Given time and the willingness to permanently expend valuable components, spellcasters, priests, and other arcanists may prepare powers for later use or to preserve their valuable energies for battle.
The benefits of preparing powers are twofold: the character doesn’t expend Power Points in the casting and may enhance a power to give it greater Duration. Follow the steps below when a character wants to prepare a power:
The caster chooses any of his powers (or has access to via abilities such as Eldritch Inspiration) and adds up its total Power Points, including modifiers, existing Limitations, and enhancements from the table below. Prepared magic doesn’t actually cost Power Points, but the total is used to determine the cost in components (see below).
| Cost | Enhancement |
|---|---|
| 3 | Increase the Duration of a power expressed in rounds to minutes. |
| 5 | Increase the duration of a power expressed in rounds to an hour. |
Once the power is chosen, the mage must gather components worth at least 100 gold pieces times the spell’s total cost in Power Points. The GM decides what components are required—usually gold or treasure to simulate the costs of rare ingredients the mage keeps on his person, but depending on the setting, the GM could also require specific components such as precious stones, meteorite shards, magic items, or even holy relics.
Once the components are gathered the casting begins. The mage must spend ten minutes per Rank of the spell to create an “anchor.” A Novice Rank spell takes 10 minutes to prepare, while a Veteran Rank power requires a half-hour.
Once the anchor is made, the power is retained in the mage’s mind and he may attempt to cast it at any time thereafter by spending a Benny. The spellcaster may not attempt to activate his prepared power without the anchor.
Activating the power works as normal, with the following exceptions: if the caster fails the arcane roll to activate, he may try again (but must spend another Benny). On a Critical Failure, in addition to the regular effects, the spell and anchor are lost.
With success or better, the anchor is consumed. The caster may maintain the power but will not recharge Power Points as usual (see Recharging).
A spellcaster may only retain a single power at a time. The caster may dismiss a prepared spell as a free action, though he may reuse the anchor to prepare the exact same spell (including Power Modifiers) in the future.