Magic

In PVW, magic was made to be diverse enough and expensive enough so that nobody can afford to be good at all of it, and the more branches of magic they try to master, the weaker their mundane defenses and attacks will be. To start off with, there are seven basic types of magic with 21 various skills that can be unlocked down the road.

Blasting
A single spell would deal a certain amount of damage, given on the table to the right.

Warding
A single spell would block a certain amount of damage, given on the table.

Healing
A single spell would heal a certain amount of health, given on the table.

Summoning
Allows a player to call an NPC creature of a level up to a fourth of their Summoning rank for thirty seconds per rank in Summoning. So, if you have four ranks in Summoning, you can call a Level 1 NPC for thirty seconds. If you have 100 ranks in Summoning, you can call a Level 25 creature for nearly a full hour, during which time you could theoretically summon even more to get yourself a bit of a horde going.

Illusion
Lets a player affect an area up to 10 cubic feet per rank, with ranks divided evenly between senses affected by the illusion. So, at 100 ranks, you could create a purely visual phantasm 1,000 cubic feet per rank, or you could create a zone of 200 cubic feet in which you're deceiving all five senses.

Transformation
A player can grant a number of temporary skill ranks to themselves or another equal to the number of ranks they have in Transformation; basically, Transformation is a free skill you can reassign to buff yourself or others however you need to. However, you can't put more than a fourth of those temporary ranks into a single skill, and the effect only lasts one round unless you divide the temporary ranks over multiple rounds. For example, with 100 ranks of Transformation, you could grant yourself a temporary 25 ranks of Sprint over four rounds to boost your movement speed.

Scrying
Allows a player to perceive events up to one mile away or one day in the past per rank, with their ranks divided evenly between the senses they're perceiving. So, with 100 ranks in Scrying, you could listen in on a conversation a hundred miles away, or you could see and hear something that happened where you are fifty days in the past.

Elemental
There are seven Elemental magic skills: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Darkness, and Force. To unlock these branches of magic, a player must have at least 50 ranks in Blasting, Warding, Summoning, or Illusion. Those four magic types on their own already have access to each of the elements, however, stacking them with one of the elements as well makes them more specialized. Basically, it's like a much cheaper (but also much shittier) version of having ranks in all of the core magics.

So, you can use your ranks in Blasting to cast Fireball, Chain Lightning, Earthquake, whatever. But you could only use your ranks in Fire to cast Fireball. Plus, when a player has an element skill, it will stack with Warding, Blasting, and Summoning simultaneously. It lets you be good at all four, but with the limitation that everything you're doing, more or less, has to stick with your elemental theme. The elemental restriction is a limitation, not a bonus. Also, the rank stacking with an Element still can't put your total ranks over whatever your level cap is: a Level 30 character with 40 ranks in Fire and 30 ranks in Blasting still only casts a fireball with 60 ranks.

Below are special abilities that don't require mana to use, though some of them do have cooldowns. They're typically passive effects, or increase a character's ability to navigate and survive, though they do have some combat applicability.

Flight

 * Unlocks at 50 ranks of Air.

Allows flight at a speed of 1 foot per second per rank.

Water-Breathing

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Water.

Allows water breathing for 1 minute per rank, then recharges in an amount of time equal to however long it was used for.

Tunneling

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Earth.

Allows tunneling through the ground at 1 foot per second per rank.

Fireproof

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Fire.

Grants immunity to non-magical fire/heat for 1 minute per rank, then recharges in an amount of time equal to however long it was used for.

Darkvision

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Light.

Allows perfect sight in darkness out to a distance of 5 feet per rank.

Deathliness

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Darkness.

Grants the player a percentage chance to negate a critical hit on themselves equal to their ranks in it, so that at 100 ranks, they'd be immune to critical hits.

Telekinesis

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Force.

Allows a character to mentally lift 1 pound of matter per rank.

Resistance

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Warding.

Gives all hostile spells a percentage chance equal to 1/2 your ranks in Resistance of only having half-effect on you, and, if the spell is reduced to half-effect, also gives them a percentage chance equal to 1/2 your ranks of having no effect at all. So, with 100 ranks of Resistance, enemy spells will damage you normally half the time, a quarter of the time you'll only take half-damage, and another quarter of the time, you'll take no damage at all.

Area

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Blasting.

Allows you to divide the ranks of your blast across an area equal to 10 cubic feet per level; so, with 100 ranks in Blasting and 100 ranks in area, you can create a Rank 5 blast that covers 200 cubic feet of area--or, for something that's useful for stuff other than frying tons of low-level enemies, you could create a Rank 25 blast covering 40 cubic feet. Furthermore, for every foot of distance between an enemy and any edge of the blast zone, that enemy loses the benefit of one rank of Dodge from every Dodge skill they have when calculating their ability to avoid the attack.

In other words, 10 cubic feet of area takes 1 rank off of Dodge, 1 rank off of Improved Dodge I, 1 rank off of Improved Dodge II, and 1 rank off of Improved Dodge III, for a total of up to four ranks lost. Since Parry and Shield shouldn't be effective against magic at all, that means that a blast of 100 cubic feet--10 ranks in Area, up to a 10th-level Blast--is completely undodgeable. Not super damaging, but it's practically guaranteed to hit.

Regeneration

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Healing.

Allows a character to passively regenerate an amount of health each round equal to half their ranks in Regeneration.

Teleportation II

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Scrying.

Allows a character to teleport up to 1 mile per rank, and to divide those ranks up with others in order to bring passengers along.

Control

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Illusion.

Allows a character to mentally control a creature of a level up to a fourth of your Control rank for thirty seconds per rank in Control. This may or may not be useable on other PCs.

Shapeshifting

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Transformation.

Allows a character to alter their physical appearance however they like for 1 minute per rank.

Creation

 * Unlocked at 50 ranks of Summoning.

Allows the instantaneous creation of any item as though a character had a number of ranks equal to half their ranks in Creation in the relevant crafting skill. You can't make especially good stuff, but you can make stuff extremely fast, and you're very versatile, so you can get whatever you might need, when you need it.