WFRP 4e Magic Guide: Winds, Casting, Miscasts, and Petty Magic

Introduction

Magic in WFRP 4e is powerful because it is never casual. A spell can solve a problem, expose a secret, save a companion, or turn a fight. It can also attract attention, go wrong, complicate a plan, and remind everyone nearby that the person with the staff may be useful but is never entirely reassuring.

This guide covers the whole magical toolkit in one place: the eight Winds and what they say about a wizard, how the Casting and Channelling Tests work, small Petty tricks, shared Arcane spells, and what happens when a Miscast goes off. The rules summaries below are checked against the Core Rulebook's Magic chapter. The book remains the authority for every spell entry, Talent, and table result, and this page does not reprint them.

Hot Take

Channelling looks like a tax you pay for the spells you actually want. It is closer to the opposite. An Extended Channelling Test is the only piece of the Magic chapter that reliably hands the other four players something to do, because it buys the caster power at the price of standing still in public while the situation gets worse. Distraction is written straight into the rule: noise, damage or a sudden light means a Hard (-20) Cool Test or a Minor Miscast that eats the whole accumulation.

So stop designing that window out of your game. Keep at least one spell on the list whose Casting Number you cannot reach in a single Test, and before the first roll, say what the preparation will cost in time, noise and visibility. The party then gets a real decision about whether the doorway is worth holding, and the fight gets a clock. A wizard who only ever casts what lands instantly is a peculiar sort of archer.

What Makes WFRP Magic Different

The Core Rulebook describes a wound torn to the Aethyr in the far north that bleeds raw magic into the world. Those energies are the Winds of Magic, and wizards and witches shape them into spells by speaking the Language of Magick. The Colleges of Magic in Altdorf teach that this power splits into eight Winds, each with its own Lore.

The book sorts spells into four types:

The legal picture matters as much as the rules. In the book's words, "being a witch is not illegal, but casting magic without a licence is." Even licensed wizards "are generally feared and avoided." Outside the Colleges, older traditions such as Hedgecraft and Witchcraft survive in rural corners even though they are outlawed and punishable by death.

For a player, the useful question is rarely "What is my biggest spell?" It is "What problem is worth the attention, risk, and resources this spell will bring?"

Magic is not only an answer to danger. It is a way to make a danger more specific.

The Eight Winds of Magic

The Winds are a roleplaying tool before they are a catalogue of effects. A wizard's Wind tells the table what kind of trouble they notice, what solution tempts them, and why ordinary people get uneasy when the magic starts.

The Elves who first taught humanity insisted that each human spellcaster use only one Wind, arguing that drawing on several is too risky for the corruptible human mind. The Colleges adopted that rule, and each specialises in a single colour. Elves can learn several Lores. Witches who ignore the limit and mix Winds are practising Dark Magic; the book calls drawing on multiple Winds "a quick route to power, but also to damnation."

A few details from the book are worth knowing at the table. Hysh is the hardest Wind to perceive and manipulate, but less unpredictable than the others. Ghur blows weakly where the wilderness has been tamed, which helps explain why Amber Order Shamans live as hermits. Shyish is distinct from Necromancy, which uses the dark magic of Dhar, and the Amethyst Order works to fight Necromancers even though its spells can look like theirs to the untrained eye.

Start With the Problem, Not the Colour

The useful question is rarely "Which Wind wins this scene?" Start with what has gone wrong. A caravan is lost in a storm. A manor owner insists a death was natural. A village fears the forest. A noble wants a truth hidden. Then ask what your wizard would notice first.

These are prompts, not permission to declare an answer true. Clues, character actions, and the GM's ruling decide what the party can actually learn or change.

Make the Wind Visible Through Habits

Two wizards can solve the same problem very differently. Give the Wind weight through habits that need no casting roll:

• A Light wizard asks who benefits from the confusion and insists on a clearer account.
• A Metal wizard notices the lock, coin, blade, tool, or construction detail everyone else walked past.
• A Life wizard checks the injured, the soil, the animals, and the water before accepting a tidy explanation.
• A Heavens wizard watches the sky, records coincidences, and distrusts a run of convenient luck.
• A Shadows wizard lowers their voice, reads the room, and asks what people refuse to say aloud.
• A Death wizard treats a corpse, grave, or family relic as a person's story rather than disposable evidence.
• A Fire wizard reacts quickly to danger and has to decide whether urgency is courage or recklessness.
• A Beasts wizard notices tracks, territory, fear responses, and the point where the road stops being safe.

This gives a wizard something to contribute before magic is used, and it makes later casting feel like the escalation of an established approach.

Keep the associations from flattening the person. Death magic is not a shortcut for calling every ominous event necromancy, and a secretive Shadows wizard is not automatically corrupt. A Fire wizard can be patient. A Life wizard can be harsh. A Metal wizard can be generous. The Wind shapes pressure and perspective; the player supplies the personality.

Second Sight Turns Magic Into Leads

The Second Sight Talent lets a character perceive the Winds and how magic affects the world. The book says it works through all the senses and varies by person: Aqshy might smell of hot cinnamon to one pyromancer and feel like searing ear itches to another. A character with the Sight can use Intuition, Perception, or Track with their aethyric senses, such as tracking a fleeing witch by the traces of Dhar she leaves. The Sight never switches off, so the GM may call for Tests, or roll them secretly, when subtle magic is nearby.

Treat that as an investigative tool rather than an answer machine. Describe an impression first: a colour at the edge of a lantern flame, a taste in rainwater, an unnatural stillness in a crowded room. Ask the player what their character thinks it means, then follow with the investigation, social, or survival action the scene needs.

Mystery survives better when magic points toward an answer rather than handing over the culprit's home address on embossed stationery. The party still has to enter the cellar, speak to the frightened witness, or decide whether the magistrate can be trusted.

The College Focus Has a Social Price

A wizard can be useful and still be blamed when crops fail, children fall ill, or a noble needs a convenient suspect. Make that pressure specific. The innkeeper might accept a Fire wizard's help during a night attack but not want open flames near the stable. A Death wizard may be asked to help a bereaved family, then watched closely around the graveyard. A Shadows wizard can get a private meeting the rest of the party never could, and the meeting starts a rumour.

The point is to give the concept consequences the player can choose to manage. When the Wind identifies a lead, hand the next step to someone else: the wizard spots the pattern, another character gets the practical access (a lock picked, a witness persuaded, a fight held off), and then the wizard decides whether magic is worth the attention it brings.

How Casting Works

The core procedure is short. To cast, make a Language (Magick) Test. If you succeed, compare your SL to the spell's Casting Number (CN). If your SL equals or beats the CN, the spell works as written. If the Test fails, "the spell attempt fails, and nothing else happens."

The details that change play:

Magic missiles add your SL and Willpower Bonus to the spell's Damage, and you find the hit location by reversing the casting dice. Touch spells in combat need an Opposed Melee (Brawling) Test after the cast.

Dispelling uses the same skill. If a spell targets you, or a point you can see within Willpower yards, you can oppose the Casting Test with your own Language (Magick) Test, once per Round. Lasting spells can be dispelled with an Extended Language (Magick) Test that has to reach the spell's CN. For the tactics of contested casting, see the WFRP 4e Opposed Tests Guide.

Channelling Bigger Spells

Some spells need more power than drifts through the world. For those, you make an Extended Channelling Test. When your accumulated SL reaches the spell's CN, you cast it next Round with its CN counted as 0. If that Casting Test fails, you lose the channelled energy and suffer a Minor Miscast.

Channelling carries its own risks. Any double or any roll ending in 0 over your skill counts as a Fumble and triggers a Major Miscast. A Critical lets you cast next Round no matter how much SL you have built, at the price of a Minor Miscast unless you have Aethyric Attunement. If you are distracted mid-Channel, by noise, damage, or flashing lights, you must pass a Hard (-20) Cool Test or suffer a Minor Miscast and lose all your accumulated SL.

The WFRP 4e Channelling Guide covers how to run that preparation as a party scene.

A Spell Starts With an Intention

Before reaching for the book, say what the spell should accomplish in the scene. The GM can then apply the exact procedure while everyone understands what success changes.

Then check the spell's range, target, duration, and CN. A clear intention works within the rules and makes their outcome legible.

Casting Is a Party Problem

Channelling creates time and vulnerability, which gives every other character something to do.

Name the visible cost of preparing magic, then let the party decide whether protecting that opportunity is worth it. That decision is where most WFRP magic scenes are won or lost.

Petty Magic

Petty spells are where magic feels most personal. The book describes them as tricks that use "miniscule amounts" of whatever Winds are around, often learned by instinct when a character's talent first manifests. For humans that usually happens around puberty and almost always before 25. Every Petty spell in the core list has a CN of 0.

The Petty Magic Talent lets you manifest and permanently memorise a number of Petty spells equal to your Willpower Bonus. Extra Petty spells cost more as your list grows: 50 XP while you know no more than your Willpower Bonus in spells, 100 XP while you know up to twice that, 150 XP up to three times, and so on. The Wizard's Apprentice career includes the Talent. The book also encourages players to give their Petty spells their own names, since the tricks are not formally codified.

The Legal Grey Zone

This is the part tables most often get wrong. The Core Rulebook states that Petty spells are "technically" classed as Witchcraft, "and are thus illegal in the Empire." The Colleges "generally turn a blind eye" because the spells are so minor, "Witch Hunters are not always so understanding." College wizards are expected to stop using their childhood tricks once training begins. The book adds: "But most do."

Use that tension on purpose. An apprentice's old trick might identify them to a suspicious official. A helpful use in a poor village might earn quiet gratitude and an invitation to leave before anyone else notices. A local hedge practitioner might recognise the casting as shared experience, or as trouble best left unspoken. Do not make every cantrip summon a Witch Hunter; match the response to the place, the witnesses, and the stakes.

Small Does Not Mean Invisible

Before a Petty casting in a crowded taproom or on a guarded road, ask:

1. Who can see or hear this?
2. What will they think they saw?
3. Is the convenience worth the explanation afterward?

Sometimes the best choice is the mundane tool, a moment of privacy, or an ally creating a distraction. That is the Old World's suspicion giving a small spell real weight.

Treat Small Magic as a Character Habit

Good Petty Magic shows up in what a character does while thinking, travelling, or mending gear. Ask the player to pick one harmless habit tied to their magical past:

• They check unfamiliar objects with unusual care before touching them.
• They never sleep without making camp feel a little more orderly.
• They use a minor trick to keep a journal, map, or travel kit in good condition.
• They have an embarrassing childhood story about their first magical accident.
• They know which locals will laugh at a cantrip and which will shut the door.

For a character's backstory, answer four prompts in a sentence each: What was the first minor magical thing they did? Who saw it, and how did they react? Who taught them to hide, control, name, or deny it? What small use still makes them feel safer than it should? Those answers give the GM mentors, old fears, and local rumours without inventing new powers.

Let Petty Magic Open a Scene

A small spell works best when it raises a question the party then answers.

Then make the follow-through belong to someone else. The scout uses the magical hint to choose where to search. The guard protects the caster during a trick under pressure. The face explains away a visible oddity before it becomes gossip. The thief handles the object magic made easier to inspect.

If a Petty spell has a defined effect, follow it exactly. Do not stretch it into a broad ability because the player describes it creatively. Reward the creativity by showing what the small effect changes, then ask what practical action follows. The trick is clever because the character found the right limited tool at the right moment.

Arcane Magic

Arcane spells sit between Petty tricks and a Lore's signature spells. The book calls them "common formulations of the lingua praestantia," available to anyone with an Arcane Magic (Lore) Talent. How they look depends on that Lore. The book's own example: a Fire wizard casting Drop may make the object overheat, while a Shadows wizard makes it slightly insubstantial so it slips through the target's fingers.

The Arcane Magic (Lore) Talent lets you memorise spells from your Lore, and the XP cost rises as your list grows: 100 XP per spell while you know no more than your Intelligence Bonus in spells, 200 XP while you know up to twice that, and so on. Normally you can hold only one Arcane Magic Talent, and you cannot also take Bless or Invoke. Elves are the exception: they can learn a number of Arcane Lores equal to their Willpower Bonus, but only after mastering the previous one with at least 20 Channelling Advances and 8 spells from that Lore.

Shared Formula, Distinct Expression

Two wizards may know the same formulation and describe it nothing alike. A Fire wizard solves the problem through heat, brightness, and force. A Shadows wizard reaches for concealment and misdirection. A Life wizard makes the result feel organic and patient. The effect is still the book's. The description is where the character shows.

Before an Arcane casting, ask:

1. What does this caster's Wind make noticeable first?
2. What sensory detail tells an observer this is not ordinary work?
3. What evidence or social consequence remains once the magic is done?

The Lore frames the choice without dictating it. A Metal wizard can be reckless and a Fire wizard discreet. One wizard might favour the loud answer because their order prizes bold action; another avoids it because a past public display drew the wrong kind of interest. Either is a character decision.

Use Arcane Magic in Practical Scenes

Arcane spells often shine outside a duel, easing a problem that would otherwise take time, tools, contacts, or luck. When a spell gets the party past an obstacle, follow with the question it cannot answer alone. The door opens, but who built the hidden room? The clue becomes visible, but who can read it? The travellers are safe for the night, but the locals saw something impossible and want an explanation.

Respect Training and Limits

Arcane Magic is learned craft, not a licence to improvise any effect that sounds plausible. If a player wants something outside a spell's stated effect, treat it as a new problem: a different spell, research, help, time, or simply not possible under the current rules. That boundary protects the moments when the right spell really is the clever answer.

To make a grimoire memorable without copying the spell list, give each known spell one original detail: where the wizard learned it, a harmless phrase that helps them remember it, the scent or sound it leaves behind, and who would recognise that signature and draw the wrong conclusion. The book notes that apprentices copy spells from their master and experienced wizards trade spells for favours, which gives you mentors and rivals for free.

Miscasts

A Miscast is the moment a caster's risky solution creates a new problem the whole party has to handle. The Core Rulebook has two d100 tables, Minor and Major, and a list of ways to land on them.

The Minor table runs from nuisances, such as soured milk or unfastened buckles, to Conditions and Corruption points; its top result sends you to the Major table. The Major table is where wounds that ignore armour, a temporary loss of your casting Talent, and worse live, and its final entry can kill the caster outright if nobody is in range to absorb the backlash. Roll on the book's tables; the point of knowing their range is to set expectations before someone casts.

Ingredients and Preparation

Ingredients are the main safety net. If you cast through one, a Major Miscast becomes Minor and a Minor Miscast has no effect. The ingredient is destroyed either way, costs the spell's CN in silver shillings for Arcane and Lore spells, and only works for the one spell you bought it for. Treat that as fieldcraft: a carefully guarded item, a stop at the right trader, or a decision to wait until conditions improve can all become adventure play.

Dangerous places deserve the same care. Telegraph a Corrupting Influence before the caster is committed: a smell of decay, a wrongness visible to Second Sight, a warning from a local. The book also offers an optional Swirling Winds roll, which the GM can make before a scene or even each Round in turbulent areas, adding anywhere from -30 to +30 to Casting and Channelling Tests. A character with Second Sight spots the disturbance with an Easy (+40) Perception Test.

A Miscast Changes the Question

Before the Miscast, the party may be asking, "Can we open the crypt?" Afterward, the question is, "Can we open the crypt before the innkeeper notices the impossible light, the guard arrives, or the room becomes unsafe?" The original goal still matters, but it now costs time, attention, safety, trust, or control.

When the table gives you a result, name three things:

1. What changes right now?
2. Who notices or is affected?
3. What choice does the party have next?

Match the fallout to the scene already happening:

The book's result always comes first. This table frames its aftermath; it does not replace the roll.

Let the Party Respond

A Miscast should not turn the wizard into a spectator. Ask what the character does first: conceal the sign, warn the party, steady the scene, push on, or admit the plan has failed. A proud wizard may insist on finishing. A careful one cuts losses early. A desperate one promises an ally something in exchange for one more try.

Then give everyone else something human to solve around the magic:

• The guard creates space when the scene turns dangerous.
• The social character explains away the disturbance or gets bystanders to leave.
• The investigator works out what changed and where the new risk is heading.
• The practical character finds water, shelter, equipment, or an escape route.
• The wizard decides what magical knowledge is safe to share and whether another attempt is worth it.

Two Common Miscast Mistakes

Turning every result into punishment. The tables already supply the cost. Adding a separate humiliation, feud, theft, or ambush every time makes the system feel arbitrary. Let the written result be the price, then follow its natural fictional consequences. A few disrupted moments can still matter if a suspect slips away or a negotiation sours.

Ignoring the result because it is inconvenient. Strange magic in a crowded inn gets a reaction. Follow the fiction, but do not inflate it beyond the result.

After resolving the official result, run this sequence: state the visible effect in one vivid sentence, say what changed in the scene, ask the caster for their first response, ask one other character how they help or exploit the opening, and advance the next threat only if the fiction supports it. A good Miscast leaves the party thinking, "That was terrible, but the spell might still be worth trying next time."

The Spell Is Not the Whole Consequence

Even a clean cast leaves something behind. Given the book's picture of licensed but feared wizards, a successful spell often raises a new question.

This is a reason to make magic part of the world. A wizard who never changes how an innkeeper, rival, or watch captain responds may as well be carrying a very expensive lantern.

Choose a Magical Role for the Party

Every spellcaster benefits from a role the table understands before a spell is cast.

The WFRP 4e Wizard Guide covers the licensed career path, from Wizard's Apprentice up. Priests work on a different system entirely; the WFRP 4e Divine Magic Guide covers Pray Tests, Blessings, Miracles, and Sin.

A Fast Magic Checklist

1. State the problem the spell is meant to solve.
2. Check the spell's CN, range, target, and duration, and decide whether to Channel first.
3. Name the time, visibility, risk, and support the casting needs, including armour and ingredients.
4. Make the Language (Magick) or Channelling Test and resolve any Miscast from the book.
5. Show what the spell changed for the party and the world around them.

Worth the coin: Ingredients are the most underrated purchase in WFRP 4e. A wizard who skips them to save a few shillings is betting their face on a Major Miscast table whose last entry ends the character, and a Minor Miscast they could have ignored entirely. Buy the ingredient before you buy the better staff.

Where to Go Next

For preparing a big casting as a party scene, read the WFRP 4e Channelling Guide. For faith, cult obligations, and answered prayers, read the WFRP 4e Divine Magic Guide. For a clear sequence when magic enters a fight, read the WFRP 4e Combat Guide. Return to the WFRP 4e Guide Hub for the full library.

Where To Go From Here

A wizard is an institution before they are a spell list, and the WFRP 4e Wizard Guide follows that career from apprentice through the obligations that come with a licence. Corruption, Insanity and the consequences a spell leaves behind sit on the GM's side of the table, covered in the WFRP 4e GM Guide. For why a properly licensed wizard still gets a cold reception in a Reikland village, read the WFRP 4e Lore Guide.

Source Scope

This guide is based on the WFRP 4e Core Rulebook's Magic chapter (the Winds, the Aethyr, Magic Rules, Channelling, Dispelling, Overcasting, and the introductions to Petty and Arcane spells) and the Petty Magic, Arcane Magic, Second Sight, Instinctive Diction, and Aethyric Attunement Talents. It summarises procedures and quotes short passages but does not reproduce spell entries, spell lists, or the Miscast tables. Consult the Core Rulebook for complete rules.