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Old 01-31-2016, 04:21 AM   #13
Michael_Malus
 
Join Date: May 2011
Default Re: Advice on Spirit-based RPM variant

I've a homebrew system broadly along similar lines here, albiet untried, untested, and almost certainly unbalanced


Bound Spirits - GURPS RPM variant

Magic is cast by spirits bound to the mage. These spirits are limited and specific, with their own powers, power levels, and abilities.

Spirits are designed based (loosely) on the rules for Contacts at the Constantly Present frequency of appearance and no modifier for reliability. Extra Paths for a sprit are taken at a 50% discount, but must be equal to or less than their best Path skill.

Major limitation: Each spirit can only be involved in one casting at once - this includes conditional castings which have yet to trigger.

Spirits, like mages, have their own Mana reserve. This is based on their Magery being the minimum required for their best Path skill.

A spirit cannot (Or, possibly, will not) cast from a path at default, but multiple spirits (possibly even from different casters) can work together, binding all of them for the duration of the casting. While working together, the skills of all involved are limited to the lowest Path skill being used by any of the spirits, but otherwise function as in RPM.

Bound-spirit castings take no skill penalty from using three or more Paths.

Spirit castings can be made conditional without requiring them to have the Path of Magic - all spirits are assumed to have the Path of Magic equal to their highest Path skill for the purposes of making rituals conditional only. The energy costs for the effect still must be paid.

Casting

Commanding a spirit requires a Concentrate manouver by the mage. By default, the mage is assumed to be guiding the spirit and concentrating to help maintain its link to the physical world, making continious Concentrate manouvers each turn. If he chooses to act instead, subtract -2 from all rolls to do with the spell, but he is free to act separately, even commanding other spirits in separate castings.

Ritual Adept

All spirit castings automatically count as benefiting from Ritual Adept (Space) and both levels of Ritual Adept (Time), while Ritual Adept (Connection) is unavailable.

Trappings & Mandatory and Significant Modifiers

These are dependent on the tradition of the spirit, not the caster. This also applies to what specialities of Symbol Drawing and similar skills would apply, and possibly to which places would count a a Place of Power.

In general, the bonuses from these should be quite small without proper preparation, perhaps limited to just negating penalties, while larger bonuses require the casting to take the full duration under Non-Adepts And Magic.

Spirit Cost Table

Code:
Best Path Level    Mana Reserve  Cost        Extra Path cost
12                 0             4           +2
15                 9             8           +4
18                 18            12          +6
21                 27            16          +8
A few example spirits:

Robert: A mages familiar, highly skilled at warding, scrying, and dealings with free spirits
Path of Magic-18, Path of Mind-15, Path of Spirit-15; Mana Reserve 18. 20 points.

Watcher: Commonly used as messengers or guards, these minor spirits have little personality of their own
Path of Magic-12, Path of Mind-12; Mana Reserve 0. 6 points.

Traeth Taranau: A minor spirit of storms, his service traded to a magician in a deal with a more powerful spirit.
Path of Energy-18, Path of Matter-15, Mana Reserve 18. 16 points.
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