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Old 02-19-2023, 07:35 PM   #11
mburr0003
 
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by RGTraynor View Post
Or, well, there's always applying Occam's Razor. How would a wizard without large Powerstones, some manner of power reserve, or the ability to gather together a large enough group for a ceremonial casting manage to cast some of those high energy cost spells? Answer: "They don't."
Exactly. A number of those spells have costs so the GM can price what it will cost to pay someone else to cast them for you (like Resurrection).
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Old 02-19-2023, 07:47 PM   #12
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
Interesting thing I just thought of folks... is there anything that would prevent a mage with a legion of Zombies from having each of those Zombies (M151 spell) contribute 1 energy to his Ceremonial Casting?
Thaumatology suggests not allowing creatures created by spells to provide energy as sacrifices, I'd apply that to ceremonial casting as well. That doesn't mean all undead created through magic would be so restricted - if that mage's legion of zombies (or whatever) were built as an Ally Group, so long as they have FP to contribute I don't see an issue with them being able to do so. That implies undead with a lot more investment by the caster than "I cast Zombie on its corpse," of course.
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Old 02-19-2023, 08:17 PM   #13
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell View Post

But how would a wizard (say in your typical Dungeon Fantasy game) gather enough people to power spells like Solidify, or Summon Demon, or say Wish?

And where are the rules about sacrifices?


Like for example, how might that PC Summon an incorporeal demon, then while holding it prisoner using a Pentagram, then Solidify it so that it may act as he desires? (Assuming an wild-eyed eccentric but not necessarily evil PC wizard).
Wish is an Enchantment as noted elsewhere. It would take one hour per 100 energy or 3 hours (yes, you round up) to do Quick & Dirty or 250 days/number of Mages to do Slow & Sure.

So you do the Wish before hand and use it when needed.

Pentagram is similar though less mobile. Prepare your Pentagram before you need it.

Summon Demon requires a minimum of 5 minutes but can be managed by a single Mage with a 10 pt Powerstone (and some serious mental Disadvantages, summoning Demons is almost always a bad idea). Making the demon do your bidding is covered in the Summon Spell.

Solidify is normally meant for use _by_ insubstantial beings like Ghosts rather than demons and in the supplement where the spell first appeared ghosts with large energy reserves were possible. Humans using it normally need helpers and/or powerstones or other means and they're probably trying to get rid of the insubstantial being.

If you're trying to get a demon to do something for you while it's substantial summon a substantial demon to begin with.

I think there are rules about sacrifices in Thamatology.
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Old 02-19-2023, 08:47 PM   #14
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by ehrbar View Post
How would a wizard in a typical Dungeon Fantasy game do it? Well, he'd gather the minions of his Evil Demon Cult to do so.

If you're asking how a typical PC wizard in a typical Dungeon Fantasy game would do it, well, he wouldn't. He's part of a band that's going around smashing Evil Demon Cults and the wizards who organized them as a means of gaining power.

"Universal" means that not everything in a general rulebook book is for player characters in every kind of game. The book, after all, is not "Dungeon Fantasy Magic". Once you've specified "in a typical XYZ game", you've often enough already explained why something wouldn't be used by PCs.
Well, identifying what demon the bad guy was trying to summon (or had already summoned), summoning it yourself and imprisoning it might be a reasonable, if weird, strategy. Can you Summon a demon that somebody else has already summoned and is there?


In addition to those spells possibly being useful for NPCs, there are more kinds of gameplay in GURPS than dungeon delving. Sometimes you're playing a combat scene and spend half an hour playing out a combat that takes less than a minute in game time, sometimes you're exploring a dungeon in somewhere near real time, sometimes you're outlining in a few minutes what your characters do in a week of downtime. Some of those spells seem to be more "downtime" and/or "getting together what's needed for this spell is a mini-quest in itself" spells.

Take the example of a PC wizard in a typical Dungeon Fantasy game. If for some reason he really did have a particular reason for Summoning a demon and imprisoning it in a Pentagram, and he didn't have a Powerstone big enough to do that, then the thing to do might be to wait until the party gets back to town and try and convince a lot of people to help him do a Ceremonial Casting, or lend him a big enough Powerstone. (I mean, he has a good reason for doing this, right? ...right? :-D )

If he is trying to cast it on the spot during a dungeon delve (and doesn't have a big enough Powerstone), on the other hand, then unless you're using house rules he may be out of luck - that particular spell just seems to be one of the ones in GURPS that are written with a high enough energy cost to require a lot of preparation to pull off. They're supposed to be too big to cast ad hoc with two minutes' notice.

Mind you, in Dungeon Fantasy, which seems to have fewer inhibitions than some GURPS settings, it seems like it's often taken for granted that a big chunky Powerstone is standard gear for wizards, to overcome some of the usual limitations on throwing magic around like it's going out of fashion. I'm not sure whether quite as big as 50 FP is usual or not, though.
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Old 02-19-2023, 09:16 PM   #15
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
W
Mind you, in Dungeon Fantasy, which seems to have fewer inhibitions than some GURPS settings, it seems like it's often taken for granted that a big chunky Powerstone is standard gear for wizards, .
DF doesn't have Powerstones. It has Power Items instead. A Power Item is like a Powerstone that can only be recharged in town (for money by npcs) and has a capaciity based on its' $ value.

It looks like a racket to me but all DF casters are assumed to be doing it.
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Old 02-19-2023, 11:28 PM   #16
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Thaumatology suggests not allowing creatures created by spells to provide energy as sacrifices, I'd apply that to ceremonial casting as well. That doesn't mean all undead created through magic would be so restricted - if that mage's legion of zombies (or whatever) were built as an Ally Group, so long as they have FP to contribute I don't see an issue with them being able to do so. That implies undead with a lot more investment by the caster than "I cast Zombie on its corpse," of course.
If the ally group did not have free will I think probably we'd consider them as w/ mind control unable to contribute since you need to have free will to engage in ceremonial casting.

I'm picturing groups of otherwise useless allies amassed solely for the 1fp/ally reason, but they're probably bait for mass death at the hands of enemies.

I think some have also posited before that someone should need sapient IQ so that a cat lady can't use her dozen housecats for a free 12 FP. Basically to lend your free will to a spell you probably need some basic understanding of what magic is, like maybe a default roll on the Thaumatology skill?
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Old 02-20-2023, 12:21 AM   #17
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I think some have also posited before that someone should need sapient IQ so that a cat lady can't use her dozen housecats for a free 12 FP. Basically to lend your free will to a spell you probably need some basic understanding of what magic is, like maybe a default roll on the Thaumatology skill?
With of course, the exception of Familiars. Which are covered in Basic Characters p.38, many of which are designed (and priced) to lend FP. Intellect and sapience may vary.
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Old 02-20-2023, 10:29 AM   #18
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell View Post
Or is it meant to be cast in some other manner that I'm not following? If so, how is it suppose to be done?
At its most basic, and dating all the way back to the origins of the magic syste, I'm fairly certain it is meant "PCs can't cast this, but it exist in the world and hence is available to the GM for plot reasons, or to be sold to said adventurers by NPCs who cast it by unclear ceremonial methods as a means of drawing off the PCs extra cash".

These spells were mostly written before there were ways for PCs to access
more than a dozen or so energy at a time (and indeed their existence was probably the main motivating factor in people coming up with ways of having more energy available, no matter how much that broke the balance of the magic system..). So no, they were never priced on an assumption you were going to have one of those ways available - those didn't [exist] in the rules when the spells were priced.

In hindsight it was a bad decision to try to do this with "impossibly high" energy costs and not say an expensive material component or a required character point expenditure, but neither the costs nor the host of workarounds to raise excessive energy are going to change officially, probably not even if there were a major rework of the magic system that we lost the chance on thanks to the lack of a decent Magic playtest.
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Old 02-20-2023, 11:11 AM   #19
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell View Post
Okay, having re-read over the Ceremonial Magic Casting rules in the core rule book, I can see what you mean there.

But how would a wizard (say in your typical Dungeon Fantasy game) gather enough people to power spells like Solidify, or Summon Demon, or say Wish?

And where are the rules about sacrifices?


Like for example, how might that PC Summon an incorporeal demon, then while holding it prisoner using a Pentagram, then Solidify it so that it may act as he desires? (Assuming an wild-eyed eccentric but not necessarily evil PC wizard).
The simple answer is that those spells likely aren't intended to be cast by an adventuring wizard in your typical Dungeon Fantasy game. If you use those spells in such a game at all, it'd normally be for NPCs (but bothering to use actual spells for NPCs is highly optional in dungeon fantasy).

That isn't to say there's no way to change that, of course.
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Old 02-20-2023, 02:11 PM   #20
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Default Re: Confused about spells with high energy cost

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
At its most basic, and dating all the way back to the origins of the magic syste, I'm fairly certain it is meant "PCs can't cast this, but it exist in the world and hence is available to the GM for plot reasons, or to be sold to said adventurers by NPCs who cast it by unclear ceremonial methods as a means of drawing off the PCs extra cash".

These spells were mostly written before there were ways for PCs to access
more than a dozen or so energy at a time (and indeed their existence was probably the main motivating factor in people coming up with ways of having more energy available, no matter how much that broke the balance of the magic system..).
Ceremonial Magic is detailed on p 10-11 of GURPS Fantasy (1st edition from 1986) and it isn't terribly difficult to generate 120+ energy with ceremonial casting. And powerstones were also included in the GURPS Magic system from the start, and the early books casually toss around very large powerstones. There's canonically a 100 pointer in Tredoy, and the sample adventure from Tredoy features 30 and 40 point powerstones. So there was always a way to cast large spells.

In modern DFRPG, casting large spells is surprisingly easy. A 50 point Power Item costs less than $75,000 - well past the budget of a starting PC but well within budget for any moderately large organization like a town or city. And that's before dealing with ceremonial magic or wizards with stupidly large Energy reserves, which can canonically go up to 20, on top of the 21 FP that a wizard can have at character creation.
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