Casting Time

Casting Time - The amount of time it takes for you to cast a spell,
in rounds. A spell with 1 round casting time takes 1 full round of
casting before the spell effect goes off, and it works the same for
any number of rounds. During the casting time of the spell, you are
assumed to be acting out the spells verbal and somatic components.
This is why casting time is extended while you are wielded or if you
have less than 2 limbs. Casting time is also affected by a number
of skills, such as quick chant and devil tongue.

---

2026/2/1 The summary below is under construction, I still need to double check some old logs and notes.

Skills showing ETA

• Hermetic: essence eye
• Spiritual: spirit eye
• Skills: perfect timing

Counting rounds

If you cast a spell requiring e.g. 3 rounds to cast, it will look like this:

start casting
*** NEW ROUND *** 
###
*** NEW ROUND *** 
##
*** NEW ROUND *** 
#
*** NEW ROUND *** 
cast

• "0 rounds" means the spell will cast in the next round after you started casting it
• n-round spell can be cast each (n+1) rounds. So for example, acid arrow (2 rounds, 400 damage), can generate maximum 400/(2+1) = 133 dpr.

Racial abilities

• Monsters cheat. They take 1 round less to complete an ability. So for example feast (3 rounds) by a monster will be

Monster's jaws widen and a bit of drool slobbers from them.
*** NEW ROUND *** 
##
*** NEW ROUND *** 
#
*** NEW ROUND *** 
Monster feasts

A player would need one more round for feast, so for players the rounds for racial abilities count the same as for spells.

Thanks to Somnusmors for helping to figure it out!

Skills

The skill time varies randomly within ±50% range. [inaccurate, more testing needed]

Quick chant and other skills improving speed

QC-like

Hermetic

• all but charm, psionic, sonic, conjuration, or invocation: QC
• all songs: speedsong…
• conjuration: auctioneering

Spiritual:

• unholy, bewahrung: bloodpact
• holy, unction: piety
• nature: nature entreaty
• psionic: focusing
• abjuration, air, fire, earth, water and physical: chi casting

• Each round remove one round. E.g. 4 round spell becomes 2 round:

start casting
###
*** NEW ROUND *** 
#
*** NEW ROUND *** 
cast

-1 round

Hermetic spells (not bard songs):

• all: fast wizardry [can someone confirm?]
• pathed element: mage terts ~mancy skills [to confirm: how does it work for mixed elements: illusion, acid, poison and asphyxiation?]
• chaos: ethermancy
• healing: tonsor
• non-offensive: archmagic

Spiritual

• unholy, bewahrung: devil tongue
• holy, unction: psalms
• unction: anele
• nature: voice of gaia, naturalism (non-offensive only)
• psionic: concentration
• bard songs: scales1

Skills

• all: swift execution

Equipment impact

• Spells requiring somatic component get 2 round penalty if you don't have unoccupied limbs, 1 round if you have only one unoccupied limb
• Races with no limbs are exempt
• Wielding bard instrument doesn't add penalty, even with no playing/singing training

Negating equipment impact [confirmation needed]

• bow: quick shot (removes an entire penalty for wielding a bow)
• staff: wizardry (removes an entire penalty for wielding a staff) [confirmation needed]

Bard instrument and bard spells

• instrument not wielded:
  • • • playing and singing work on charm and sonic category spells only
• instrument wielded:
  • • • playing, singing and speedsong work on all hermetic spells with V or S components
      • there is no casting speed penalty for having limb occupied, but quickchant stops to work
      • help file for 'bard song' says bardic category skills count, but I couldn't see any time reduction…
• singing and playing together reduce the initial casting time by half. Training only singing gives full reduction, but it will work only ~50% times

For example a 7 round spell with playing and singing becomes 4 round:

start casting
*** NEW ROUND *** 
####
*** NEW ROUND *** 
###
*** NEW ROUND *** 
##
*** NEW ROUND *** 
#
*** NEW ROUND *** 
cast

The reduction is applied before speedsong. 7 round spell with playing+singing+speedsong becomes 2-round:

start casting
*** NEW ROUND *** 
###
*** NEW ROUND *** 
#
*** NEW ROUND *** 
cast

Other notes

Casting spell cannot be less than 0. For example, a pathed bio with QC + tonsor will cast GH in 0 rounds. QC and tonsor fail sometimes, and even with both of them, the failure rate is noticeable.

Spell casting times

Columns:

• Base: time listed in spell help
• QC: time with only QC-like spell trained alone (assuming 100% success), or e.g. QC + bow + quick shot + no free limbs
• QC-1: e.g. QC-like and a skill reducing casting time by one round (e.g. bloodpact + devil tongue)
• QC-2 e.g. QC-like and two skills reducing casting time by one round (e.g. psalms + piety + anele)
• QC+1: e.g. QC-like and only one limb free
• QC+2: QC-like and no free limbs
• Bard(1): instrument wielded, playing + singing
• Bard(15): instrument wielded, playing + singing + speedsong
• Bard(15)+scales: instrument wielded, playing + singing + speedsong + scales used in advance

Base	QC+2	QC+1	QC	QC-1	QC-2	Bard(1)	Bard(15)	Bard(15)+scales	notable spells
10	6	5	5	4	4	5	2	2	Dimp, greloc
9	5	5	4	4	3	5	2	2
8	5	4	4	3	3	4	2	2	Control the Rift
7	4	4	3	3	2	4	2	1	Blaspheme
6	4	3	3	2	2	3	1	1	screech
5	3	3	2	2	1	3	1	1	PWK, Sonic blast
4	3	2	2	1	1	2	1	1	astral
3	2	2	1	1	0	2	1	0	heal, Sonic strike
2	2	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	gph
1	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	gh, reverb

Skill using time ranges

base	actual range	w/swift execution
8	3-8
7
6	2-?
5	2-7	2-5
4	2-5	1-4
3	1-4
2	1-2
1	1-1

<under construction>

If a skill starts with a long ETA, is it worth to restart it?

<under construction>

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the players helping in testing and figuring out the mechanics:

• Punisher
• Somnusmors
• Waldon