Can you use extra successes on a destroy impetus spell to increase the spell’s power (damage)? Also, if you can, does it increase the Mark power, and I/S adjust from there, or does it increase one for one all three IMS? (I.e., Mark goes from 5 to 6, so IMS goes from 3/5/7 to 3/6/9 or does IMS go from 3/5/7 to 4/6/8?)
Extra successes can be used to adjust the damage in the same way as you can use extra successes with bows. Figure your IMS, roll a die of fate to find out how much damage the hit does, and then spend 0-3 extra successes to increase your die of fate roll. Page 506 has the specifics.
Yes, there’s the bit about the DoF, but I’m talking about direct, point for point increase of Power, for carrot spells. Text is unclear as to whether this is possible. It talks about increasing parameters of the spell (like range), but does not say for certain what is or isn’t allowed to be increased.
Generally speaking if it isn’t stated or isn’t heavily implied, you can’t do it. Just like how you can’t use extra successes in Fight or Range and Cover to directly increase the damage of a hit beyond shifting your IMS position.
This should be covered in the Sorcery chapter. Generally for “attack spells” you may spend the extra success on:
- tweaking the DoF
- If it’s a “measured area” AoE (e.g. paces) you may increase by 1 multiple (e.g. 1 pace per die for paces)
Everything stormsweeper said. Also, note that you spend MoS on tweaking the DoF BEFORE you roll it, not after.
Thanks, all. Trying to rein in a wizard with grey sorcery dice. Turns out, letting him increase spell power with extra successes makes for instantly dead bad guys.
BW History tidbit: Sorcery used to work like this. It was very intentionally nerfed.
If the player is reasonable, it shouldn’t be much of an adjustment. It’s possible they learned that function from an older version and didn’t realize it was changed. 