This is a "just thought of it, had to throw it out there" kind of post, so don't expect anything concrete

One of the things that has frustrated me a bit with the way magic is handled in SBG is the limited casting ability of anything short of wizards. This doesn't mean I think magic should be flying around every turn...it should still be hard to do, but it would be nice if it wasn't so limited. A shaman casting channeled Fury has a pretty good chance of fluffing the whole thing, leaving them effectively useless for the rest of the game.

I've been playing a lot of the new Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG lately, and it has what I consider the perfect Force mechanic. I think it would translate quite well to SBG. The Force mechanic gets rid of point-counting and resolves down to a simple dice pool. If you're just starting out, you get one die to work with, which means more often than not, tapping into the Force isn't going to get you much, if anything. As you grow in the Force you get more dice, and your chances of success are more assured. It's easy to see a potential problem here: by the time you get to 3 or 4 Force dice, you're pretty much in the "guaranteed to work" zone. But basic Force powers aren't that potent...you need to commit dice from your pool to maintain effects, do more than one thing, extend range or power, etc, which keeps the effective pool lower even while letting advanced users do amazing things, yet retaining a reasonable chance of failure.

So what if...
What if every magic user had a magic pool they could roll each time they wanted to cast a spell? A shaman or stormcaller might only have one die, nazgul and Elrond-types would have 2, wizards would have 3 (2, +1 from their staff). Spells themselves would be more difficult to cast, so those numbers would have to go up, but I imagine increasing the difficulty of everything by 1 would be good for a start. Attempting a channelled spell would require the caster to commit a die from his pool. The profile would still have their MWF, so Might could be used to alter the highest die in a roll, while Will could be used to add a die to the pool. In fact, spending Will would be the only way for a shaman to get channelled Fury...

I know the idea and details need some tweaking, but...any thoughts on the basic concept?

I'm not sure, though I admit that may because of your example, a goblin/orc/uruk shamna will be casting it on a 3+, so if he uses two will points it is almost certain to succede bar snake eyes, and they are very cheap for the fury spell.
The only problem I would say with lgb/hobbit's magic system is the fact that other then the wizards, good is really limited in the range of spells they can get, whilst Evil has access to a spell to every situation.

Not quite, as I noted the difficulty of spells would have to be adjusted.

I think its an interesting idea, I'd have to play-test it to decide if I like it or not.

@Zarathustra I like that Good has far less magic then Evil, it fits the feel of LOTR

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I like it.

I used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battle when they changed to a dice pool rule and I found it to be a very interesting and thematic. Could see it working for SBG but as you noted, it would take a lot of work to re-jig.

One note about the Warhammer system was that all the wizards in your side contributed dice to the one pool, which you could use for any of the wizards casting (minor wizards were seen to be supporting better ones with their power etc even if they wern't actually casting spells). You would also get a (smaller) pool on your opponents turn to try and prevent enemy magic.

Good on you for taking a look and I woul dbe interested to see your results.

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Sounds like a good system, I'm sure it could work well. I think that its a bit too much of a change to be implemented though nor do I really see the need for it. It would only serve to buff evil as good doesn't have many casters who aren't wizards or who struggle to cast or fight effectively when they fail.
I'd like to see a small change with it though, though I'm not sure what exactly. Maybe the expended will points could be recovered on a passed courage (from caster and resister)? Might be an issue with things like wraiths obviously.

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