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For magic spells without saving throws, does the caster still have to roll to see if their spell works or does the spell just work?

Spells just work, no check required, only saves or strikes as listed in the spell.

Thanks! I have been doing it wrong!

You might want to write up the way you were doing things and make it into rules about Appentice Mages and how their magic might 'not work' from time to time.

By the book, no you don't have to roll. However, I do know several groups that roll anyways, allowing for critical success/critical failures. Usually doubling the effect or duration on a nat 20, and either spell failure or half duration/effect on a nat 1.

always save throw or "dodge" in some cases if the effect is physical.

House rules are, if the spell is below the wizard's level then no roll is needed (if you wanted to be a annoying GM you could require a roll of 98% 99 and 00 fail) anything beyond their level requires a roll 98-5%per level above. Spells of legend count as level 20.

Spells works, the save is only for the vicitim of the spell .

The RIFTS Psi/Magic screen from years ago had a nice random % list - our group used it for newly-learned spells, rolling # of time x Lvl of spell/2 (so a 5th lvl spell would be rolled 2 or 3 times, depending on things like the IQ of the mage or source of the learning, and 8th lvl spell would be rolled 4 times). As long as you didn't fail the rolls each time, then you'd learn the spell correctly upon the Xth roll & go from there with no further rolls not dictated in the spell-description.