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Kizara
2009-08-17, 01:27 AM
So, in a game I'm currently running the PCs have been introduced to an Elven druid-like NPC that will be following them as a main party member, so now I have to figure out what she can actually do.


I have all the primary stats worked out, and decided on Magery 2 (she has 14 IQ), but I have not used this magic system before and don't really feel like reading and cross-reading every single spell before I find what I need or what combination I need to produce the effects I'm looking for. (Note I understand the fundamentals of the system, and I love how its done, but the spell lists aren't close to as neatly laid out as the 3.5 ones)

This is what she needs to be able to do, homebrewed spells welcome:

1) Talk to animals. With this, she can control/convince animals to do simple tasks for her, such as using a tree full of crows to intimidate people.

2) Control plants in a limited fashion. Make plants grow more/bigger/faster, cause an "Entangle" style effect in combat, and generally be able to understand and interact with plants and plant creatures.

3) Foretell and excercise limited control over the weather. The control part isn't that important, but she should be able to fortell the weather. If there's a mundane skill for this instead of a spell that's fine, just point me at it.

4) Make others invisible for a substainial period of time. Exactly like the 3.5 "Invisibility" spell.

5) A phantasimal killer style spell, where they have 2 rolls to resist (Per to notice the illusion, then Fright to resist the Terror) or they fall unconcious/die due to the terrifying fear.

6) Some healing ability (I saw the Healing advantage, but she's supposed to have it via spell ability). Cure a dozen or so HP a day (with effort), cure minor diseases and so forth.


She's meant to be somewhat powerful and experienced at her craft, but not overly so.

I would REALLY appreciate some spell lists spelt out here, as I can't find the motivation to shift through them myself.

EDIT: Oh, and if you have any mundane skills to recomend for a custodian of nature role. Also something to represent her knowledge of the arcane, as well as obscure history; she's also supposed to be a good cook.

Jade_Tarem
2009-08-17, 01:35 AM
Give me a bit to sort through the rules...

EDIT:

You already have Magery 2, so I won't list where that's a prereq. I've listed Spells in italics and prerequisites in parenthesis.

Requirement 1: Talks to Animals

Persuasion Skill OR Animal Empathy Advantage
Beast Soother Spell - Improves Animal Reaction Roles
Beast Summoner Spell (Beast Soother) - Calls an animal to you, which may take some time
Beast Speech (Beast Summoner) - Talk to animals, get one question answered per minute, answer is limited by animal's intellect

Requirement 2: Talk To/Enhance/Control Plants and Entangle

Seek Plant Spell - Gives direction and distance to nearest named plant, including "any"
Identify Plant Spell (Seek Plant) - Gives name and basic info about plant, and skill bonuses to Natualist and Physican skills
Heal Plant Spell (Identify Plant) - Removes diseases, parasites, and damage from all plants in area
Bless Plants Spell (Heal Plant) - Doubles crop yield within area for a season
Plant Growth Spell (Heal Plant) - Plant grows at a rate of 1 month/minute
Tangle Growth Spell (Plant Growth) - Basically Entangle

Communicating with the plants in any meaningful way requires three or four additional spells

Hide Path Spell (Heal Plant) - Like Pass Without Trace from DnD
Forest Warning Spell (Four Plant Spells) - Makes a section of forest difficult to move through quietly
Plant Sense Spell (Hide Path & Forest Warning) - Bonuses to tracking, senses, and the ability to sense hidden opponents in heavy vegetation.
Plant Speech Spell (Plant Sense) - Talk to plants. Older plants give better info - magical intelligent plants give the best.

Requirement 3: Meteorology

Weather Control is trickier than one would think. This school has prereqs in other schools - usually lots of them.

To predict the weather, the absoulte basics that you must have are:

Purify Air - Purifies air
Seek Air - Gives direction/distance of air
Create Air (Purify Air or Seek Air) - Makes air out of nothing
No Smell (Purify Air) - The ultimate deodorant
Predict Weather (Four Air Spells) - Predicts the weather.

Control of the weather is excercised in stages. This spell summons clouds, that one makes frost, etc. Most of them have prerequisites in two or more schools.

Requirement 4: Invisibility

As nearly as I can tell, you only need a Simple Illusion Spell. Use it to fool the sense of sight.

Requirement 5: Phantasmal Killer

I'm drawing a blank. I'm having a hard time finding a spell with two saves. I recommend you make your own mix of Nightmare and Rotting Death.

Requirement 6: Heals

Sense Life Spell - detects living things.
Body Reading Spell (Sense Life) - gives instant interactive knowledge of patient's body
Lend Energy Spell - Trade Caster's energy for Target's FP
Recover Energy Spell (Lend Energy) - recover FP more quickly than normal
Lend Vitality Spell (Lend Energy) - Trade Caster's energy for Targets HP
Minor Healing Spell (Lend Vitality) - Gives back 3 HP
Relieve Sickness (Lend Vitality) - Temporarily suppresses disease
Major Healing Spell (Minor Healing) - Gives back 8 HP
Cure Disease (Major Healing & Relieve Sickness) - cures disease

Requirement 7: Other

May want to invest in Naturalist and Physician Skills to get the most out of those medicinal herbs.

Hope that helps.

dariathalon
2009-08-17, 01:51 AM
I don't have the time to do any digging tonight, but I'd highly recommend looking at the GURPS Magic Spell Charts. It is a free download from e23 that basically shows the prerequisite trees for the different schools. Without this, GURPS Magic can seem pretty confusing, but with it, I don't see how you can say D&D 3.5's spell lists are more clearly laid out.

Just download the file. Identify the spells you want. Take the chains leading up to that spell. I usually find I see a couple of other handy spells that I can get with little extra effort based on the spells I already have, so I end up taking some of them too.

The problem with what you're asking for is it is going to be a fairly long list of spells. If you don't mind that, I guess it's cool, but the effects you've listed are from 6 different schools of magic and each rather powerful effects from those schools so you'll be looking at a long spell list.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 02:16 AM
I don't have the time to do any digging tonight, but I'd highly recommend looking at the GURPS Magic Spell Charts. It is a free download from e23 that basically shows the prerequisite trees for the different schools. Without this, GURPS Magic can seem pretty confusing, but with it, I don't see how you can say D&D 3.5's spell lists are more clearly laid out.

Just download the file. Identify the spells you want. Take the chains leading up to that spell. I usually find I see a couple of other handy spells that I can get with little extra effort based on the spells I already have, so I end up taking some of them too.

The problem with what you're asking for is it is going to be a fairly long list of spells. If you don't mind that, I guess it's cool, but the effects you've listed are from 6 different schools of magic and each rather powerful effects from those schools so you'll be looking at a long spell list.

Thanks for the reference, I'll certinally look into that.
EDIT: Ok, got the download. Thanks again, should be useful in the future.

As for the effects needing lots of spells, yes I feared something like that. I personally feel these effects are fairly straightforward and mostly in keeping with the Druid trope (with the exception of the Illusion stuff added on). I mean, from my perspective, the only schools she uses are Nature, Healing and Illusion. While I really like the GURPS take on magic, including the prerequisite trees, I find it rather frustrating when actually trying to stat-out a roleplaying concept. I also find the spell lists rather short on variety in each school.

I'm wondering if someone has done a conversion of the 3.5 spell lists...


OH, I should've mentioned that I DO have the Magic suppliment, so feel free to include material from there.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 02:37 AM
Give me a bit to sort through the rules...

EDIT:

You already have Magery 2, so I won't list where that's a prereq. I've listed Spells in italics and prerequisites in parenthesis.

Requirement 1: Talks to Animals

Persuasion Skill OR Animal Empathy Advantage
Beast Soother Spell - Improves Animal Reaction Roles
Beast Summoner Spell (Beast Soother) - Calls an animal to you, which may take some time
Beast Speech (Beast Summoner) - Talk to animals, get one question answered per minute, answer is limited by animal's intellect

Requirement 2: Talk To/Enhance/Control Plants and Entangle

Seek Plant Spell - Gives direction and distance to nearest named plant, including "any"
Identify Plant Spell (Seek Plant) - Gives name and basic info about plant, and skill bonuses to Natualist and Physican skills
Heal Plant Spell (Identify Plant) - Removes diseases, parasites, and damage from all plants in area
Bless Plants Spell (Heal Plant) - Doubles crop yield within area for a season
Plant Growth Spell (Heal Plant) - Plant grows at a rate of 1 month/minute
Tangle Growth Spell (Plant Growth) - Basically Entangle

Communicating with the plants in any meaningful way requires three or four additional spells

Hide Path Spell (Heal Plant) - Like Pass Without Trace from DnD
Forest Warning Spell (Four Plant Spells) - Makes a section of forest difficult to move through quietly
Plant Sense Spell (Hide Path & Forest Warning) - Bonuses to tracking, senses, and the ability to sense hidden opponents in heavy vegetation.
Plant Speech Spell (Plant Sense) - Talk to plants. Older plants give better info - magical intelligent plants give the best.

Requirement 3: Meteorology

Weather Control is trickier than one would think. This school has prereqs in other schools - usually lots of them.

To predict the weather, the absoulte basics that you must have are:

Purify Air - Purifies air
Seek Air - Gives direction/distance of air
Create Air (Purify Air or Seek Air) - Makes air out of nothing
No Smell (Purify Air) - The ultimate deodorant
Predict Weather (Four Air Spells) - Predicts the weather.

Control of the weather is excercised in stages. This spell summons clouds, that one makes frost, etc. Most of them have prerequisites in two or more schools.

Requirement 4: Invisibility

As nearly as I can tell, you only need a Simple Illusion Spell. Use it to fool the sense of sight.

Requirement 5: Phantasmal Killer

I'm drawing a blank. I'm having a hard time finding a spell with two saves. I recommend you make your own mix of Nightmare and Rotting Death.

Requirement 6: Heals

Sense Life Spell - detects living things.
Body Reading Spell (Sense Life) - gives instant interactive knowledge of patient's body
Lend Energy Spell - Trade Caster's energy for Target's FP
Recover Energy Spell (Lend Energy) - recover FP more quickly than normal
Lend Vitality Spell (Lend Energy) - Trade Caster's energy for Targets HP
Minor Healing Spell (Lend Vitality) - Gives back 3 HP
Relieve Sickness (Lend Vitality) - Temporarily suppresses disease
Major Healing Spell (Minor Healing) - Gives back 8 HP
Cure Disease (Major Healing & Relieve Sickness) - cures disease

Requirement 7: Other

May want to invest in Naturalist and Physician Skills to get the most out of those medicinal herbs.

Hope that helps.

That is fantastic, many thanks.

I'll probably skip on the speaking to plants part for now, although Hide the Path seems a good pick.

I'd appreciate any advice you might have in regards to the homebrewed nightmare spell. If needed, I can drop the idea and say she cast it from a scroll. She needs SOME kind of attack spell through, and something less powerful and vulgur then Fireball would be nice.

Are you running a GURPS game somewhere by chance? The more I learn of this system, the more I love it (with some minor quibbles, like the overly-fine skill system and the lack of high-end powerful spells in its spell system) and I'd love to play in a game with a more experienced GM...

dariathalon
2009-08-17, 02:49 AM
Thanks for the reference, I'll certinally look into that.
EDIT: Ok, got the download. Thanks again, should be useful in the future.

As for the effects needing lots of spells, yes I feared something like that. I personally feel these effects are fairly straightforward and mostly in keeping with the Druid trope (with the exception of the Illusion stuff added on). I mean, from my perspective, the only schools she uses are Nature, Healing and Illusion. While I really like the GURPS take on magic, including the prerequisite trees, I find it rather frustrating when actually trying to stat-out a roleplaying concept. I also find the spell lists rather short on variety in each school.

I'm wondering if someone has done a conversion of the 3.5 spell lists...


OH, I should've mentioned that I DO have the Magic suppliment, so feel free to include material from there.

Regarding your complaint of lack of flexibility within the colleges, that is a problem only in so far as you make it one. GURPS Magic is a completely different beast than D&D magic. The schools are not meant to be divided up evenly with a little of everything everywhere. Think of it more as a handy system to organize the spells than a balancing idea.

The three colleges you mention are rather broadly defined, especially the "Nature" one. In GURPS I would call that Animal, Plant, possibly the 4 elements, and weather, maybe even more if you want to get really broad.

Requirement 1

You might also look into the (Animal) Control spells. There is a seperate one for each animal type (Birds, Mammals, etc.) If you're confident you can talk them into things, this probably won't be needed, but it allows you to force them to comply if needed.

Requirement 3

I'd personally just go with the mundane option, Weather Sense skill, though having a handful of elemental spells on a druid does make some sense.

Requirement 4

Simple Illusion is definitely not enough! There is actually a spell called Invisibility in the Light and Darkness College. You need Light, Continual Light, Darkness (or Gloom), Blur, and at least one other L&D spell as prereqs.

Requirement 5

Try looking at these spells...

Death Vision - Necromancy (Stuns the target)
Terror - Mind Control (Forces a penalized Fright Check)
or
Phantom - Illusion and Creation (Creates an illusion that can physically harm the subject)

For other "attack" spells that you might consider there is sunbolt from L&D, which doesn't take much more than Invis, as I recall. Or you could look at some of the alternatives from the Plant College (Rain of Nuts, Pollen Cloud).

Requirement 6

I'd skip over Sense Life and Body Reading. While handy they aren't required for anything, and you didn't seem to want the healing to be a big part of the character anway. I might even skip over Major Healing (and therefore Cure Disease) for the amount of healing you'd initially suggested.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 03:45 AM
Regarding your complaint of lack of flexibility within the colleges, that is a problem only in so far as you make it one. GURPS Magic is a completely different beast than D&D magic. The schools are not meant to be divided up evenly with a little of everything everywhere. Think of it more as a handy system to organize the spells than a balancing idea.

The three colleges you mention are rather broadly defined, especially the "Nature" one. In GURPS I would call that Animal, Plant, possibly the 4 elements, and weather, maybe even more if you want to get really broad.

Requirement 1

You might also look into the (Animal) Control spells. There is a seperate one for each animal type (Birds, Mammals, etc.) If you're confident you can talk them into things, this probably won't be needed, but it allows you to force them to comply if needed.

Requirement 3

I'd personally just go with the mundane option, Weather Sense skill, though having a handful of elemental spells on a druid does make some sense.

Requirement 4

Simple Illusion is definitely not enough! There is actually a spell called Invisibility in the Light and Darkness College. You need Light, Continual Light, Darkness (or Gloom), Blur, and at least one other L&D spell as prereqs.

Requirement 5

Try looking at these spells...

Death Vision - Necromancy (Stuns the target)
Terror - Mind Control (Forces a penalized Fright Check)
or
Phantom - Illusion and Creation (Creates an illusion that can physically harm the subject)

For other "attack" spells that you might consider there is sunbolt from L&D, which doesn't take much more than Invis, as I recall. Or you could look at some of the alternatives from the Plant College (Rain of Nuts, Pollen Cloud).

Requirement 6

I'd skip over Sense Life and Body Reading. While handy they aren't required for anything, and you didn't seem to want the healing to be a big part of the character anway. I might even skip over Major Healing (and therefore Cure Disease) for the amount of healing you'd initially suggested.

I appreciate your input! Especially regarding the Nightmare bit, I may just use Terror or Death Vision with some re-fluffing. I agree with the weather controling (its a bit outside her current power-level, she's not meant to be able to conjure storms or throw lightning-bolts) and I'll consider the animal controling bit.

The Magic system seems designed for a FAR lower magic setting then 3.5's, which does somewhat suit me, but at times its a bit irritating, like when you need to know 10 spells to be able to cure 8 hp. The other major element of this is that there is no really fantastically powerful spells. For instance, you get to Explosive Fireball, and learn to cast it well and more powerfully, and that's the best you can do.

Mind you, that fireball is very powerful considering most people only have 12-20 HP at best, but it still doesn't allow for really awesome stuff that I would look forward to playing a mage character. The entire spell list seems to stop at about lvl 4-5 in DnD terms, and that's a bit limiting if you want to have a higher-magic campaign and/or have a powerful archmage that can do incredible things, not just throw a really potent fireball.

You definately gain more then you lose with this system, and I no doubt will end up trying to mine some homebrew for expanded spell lists. The problem is that with no other high-end abilities to compare to, its very hard to know how to balance it well.


Keeping with the fire theme, when I looked through the (Magic suppliment) college, I didn't find any of the following:

1) Fire Wall. Yes, I suppose you could use Shape Fire here, but the idea is to conjure magically powerful flames that effectively deal damage to a side of the wall, not simply make a line of ordinary fire (although its cool that they have the ability to do that too).

2) Meteor Storm. There is Rain of Fire yes, but that spell is fairly whimpy (although flavorful) and not what I'm looking for. I want a spell that is ethier a hail of (weaker) fireballs or, better yet, large flaming rocks.

3) Fire Storm. Yes, there is fire cloud, but again that's just a distracting wave of regular fire. I'm looking for a STORM, perferably a large one, that whirls intense magical flames around. It can be hard to cast and cost alot of FP, but I need more then a "swirling cloud of fiery embers".

4) Flame Strike. Yes, its basically a vertical fireball, but there's no spell for this aside from adapting an Explosive Fireball to deal 'holy' damage or some such.


So, as you can see, I have no problems with what they have there (and most of it is great and really does what GURPS does best: detail out all the basics) but it lacks high end OUMPFF spells. This is because its designed with the idea in mind that a fireball is amoung the most powerful attack option a mage has, and is near the pinicle of magic power. For me, I'd rather it be a mid-level option (and most lower-magic, 'realistic' games would never need more, if it needs Fireballs at all) with more powerful and impressive spells existing 'above' it. I will give honorable mention to Burning Death however, that spell is pretty crazy and the kind of thing I'm looking for here.

Natael
2009-08-17, 11:36 AM
I actually just got done building a Dark Sun druid using GURPS, so I have some ideas fresh in my head, perhaps not exactly how you'd want to go, but some other things to think about.

One thing I did was apply the pact limitation to a lot of my powers, signifying a duty to nature and preserving it. I think that wound up being a sense of duty -10% that I could apply to the pact, makes things a bit cheaper and goes along with the whole druid theme. Nearly all the special powers wound up with -10% Magic limitation.


1) Talk to animals. With this, she can control/convince animals to do simple tasks for her, such as using a tree full of crows to intimidate people.

-Speak With Animals and Animal Empathy advantages.

2) Control plants in a limited fashion. Make plants grow more/bigger/faster, cause an "Entangle" style effect in combat, and generally be able to understand and interact with plants and plant creatures.

-Speak with plants and plant empathy.
-Plant growth and I think there is a spell called entangling roots.

3) Foretell and excercise limited control over the weather. The control part isn't that important, but she should be able to fortell the weather. If there's a mundane skill for this instead of a spell that's fine, just point me at it.

4) Make others invisible for a substainial period of time. Exactly like the 3.5 "Invisibility" spell.

I think there is a flat invisibility spell. As said before, check out some illusion spells. I personally wound up taking levels of chameleon that would only work in vegitation, however that is not transferable without expensive afflictions, so I recommend going through the illusion college of spells.

5) A phantasimal killer style spell, where they have 2 rolls to resist (Per to notice the illusion, then Fright to resist the Terror) or they fall unconcious/die due to the terrifying fear.

-Not sure on this. I know how to model it with innate attacks/afflictions (would be a heart attack inducing affliction with a must be seen limitation), but not sure of a specific spell.

6) Some healing ability (I saw the Healing advantage, but she's supposed to have it via spell ability). Cure a dozen or so HP a day (with effort), cure minor diseases and so forth.

-Like I said before, slapping on the magic limitation makes it technically a spell. On the other hand, just working up to minor and major healing spells is good too.


One other thing I did for my druid was take Power Investiture rather than Magery. With PI, you're limited to a handfull of spells designated by where ever you are getting your power from, in this case, nature, so restrict it to naturey spells, which also eliminates prereqs of spells. You'd have to decide which spells are on the nature druid's spell list, but a general restriction to plant, animal, weather, and healing colleges would be fairly reasonable.

Set
2009-08-17, 12:08 PM
One option that might be fun, since you've already chosen to do an animal/plant/illusion theme, would be to give the character Create Animal, from the Illusion/Creation school.

It takes some hefty prereqs, but once you've got it, it becomes an all-purpose attack spell. Got a problem? Send wolves at it! With the low cost, an animal under 100 lbs is generally free to maintain at skill level 15, and wolves, according to the bestiary, are within that range so that a 100 lb wolf would be acceptable. One of my standard mage builds would use Shield, Armor, Icy Weapon and a pair of summoned wolves and just mix it up as a poor man's melee combatant, only stopping to cast spells after a fight was done (so that he could lapse his current maintained spells and cast Major Healing without penalties for other spells up).

Note that the Clerical Investiture advantage, used in place of Magery, and only implying to a selection of 'Druid spells,' might be a way to shave some points, if that matters to you. I don't remember how it interacts with prerequisites (I know it doesn't apply to them, if they aren't on your list, but I have no idea if it allows you to just skip them... It's been about a decade since I've played GURPS).

dariathalon
2009-08-17, 06:38 PM
There are some REALLY powerful spells out there if that's what you want. Check out Volcano for example. Annoyed by the next kingdom over, turn their capital city into a giant volcano!

I'll admit they don't reach the same heights as D&D, but that's not really the point of the GURPS Magic system. For the most part it was built for non-supers level characters. If you want the extremes of magic, build it as a power. There are ways to make powers behave very much like spells, if that's what you want. There's also nothing saying a character can't have both. So maybe your super powerful wizard has a couple hundred points in regular spells and 100 or so points in a couple of big spell-like powers.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 06:55 PM
There are some REALLY powerful spells out there if that's what you want. Check out Volcano for example. Annoyed by the next kingdom over, turn their capital city into a giant volcano!

I'll admit they don't reach the same heights as D&D, but that's not really the point of the GURPS Magic system. For the most part it was built for non-supers level characters. If you want the extremes of magic, build it as a power. There are ways to make powers behave very much like spells, if that's what you want. There's also nothing saying a character can't have both. So maybe your super powerful wizard has a couple hundred points in regular spells and 100 or so points in a couple of big spell-like powers.

Good idea. When I'm more comfortable and experienced with the system I will probably do that.

As for those recomending the Pact limitation for the druid, thats a really good point I didn't think of. Very appropriate. Thanks.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-17, 08:59 PM
So you want to be able to hurt, but not necessarily with anything so crass as a Fireball?

This requires some investment in the Body Control college, but worth it.

Basically, there's a spell called Deathtouch. Needless to say, it is a touch attack. However, a Wizard's Staff counts as a touch. So, you load up a Deathtouch into your staff, and they take damage. It completely ignores DR and goes straight to hit points. It covers the Druid's ability to smack someone with a stick (Shillelagh) and kill them with a single blow. It also has handy buffs in there which can boost DR temporarily (Barkskin reflavored), increase physical stats temporarily (bonus to ST, DX, and HT are all fun, and also replecate classic druid spells like Ox's Strength), and have some other nifty Save or Loose type spells like Stun or Pain. Curse Missile is also in there to cast spells which are normally Thrown as a Missile spell. This negates the -1 on your check per HEX. So there's a lot of useful stuff which are prerequsites.

I would *STRONGLY* suggest you pick up Magery 3. Advantages are much harder to grab after character creation, and there is no reason to NOT take it, since it is only another 10 points, and is effectively another point of Int for purposes of learning magic. Right now, you've got a 16 effective IQ (IQ + Magery) to learn spells, which are M/H (or M/VH for a few particularly nasty ones). With an effective 17 IQ, you spend one point to get a skill at IQ-2, which is a 15, which is the first point-break for reducing point costs. Trust me, every spell you ever cast, ever, costing 1 less fatigue per casting, is *HUGE*. Anything that normally costs 1 fatigue is FREE. And if you really want a spell that flippin' awesome, get it at IQ+1 for 8 points, to get it at an 18.

This information is based on knowledge of 3e. If things are much different in 4e, this may not be effective, but if things are similar enough, you may find parallels.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 09:05 PM
So you want to be able to hurt, but not necessarily with anything so crass as a Fireball?

This requires some investment in the Body Control college, but worth it.

Basically, there's a spell called Deathtouch. Needless to say, it is a touch attack. However, a Wizard's Staff counts as a touch. So, you load up a Deathtouch into your staff, and they take damage. It completely ignores DR and goes straight to hit points. It covers the Druid's ability to smack someone with a stick (Shillelagh) and kill them with a single blow. It also has handy buffs in there which can boost DR temporarily (Barkskin reflavored), increase physical stats temporarily (bonus to ST, DX, and HT are all fun, and also replecate classic druid spells like Ox's Strength), and have some other nifty Save or Loose type spells like Stun or Pain. Curse Missile is also in there to cast spells which are normally Thrown as a Missile spell. This negates the -1 on your check per HEX. So there's a lot of useful stuff which are prerequsites.

I would *STRONGLY* suggest you pick up Magery 3. Advantages are much harder to grab after character creation, and there is no reason to NOT take it, since it is only another 10 points, and is effectively another point of Int for purposes of learning magic. Right now, you've got a 16 effective IQ (IQ + Magery) to learn spells, which are M/H (or M/VH for a few particularly nasty ones). With an effective 17 IQ, you spend one point to get a skill at IQ-2, which is a 15, which is the first point-break for reducing point costs. Trust me, every spell you ever cast, ever, costing 1 less fatigue per casting, is *HUGE*. Anything that normally costs 1 fatigue is FREE. And if you really want a spell that flippin' awesome, get it at IQ+1 for 8 points, to get it at an 18.

This information is based on knowledge of 3e. If things are much different in 4e, this may not be effective, but if things are similar enough, you may find parallels.

Thanks for the advice. One important thing to note is that I'm building an NPC, but thank you for your advice regarding Magery 3 for when I do play a mage character myself. Very effective optimization.
Also, good to know regarding all that body control stuff, I couldn't find the buff spells.

Also, please don't insinuate that I play 4e. I switched to GURPS in a large part because I wanted a roleplaying system instead of Casual Gamers Dungeon Quest.

dariathalon
2009-08-17, 09:26 PM
Uh... You do realize that GURPS is on 4e now, right? In fact it switched over to 4e before D&D by a year or two. Not that it has anything to do with D&D 4e.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 09:37 PM
Uh... You do realize that GURPS is on 4e now, right? In fact it switched over to 4e before D&D by a year or two. Not that it has anything to do with D&D 4e.

Heh, I completely misunderstood his meaning.... since he was refering to 3e DnD spells, I assumed he meant 3e DnD in his final disclaimer.

Yes, I play GURPS 4e, although from what I understand the differences between it and 3e are minor; "95% compatible" is what I've been told.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-17, 10:12 PM
Heh, I completely misunderstood his meaning.... since he was refering to 3e DnD spells, I assumed he meant 3e DnD in his final disclaimer.

Yes, I play GURPS 4e, although from what I understand the differences between it and 3e are minor; "95% compatible" is what I've been told.

I was referring to GURPS 3e vs 4e. I played GURPS 3e, and never upgraded to 4e.

I was told a lot of loopholes were closed when they upgraded to 4e, so I don't know how cheezy Deathtouch still is. I used to get a skill 21 (IQ+4 at IQ 14 + M3) in it, just to be able to cast for free, then smack you with my staff. Even better, because I had a decent Dex as well, I had a very high Parry skill since Staff was 2/3 of skill = parry. So a skill of 12 was a parry of 8! Toss in PD3 from armor and you've got a Parry of 11! That's better than even odds of parrying any given attack.

Kizara
2009-08-17, 11:02 PM
I was referring to GURPS 3e vs 4e. I played GURPS 3e, and never upgraded to 4e.

I was told a lot of loopholes were closed when they upgraded to 4e, so I don't know how cheezy Deathtouch still is. I used to get a skill 21 (IQ+4 at IQ 14 + M3) in it, just to be able to cast for free, then smack you with my staff. Even better, because I had a decent Dex as well, I had a very high Parry skill since Staff was 2/3 of skill = parry. So a skill of 12 was a parry of 8! Toss in PD3 from armor and you've got a Parry of 11! That's better than even odds of parrying any given attack.

Well, I can't speak of the spell, I can speak of combat:

1) Now a quarter staff has a +2 parry bonus, and can more easily parry multiple times in a turn. It's still 1/2 skill + 3 for your parry skill like every other weapon, however (well adding in its +2 bonus). Very few weapons have a parry bonus, so the Q-staff still is very good at its role.

2) A parry of 11 isn't hard to achieve. My current character is a swordsman (two-handed sword) with a weapon skill of 17, this gives him a parry of 11 (16/2 +3). However, since most enemies wroth a salt use deceptive attack, I'm often rolling against close to 9. Not to mention its a two-way street, and I generally have to deceptive attack 2-4 to cause people to miss their parries.

3) Armor gives DR ONLY, although shields grant a defense bonus. A large (tower) shield will net you a +3 defense bonus on all defenses, although causing you a -2 penalty to attack rolls (A medium shield is +2 with no attack penalty, which is what I favor). Note also that you can attack with shields and they allow you to use a Block defense, which is a nice option.

4) I'll check out that deathtouch. It is her style, which is the 'scary witch in the woods' (this how she was actually introduced to the party, one of whom died).

mcv
2009-08-18, 06:20 AM
Yes, I play GURPS 4e, although from what I understand the differences between it and 3e are minor; "95% compatible" is what I've been told.

I'm not sure it's 95%. Costs of stats, skills and advantages changed quite a bit. Advantages and disadvantages were cleaned up a lot. ST (carrying capacity) scales much better now. More combat options. Lots of bad ideas that seemed cool at the time were removed. But the idea behind it is still mostly the same, except better implemented.

The change from GURPS 3 to GURPS 4 is far smaller than the change from AD&D2 to D&D3 or D&D3 to D&D4. Probably bigger than that from D&D3 to D&D3.5, though.

The main thing they didn't change was the default magic system, unfortunately. It has its charm, and spells-as-skills makes it really easy to combine magic with non-magic, and to go for exactly the spells you need, but at the same time, the powerful spells are way too powerful for simple skills, so we get this (very arbitrary) prerequisite system where you have to take dozens of boring, useless spells in order to get what you want. And even that doesn't work terribly well as balance: with enough points in IQ + Magery, you can get any spell at level 15 for only 1 point. Powerful wizards can be terrifying in their diversity.

I would have preferred if they'd changed spells to Powers (highly modified advantages) or something. You can still do something like that with GURPS Powers or Thaumaturgy probably (I still need to read it), but it's a lot more work and it's not the default.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-18, 11:26 AM
Well, I can't speak of the spell, I can speak of combat:

1) Now a quarter staff has a +2 parry bonus, and can more easily parry multiple times in a turn. It's still 1/2 skill + 3 for your parry skill like every other weapon, however (well adding in its +2 bonus). Very few weapons have a parry bonus, so the Q-staff still is very good at its role. In many ways, I'm glad. This used to get broke quickly. My martial artist with Weapon Master and Improved Parry had a Parry of over 17


2) A parry of 11 isn't hard to achieve. My current character is a swordsman (two-handed sword) with a weapon skill of 17, this gives him a parry of 11 (16/2 +3). However, since most enemies wroth a salt use deceptive attack, I'm often rolling against close to 9. Not to mention its a two-way street, and I generally have to deceptive attack 2-4 to cause people to miss their parries. At least now there's a way to reduce parry, there wasn't before.


3) Armor gives DR ONLY, although shields grant a defense bonus. A large (tower) shield will net you a +3 defense bonus on all defenses, although causing you a -2 penalty to attack rolls (A medium shield is +2 with no attack penalty, which is what I favor). Note also that you can attack with shields and they allow you to use a Block defense, which is a nice option. There used to be a spell which increased your PD, and an enchantment which permanently increased your PD, although it was fairly expensive.


4) I'll check out that deathtouch. It is her style, which is the 'scary witch in the woods' (this how she was actually introduced to the party, one of whom died).
In that case, Body Control is going to be a very nice and flavorful college for you to jump into. Twitch, Spasm, Pain, Paralysis... it's a good shut-down college. And Deathtouch... yea, it's just that good. Requires like 8 different spells in Body Control college, though, including Paralyze Limb and Wither Limb, which you will never use because Deathtouch will be both cheaper and more effective (because one or two points into Deathtouch and it's 2d6-3d6 straight to HP), but hey, it's worth the investment.

Another fun thing is Reverse Missiles at a high enough level that you can maintain it for free...

Kizara
2009-08-18, 09:09 PM
I'm not sure it's 95%. Costs of stats, skills and advantages changed quite a bit. Advantages and disadvantages were cleaned up a lot. ST (carrying capacity) scales much better now. More combat options. Lots of bad ideas that seemed cool at the time were removed. But the idea behind it is still mostly the same, except better implemented.

The change from GURPS 3 to GURPS 4 is far smaller than the change from AD&D2 to D&D3 or D&D3 to D&D4. Probably bigger than that from D&D3 to D&D3.5, though.

The main thing they didn't change was the default magic system, unfortunately. It has its charm, and spells-as-skills makes it really easy to combine magic with non-magic, and to go for exactly the spells you need, but at the same time, the powerful spells are way too powerful for simple skills, so we get this (very arbitrary) prerequisite system where you have to take dozens of boring, useless spells in order to get what you want. And even that doesn't work terribly well as balance: with enough points in IQ + Magery, you can get any spell at level 15 for only 1 point. Powerful wizards can be terrifying in their diversity.

I would have preferred if they'd changed spells to Powers (highly modified advantages) or something. You can still do something like that with GURPS Powers or Thaumaturgy probably (I still need to read it), but it's a lot more work and it's not the default.

I understand exactly what you are saying and I agree. Although I do like their system, it has problems. Spells should require a certain LEVEL in thier pre-reqs, not simply one place-holding point (cause having to spend, say, 4 points in pre-reqs is not a meaningful restriction).

Also, I know I'd have a look at any "spells as powers" system that came out. Especially if they converted alot of the 3.5 spells.


Still, you have to admit that the GURPS magic system is far more balanced then the 3.5 one, which is a notable accomplishment as a point-based system is generally far harder to balance.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-19, 12:04 AM
I understand exactly what you are saying and I agree. Although I do like their system, it has problems. Spells should require a certain LEVEL in thier pre-reqs, not simply one place-holding point (cause having to spend, say, 4 points in pre-reqs is not a meaningful restriction).

Also, I know I'd have a look at any "spells as powers" system that came out. Especially if they converted alot of the 3.5 spells.


Still, you have to admit that the GURPS magic system is far more balanced then the 3.5 one, which is a notable accomplishment as a point-based system is generally far harder to balance.

I'm not sure that GURPS magic is any more balanced than 3.5. It is still... horridly broken, with the right ideas.

In a Fantasy game, where few things do more than 3d6 damage, it's stupidly easy to jack up your DR to the point where you are ignoring just about everything. With a skill of 20, you can maintain spells like Reverse Missiles for free, meaning 'always on'. Your IQ is going to be rediculously high anyways, due to needing it for spells. So only spells targeting HT as Save or Loose is going to affect you. Then, with Body Control, you don't even have to worry about that anymore.

Then you do things like Flame Jet to do a 3d6 ranged attack that you cannot parry (only dodge or maybe block) that ignores DR completely. Yea, 3d6 straight to HP is pretty much "You Die". Or Deathtouch, as mentioned above. Mass Sleep is also stupidly good, just cast a three-hex diameter and catch your opponents en masse.

Kizara
2009-08-19, 12:34 AM
I'm not sure that GURPS magic is any more balanced than 3.5. It is still... horridly broken, with the right ideas.

In a Fantasy game, where few things do more than 3d6 damage, it's stupidly easy to jack up your DR to the point where you are ignoring just about everything. With a skill of 20, you can maintain spells like Reverse Missiles for free, meaning 'always on'. Your IQ is going to be rediculously high anyways, due to needing it for spells. So only spells targeting HT as Save or Loose is going to affect you. Then, with Body Control, you don't even have to worry about that anymore.

Then you do things like Flame Jet to do a 3d6 ranged attack that you cannot parry (only dodge or maybe block) that ignores DR completely. Yea, 3d6 straight to HP is pretty much "You Die". Or Deathtouch, as mentioned above. Mass Sleep is also stupidly good, just cast a three-hex diameter and catch your opponents en masse.

Well magic requires FP to use, which makes it more inherently limited then DnD magic, but I haven't really used it yet.

So far all we've been doing is 150-200 pt characters in low-magic settings (mundane background is common).

Any advice you have on making magic more balanced (that is not just a hypothetical idea for revamping the whole system) would be greatly welcomed.

Even RPing-based balancing ideas, instead of rule re-working or tweaks. We are just starting to use the magic system and one of the draws of this is that we don't want the same headaches that 3.5 gave us balance-wise.

dariathalon
2009-08-19, 12:45 AM
Primarily, you need to have a GM with the guts to say no. This goes for all areas of GURPS. The GM needs to have a character power level in mind. (Note: This is not the same thing as the point total. You can make two vastly differently powered characters with 200 points.) The GM needs to make the expectations about approximately how powerful the characters should be clear from the start and then work with the players to build characters that are within that boundary.

Kizara
2009-08-19, 01:00 AM
Primarily, you need to have a GM with the guts to say no. This goes for all areas of GURPS. The GM needs to have a character power level in mind. (Note: This is not the same thing as the point total. You can make two vastly differently powered characters with 200 points.) The GM needs to make the expectations about approximately how powerful the characters should be clear from the start and then work with the players to build characters that are within that boundary.

None of us are experienced enough with the system to be able to make these judgement calls, and that is exactly what I was asking for: some advice on what is overpowered, how it should be changed or regulated, what to watch out for, and so on.

What you are suggesting requires a far greater understanding of the system of a whole then we have right now. Its easy to say "just regulate yourselves" but its not practical without any knowledge or experience.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-19, 01:44 AM
None of us are experienced enough with the system to be able to make these judgement calls, and that is exactly what I was asking for: some advice on what is overpowered, how it should be changed or regulated, what to watch out for, and so on.

What you are suggesting requires a far greater understanding of the system of a whole then we have right now. Its easy to say "just regulate yourselves" but its not practical without any knowledge or experience.

1) High skill levels in spells can break the game easy. In a 200 point game, I can write up a character who has 18's on most of his spells, and 21's in a couple of very important spells. Basically, anything that is a free spell *can* be a problem. Anything over 21 can be a severe problem.

Solution:

a) Spells cannot go higher than skill 20, or at least you stop getting any benefits for higher skill. Specifically, no reduction of casting time, that's the biggest balancing factor of Magic.

b) Spell costs cannot be reduced below 1. No matter your skill, you need to spend at least 1 FP to cast a spell. This also goes for maintaining spells. You can still reduce cost if the original cost is higher than 1. For example, with this house rule, you cannot use a 1d6 Flame Jet at skill 15 for free, it would cost 1 FP. However, a 2d6 Flame Jet would also cost 1 FP, due to the cost reduction. A 3d6 Flame Jet would cost 2FP. At skill 20, a 1d6, 2d6, or 3d6 Flame Jet would cost 1 FP.

2) The GM reserves the right to declare any combo 'too broken for this game'. The Player may re-spend the points spent on the combo if he chooses, but if he declines to do so, he is unable to use the combo, and unable to later re-spend those points.

Kizara
2009-08-19, 02:18 AM
1) High skill levels in spells can break the game easy. In a 200 point game, I can write up a character who has 18's on most of his spells, and 21's in a couple of very important spells. Basically, anything that is a free spell *can* be a problem. Anything over 21 can be a severe problem.

Solution:

a) Spells cannot go higher than skill 20, or at least you stop getting any benefits for higher skill. Specifically, no reduction of casting time, that's the biggest balancing factor of Magic.

b) Spell costs cannot be reduced below 1. No matter your skill, you need to spend at least 1 FP to cast a spell. This also goes for maintaining spells. You can still reduce cost if the original cost is higher than 1. For example, with this house rule, you cannot use a 1d6 Flame Jet at skill 15 for free, it would cost 1 FP. However, a 2d6 Flame Jet would also cost 1 FP, due to the cost reduction. A 3d6 Flame Jet would cost 2FP. At skill 20, a 1d6, 2d6, or 3d6 Flame Jet would cost 1 FP.

2) The GM reserves the right to declare any combo 'too broken for this game'. The Player may re-spend the points spent on the combo if he chooses, but if he declines to do so, he is unable to use the combo, and unable to later re-spend those points.

Thanks. I shall adopt those house rules. They are very reasonable.

However, I would like to not have to say "cannot have higher then 20 skill" as I don't like to give hard limits like that. What if you said you can't reduce casting time further then the original halving? Would that be good enough? One of the things I like about this system is that you can 'master' your spells as a more experienced mage, instead of having all spells be basically static. Also, I'd say that you have to have skill 25 to have no ritual, although that's a somewhat minor point. Would that be sufficent?

Also, I've had a policy like that for a long time now with 3.5 DnD, so that's a no-brainer. However, if there are any known or common abuses (particularly with a low-exotic/realistc style of game) please share them.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-19, 03:10 AM
Thanks. I shall adopt those house rules. They are very reasonable.

However, I would like to not have to say "cannot have higher then 20 skill" as I don't like to give hard limits like that. What if you said you can't reduce casting time further then the original halving? Would that be good enough? One of the things I like about this system is that you can 'master' your spells as a more experienced mage, instead of having all spells be basically static. Also, I'd say that you have to have skill 25 to have no ritual, although that's a somewhat minor point. Would that be sufficent?

Also, I've had a policy like that for a long time now with 3.5 DnD, so that's a no-brainer. However, if there are any known or common abuses (particularly with a low-exotic/realistc style of game) please share them.

Half-time on a time of 1 round = no time casting. That's broken.

How about this instead?

Under no circumstances, no matter how many times you halve your casting time, can you ever have a casting time less than one round.

Because free-action casting is worse than Quicken Spell and Imbue Familiar cheese.

Kizara
2009-08-19, 03:14 AM
Half-time on a time of 1 round = no time casting. That's broken.

How about this instead?

Under no circumstances, no matter how many times you halve your casting time, can you ever have a casting time less than one round.

Because free-action casting is worse than Quicken Spell and Imbue Familiar cheese.

Oh for sure. I only suggested what I did because I did not realize this. I completely agree that casting should always take at least some time.

The only exception I can think of would be having an advantage that allows you to cast a spell that's 1 round as no time. It would be 1 per round max, and cost 5 pts + 5 pts per prerequiste that the spell has. Thus, a powerful spell with 6 prereqs would have an additional 35 pt advantage to cast once as a free action (in addition to all normal cost). What do you think?

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-19, 03:28 AM
Oh for sure. I only suggested what I did because I did not realize this. I completely agree that casting should always take at least some time.

The only exception I can think of would be having an advantage that allows you to cast a spell that's 1 round as no time. It would be 1 per round max, and cost 5 pts + 5 pts per prerequiste that the spell has. Thus, a powerful spell with 6 prereqs would have an additional 35 pt advantage to cast once as a free action (in addition to all normal cost). What do you think?

Still not expensive enough.

How about this: You can cast a spell that is 1 round at no time... but you do not gain the benefit of having the FP cost for the spell reduced due to high skill, and the FP cost is doubled. That limits the spam-bomb. Even better, at least half of it has to come from your personal FP pool, not through other sources like Powerstones.

Oh, that reminds me of another problem... Powerstones = win. No, seriously. It's free mana. Here's why:

There was a version called a Manastone. Basically, instead of recharging for free like a Powerstone, you dumped 5 FP into it, and it stored 1 FP, up to it's maximum. So you dump FP into it. Then sit down, with a Recover ST skill of around 18, in 10 minutes or so you're back to full. Repeat. Camping for the night, spending a couple of hours doing this before going to bed. You've doubled, at least, the amount of mana you have available. Easily.

You need to limit powerstones, because they can get out of hand quick.

Also, there was an enchantment called Power. Basically, it provided free FP for the item. If it got enough Power that it didn't need any FP to maintain itself, then it was a continuous 'always on' item. So, two points of Power on a Reverse Missiles ring = constant always-on Reverse Missiles. That, by the way, includes all Missile spells. Limit this like you limit FP reduction from high skill: It can never reduce below 1, or suffer the concequences. Because having a continuous item doesn't count as a spell being active for purposes of casting further spells, and enchanting is fairly straightforward.

mcv
2009-08-19, 04:20 AM
With a skill of 20, you can maintain spells like Reverse Missiles for free, meaning 'always on'.
If you think Reverse Missiles is powerful in a fantasy setting, try it in a high-tech + magic setting (Shadowrun?) where guns are the most common weapon. There it really is a game breaker.


Your IQ is going to be rediculously high anyways, due to needing it for spells.
Keep in mind though that in GURPS 4, IQ is twice as expensive. So you'll be paying through the nose to get your ridiculous IQ. Unless you lower your Will and Perception to get points back, but I really really don't like that option. Too many opportunities for abuse there. In my book, you only get points for lower Will or Per if they end up below 10.


Then you do things like Flame Jet to do a 3d6 ranged attack that you cannot parry (only dodge or maybe block) that ignores DR completely. Yea, 3d6 straight to HP is pretty much "You Die".
You don't die from a single 3d6 damage. It does an average of 10 damage, which brings an average 10 HP human to 0 HP, which is enough to give him a chance of falling unconcious, but not enough to kill him.

Still, 3d6 damage is quite a lot.


Well magic requires FP to use, which makes it more inherently limited then DnD magic, but I haven't really used it yet.
But according to RAW it's too easy to minmax your wizard to make lots of spells cost 0 FP. Requiring a minimum of 1 FP could fix that.


Any advice you have on making magic more balanced (that is not just a hypothetical idea for revamping the whole system) would be greatly welcomed.
IMO the magic system is fine at low levels. For many spells, even a cost of 0 FP isn't necessarily game breaking. The real problem I see is that a really powerful wizard can get lots of spells for really cheap.

If you invest even a few points in Magery or IQ, then suddenly all prerequisites cost only 1 point, giving easy access to lots of powerful spells. The prerequisite system works fine for very limited semi-spellcasters who don't have Magery or high IQ, because they often still need to invest a couple of points in each spell to have it count as prerequisite.

I think fixing the prerequisites can be done by having them only count if you invested a certain number of points in them. 2 or 4, probably. That makes having lots of spells twice or four times as expensive. Doesn't hurt weak spellcasters much, but severely limits powerful archwizards with every spell in the book.

But really, a new magic system would be better.

mcv
2009-08-19, 04:39 AM
The problem with the default GURPS magic system is that it allows for lots of great stuff that you do want to be possible, and it gives you lots of flexibility to toy with it. The downside of that is that it's easily min-maxed.

Having tons and tons of spells makes sense for archmages, but for 1 point per spell, it can get pretty cheap in GURPS. Spells need to cost more.

Casting simple spells for free or with no casting time makes sense for really powerful wizards, but it's too easily accessible and too cheap for even very limited spellcasters.

And some spells are just too good. Reverse Missiles sounds fun, but it can be a game breaker in many settings.

The problem is that GURPS wants spells that work both in fantasy and in high tech settings, and while Reverse Missiles might work fine in a dungeoncrawl, it's horribly broken when guns are around. Damage spells at high level (so you can cast them quickly) can keep up with guns, but they're just a bit too good when everybody else has to make do with a broadsword or crossbow.

For this reason, guns are also unbalanced in GURPS. They cost you no points (except a few for the Guns skill), but they give you enormous damage output. Which is very realistic, but also hard to balance.

Also, I want spells to be advantages so I can use enhancements and limitations to tweak them. Highly customised spells could be even more fun (or even more unbalanced; the Powers system has a few issues as well).

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-08-19, 06:07 PM
I like the idea of spells as advantages, although you'd need to make them a little more flexible to really make it work.

Say, you have certain levels of a given college you can take. First level of it probably costs 15-20 points, gives you the basics. For example: With the Fire college, it would probably cover Create Fire, Shape Fire, things like that. Maybe even Fireball and Flame jet, maybe not. Second level includes some of the more powerful effects like Fireball and Flame Jet and stuff. Third level costs like 50 points, but nets you pretty much the whole college. Then you can tweak it with cost modifiers. For example, if you want to take an effective penalty on creating stuff (similar to 'untrained'), you get points back. If you want to boost the maximum number of FP you can pump into your magic, character point cost for the advantage goes way up.

mcv
2009-08-20, 09:33 AM
My new analysis of the problem:

Spells are too cheap for what they do. Way too cheap. Prerequisites hardly mitigate this (especially if you have high IQ and Magery). Beyond that, high skill automatically makes the spells even better (less FP cost, faster casting).

End result: put a lot of points in IQ and Magery, and after that, you can do pretty much anything cheap. At low levels (where high IQ + Magery really costs you), wizards work fine, but beyond a certain power level they can do anything and do everything really well.

One of the problems is Magery. For only a few points, you get access to all spells. (In fact, any limitatons and enhancements to your magic are usually only applied to the cost of Magery, despite the fact that they affect tons of spells.)

Solution: cut Magery up.

My Magery works only per college of spells, and you need to buy a new Magery advantage for each new college you want spells from. So you can have Magery (fire) 2 and Magery (illusion) 1.

Magery 1 gives you access to all the easy spells of the college. Magery 2 gives you access to the harder spells of the college, Magery 3 to even harder spells. (No idea how far I need to continue this.)

Furthermore, high skill doesn't give any discounts to FP cost or casting time. I have two possible solutions to handle that instead:

Either you can reduce FP cost or casting time by taking a penalty on your skill, so you do it cheaper or faster, but there's an increased chance of failure.

Other option is: Magery doesn't give any bonuses to skill levels in spells. Instead, Magery 1 only gives you access to the basic spells, Magery 2 gives access to more spells, and reduces FP cost of the easy (let's call them level 1) spells. Magery 3 reduces the FP cost of lvl 2 spells and casting time of lvl 1 spells, etc.

Or maybe higher Magery levels should just reduce FP and casting time for all spells? No idea.

You could also cut Magery up into levels of 5 points, allowing more granularity in groupings of spells, and you can more quickly go a bit further in reducing cost and casting time.

But all of this is still for a single college. Do you want to be equally good in another college? You'll have to buy Magery again.

This keeps magic accessible at low levels, but makes it a lot more expensive to get really good at everything, I think. But I haven't tested it.

Kizara
2009-08-20, 03:14 PM
My new analysis of the problem:

Spells are too cheap for what they do. Way too cheap. Prerequisites hardly mitigate this (especially if you have high IQ and Magery). Beyond that, high skill automatically makes the spells even better (less FP cost, faster casting).

End result: put a lot of points in IQ and Magery, and after that, you can do pretty much anything cheap. At low levels (where high IQ + Magery really costs you), wizards work fine, but beyond a certain power level they can do anything and do everything really well.

One of the problems is Magery. For only a few points, you get access to all spells. (In fact, any limitatons and enhancements to your magic are usually only applied to the cost of Magery, despite the fact that they affect tons of spells.)

Solution: cut Magery up.

My Magery works only per college of spells, and you need to buy a new Magery advantage for each new college you want spells from. So you can have Magery (fire) 2 and Magery (illusion) 1.

Magery 1 gives you access to all the easy spells of the college. Magery 2 gives you access to the harder spells of the college, Magery 3 to even harder spells. (No idea how far I need to continue this.)

Furthermore, high skill doesn't give any discounts to FP cost or casting time. I have two possible solutions to handle that instead:

Either you can reduce FP cost or casting time by taking a penalty on your skill, so you do it cheaper or faster, but there's an increased chance of failure.

Other option is: Magery doesn't give any bonuses to skill levels in spells. Instead, Magery 1 only gives you access to the basic spells, Magery 2 gives access to more spells, and reduces FP cost of the easy (let's call them level 1) spells. Magery 3 reduces the FP cost of lvl 2 spells and casting time of lvl 1 spells, etc.

Or maybe higher Magery levels should just reduce FP and casting time for all spells? No idea.

You could also cut Magery up into levels of 5 points, allowing more granularity in groupings of spells, and you can more quickly go a bit further in reducing cost and casting time.

But all of this is still for a single college. Do you want to be equally good in another college? You'll have to buy Magery again.

This keeps magic accessible at low levels, but makes it a lot more expensive to get really good at everything, I think. But I haven't tested it.

Some good ideas but unless you actually write-up a breakdown I'm not trying to do that in my game. :P


The idea that you have to use a penalty to skill to reduce casting time and/or fatigue cost is solid and makes me wonder why they didn't do it themselves. Everything else (like combat) works that way, don't know why magic shouldn't.

For instance:

-To reduce casting time by half requires rolling at skill -4, unless casting time was already 1 round, in which case it requires rolling at skill -8. Each additional reduction of casting time is another -4.

-To reduce FP is -2 per FP, but tripple cost for the last one. Thus, if after reductions your spell is only going to cost 1 FP, its -6 to skill to have it cost 0.

Let magery still apply to skill, but keep your "must take the college limitation" houserule. It is quite limitiing, and having to re-take magery for each type of spells nicely limits it.

I'd then do something similar with Power Investature. The first time you take it (at a bit of a discount), it applies to one of (say, 4) groupings of spells that your deity offers. The next time, you pick a different group.

Also, your base level skill in a spell must be 20 for it to count as a prerequisite. This means you generally need about 8-12 points in it to get it there. However, you'll need levels this high if you want to cast your spells more easily, as detailed above.

dariathalon
2009-08-20, 04:27 PM
I think there may have been rule for trading skill for fatigue and/or casting time in 3rd ed. I know there was one for taking penalties to reduce ritual required (how loud the casting is, how many gestures are required.)

As I recall there are already rules stating some types of spells (blocking in particular, but maybe others too) can't reduce to zero fatigue cost, no matter what. If you're looking at a skill for fatigue trade off, I think I'd just expand this rule to all spells. Also, you'd need to consider whether your initial casting penalty also reduces the cost for maintaining the spell.

By the way, if you're looking for more tweaks to the magic system, there are books that give ideas. For example, something similar to the one-college magic idea is in GURPS Fantasy. There's also one there to make it more like D&D's Vancian system, as well as a few others. I'd also bet that there are other books with possible alterations to the magic system. I'd check out Thaumatology and the ones they did on Dungeon Crawls for example.