Dungeon Fantasy and Thaumatology

[umbros]

Are there any tweaks or options in GURPS Thaumatology that would work well with Dungeon Fantasy?

[Captain-Captain]

Bring in the "Sorcerer" ahem class. Magicians using High Ceremonial Magic (aka the system which was Ritual Magic back in 3rd edition). Unlike what is now called Ritual Magic in GURPS, where you're accessing the same spells as a standard magic wizard, you're dealing with a different spell list and conditions to cast spells.

The Umana rules will definitely make standard wizards more potent.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

The Umana rules will definitely make standard wizards more potent.

And prone to exploding. But hey, yeah, actually, that's cool. This is Dungeon Fantasy. Live fast, die young, and leave an interesting corpse or two.

[mlangsdorf]

My group is having a vague discussion of making all Clerics/Druids use Threshold Magic, while Wizards use Fatigue Magic. I'd also like to see a Shaman class that uses the Summoning rules on p 209.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

The Umana rules will definitely make standard wizards more potent.

...and more limited at the same time. Much greater chance of shooting yourself dry and not being able to recover significant amounts of power in a useful time frame.

After you see "Hey, I could pump 30 pts into a single spell!" you need to catch the part where it says "but it's only safe to do that once every 4 days.". 4 days is a long time in a dungeon.

IMHO of course, but Umana is better used as a way of changing the feel of how magic works in a campaign than as a simple booster for the magic power level. You want more power, spend more pts. Umana has definite ups and downs to it.

[Bruno]

Seconding the "Threshold magic != more power" - at least with the default assumptions (30 threshold, recovery 8 daily).

Mages are often expected to do tasks like shed light in dungeons, create food and water, protect party members from the elements, and buff people up. They're a great convenience...

However, when you're working on Threshold, assuming a party of 5 adventurers, just giving everyone DR 1 with the Armor spell at skill 15 will blow through 5 of your 8 daily recovery. Actually casting missile spells in combat, casting Glow or Daylight to illuminate a battlefield, or using an Area spell to try and take out a lot of mooks and simplify the combat - casting even at the modest levels that FP-based mages use is going to chew through your Threshold like crazy. Trying the kind of crazy stunts that Thresh encourages is going to blast it even quicker.

If you try and do three or four fights in a single day, as is pretty easy to do on the FP system, your mage is going to risk explosion by the end of the day, and on the SECOND day all of a sudden your mage is looking at every fight as depleting his resources.

So basically a Thresh mage will only cast the "creature comfort" spells if he can cast them for free, or if it's a crisis. In fights he's going to rely on plinking with free 1d fireballs or lightning balls way more than he's going to poor out the single-target damage. This changes the logistics of dungeon crawling significantly.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Seconding the "Threshold magic != more power" - at least with the default assumptions (30 threshold, recovery 8 daily).

I think what threshold magic does do is push mages back toward the low level D&D Magic User model - they can cast spells that pretty well solve an encounter by themselves, but only a couple times, then they're out of it for the rest of the adventure. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does call for a different play style, and mage PCs really should be designed with some ability that keeps them relevant even when they are out of magic.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

And prone to exploding. [...] and leave an interesting corpse or two.

Or none...

[umbros]

We used Unlimited Mana alot back during our 3e days, and our experiance was much like the above. In the first fight Wizards were very, very, scary; after that, not so much (unless they were desperate). I only once had a PC go critical (in the nuclear sense)and I think the example of that poor pitiful ummm... fellow was enough to keep anyone else from coming close to their threshold. Anyway, unless there is a great hue and cry otherwise and I feel their reasons are good I won't be using UM this time out.

I want wizards to be useful during each encounter, (it's for their own good), so I am going with the standard Fatigue/energy reserve powered magic. My only house-rule so far (because I have always hated the skill breakpoints in magic) is a slight variation on "Skill-Based Energy Costs For GURPS Magic" by Robert Neal Byles, found in Pyramid magazine. I suppose that I am now looking for rules for the wizard equivalent of "Extra Effort in Combat". Also things that would increase that "Old-school FRPG" feel without stepping on the nostalgic, modern, player's fun.

Thanks for the input,

[Kromm]

There's lots of funky stuff that could serve you well in a DF game. Looking through the Table of Contents:

• Wizardly Weaknesses, Visible Magical Gifts, and Spell Signatures would all be wonderful alternatives to the disads on the wizard template.
  
  
• The Unarmored Wizard and Magic Based on Other Attributes could let you create lenses for subclasses of wizards whose magic works differently without changing the spells. You know, like half the variant casters in a certain other game.
  
  
• Letting druids (or some druids, say a "Celtic druid" variant template) use Tree Magic instead of the system offered for them in DF would be entirely fair and balanced.
  
  
• The spells under Ethics and Spells are absolutely appropriate for all caster types, but especially clerics.
  
  
• A new caster type whose Magery has External Sources Only tied to the Sacrifices rules . . . well, 'nuff said. It certainly fits the subgenre, though.
  
  
• Clerical Spell Magic isn't exactly new to clerics, but the rules there certainly do offer lots more options. The extra details on consecration should especially appeal.
  
  
• Power Investiture (Shamanic) suggests a new template, the "shaman," with his own abilities. Add in Assisting Spirits and you have a really different class of caster.
  
  
• Materials for Wizards could fill treasure chests all by itself.
  
  
• Mana Organs should appeal to adventurers who don't want to waste anything (and to Diablo II-styled barbarians).
  
  
• Alchemical Gadgeteering has extra detail for artificers.
  
  
• The Herb Lore rules should make druids happy.
  
  
• Items as Characters puts a whole new face on the Allies advantage, suggesting fun new treasures for warrior types.
  
  
• Paths and Books -- the whole chapter -- would be an entirely fair basis for a new class of casters with a suitably impressive name ("sorcerer," "warlock," whatever you like). Not flashy in a fight, but valuable between fights; I can't see too many thieves saying "no" to a Hand of Glory charm or knights being against accepting a Ghost Shirt, Ghost Sword, or Warrior's Blessing charm.
  
  
• Fetishes talks about some truly wonderful magic items that might not appear to be "magic" at all.
  
  
• Symbol Magic is entirely balanced as the basis of a "runeworker" template that's not a cleric, druid, wizard, or any of the other new templates mentioned so far. Parchments would operate much like a Path/Book caster's charms, and be cool treasures, too.
  
  
• Words of Power would be awesome power-ups for anyone.
  
  
• Nothing under Powers would be especially out of place next to the other powers in DF. An "elementalist" with Elemental Command would be great. And the shaman mentioned earlier might have the Shamanism power in addition to Power Investiture (Shamanic) and assisting spirits.
  
  
• Mortals With Supernatural Servants pretty much gives you what you need to define the Allies that clerics and druids sometimes have. And that shaman . . . he'd find this handy, too. He's starting to look pretty cool.
  
  
• Spirit Vessels suggests a whole new type of adventurer, the "spirit warrior," with his own unique powers.
  
  
• The Stuff of Raw Magic is another chest-filler . . . and also lets you simulate the "essences" found in one of the computer adaptations of a certain other game.
  
  
• The Gem Injection Problem suggests a new type of casting that's especially well-suited to greedy delvers.
  
  
• All of Appendix A could be raided for ideas, really. Tossing in just Names could make finding a demon or lich's name a valuable treasure.
  
  
• Appendix B is handy for differentiating all of these caster types.

Man, some of these new templates, with simplified and self-contained takes on the relevant rules, would make really excellent topics for DF N . . .