How to make magic use friendlier?

[T.K.]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

• Without buckets of CP into exotic advantages, is my assumption on the limited rate of spell usage accurate?
• In your GURPS travels, have you ever run across a magic system that allowed for more regular, consistent magic use? Did it work out well?
• If I were to develop a world where magic was more frequently used (like, say, the Harry Potter universe), could you pose any theories as to how I could manage that?
• Do you feel like the GURPS magic system is perfectly fine as it is?

I briefly considered a few possibilities - making the entire planet a Very High Mana field, or increasing the rate at which energy (not FP) regenerates - but I suddenly realized that I shouldn't rely entirely on my limited experience. You guys have more games under your belt than I could play in a lifetime.

Standard Gurps Magic casters normally do a handfull of small effects or a few big, meaningful ones until they reach enough skill to reduce cost to maintain to zero, normally on a couple of focused spells, and from there its OPland.

With focused investment a caster around 150pts could already maintain all his party Hastened all day long for +1 or even +2 to Move and Dodge...
Could Bless his group (setting permitting) for +1 for everything, basically...
Could keep all his party immune to projectiles with Missile Shield all day long...
Could keep all his party immune to an element for as long as needed...
.
.
.

That said...there're more modern magical systems that would require less work to produce what you seem to be looking for:

Sorcery - Which is a system based on the premisse that range of effects is your limiting factor, narrowing mages on specific fields of action with improvising outside of that being kinda difficult. FP cost is almost non-existant, so while working under their specialty fields, they can cast almost limitless.

Ritual Path Magic - You have broad guidelines that define what you can manifest when invoking these Paths, allowing basically all and every effect to be manifested by a caster. Limits are normally time required for castings (which the system also has rules to speed up) and Paths known.

Also, there's the option to build abilities and powers using GURPS rules and tackle a Magic (-10%) modifier to them, transforming those abilities into magical effects.
This approach touches quite a lot unto Sorcery system, so if you were to use this approach I'd suggest going with the awesome work done on Sorcery.

There's also the option of taking the Psionics Powers structure of powers, skills, techniques and abilities and fluffy-switching it to magic, but it seems you're looking for a broader range of possible effects than Psi Powers provide.



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Personally, on my setting I use couple different systems together: "Path and Book magic" (from Thaumatology) with setting specific Paths and Books available; "Sorcery" (from Thaumatology: Sorcery) for an elemental tradition using different base elements than ocidental world usual ones; a variation of "Chinese Elemental Powers" with martial art skills limiting and coordinating casting capabilities with Chi Powers and abilities coupled along; a modified RPM system with different Paths governing it; Psionics (from Psionic Powers) for humans; spirit magic represented by a mesh of magic-as-powers and singled out modified spells from the Magic base system that casters can learn directly from spirits.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

I'll be honest. All of the research I've done over the last couple of days regarding the GURPS magic system has led me to wonder if I picked the right system to sink my teeth into so many months ago. I don't know how it works for other genres (I expect it handles mundane elements far better than mystical ones), but this one is the pits.

I mean, I like data. I partially like how Magic has so much laid out. I just wish, like most of you said, it could pay a little more attention to the "G" in GURPS.

I almost wish there was a way to invest points in the magic colleges (or something like them). I like how many spells exist and how they're laid out - you can more or less accomplish nearly any effect you want with the current spell list, all eight-hundred-plus of them - but they're not very-well structured.

Maybe I should take a weekend and pull apart the spell lists, then put them back together in a college structure that makes sense, with prerequisites to match. Maybe generate some new spells that fill out the missing gaps (namely, higher-end, elaborate spells). Hmm.

You might find some mileage in reading mlangsdorf's College Ritual Book Magic which uses the standard GURPS Spell List you've been looking at, provides a simple mechanism for 'investing points in magic colleges', and uses Threshold Magic which provides an easy mechanism to tune a mages daily and on going magical energy based power.

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

I'm in the process of putting together a fantasy campaign (and actually a campaign world, from the ground up). In the process of this, I find myself going over the GURPS: Magic system a few times. While I don't mind complexity, it isn't exactly "pick up and go" and does require significant player investment (in order to understand proper spell use, plan ahead, develop a capable spell library, etc).

I'd recommend Dungeon Magic for guidelines on spell choice.

• Without buckets of CP into exotic advantages, is my assumption on the limited rate of spell usage accurate?
• In your GURPS travels, have you ever run across a magic system that allowed for more regular, consistent magic use? Did it work out well?
• If I were to develop a world where magic was more frequently used (like, say, the Harry Potter universe), could you pose any theories as to how I could manage that?
• Do you feel like the GURPS magic system is perfectly fine as it is?

• Yes, magic is limited, but I think it's more "easier to abuse than other stuff" than "uniquely limited". I mean, mages sometimes spend their energy very recklessly (I'm guilty!) while it needs a bit of thought.
• Not a system, no (aside from building magic on advantages), but I've got some tips for the basic one:
  1. Get some inexpensive spells up to 15 (or 20, or 25 etc. if that's Your level of play) to cast or maintain for free. I don't often see a spell bought for more than [1], but it's worth doing if it gives You a discount on casting, IMHO.
  2. Get Recover Energy to 15 at least or the Breath Control skill if the problem is a slow recovery of energy.
  3. Avoid investing in HT, and raise FP to the limit. Health is a good thing to have, but if You want to cast spells, focus on it.
  4. Similarly, Magery beats IQ. Yes, IQ is basically Magery + Per + Will + a bazillion of useful skills, but if you want to solve everything with magic, You don't need those skills. Per and Will are very useful, but they don't help You cast spells, either. So if casting spells is what You want to do, get Magery to the limit.
• If You want to get to Potter level of magic spam, I see only two ways: magic as advantages, and magic for everyone (basically, if magic is free to use, no muggle stands a chance. You need aurors to beat the bad guys).
• It's definitely not perfectly fine, but it does the job for me.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

Is GURPS Magic second edition compatible with 4e?

Mostly. The biggest changes are in Missile Spells. This is outlined in Characters. There's about a dozen other changes too.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Huh, that seems slightly broken for the really high level spells. A perk is eventually a wasted point if you do end up getting all the prereqs later (do you get it back then?) .

No, spent is spent.

It's not meant for broad or general use. It's for people who want no more than a handful of very specific spells.

[simply Nathan]

The standard GURPS Magic system is my favorite magic system in all of tabletop gaming of those I have encountered so far, but it has its flaws. Most of these flaws can be fixed with houseruling of the system as a whole, others require spell re-writes.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

You know, back when I was messing with FUDGE, I did have a pretty solid idea for making a choose-your-own-effects magic system. In essence, you would mix and match aspects, runes, words, or whatever to form the spell effect you were looking for. For example, if you had the right aspects - and there was a big list of them you could purchase from different trees - you could put together, say, "Cold" "Growth" "Sharp", and it might cause daggers of ice to rapidly spread across an area.

If this is something that is still interesting to you, I'd highly recommend looking up the Flexible Magic chapter from Thaumatology. This chapter gives advice on creating balanced flexible magic systems and even includes a few examples. The main advantage of a flexible magic system is that no one has to parse a huge spell list to be a generalist mage.

Modifying energy costs is the best way to make magic use frequent. Reduce the energy cost to 1 per casting is a good approach for achieving this effect. This makes it possible for mages to routinely cast spells but still keeps magic exhausting. A more radical approach is to eliminate the energy cost completely. Using the Spell Parameters as outlined in the Flexible Magic chapter is a good way to limit magic under these modifications.

[mlangsdorf]

Everything in GURPS is canon and nothing is canon. There are multiple mutually contradictory optional rules in the Basic Set alone, so how could everything be canon?

Stuff from Pyramid is generally but not always less playtested than stuff in the main books. Beyond that, it's up to each GM and the consensus of the players as to what is going to be allowed at a table.

[mlangsdorf]

If I'm running a grim and gritty Seals in Vietnam game, I use Tactical Shooting and Seals in Vietnam. If I'm running an over-the-top Rambo in Vietnam game, I use Action, Gun-Fu and Pyramid v3 #53 "Buddies and Loners." I don't consult a poll and decide that since most GMs accept Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic, I should use in my grim and gritty Seals in Vietnam game.

GURPS is a toolkit, and it contains a lot of different optional rules and suggestions for customizing a campaign to fit a particular concept. And then people make house rules to further customize my game. I wrote Better Fantasy Armor, which as a post on a blog is about as unofficial as a set of house rules can be, but they scratched an itch for a lot of people and a lot of GMs use them (as far as I can tell from the page hit counter). That doesn't change the fact that if you get the chance to join Peter Dell'Orto's Dungeon Fantasy game, he uses the Basic set armor weights and costs. And why would it?

I think you're trying to import a concept of tiers of canonity from other games, and it really doesn't make sense in GURPS. The only way to know what rules a GM is using is to ask that GM, and it's entirely probably that the answer will depend on which campaign you're playing in.

[Lia Valenth]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

You get what I mean though right? There's official "GURPS" stamped material sold by SJG that makes a sort of basic play rules and then there's unofficial stuff on the internet which doesn't have that stamp. There seems to be a hierarchy of canonicity for rules or changes, however loose and flexible they are, so wondering where Pyramid things fall in that, if it's all in one category or stuff from different categories...

I see what you mean, but it is hard to answer. I would classify it as
1) GURPS Books and Pyramid, these are generally not considered house ruling. so I would say they are as cannon as you can get.
2) Kromm posts. When Kromm posts something on the boards it becomes as close to canon as it can get without going in a book/pyramid article.
3) Anything else.

But, this could easily vary by GM as well.