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Kiyona
2009-11-08, 07:38 AM
Hello all,

I have never played GURPS fantasy, and only played GURPS modern one time, so I am very much a beginner.

I am planning on playing a mage, and am toying around with the character generator. What has gotten me stuck is the spells. There is oodles pf spells, and I have no idea as to what amounts as a good or bad spell in GURPS.

I usually go for flavour before power, but the group I am playing with is kind of powergamers, but mostly they have played GURPS alot, and will probably have very efficient characters.

First, I was thinking of consentrating on only one school of magic. It will make it easier, and also it could give my mamge some more flavour. But on the other hand, I really like diversity. Thats why I love mages. =)

What do you think? Wich schools are subpar? Is there some schools that you cant live without? If I dont choose to specialise, are there any spells that are must have?

All suggestions are welcome. Please help me fellow playgrounders. =)

The Big Dice
2009-11-08, 01:13 PM
I don't know about GURPS 4th ed, being a 3rd ed player. But if things aren't that different, the obvious zap-boom spells are significantly different from games like D&D. GURPS magic tends to be much smaller scale, and with the need to satisfy prerquisites for spells, getting the good ones can often mean having a bunch of stuff you'll almost never use.

That said, Iron Arm is essential for melee combat, and Missile Shield is also a must have. Jet spells tend to be more effective than missile spells, while the Body Control college can really mess up opposition. And for maximum carnage, get Dehydrate up to 21+, to be able to hit enemies for 3d6 damage from a safe distance.

But never undersetimate the power of knowledge. I've had to retire wizards in GURPS games, simply because they were too good at gathering information. Sure, they mostly sucked in combat, but when you can cast a dozen different spells which let you find out what's going on, you tend to break the game pretty badly.

The thing to ask yourself as a caster in GURPS isn't "How do I put out a fire?" Rather, it's "How many ways are there to put out a fire and which ones do I want to be able to do?"

Set
2009-11-08, 03:18 PM
What has gotten me stuck is the spells. There is oodles pf spells, and I have no idea as to what amounts as a good or bad spell in GURPS.

What do you think? Which schools are subpar? Is there some schools that you cant live without? If I dont choose to specialise, are there any spells that are must have?

Note that I primarily played 1st through 3rd edition, so some of my advice may no longer apply!

Generally, you are going to want a defensive spell, as combat in GURPS is brutal. Iron Arm is the gold standard of defense, but other spells like Blink can also be used.

Offensively, I've seen people focus on Deathtouch or Flame Jet, and my own favorite is Create Animal (100 lb. wolves are cheap to maintain and serve both offensively and defensively, as you can keep them between yourself and enemies).

Most spell colleges for specialization do not have a good mix of offense and defense (or, at least, an affordable mix). Exceptions include Movement (Levitation is a fine defense, if you can stay out of reach, and Winged Knife is a respectable attack) and Air (if you can maintain Body of Air, and blow people around with Wind Jets, you make a fine 'spoiler'). Most of the other elements are decent offensively (Fire Jet, Sand Jet, Dehydrate, etc.) but either lack defense or are far too expensive to maintain defense (Body of Stone, for instance, isn't as good as Body of Air, and you won't be able to maintain it anyway).

On the other hand, GURPS is ripe for adding new spells for a specialist. If you want to play that Earth/stone mage and your GM is amenable, you could have a special 'Body of Stone' blocking spell that gives you the defensive protection of Body of Stone for a split-second, as a reaction to being attacked. It wouldn't be as effective as Iron Arm, but would be 'in college' for a themed character. (Similarly, a Body of Water or Body of Air blocking spell, that allowed you to assume those forms as a reaction to being struck, would be prett awesome, allowing attacks to pass through you, if successful.)

For a general mage, Minor and Major Healing (and Recover Strength) are must-haves. Mages are the healers of GURPS Fantasy.

Missile spells (fireball, lightning, ice missile, stone missile, etc.) are, IMO, not worth it. They take multiple turns to build up and are extremely expensive. And they only affect a single target *and can miss.* Jet spells have a much shorter range, and can miss, but can be activated in a single second (or as a free action when you get skill 21). Combat in GURPS is *fast,* and in the three seconds it takes for you to build up a Fireball, the dude with a sword has gotten to take a minimum of three swings at you (more if he recognizes that you are busy casting a spell and chooses to all-out attack, sacrificing defense to get an extra hit!).

In 4th edition, Missile spells are more powerful, but still not any more affordable. And they can still miss. You will be lucky if you can swing a 12 Dex, and every skill point spent on Throw Fireball is one less skill point you can spend learning spells.

I always try to take whatever combination of IQ + Magical Aptitude I need to put my base spell skill at 15, so that I only need to spend 1 pt to have a spell at 15 (except for Very Hard spells, like Major Healing, which will still only cost 2 pts to get at 15). I've played a few specialists (Air, Movement and Light & Darkness, in particular), but generally prefer to play generalists with the following sorts of spells (and I'm going from memory, my books are packed away, so bear with me if I get the prereqs wrong!);

Iron Arm (requires DX 12 and Resist Pain, Pain, Spasm, Itch from Body Control)
Major Healing* (requires Minor Healing, Lend Health, Lend Strength)
Recover Strength (requires Lend Strength, I think)
Flame Jet (requires Shape Fire, Create Fire, Ignite Fire)
Mass Daze (Daze, other stuff)
Shield
Armor
Apportation
sometimes one of the Shapeshift spells (being able to turn into an Eagle and fly was always nice, and Tiger form is a combat monster)
Icy Weapon (requires Create Water stuff?)
Create Animal (ridiculous prereqs, Create Earth, Create Water, bunches of other stuff I don't remember, but, oh, so worth it!)
random other spells as necessary (for instance, I often take Enchant* for my general mages, which requires at least 1 or 2 spells from 10 Colleges total).

The offense could be Flame Jet, Winged Knife, Deathtouch or Icy Weapon (if I take Icy or Flaming Weapon, or Deathtouch, I make sure to have Iron Arm, Shield and Armor at 15, so that I'm not unceremoniously butchered when I step into melee combat to deliver my attacks!).

The best ever offensive spell, bar none, is Tanglefoot, in Body Control. One enemy falls down, and, in GURPS, might require multiple combat turns to regain their footing. With a high enough skill, you can do this all day long, while your friends beat the stuffings out of them.

Mass Daze is one of the best AoE spells, causing all who succumb to it to stand around stupefied for 1 minute (60 combat rounds!), although it may take you several seconds to cast, depending on how big of an area you want to affect (and it can quickly eat up all of your fatigue, making it something you will only be using to end a fight, since you won't be doing much afterwards!). Note that anyone who attacks a dazed target snaps them out of it, making it not like the D&D Dazed condition and more like the 'Mez' of an online game like EverQuest (or Fascinate).

My last mage that I remember used Icy Weapon plus the defensive spells, combined with Create Animal. In the morning, he'd use Armor and Shield to get +1 PD and DR, which he could maintain all day, and use Create Animal to make a pair of wolves, and cast Icy Weapon (+2 cold damage with spear attacks). With magical leather armor and a shield, he'd fight alongside his wolves as a halfway decent combatant, while using Iron Arm (note that he would have a -5 to all spells cast, due to having 5 spells maintained!) in emergencies. After a fight, he'd drop spells as necessary (leaving only Icy Weapon up, as it was most expensive to recast) and use Major Healing*, Minor Healing, etc. on allies.

I have played a few specialists (the above mentioned Levitating Winged Knife thrower, and the Body of Air / Wind Jet spoiler), and each has it's own quirks. For my Light & Darkness specialist, I spend the points necessary to get Invisibility at 25 (maintainable all day long), and the character just wandered around invisible stabbing people in the vitals (or eyes!) with a spear, taking All-Out Attacks, since few foes would have any reasonable chance of retaliating against him!



crudloads of mage characters written up here. (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/characters/MageChar.html)

mikeejimbo
2009-11-08, 06:19 PM
No matter if it's 4th Edition, most of the spells the above posters mentioned still exist and do about the same things. However, I believe Create Animal doesn't exist any more, and I'm not sure what has supplanted it.

Note that you'll definitely want Recover Energy.

The Big Dice
2009-11-08, 08:22 PM
No matter if it's 4th Edition, most of the spells the above posters mentioned still exist and do about the same things. However, I believe Create Animal doesn't exist any more, and I'm not sure what has supplanted it.

Note that you'll definitely want Recover Energy.

In 3rd Recover Strength 20 was the must have for mage types. Add lots of Extra Spellcasting Fatigue, or Wealth for a big chunky powerstone and cast Create Warrior for your personal meatshield rather than Create Animal, which I don't think is in 3rd ed. If you've got the Fatigue and you want to go into melee, Shapeshifting into a Weretiger is always a good option too.

Dimers
2009-11-08, 11:36 PM
Like others, I can only comment on 3rd edition GURPS. I have the two basic books for 4th, but the spell list there is nothing to work from.

Check the Light And Darkness college to see whether it still has a damage-dealing option. If so, that's a very generally useful grouping. Water and Air colleges have good general options, and also provide an easy-to-expand-upon "flavor" for your character. The two most important functions in any game in which they exist, though, are communication and transportation, so Movement college and Communication And Empathy college are both fantastically valuable. Comm probably has less to offer offensively; Movement will be useful in any situation ever.

You can also skim for spells you think look cool or make a good theme, and work backwards from there: if shapeshifting catches your eye, see what's required to learn the spell, and take those spells/abilities as well. You'll find some way to use them in a GURPS campaign, you can be sure.

Kiyona
2009-11-09, 02:25 AM
Thanks so much for all the help guys! It has really helped to clear things up. =)

For flavour, illusion would suit my mage best, but it doesnt have enough good spells to specialise I think. So far I have some illusions, some fun stuff from body control (tanglefoot looks awesome), healing and energy recovery. Block and hardiness looked useful, so I picked them as well.

Can you get ok dodge and parry as a mage in GURPS? Deathtouch looks like a good spell, but to get in to melee as a little mage sounds scary. Do you use str or dex to hit btw? The spell description only says "use innate attack". I dont really know what that is. =)

Please, keep the suggestions coming. :smallbiggrin:

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-11-09, 02:59 AM
Thanks so much for all the help guys! It has really helped to clear things up. =)

For flavour, illusion would suit my mage best, but it doesnt have enough good spells to specialise I think. So far I have some illusions, some fun stuff from body control (tanglefoot looks awesome), healing and energy recovery. Block and hardiness looked useful, so I picked them as well.

Can you get ok dodge and parry as a mage in GURPS? Deathtouch looks like a good spell, but to get in to melee as a little mage sounds scary. Do you use str or dex to hit btw? The spell description only says "use innate attack". I dont really know what that is. =)

Please, keep the suggestions coming. :smallbiggrin:

It will cost you some to get a good dodge or block. Dodge keys off of Move, which is difficult to raise. It is half the average of your DX and HT, which blows.

Parry is easier with a Quarterstaff. Sure, it's a P/H, but it is also 2/3 skill parry weapon. Also, pick up one spell from ten different colleges and pick up Enchantment and Staff. Basically, if you hit with your staff, it counts as a touch for spellcasting, so your points in Quarterstaff do double-duty, both Parry for defense and attack for landing touch spells. With a Dex of 12, your skill in Staff for 4 points is a 12, which gives you a base parry of 8. Personally, I'd try to boost the skill up to 16, if possible. Not only does this give you a parry of 12, but it also means you don't miss except on a critical failure.

Missile spells have one mostly unheeded advantage: You can load 'em up in advance, and be walking around with it ready to toss. Sadly, they really don't do a whole lot compared to other options.

It was touched on earlier, but I must emphasis this point:

Make sure you Magery + IQ is high enough that 1 point in a M/H skill is a 15. No, really. -1 fatigue cost stacks up *QUICKLY*. I cannot stress how important this is, as your fatigue is sharply limited.

As far as defensive, here's a fun one: Reverse Missiles. Get it high enough skill that the cost is -2, and you can maintain it indefinately for free. Archers? Yea, they just screwed themselves. Missile spells? Gee, they not only got hurt, but they paid for the privilege. It is probably the most powerful defensive spell in the game.

Deathtouch is nasty. It bypasses DR. It's a touch spell, which you can load up into a Staff, if you have the spell to make one. It's got a lot of prerequisites, but you did say you wanted to get into Body Control, right?

You want to boost your DR, it is the best way to survive GURPS. Toughness is 25 points for 2 DR. The cost is steep, yes, but I cannot recommend it enough. Then stack on Leather for DR2/PD2. Now you've got DR4. Enchant it with a +2 to both PD and DR. Now you've got DR6 and can ignore anything that does 1d6 damage or less.

But wait, there's more

PD4 adds to your active defense. So if you have a Quarterstaff skill of 12, you've got a parry of 8. +4 from your PD gives you a 12 again. That's better than even odds of parrying any given attack. Not too shabby.

Set
2009-11-09, 03:34 AM
If 4th edition still has piecemeal enchanting rules, you can save a fair chunk of change on making your armor tougher by enchanting each piece seperately. If the Armor and Shield spells work the same as in 3e, you can maintain a single level of each at skill 15 all day long, further increasing your PD and DR by +1. (I have no idea if 4e still has the Shield spell, as I think they got rid of PD, but then missed the complete point by adding +3 to all active defenses anyway. Argh. We house-ruled no PD back in 3e, with exceptions from the Shield spell, ultra-tech force screens and Psychokinetic Shield. Defenses were a tad too high in 3e, and combats ran a little too long, in our experience.)

Parry is your best defense after Iron Arm, as staff is 2/3rds skill and you can buy it off of Spear skill at -2. (Spears can be used as Staffs, and are much better weapons, IMO.)

On the other hand, a shield Block is also a very nice thing to have, making shield and fencing weapon another popular choice. The main reason to carry a Staff is to spend $30 getting it enchanted with the Staff spell, which increases the range of any spell you cast by 1 hex (range penalties add up fast, as many good spells have a -1 penalty to the roll for every hex you are away from the target).

Because of your high IQ requirement, you'll likely have a lowish Dodge score, both due to a relatively low DX and HT, and likely a bit of encumbrance from a low ST combined with leather armor. A 4 Speed is not unlikely, and that's not a great Dodge (roll 4 or less on 3d6? Yeah, good luck with that.).

Try to leave yourself room to move in combat. A Parry & Retreat or Block & Retreat adds +3 to the defense, and you can do that once per turn if you've got a hex behind you to retreat into. If you have a Blocking spell, like Iron Arm or Blink, you'll pretty much ignore one attack a turn (although you won't get to cast a spell in that turn, since they count as your one spell for the turn), and any other attack will have to be Parried, Blocked or Dodged (and Parry and Block are going to be the better numbers).

In AD&D, there are times to Charge and times to Total Defend, but GURPS can get pretty crazy, with All-Out Attacks allowing you to sacrifice defense entirely to get two attacks, or one attack with +4 to hit, and All-Out Defense being fairly handy at times as well (although not as powerful as All-Out Attack, IMO).

Just like D&D, spell research does exist, and just like D&D, it tends to get ignored and forgotten. If you want to make a Specialist, absolutely take advantage of that. A Blocking spell that turns your Earth mage to stone or your Air mage to mist or your Water mage to liquid for a tenth of a second to ward off a single attack is going to be a lifesaver if you want to play a specialist in one of those colleges and survive without the 'must haves' like Iron Arm or Blink. Even Making & Breaking can be a decent offense and defense college, if you invent a Blocking spell that allows you to harden your leather armor to protect like plate steel, combined with spells to Shatter and Weaken foes weapons and armor as offense (or a Shatterproof reinforced weapon attack for animals, etc.). Someone above mentioned Light & Darkness, which I used to just go Invisible all day and poke people with a spear, but a less focused design could use a Blur-type spell for defense and fire blinding rays of light, or even 'searing daggers of light' (magical lazors, pew pew!) at foes.

Satyr
2009-11-09, 03:57 AM
What you'll probalby love if you are a new Gurps fantasy player, is the Gurps: Dungeon Fantasy Line of small and unexpensive pdfs. It is basically Gurps: D&D. You have some basic templates for typical fantasy characters, etc.

Shneeky's advice are specifically for 3rd edition, there are fine but distinctive differences.

The most important thing is still true: A skill level of 15 in your primary spells is pure gold (a 21 in your all-time favorite spell is even better, but cost intensive).

Unbound Magic in Gurps is very powerful, so even if you are inexperienced, it is quite easy to overshadow the rest of the group. As usual, this can lead to a conflict between players. So, depending on your group, it may be a good idea to limit your abilities a bit (you get points for this, so it's not much of a drawback). Especially the 4 college limitation is a nice idea (you can still learn spells from all other schools as well, but only with an effective magery level of 0).

Gurps doesn't care what kind of armor or weapon you use, so this is mostly up to you. A shield is a true life saver, and very helpful, and if you use an axe or a mace you can usually make decent damage even if you do not have a hig level of Strength. Even a small shield with only a minimal skill of 12 (shield is an easy skill) will bring you an effective block ability of 11. That's okay, but not much, but you should probably use defensive tactics anyway. To optimise it, combine a bukler with a fencing weapon and enjoy the retreating bonus. Generally speaking, retreat is your friend. You can also cast the staff enchantment which allows you to use touch spell with said item on every weapon, not just staffs. So if you ever dreamt of a magic whip, feel free to create it.

Abilities: you don't need strength. You don't need HT much either, so it's a lot more effective to just buy the fatigue or energy reserve instead of increasing your abilities. Likewise, you only really need IQ, not the substitary abilities wil and perception. So you can easily reduce your costs for your main ability by lowering your will and perception.

If you want to make an awesome mage, take the weather college (that's pretty much Air + Water... but nothing tells "I am angry" as much as summoning a hurricane).

The one school that will make you incredible popular is healing, though. In Gurps, life is cheap. Dying is easy. Crippling wounds will apear regularly. And conventional heaing can take weeks. So, anybody who can reduce this discomfort will be very popular (and helpful). The healing school has also one very neat spell called "Recover Energy" which doubles your FP regeneration (that's the ressource you use for spellcasting) if you have an effective level of 15, or quadrubles it, if your reach a level of 20+. Which effectively means that you can cast twice as many spells before you have to rest.

Kiyona
2009-11-09, 06:16 AM
I love this forum! You people are so nice, and FAST. :smallbiggrin:

How much FP do you recommend that I buy? I have 16 now, but I dont know if that is enough.

I rearranged my spells now, so that my focus is on Light&darkness and body control. With major healing and recover energy.

Death touch is my major damage dealer. Is 14 parry enough to move into melee? I have only 16 staff, is that enough to hit people? It's hard when you dont know any numbers. =)

Return missiles is my only defense spell. But it is at 21, so I can do it all day long.

Tanglefoot is at 21 as well. All other spells at 15. Is that ok?

I cant find how much enchanted items cost? Do you know in what book I can find them? I should buy the staff enchantment. Are there any enchantmants that increase parry? Or DR or some such?

mikeejimbo
2009-11-09, 08:09 AM
Can you get ok dodge and parry as a mage in GURPS? Deathtouch looks like a good spell, but to get in to melee as a little mage sounds scary. Do you use str or dex to hit btw? The spell description only says "use innate attack". I dont really know what that is. =)

Innate Attack is a DX/Easy skill, so not too terrible to increase.

Dimers
2009-11-09, 11:36 AM
How much FP do you recommend that I buy? I have 16 now, but I dont know if that is enough. ... Is 14 parry enough to move into melee? I have only 16 staff, is that enough to hit people?

Return missiles is my only defense spell. But it is at 21, so I can do it all day long. Tanglefoot is at 21 as well. All other spells at 15. Is that ok?

Sounds like a relatively high-powered game, if you have enough character points to buy all that. If my guess is right, you'll be a good warrior but you'll be facing good foes too. 16 skill for hitting and 14 for parrying are fine -- quite nice, actually -- but all the same you should hang around the edges of melee, avoiding the BigNasties. Your FP is also fine, though that's one thing you can simply never have too much of. Keep upping it as you gain experience.

While you' have Return Missiles running, you effectively take a -1 to all other spells skills, so to protect yourself you make your offense more costly. I think you'd want a few key spells at one level higher (16 or 22) to account for that -- say, healing and tanglefoot, so you can play a good support role when the battle's too physically dangerous. Just to clarify, that's not something specific to Return Missiles. Any spell that you maintain longer than its initial period will have the same effect, -1 to cast/maintain all other spells per one that's running.

The Big Dice
2009-11-09, 02:18 PM
I love this forum! You people are so nice, and FAST. :smallbiggrin:

How much FP do you recommend that I buy? I have 16 now, but I dont know if that is enough.

I rearranged my spells now, so that my focus is on Light&darkness and body control. With major healing and recover energy.

Death touch is my major damage dealer. Is 14 parry enough to move into melee? I have only 16 staff, is that enough to hit people? It's hard when you dont know any numbers. =)

Return missiles is my only defense spell. But it is at 21, so I can do it all day long.

Tanglefoot is at 21 as well. All other spells at 15. Is that ok?

I cant find how much enchanted items cost? Do you know in what book I can find them? I should buy the staff enchantment. Are there any enchantmants that increase parry? Or DR or some such?

That looks good, as long as you've got a couple of friendly meatsheilds to hide behind. You're covered against ranged attacks and you should have the means to do some funky stuff in the areas of buffs, debuffs and battlefield control. The L&D spell I like for battlefield control is Flash. It's got a HUGE area and a duration that goes well past the length of most GURPS fights. With some advance warning to your party members, they can avoid the worst of it too.

Something else to bear in mind is, quite often, a low power spell that costs no energy is better than a high power one that leaves your batteries in need of a recharge. With Deathtouch 21 you can pump out 2d damage all day long and not touch your resources at all. Which leaves you with the power to do other fun stuff.