Break my System
I’m working on the underlying metaphysics for a fantasy magic system and I’m at the stage where
I’d rather have people attack the rules than help me add more abilities.
The basic premise is that magic changes the state of reality rather than simply producing predefined spells.
Potential: A magical change requires sufficient capacity to make the change happen.
Pattern: Magic needs sufficient information defining the intended result. More complex results require more complete information.
Access: A magical effect requires a valid means of interacting with the thing being changed.
Anchoring: Changes that must persist require something capable of maintaining the altered state. Temporary effects are easier to sustain than permanent ones.
Conservation: Reorganizing existing reality is easier than creating equivalent complexity from nothing.
Burden: Every magical alteration creates a cost based broadly on how much is changed, the scale involved, how quickly it must happen, its complexity, how long it must persist, and how strongly the target resists alteration.
Skilled magic users can become better at managing that cost through preparation, efficiency, narrower effects, time, materials, stored resources, etc., but they cannot simply eliminate the underlying cost.
I’m not looking for spell ideas. I’m specifically trying to find structural problems.
If these were the fundamental rules of magic, what would you exploit? What contradictions or loopholes do you see? What unintended consequences follow from them? Is there anything here that sounds like a constraint but actually gives the author unlimited wiggle room?