As with everything in Béthorm, my design goal is to preserve as much of Professor Barker's vision while presenting it in a form that is clear, accessible, and easy to play.

The first iteration of the Béthorm rules included a direct conversion of the entire Swords & Glory spell list. This proved to be unwieldy: spellcasting players complained about having too many spells with too many obscure, nit-picky differences.

In the new iteration, I'm 'condensing' the spells into a smaller number of more distinctly unique spells. So for example, instead of the Healing spell consisting of 6 different progressively more powerful levels, there are just 3.

I'm also giving the spell levels unique names, to make it easier for spellcasters to find the effect they're looking for. So the S&G Universal spell of 10) Healing now consists of 10A) Cure Light Wounds, 10B) Cure Serious Wounds, and 10C) Regenerate (which restores lost body parts instead of just restoring hit points). The progression of and dependencies between the spell sub-levels, as well as their overall cost to learn, remains basically intact.

Hopefully this will result in Béthorm magic having an authentic Tékumel feel, while being easier for players to handle. This is one of the main issues I'm focusing on in the new round of in-house testing.

One concern that I have is that since all this 'condensing' of spells means essentially requiring players to buy several of the 'old' spell levels at once, and then only casting the most powerful (and expensive) of those spell levels, the end result may be that Béthorm spellcasters will run out of psychic energy much more quickly (since they won't be able to 'conserve' energy by casting the lowest spell level that would've gotten the job done). If that winds up being a problem, I'll consider lowering the energy costs a bit to compensate.

Yes, the Psychic vs. Ritual and Universal/Generic/Temple distinctions are preserved.

-Jeff

Another example is way that the spells are built and scaled in Ghosts of Albion.