A homebrew scale of magical power effects, partially inspired by the Barony fantasy role-playing game by Joseph Hillmer and George Rahm.
Level 1: Poor Magical Effects
Magic at this level too mundane to be noticed – making people laugh at a funny joke, persuading someone during a long conversation, making a thrown stone go just a little farther than it should. Such magic may happen all the time, and some may argue this level of magic doesn’t exist since all effects can be explained by so-called normal circumstances.
Level 2: Fairly Powerful Magical Effects
* Animate a piece of string to tie into a knot.
* Balance an awkward or heavy object onto a narrow surface.
* Brighten or darken the lighting in a room.
* Cause a brief moving illusion to appear at the edge of someone’s vision.
* Cause a candle wick to spontaneously light.
* Cause a person to feel a brief itch, burn or tickle.
* Cause a person to sneeze, scratch, yawn or make some other obvious gesture.
* Cause someone’s current emotional state to become more exaggerated.
* Change a simple object into a similar but different object – like making a player card into another card.
* Change the flavor of food.
* Create a brief illusionary sound about as loud as a speaking person.
* Displace the energy of a lit candle to chill a pitcher of water.
* Enhance or dim the normal color of an object or person.
* Freshen, grow or wilt a plant.
* Give shape to clouds of smoke.
* Know how weather is about to change within the next hour.
* Make a room feel damper or drier.
* Make an object cleaner or dirtier.
* See in twilight-like darkness as if it was as bright as a sunny day at noon.
* Slay a small insect or mouse.
* Summon a light breeze while outdoors or in a room with open windows.
* Summon nearby insects to appear as fast as normally possible; behavior remains normal.
* Switch the contents of two nearby boxes without opening either one.
* Tip over an unbalanced object without touching it.
Level 3: Good Magical Effects
* Cause a sudden change in a room’s temperature, making it chilly or stuffy.
* Cause clouds to form on a sunny day.
* Cause rain to fall on an overcast cloudy day.
* Change a bottle of water into wine.
* Change a deadly poison into a mild poison.
* Change a lump of lead into iron.
* Change a pinch of sawdust into a wooden arrow.
* Change a pit of fire into warm air.
* Change a stone of earth into common fire.
* Change the size, color, weight or texture of an object up to human-size.
* Cover a human-sized object with enough shadows that it goes unseen by casual observation.
* Create a lump of earth from nothingness.
* Create an almost perfect copy of an existing non-magical small tool.
* Cure a minor disease or fever.
* Deflect a thrown of thrusted dagger.
* Detect nearby supernatural forces such as enchanted items, undead beings or magical wards.
* Displace the energy from a campfire to life a stone three feet into the air or throw a spear a hundred paces.
* Extinguish small flames such as a campfire or a room full of candles.
* Foresee images related to the future of a person in the next few years.
* Heal a person’s minor wounds.
* Hit a person with an unseen force equal in power to a slap in the face.
* Intensify heat enough to boil over a kettle.
* Know what a person is thinking about right now.
* Make metal brittle so it breaks easily.
* Make up to a dozen people believe a false memory.
* Make up to a dozen people forget about an event.
* Perfectly measure the mass and dimensions of an object within sight without actually touching the object.
* Push a book off a nearby shelf without touching.
* Reflect minor damage from a minor blow back onto the attacker.
* Search inside an ordinary sealed box without opening it.
* See or hear through a wall into a nearby room.
* Send a hand-sized item into another dimension where it becomes impossible to recover without a long search.
* Sense a person’s aura to detect charms or other supernatural influences of magic or evil.
* Shift the flow of time to make an hour pass twice a fast as normal.
* Silence sounds equal in volume to normal voices.
* Soothe the emotions of an upset person.
* Split or join pieces of wood.
* Summon nearby small animals to appear as fast as normally possible; behavior remains normal.
* Talk with a person though eye contact without actually speaking or gesturing.
* Transform a living creature into another shape of roughly the same size.
* Turn a lump of earth into solid stone.
* Turn a pebble into a lump of earth.
Level 4: Excellent Magical Effects
* Affect three targets within ten paces of each other as if they were the same target.
* Alter distance between two places a hundred paces apart so that both points can be touched at the same time.
* Amplify a blow from a mace to hit like a falling boulder.
* Animate plants so that they can move around like animals or people.
* Attack a person’s emotions to cause hopelessness or extreme confusion.
* Calm an injured or confused person.
* Cause a seasonal change in weather, such as making light rain into either a clear day or a storm.
* Change a bottle of acid into water.
* Change a boulder into dirty water.
* Change a bucket of iron into silver.
* Change a cloud of toxic gas into pure air.
* Change a deadly poison to salt.
* Change a pit of fire into ice.
* Change a solid boulder into a pile of sand.
* Collapse or mend the roof of a house.
* Contact the true, free mind of a person under magical mind control.
* Convert the energy from a burning house into enough force to hurl a boulder.
* Copy an existing magical item, though the duplicate’s power will be a quarter of the original’s power.
* Create a solid boulder of hard rock from nothingness.
* Create illusionary sights and sounds which react to others and appear real but have no physical substance.
* Cure disease in one person’s body.
* Curse a person to suffer a lasting minor wound which takes a month to heal.
* Displace the energy from a wind to pull the load of thirty draft horses.
* Drain the energy from a river in summertime to freeze over a solid ice bridge ten paces wide.
* Engender deep trust in someone listening to your words.
* Enhanced a person’s understanding of an already known skill to use that skill with a higher level of ability.
* Fill an empty bucket with pure water drawn from nothingness.
* Foresee images related to the future of a city or realm in the next few years.
* Fuse together non-living materials which are not the same, such as cloth and stone.
* Grow a pebble into a boulder.
* Heal a person’s critical wounds.
* Hide something being sought by supernatural scrying or magical senses.
* Hit a person with an unseen force equal in power to a man swinging a mace.
* Incite rage in a person listening to your words.
* Instantly create friendship to someone with only a glance.
* Juggle up to three balls in the air without touching them.
* Know exactly where a specific item is when only a general location up to the area of a city is known.
* Make a minor event which normally lasts a few minutes instead last an hour.
* Make a person heavier and unable to stand.
* Make up to a hundred people believe a false memory or forget about a specific event.
* Move between two places up to ten paces apart without passing through the area in between.
* Probe into the mind of a person, learning all thoughts and memories.
* Reach into an opening nearby and then reach out of a different opening a hundred paces away.
* Reflect serious damage from a major blow back onto the attacker.
* Remove minor magic, charms or curses from a person.
* Repeat an immediately recent event lasting few seconds in duration to cause a different outcome.
* Send a hand-sized item into another dimension and later retrieve it at will.
* Send a human-sized item into another dimension where it becomes impossible to recover without a long search.
* Shatter a person’s non-magical armor.
* Shift the flow of time to make an hour pass in a few minutes.
* Slowly lift an object about half a man’s weight into the air without touching the object.
* Soften metal to the texture of warm wax.
* Speak into the mind of someone miles away.
* Summon nearby large animals and “monsters” to appear as fast as normally possible; behavior remains normal.
* Tear apart common metals.
* Transform a being into another creature from mouse-size to horse-size.
* Visualize the entire inside of a building without actually entering.
* Write with an animated quill without touching the instrument.
Level 5: Great Magical Effects
* Alter distance between a dozen places a hundred paces apart so that all points can be touched at the same time.
* Amplify cold or heat in a room to become lethal to unprotected people inside.
* Amplify decay enough to reduce a wooden house to sawdust.
* Animate non-living things so that they can move like animals or people.
* Cause a non-living thing to cease to exist.
* Cause an hour-long sense of fear or bravery throughout an entire army.
* Cause unseasonal changes in local weather, such as snow in summer.
* Change a bucket of iron into gold.
* Change a forest fire into a thunderstorm or gale-force wind.
* Change a non-living object up to the size of a wagon into pure fire.
* Change a room full of air into poisonous gas.
* Change a vat of water into boiling oil.
* Change the outcome of events which happened in a person’s distant past.
* Completely heal the wounds of up to a dozen injured people.
* Copy an area up to the size of a house, including everything inside.
* Copy non-magical animals and similar living creatures.
* Create a lasting terror which works like a phobia in someone’s mind.
* Create a shared feeling of love between two people.
* Create a wall of earth from nothingness.
* Create a wall of water from thin air.
* Create false memories about a fictional event such that people and records show the event actually happened.
* Create illusions which look, sound and feel so real they can actually harm people who believe them.
* Create or destroy life-long loyalty in a person.
* Crumble a wall with its own weight.
* Cure plague throughout a city.
* Cut down a 50-year-old oak tree without touching it.
* Displace the energy from a forest fire to pull a 100-year-old oak tree up from its roots.
* Erase all memories from a person.
* Erase all memory of one historical event, including people’s minds and non-magical written records.
* Foresee images related to the future of the world in the next few years.
* Hit a person with an unseen force ten times more powerful than a man swinging a mace.
* Know the exact location of a person or object, even if far away and hidden by magic.
* Lift up to a dozen adult men into the air without touching them.
* Limit or remove complex magical forces linked to an object or place.
* Make a great beast such as a dragon so heavy it cannot fly.
* Make a minor event which normally lasts a few minutes instead last an day.
* Make a pebble hit with the force of a boulder hurled from a catapult.
* Make a person light-weight enough to float on air.
* Make a person so heavy that breathing and movement become almost impossible.
* Move between any two places in the world without travelling through the area in between.
* Place a person into a coma-like sleep during which the person never ages or suffers harm.
* Play a stringed musical instrument without touching it.
* Punch through a stone wall up to half an arm thick.
* Push over a 20-pace-long stone wall.
* Reflect mortal damage from a fatal blow back onto the attacker.
* Remove fatigue from an army.
* Restore battle order to a routing force of warriors.
* Restore someone to sanity and cure phobias, delusions and other disorders.
* Send human-sized objects to specific locations in other dimensions.
* Shift the flow of time to make a day pass in an hour.
* Slay a person.
* Speak into the mind of another person, no matter how far away.
* Split a living creature apart.
* Stop time for a minute in a five-pace-radius area.
* Strip away magical ability or power from a living being for a day.
* Summon any type of creature in the world to appear as fast as travel allows; behavior remains normal.
* Summon creatures from other dimensions to appear, though such creatures are not bound to obey.
* Tear apart the finest steel or enchanted iron.
* Transfer the life force from a living being and trap it in another person or magical object.
* Transform a being into another creature from flea-size to dragon-size.
* Turn a palm-sized stone into a wall of rock 20 paces long.
Level 6: Monstrously Powerful Magical Effects
* Animate everything within a building to move or attack people inside.
* Create a castle from thin air.
* Create a new fault line in the earth and trigger a earthquake.
* Create a new supernatural spirit out of an idea.
* Create a perfect copy an object up to the size of a tower.
* Create a place which exists next to all points in the world simultaneously.
* Create city-sized pocket dimensions.
* Create illusionary living beings which feel, walk and act as if normal people.
* Create new elements and states of matter.
* Create permanent portals into other dimensions, allowing beings to cross back and forth at will.
* Crush a castle without touching it.
* Displace the energy from an ocean tide to stop a glacier’s advance.
* Erase a whole city and its residents from history as if they never existed .
* Hit a person with an unseen force as powerful as a falling boulder.
* Incite whole nations to feel hatred or trust toward another nation or idea.
* Know the entire true history of a specific object or person, but future remains uncertain.
* Mend an existing fault line in the earth.
* Permanently strip magical power from a person or enchanted object.
* Reassemble any broken magical object or being from tiny pieces.
* Reflect an entire army’s attacks back on itself.
* Restore bravery and battle-order to a defeated army.
* Restore life to a dead person.
* Send an image, sound or feeling into the dreams of all sleeping people in the world.
* Shift the flow of time to make a year pass in a day.
* Slay up to a dozen people.
* Speak directly into the mind of any person who every lived or will exist in the future.
* Speed up or slow down the passage of time in a city.
* Tap the energy from an ocean to freeze over an almost endless solid ice bridge ten paces wide.
* Use the energy of a volcano to lift a stone tower a hundred feet into the air.
Level 7: Immortally Powerful Magical Effects
* Animate a mountain, coastal sea or entire forest to move like a beast or person.
* Banish an entire species or race into a prison dimension.
* Bind a bloodline such that the welfare of each generation’s ruler reflects in the land, weather, and beasts of the realm.
* Blight an entire realm to suffer drought, crop failure, pestilence, plague and other disasters.
* Cause a person to become immortal through ongoing rebirth, always remembering past “lives”.
* Command weather across a continent and influence other weather around the world.
* Create a cloud of shadows around the world which permanently blocks out all light.
* Create a massive supernatural beast which can only be slain through a specific weakness.
* Create a pocket dimension which copies a entire realm in the mortal world.
* Create a safe haven realm in a world undergoing an apocalypse.
* Create a supernatural barrier around a world cutting it off from other dimensions.
* Create a weapon capable of wounding a primal power.
* Make a person invulnerable to physical harm, poison, disease, suffocation or starvation.
* See, hear, smell, and feel everywhere in the world at once.
* Shift a realm or continent into another dimension.
* Slay an army.
* Spawn a minion race of beings which can reproduce and remain loyal to serve a specific person or bloodline.
* Speak into the mind of every person in the world.
* Stir oceans to create tidal waves and direct such waves against the coast of a continent.
* Transfer a mind and life force into a magical object which can only be destroyed in one specific way.
* Travel freely through time and space – past, present and future anywhere in the world.
* Trigger a series of earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves and storms which destroy a realm.
* Turn magic on and off, or control magical effects, around a one mile radius.
Level 8: Demipower Affects
* Banish a sun, moon, star or planet into another dimension.
* Change the laws of physics / laws of nature which give structure to a world.
* Create a destiny which a group of people or their descendents will one day fulfill.
* Create a new world full of lands, seas, plants and beasts, but not people.
* Destroy a world.
* Realign a constellation in the sky.
* Reshape the continents of an existing world.
* Speed up or slow down the passage of time in a dimension.
Level 9: Lesser Cosmic Forces
* Banish a major primal power into a prison dimension which not even that power can escape.
* Create a new dimension.
* Create or destroy a minor primal power.
* Destroy an entire dimension.
* Erase history up to the very beginning of time in one dimension.
* Spawn an intelligent race.
* Turn a mortal into a primal being.
Level 10: Greater Cosmic Forces
Magic at this level is beyond the human ability to understand or describe. Only side-effects of these powers can be detected in any known dimension, and no mortal should ever hope of comprehend such processes.