Revising GURPS Magic

[dataweaver]

For consistency's sake, you should probably cross-check this against Meditative Magic (which gives exchange rates between enchantment points, character points, and time investments) and buying money with points (which gives exchange rates between character points and dollars).

I really like the concept of making magical materials mandatory (see Magic p.222 for a list of suitable materials), and thus incorporating a scavenger's hunt into the typical enchantment process; but bear in mind that the enchantment process will result in value added, which is where the above conversion rates come in handy.

EDIT: I also like Anthony's suggestion. I'd recommend cross-checking it with Social Engineering: Back to School's advice for using the Job rules as a way of earning character points. Y'know, to keep everything consistent.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Magic Items

I have not used this magic system for too long, but you should definitely consider your take on the most important magic items, Staff, Powerstones, and Manastones. Powerstones were part of the assumed balance of GURPS 3e Magic, but the introduction of alternate sources of FP/Energy Reserve changed the balance, and G4eM is less dogmatic about their existing. But the core spell list and many of its fatigue costs were built on the assumption that most mages have about 10 energy in Fatigue plus a few points in Powerstones ... (eg. the spells which take a single enemy permanently out of the fight cost approximately 10 energy).

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I have not used this magic system for too long, but you should definitely consider your take on the most important magic items, Staff, Powerstones, and Manastones. Powerstones were part of the assumed balance of GURPS 3e Magic, but the introduction of alternate sources of FP/Energy Reserve changed the balance, and G4eM is less dogmatic about their existing. But the core spell list and many of its fatigue costs were built on the assumption that most mages have about 10 energy in Fatigue plus a few points in Powerstones ... (eg. the spells which take a single enemy permanently out of the fight cost approximately 10 energy).

I will get around to those once I reach the Enchantment College.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Air Spells

No-Smell: This is one of those annoying “I win - non-magical countermeasures need not apply!” spells that GURPS Magic could use less off. Granted, it’s not one one of the more problematic ones, since smell doesn’t come up as often as other senses. Still, if the Basic Set doesn’t offer a similar effect, it’s probably a sign that the effect should be reduced. Therefore I propose to change the spell effect to:

“This cancels any strong odours emanating from the subject and gives a further -6 to any attempts to detect or track the character via smell.”

This puts the effect on par with Invisibility, which sounds reasonable.

Concussion: A favorite attack spell among my gaming group. However, it shares a problem with other “explosive” spells - using the “Explosions” rule from the GURPS Basic Set p. 414 means that for targets not at the center you will need to divide the damage by <3xdistance in yards>, which means that damage will very quickly become negligible. While this is “realistic” for normal explosions, my players convinced me to just reduce the damage dice per one yard of distance from the center. Thus, someone directly hit by a 3d Concussion would still take 3d crushing damage, while those standing him will take 2d damage, and those standing two yards away would take 1d damage. I think this is the best approach I have seen so far.

Summon/Control/Create (Air) Elemental: I think there is nothing much wrong with the spells as such - in fact, they might be a tad expensive. However, what we really need is a larger list of summonable elementals. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5: Allies helps a bit, but even there the base system does not provide for much variety. And allowing PCs to customize elementals to their own specifications (a) might result in abuse, (b) threatens to drag down play if the PC does this in the middle of a game session, or (c) requires additional review work for the GM between sessions.

The Monsters Section at the GURPS Repository does have a few entries of elementals - but only those submitted by Mailanka have actual summoning costs. If anyone wants to calculate summoning costs for the other elementals or even submit new varieties… well, either would be very much welcome. ;)

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Concussion: A favorite attack spell among my gaming group.

Of course, its secondary effects are awesome!

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

While this is “realistic” for normal explosions, my players convinced me to just reduce the damage dice per one yard of distance from the center. Thus, someone directly hit by a 3d Concussion would still take 3d crushing damage, while those standing him will take 2d damage, and those standing two yards away would take 1d damage. I think this is the best approach I have seen so far.

And wouldn't you know it? That's exactly how they were originally designed to be used before the generic explosion rules were invented.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Air Spells

No-Smell: This is one of those annoying “I win - non-magical countermeasures need not apply!” spells that GURPS Magic could use less off. Granted, it’s not one one of the more problematic ones, since smell doesn’t come up as often as other senses. Still, if the Basic Set doesn’t offer a similar effect, it’s probably a sign that the effect should be reduced. Therefore I propose to change the spell effect to:

“This cancels any strong odours emanating from the subject and gives a further -6 to any attempts to detect or track the character via smell.”

This puts the effect on par with Invisibility, which sounds reasonable.

No it doesn't. If you use an invisibility spell (or the advantage) you just plain can't be seen. Other senses have to be used to get an idea where you are. Similar to how if you can't be smelled, trackers can use footprints and broken twigs to track you.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No it doesn't. If you use an invisibility spell (or the advantage) you just plain can't be seen. Other senses have to be used to get an idea where you are.

I see this as equivalent to the Visibility modifiers at B394:

"Attacker cannot see his foe, but can see his other surroundings."

So while the No-Smell character might be a void as far as smell is concerned, he still leaves eddies of other smells in his wake that someone who is really perceptive at smelling might detect.

Invisibility is very useful, but it is not foolproof - and neither should No-Smell be.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I see this as equivalent to the Visibility modifiers at B394:

"Attacker cannot see his foe, but can see his other surroundings."

So while the No-Smell character might be a void as far as smell is concerned, he still leaves eddies of other smells in his wake that someone who is really perceptive at smelling might detect.

Sight is a targeting sense. You can see the ground and particulates in the air being disturbed by the passage of an invisible person. But there's no way you could follow a trail of odorlessness over miles, no matter how good your schnozz is. Maybe if you had a comic book sense of targetting smell you could guess where Odor Eatar Man is by noticing the "shadow" he casts in that you stand in one place and you can't smell things you should be able to smell.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Sight is a targeting sense. You can see the ground and particulates in the air being disturbed by the passage of an invisible person. But there's no way you could follow a trail of odorlessness over miles, no matter how good your schnozz is. Maybe if you had a comic book sense of targetting smell you could guess where Odor Eatar Man is by noticing the "shadow" he casts in that you stand in one place and you can't smell things you should be able to smell.

Maybe the spell doesn't render the subject completely odorless (and in fact, that's what my reworded description implies). I am mostly concerned with balance, here - the old version is an automatic "I win" effect without countermeasures, and I dislike that - especially since the 4E Basic Set seems to have moved away from such effects.

A -6 penalty is very harsh and will make detecting someone using smells very difficult - but not completely impossible. From a meta game perspective, it has two benefits:

- It supplements mundane stealth efforts without supplanting them.
- Characters who have invested lots of character points into being awesome at following someone by smell should not be rendered completely useless by a single spell.

[chimchim]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Air Spells

No-Smell: This is one of those annoying “I win - non-magical countermeasures need not apply!” spells that GURPS Magic could use less off. Granted, it’s not one one of the more problematic ones, since smell doesn’t come up as often as other senses. Still, if the Basic Set doesn’t offer a similar effect, it’s probably a sign that the effect should be reduced. Therefore I propose to change the spell effect to:

“This cancels any strong odours emanating from the subject and gives a further -6 to any attempts to detect or track the character via smell.”

This puts the effect on par with Invisibility, which sounds reasonable.

Concussion: A favorite attack spell among my gaming group. However, it shares a problem with other “explosive” spells - using the “Explosions” rule from the GURPS Basic Set p. 414 means that for targets not at the center you will need to divide the damage by <3xdistance in yards>, which means that damage will very quickly become negligible. While this is “realistic” for normal explosions, my players convinced me to just reduce the damage dice per one yard of distance from the center. Thus, someone directly hit by a 3d Concussion would still take 3d crushing damage, while those standing him will take 2d damage, and those standing two yards away would take 1d damage. I think this is the best approach I have seen so far.

Summon/Control/Create (Air) Elemental: I think there is nothing much wrong with the spells as such - in fact, they might be a tad expensive. However, what we really need is a larger list of summonable elementals. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5: Allies helps a bit, but even there the base system does not provide for much variety. And allowing PCs to customize elementals to their own specifications (a) might result in abuse, (b) threatens to drag down play if the PC does this in the middle of a game session, or (c) requires additional review work for the GM between sessions.

The Monsters Section at the GURPS Repository does have a few entries of elementals - but only those submitted by Mailanka have actual summoning costs. If anyone wants to calculate summoning costs for the other elementals or even submit new varieties… well, either would be very much welcome. ;)

I got arround the explosion issue by offering a technique called bigger bangs. Its a hard technique with a -5 for explosion 2 or -10 for explsion 3. These increase damage to secondary targets and increase the area effected.