[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Magic Susceptibility

[johndallman]

Magic Susceptibility [-3/level, maximum 5 levels] is an exotic mental disadvantage. You are unusually susceptible to magic. This disadvantage appeared in Compendium I for GURPS 3e, as an opposite of Magic Resistance, and hasn't changed.

You may not have Magic Resistance, although you can have Magery, or other magic-affecting advantages. Your level of Magic Susceptibility can be recognised by anyone who can inspect your aura, such as with the Aura spell, or the Aura Reading ritual. When spells are cast on you, the casting roll is at a bonus equal to your level of this disadvantage, and your resistance roll has the same penalty. It works just the same way against Area spells, unlike Magic Resistance, whose effect is doubled against such spells.

Magic Susceptibility only affects magic that targets you directly. It does not affect attacks with magical weapons, Missile spells aimed at you, or information spells that aren't specifically cast on you. It does not affect chi powers, demonic or divine powers, psionics, spirit powers or advanced technology: only things that would have a Magical power modifier, if they were powers.

Obviously, this disadvantage is only meaningful in settings where there is at least the possibility of magic being used against you. It's thus fairly rare on character templates, and mostly found on magicians and allied trades. DF19 has an Incantation that inflicts it, along with a lot of damage, while Infinite Worlds makes it a symptom of “oz radiation” exposure. Thaumatology offers college-limited susceptibility, possibly linked with college-limited Magery.

I've never used this disadvantage, as GM or player. Settings with magic that I've played in have had quite a lot of magic, making this disadvantage obviously dangerous. Has it entertained in your games?

[evileeyore]

I've made Magic Dependent, Magic Susceptible races before. Since they were the only race at the time that could go above Magery 3, they were actually played.

Yes, it was a horror show for them when enemy mages targeted them knowing they were susceptible.

[RogerBW]

In my usual way of thinking, if a game has magic in it, the magic should be important and happen a lot (economy of miracles), and so this is a crippling disadvantage. And if a game doesn't have magic in it, it's disallowed anyway. (This is an unalterable flaw in GURPS, really: you have to have a single set of costs in order to keep character generation anything like manageable, but realistically the costs of many things should vary depending on the campaign they're being designed for.)

But in a game where magic is just one of the things out there – most obviously something like Shadowrun, but also a modern dungeon-bash where high-level fighters retain some scariness when stacked up against high-level wizards – it seems as though it might be more useful, letting a character specialise in being vulnerable to X but not to Y.

If one were trying to build this from scratch, I imagine one would start with lowered Will, normally 5/level. On the one side it's "vs magic only", which is clearly a significant restriction; on the other it's "and other stats too, if they apply against magic". 3 is probably as valid a cost as one might get.

The other thing that occurs to me is to bundle this with Magery or some other desirable advantage in a template - if you become a wizard, that makes you vulnerable to other people's wizardry. (Which might well lead to mutual assured destruction.)

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

The other thing that occurs to me is to bundle this with Magery or some other desirable advantage in a template - if you become a wizard, that makes you vulnerable to other people's wizardry. (Which might well lead to mutual assured destruction.)

I've played with combining aspected Magic Susceptibility with aspected Magic Resistance. The water mage may be resistant to fire magic but vulnerable to plant magic, for instance.