning a skill.  (How do budding
adepts learn their formulas, anyway?)  It doesn't seem likely that you
could learn a formula by simply "reading a spell out of a spellbook",
'cause they seem like they could be quite personal, more so than rituals. 

I haven't thought about this too deeply, so haven't considered what
effects (if any) this might have on game balance or character power.

(Or am I missing something in the rules that talks about this (I still
haven't made it all the way through)?  If so, give me another point in my
Avatar: Dumbass skill....)

-- Sben

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