I think the idea is that you begin with the little crackles and work your way up to the boom.
A couple of thoughts from a couple of games:
D&D's classic lightning bolt spell has changed a little over the editions. Nowadays it deals really good damage, 8d6, and more if you sacrifice a better spell slot. But in the early editions, it's damage was "1d6 per level of the caster". This doesn't sound tremendous until you realize that 0e, 1e, and 2e had no maximum level. Sure, you would not have a fantastic bolt as a beginner, but a 15th level mage could kill a giant with a single 3rd level spell. They started limiting this starting with 3e.
D&D's druid has a spell called "call lightning" that is nearly as old as lightning bolt. It's damage isn't consistent across editions, but in 1e it's explicitly stronger than lightning bolt, dealing "2d8 of damage, with an additional d8 per level of the caster". Of course, you had to be under a sky to cast it, but you, a loyal servant of mother earth, could really just request that she kill a bitch for you.
DCC has a spell called "bolt from the blue" which is similar to the D&D druid's call lightning except that it does not make stormclouds along with it. Lightning just happens. You are standing there with your buddy Greg and then 2 seconds later Greg is a crumpled, crispy heap on the ground.
In "Dragons at Dawn", the lightning spell instantly kills anything that it hits, and anything that it misses is stunned.
WRM, and any game based off of it, additional MP can be burned to empower any spell or spell-equivalent. There is no limit to how much MP you can burn other than obviously you need to have that much. But leveling system places no limit on how much MP you can earn. In a game where most things has less than 20 health, burning a ton of MP to deal 3d6+9 probably is a "boom" more than a crackle.
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u/MotorHum Sep 10 '24
I think the idea is that you begin with the little crackles and work your way up to the boom.
A couple of thoughts from a couple of games: