Un-nerfed Mages

[Bruno]

My players, being two 200 point mages, and three 225 point warriors of various styles, took on a group of 20 ~175 point Dark Elves optimized just for combat last session.

The Elves had the advantage of preparing the battlefield with Mystic Mist and Skull Spirits before starting their Big Ritual Casting Of Mass Zombie (Of Doom).

The PCs dispatched the Skull Spirits by distracting them with the melee characters and then blowing them up with free 2d lightning bolts and over-used Concussion spells (the warriors were not pleased by being caught at ground zero by friendly Concussions).

They then waded into the mist, managed to keep the whole party togeather after dealing with one PC freaking out, and got within shouting distance of the ritual casting.

One mage used excessive amounts of Applied Mathematics, Measurement, and Intuitive Mathematician to deduce what direction the chanting was coming from and how far away the ritual was.

He then aided the other caster with Lend Fatigue, and they proceded to drop two MASSIVE Concussion spells right in the middle of the ritual, one after the other.

The entire ritual was fried. The ritual leaders were K.O.d, and one was obliterated. Every Elf was stunned and partially deaf, and they took turns to recover. The players were therefore able to engage Elves as they recovered from stunning and keep them essentially in small groups rather than having to deal with 20 angry elves at once.

The mages were utterly tapped out but one kept chucking his free 2d lightning bolts to good effect, and the other hung around, prepared to burn HP to cast curative magic if needed.

It was tactically beautiful.

So yeah, Mages won't be de-nerfed in my campeign.

You may consider finding your mage a sidekick, apprentice, or other convenient FP source. Powerstones are kind of lame due to how long they take to recharge - other spell casters are far more useful :D Healing potions can be drunk to recover FP after casting, as well - can be costly but it's also quite effective.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Bruno

You may consider finding your mage a sidekick, apprentice, or other convenient FP source. Powerstones are kind of lame due to how long they take to recharge - other spell casters are far more useful :D Healing potions can be drunk to recover FP after casting, as well - can be costly but it's also quite effective.

That's why Magi take Familiars 8)

[Mettius]

Originally Posted by Kaldrin

Okay, I'm going to stop you right there. There's absolutely nothing Epic about that level of points... ...Tolkien's characters are probably more like 1000 pts, not 200.

I agree that this campain isn't a fantasy supers game. But this issue exists regardless of point level of the mages. Again, the point is to better match the feel of many fantasy settings. In which one can reasonably derive that the wizards in questions are not running insanely high skill levels (like 25+). And as far as Regular/Area spells go, you still have the range issue I mentioned. :)

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Mettius

And as far as Regular/Area spells go, you still have the range issue I mentioned. :)

No they don't

There is Telecast [Magic p128] Throw Spell [Magic p128] that gets around the range penalties.

[Paul]

My mages started with circa 500points, and bought their colleges as bang skills. The primary mage character bought his Magery up to 7, and the Fire college above 20. I've also been very generous with the CP rewards (5-10 per session).

And with all that, the archmage still lets the swordswoman take the point in all combats, after Great Hasting her. Even unenhanced, her kill rate is significantly higher than either of the other characters.

In a melee situation, I'd bet on the warrior, no matter the point total. However, mages shine with their versitility -- getting ahead of the invading army of orcs, piercing the shapeshifting serpent-men's disguises, protecting the camp while everyone is sleeping.

[Mettius]

It definitly comes down to stylistic preferences. For the kind of campaign we are trying to get. I suggest the following Optional Rules:

Magery:
Magery 0: No change
Magery 1+: Double CP costs.

Rules:
Now Regular/Area spells are -1/Skill per multiple of Magery in yards. (e.g. Magery 3 = -0 to 3yards, -1 to 6 yards, -2 to 9 yards, etc.)

A typical Mage should take extra fatigue with the Mana-only limitation (10% discount) equal to their magery x 1-3. (But no more than x3)

Stuff:
This assumes a campaign where there is a bell curve (mage curve?), That is 60-80% of mages are magery 0-1. And things get more rare from there.
This will allow a gifted few wizards to be the lords of the battlefield and cosmos (supers like), while keeping most mages in check verses their "mundane" brethern. :)

Just my tastes.

[Kaldrin]

Originally Posted by Mettius

I agree that this campain isn't a fantasy supers game. But this issue exists regardless of point level of the mages. Again, the point is to better match the feel of many fantasy settings. In which one can reasonably derive that the wizards in questions are not running insanely high skill levels (like 25+).

If you were only to use the magic book as in it's basic form without using any other areas of the rules, I would agree with you. In it's basic form, spells as skills, the rules are pretty much made for a 'realistic' utilitarian magical skill tree that doesn't overshadow the non-magic skill tree too much. Sure you can do some fantastic things, but it costs you.

At first my mind was tainted by my experience with Champions and other systems where min/maxing would garner quite unbalanced results. GURPS seems to have in it an inherent balance that is enhanced quite easily by a little min/maxing. See Kromm's post about the Archer for reference to that. He's not twinked out to ridiculous proportions, but he is quite effective and still fairly balanced.

You can do the same for a mage, but you won't move mountains at low levels. You'll be able to provide buffs, debuffs, maybe some healing, change small patches of weather, control some measure of the elements... but you'll never match other systems for raw damage because that's not what the GURPS magic system is about. That's what Innate Attacks are about.

Essentially, Innate Attack is a universal source of damage that was put in the basic set to apply to anything one can imagine. If it's damage that you want to be doing, invest in a few IAs to bolster your spell list and call them magic.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I would say so. I would treat it like being in a region of very high mana: you "get the energy back" after the fact but you still have to spend it in the first place. I would rule that if a spell ends up being cast for free thanks to a critical success -- be that due to a natural die roll, an application of Super Luck, or spending character points -- then you should assess the effects of the energy expenditure on the caster and on the spell, and then restore the caster's energy levels to status quo ante.

That's an important decision, if it means that powerstones, mana stones, etc. are still drained even on a critical and only the mage gets expended mana back. Way too late in my game (run since 1999) to use that...but I may allow spending xp for successes later, once a significant campaign event happens to justify suddenly allowing it.

It's the mages I'm worried about, of course, spending those XP to pull off dramatically powerful spells. Not shattering armies, but teleporting huge distances or create gates or whatever.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

That's an important decision, if it means that powerstones, mana stones, etc. are still drained even on a critical and only the mage gets expended mana back. Way too late in my game (run since 1999) to use that...but I may allow spending xp for successes later, once a significant campaign event happens to justify suddenly allowing it.

FWIW, I'd say that the powerstones get their energy back as well -- if the mage did so well on his performance of the spell that it's basically "free", then any expended sources of mana should be recharged (or, in the case of one-shots like tass or manastones, should turn out to have not been used at all).

So a mage with FP 20, a 15-point powerstone, and magical spell ingredients worth a total of 45 tass could drop a few xp into getting a crit on his 105-cost spell, sure. What would have happened is that he would have used up his 60 points of external mana and paid the remaining 45 himself. The first 20 would have come out of his normal FP, the next 20 would have taken him into negative FP (causing damage) and the remaining 5 would have to paid as HP. The net effect? He's down 25 HP from the spell, but has full FP, a fully charged powerstone, and didn't need to use any of his spell ingredients after all.

That's one way to work it, at least.

Personally, I think I'd say that since the most energy a mage can possibly throw into a spell before suffering crazy penalties is 2xFP, that -- plus any powerstones, etc. -- would be the limit on free energy on a crit. But I'd only bother enforcing that rule if I thought mages were trying to munchkin the system . . .

[Mettius]

So in another playing group, the suggestion to use Malediction (B106) to modify the cost of regular (or other) spells (or perhaps the Magery advantage itself), which would let you pay x1.5 cost for the Range Table penalties ILO Regular or x2 cost for the Long Distance Tables.

I'm thinking this would unbalance the game pretty badly (point wise). But what does everyone else think?