CORE20 can be played any way you like (as befits a game where your characters can do anything you want). However, the baseline of the game, as expressed in the rules of the Player’s Guide, reflects the expectation of a high-magic world. High magic doesn’t always mean powerful magic, though, and one of the most interesting ways to reflect the ubiquity of magic in the world is to play a character who dabbles in the minor magic of 0-level spells in addition to their main adventuring vocation.
The nature of the magic you can tap into through 0-level spells — orisons for animys magic, cantrips for arcane magic, and incantations for druidas magic — is wide and varied, and reflects a lot of the familiar themes of 0-level spellcasting in various editions of D&D. But rather than limiting characters to level dipping into a spellcasting class, tapping a magic-focused subclass that gives you more spellcasting than you want, or choosing an ancestry with a limited range of spellcasting talent, CORE20 offers three different approaches to letting your character get their minor magic on.
Traditional Build
3 Feat Slots
The path to traditional spellcasting in CORE20 calls for taking the Eldritch Spirit, Spellcaster, and Spell Power feats for a chosen sphere of magic — animys, arcane, or druidas. (All three of these feats are part of “Spellcasting Feats,” starting on page 322 of the CORE20 Playtest Player’s Guide.) If you channel arcane magic, you might also want to take the Arcane Blood or Toughness feats to deal with the critical point penalty imposed by taking the Spell Power (arcane) feat, representing that the power of arcane magic doesn’t play nice with the life force of a mortal caster.
Eldritch Spirit and Spellcaster grant you access to spellcasting power and the ability to cast 0-level spells. Spell Power then gives you the spell points that fuel your spells. Even though 0-level spells have no spell point cost and can be cast at will, you can cast those spells only while you have 1 or more spell points remaining. Once all your magical potential is exhausted, you have no power to draw on.
With this build, you need to purchase your starting 0-level spells and any 0-level spells you learn later. But because spells can always be freely learned in CORE20, there’s no limit to the number of 0-level spells you can master as long as you have the opportunity to seek them out. And because high magic is the CORE20 baseline, most campaigns will be filled with such opportunities.
Natural Magic Traditional Build
One Lineage Trait, Two Feat Slots
As a nice alternative to the traditional spellcasting build, you can take the natural magic lineage trait (part of the “Lineages” chapter starting on page 22 of the Player’s Guide), then take the Eldritch Spirit and Spellcaster feats for a chosen sphere of magic. As above, those feats let you cast 0-level spells. Then the natural magic trait lets you ignore the need to have spell points in reserve to cast those spells, granting you an innate reserve of magical power. (Though natural magic appears in chapter 4 of the Player’s Guide as a human and a kobold trait, characters can take traits from any other lineage if that fits your concept and backstory.)
Primordial Caster Build
Two Feat Slots
Primordial magic channels only arcane power, and in an older and rawer form than spellcasting (detailed starting on page 383 of the Player’s Guide). But if arcane magic is your jam, primordial magic (modeled very much after the magic of the 3rd edition D&D warlock) is a most efficient way to cast. When you take the Eldritch Spirit (arcane) feat and the Primordial Caster feat, Primordial Caster automatically lets you learn a number of cantrips — and at no cost, unlike for traditional spellcasting. However, you can’t learn any additional cantrips or swap out known cantrips for new cantrips (unless you want to later continue along the path of gaining access to more powerful primordial magic).
Spelltouched Build
Two Or More Feat Slots
Taking up the path of a spelltouched caster represents an innate ability to channel eldritch power, unconnected to any spellcasting tradition or training. To create a spelltouched character (as talked about starting on page 380 of the Player’s Guide), you take the Eldritch Spirit feat for a chosen sphere of magic, then take the Spelltouched feat for each cantrip you wish to cast. A spelltouched build is the lowest-cost way to be able to cast a single cantrip, if one specific flavor of minor magic is the best fit for your character’s story. However, if you want to cast three or more cantrips, the spelltouched approach becomes more expensive than the other options.
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Questions about magic or anything else in CORE20? Email CORE20@insaneangel.com or join us on the CORE20 Discord server and ask away!
Art by Dean Spencer
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