Books says Sorcery helps Sorcery - does one need to know the same spell?

What I mean is, I get that one with the sorcery skill can help another with the sorcery skill. That’s fine.

Question is, let’s say a group of sorcerers is casting a spell, 1 main caster and three helpers. Do the three helpers have to know the same spell, or is it enough that they have Sorcery and The Gift? Like, could each sorcerer know different spells, but still Help their buddies cast spells they don’t know?

Book says to look at the Helping rules but they don’t, uh, help.

I think this is best answered according to what makes sense for your campaign. If Sorcerers don’t need to know the spell they’re helping with, you might have sorcerers heading up their own orders with relatively unskilled attendants and apprentices who surround them. They’d be able to cast monstrously powerful spells. Beyond training them in Sorcery itself, the sorcerer would have relatively little incentive to teach them actual spells (unless he wants to send groups off to do his bidding without him). Probably only his most trusted lieutenants would earn the privilege of learning spells. This is a strong position for sorcerers to be in because relatively few sorcerers will actually be in a position to challenge them.

If Sorcerers must know the spell, then sorcerers have a far great incentive to train their apprentices. However, that also means they’re handing apprentices the keys to the kingdom. Expect them to be far more judicious about which apprentices they actually train. You probably end up with fewer great orders of sorcerers and more fractured pockets of individuals.

I’d love to see more magic helping but it sounds like it would be difficult to describe.

“I join him to help him cast his spell.”
“Describe how you’re going to help him.”
“With magic…”

Oh, you haven’t seen enough movies or played enough video games, then, I think. But I guess it really depends on your setting.

“I join him to help him cast his spell.”
“Describe how you’re going to help him.”
“I stand behind him and focus, summoning the energy that courses through me so that it flows out from my outstretched arms directly into his body. Colored pulses of energy leap through the air, strengthening him and his spell.”

Comrades, interesting food for thought. Hmm. I’ll think about that (you all make good points, especially one sort of logic that favors helping, another that doesn’t). That’s what GMs are for, am I right? :wink:

Exactly. Let us know what you end up doing and how things turn out!