Calling real variables in abilities?

I'm curious if there's a way in the editor to call a real variable that returns a number from an ability, say, the damage amount or duration of the spell for use in a trigger.

Like suppose I wanted to damage a unit for whatever reason, and have that damage amount equal to a certain real value of a spell without having a unit cast it. Could I make a real variable that would return that number? And how would I go about doing it? Thanks.

nope. you would ahve to do it manually. so like if a spell does 50 damage at level 3 you would need a preset var with that info. there is no way to retrieve it.

Really? I recall looking at some JASS functions that could call damage amounts from spells, but I guess I was mistaken.