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Old 10-22-2019, 07:30 PM   #51
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

The enlargening rounds are a definite question, but I'm actually asking about the first second too...

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
You pay the cost you would have had the spell succeeded.
Right, but the instructions for missile spells are if the spell succeeds, you can then decide how much energy to put into it. It doesn't sound like you need to decide before attempting to cast it.

As in: if the spell fails (even if it's not a crit fail) you apparently don't even have to choose to invest ANY energy...

and I don't think failures with 0-cost spells actually consume 1 energy on a failure, but I could be wrong.

It sounds like missile spells could operate like 0-cost if you don't invest anything in them...

But there's sort of an impression that you must invest at least 1 energy into them, I think? I know I've seen cost represented (at magery 1) as 1-3 rather than 0-3. But the choice on whether to do 1 up to magery can apparently be made after your roll rather than before?

This also makes the idea of pumping in extra energy to raise effective skill more complicated, since you won't know the final cost (nd thus the % of extra energy) until you actually decide what energy to put in.

It'd be way simpler if you had to decide how much energy to put in (at least for 1st second, pre-enlarge) prior to rolling.

Last edited by Plane; 10-22-2019 at 07:34 PM.
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Old 10-22-2019, 07:48 PM   #52
ericbsmith
 
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Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
As in: if the spell fails (even if it's not a crit fail) you apparently don't even have to choose to invest ANY energy...
Quote:
Originally Posted by GURPS Magic, p. 12
On a success, you may invest one or more points of energy in the spell, to a maximum number of energy points equal to your Magery level.
While that's worded "may" I would suggest it as "You must invest at least one energy, and may invest energy up to your Magery level."

Of course, if you have high enough skill level the final energy cost is reduced, so the final energy cost may still be zero. But you must always create a missile that is at least 1d, whatever that might cost to cast.

I also dislike the ordering of the choices because, as you mention, it means that on a failure the caster can always decide to make it a 1d missile instead of the larger one he might have chosen had the spell succeeded. I would (and have) required a declaration of how large the missile is going to be before the spell skill is rolled. But, I'll admit that this isn't really supported by the rules as they're written.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
and I don't think failures with 0-cost spells actually consume 1 energy on a failure, but I could be wrong.
Correct. Magic p. 7: "If success would have cost energy, you lose one energy point; otherwise, you lose nothing."

This is based on the final energy cost of the spell, so if high skill reduces the cost to zero then a failure costs no energy as well.


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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
It'd be way simpler if you had to decide how much energy to put in (at least for 1st second, pre-enlarge) prior to rolling.
Yes, it would. And if you're using an option like allowing extra energy to pump skill I would wholly suggest that the caster must declare the intended size of the missile before calculating skill.
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Last edited by ericbsmith; 10-22-2019 at 08:47 PM.
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Old 10-22-2019, 08:19 PM   #53
evileeyore
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Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
It'd be way simpler if you had to decide how much energy to put in (at least for 1st second, pre-enlarge) prior to rolling.
Ah, yeah, sorry, that's how I run it. You tell me what you're doing then roll the dice and see if it succeeds. This includes spellcasting, so with spells, I run it as "Tell me what the spell is doing, then roll to see if it works" so they'll already have 'dedicated' FP into the potential casting.
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Old 10-23-2019, 01:24 PM   #54
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Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericbsmith View Post
While that's worded "may" I would suggest it as "You must invest at least one energy, and may invest energy up to your Magery level."
Taking a fresh look at this, I can see where you're coming from, like there would be 2 ways of reading it.

I was thinking...

on a success...
You MAYinvest something (range of options)...
or you may NOT invest at ALL (but then why did you cast the spell bro?)
but maybe it's meant like...

on a success you MUST invest something (not zero!)
the amount of your investment, however, can range from 1 to Magery
This would avoid the weird situation of "I invested 0 energy so it does 0 damage!"
Although... there was a perk in Magical Styles allowing you to do AOA Strong with missile spells to get a damage bonus to them... so that might be one situation where a 0-base-damage missile spell COULD be useful, if you rely on that perk entirely to get damage (0+1=1) on a spell which has no basic energy investment?

Actually a cheaper path than buying missile spells up to high skill (20-25ish?) to get energy cost decreases for throwing 0-energy 1d fireballs around.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericbsmith View Post
Of course, if you have high enough skill level the final energy cost is reduced, so the final energy cost may still be zero. But you must always create a missile that is at least 1d, whatever that might cost to cast.

I also dislike the ordering of the choices because, as you mention, it means that on a failure the caster can always decide to make it a 1d missile instead of the larger one he might have chosen had the spell succeeded. I would (and have) required a declaration of how large the missile is going to be before the spell skill is rolled. But, I'll admit that this isn't really supported by the rules as they're written.

Correct. Magic p. 7: "If success would have cost energy, you lose one energy point; otherwise, you lose nothing."

This is based on the final energy cost of the spell, so if high skill reduces the cost to zero then a failure costs no energy as well.
It seems like "costly failures" are very low risk though, as you know whether or not the skill roll passed on your 1st turn, so pumping in energy on the 2nd and 3rd turns isn't putting that energy at risk. Even though this increases the "full cost" it CAN'T crit fail at that point, since the roll was already passed...

Plus you can even avoid the "1 energy if it had a cost" on the 1st turn if you make a minimal investment (say just 1 energy if you have a -1 to energy cost from high skill) and then pump in the big energy-for-damage in turns 2+3 when you know you passed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericbsmith View Post
Yes, it would. And if you're using an option like allowing extra energy to pump skill I would wholly suggest that the caster must declare the intended size of the missile before calculating skill.
ESPECIALLY if using that Magical Styles perk (mental something?) where instead of rolling against Innate Attack to target the fireball (DX-based) you can reroll the IQ-based spell again for targeting stuff. Boosting your skill with extra energy would be important there.

That'd also be important if pumping in energy for other purposes, like adding enhancements to missile spells like armor divisor / affects insubstantial / area effect / persistent / radiation

Although in that case, I guess that could just increase the cost of enlargening later, it's more important for skill-boosting since you have to pay the FP prior to actually making the skill roll, but need to know the spell's base cost (which can't be 0, 20% of that is free!) to know how much FP is needed to get +1
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Old 10-23-2019, 03:18 PM   #55
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Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
I'm sure some people have a war story or two, but I don't know that I've ever seen a demon turn up in play this way naturally - i.e. when there wasn't a house rule or probability modification curse of some sort affecting the odds.
I'd been running a fantasy campaign for many years before I saw this result come up. It was very fun when it finally happened.
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Old 10-24-2019, 09:56 AM   #56
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Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

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I'd been running a fantasy campaign for many years before I saw this result come up. It was very fun when it finally happened.
I did once - it was the first try of my PC's new mage character :D :D :D Critical failure, and summoning a demon xD Noone believes me in that, but it's true :D
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Old 10-24-2019, 10:30 AM   #57
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Default Re: Different critical spell failure tables

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Originally Posted by GWJ View Post
I did once - it was the first try of my PC's new mage character :D :D :D Critical failure, and summoning a demon xD Noone believes me in that, but it's true :D
The odds of 17+ and then 18 are realistically somewhat higher than the 1/11664 it should be, because most gamers do not roll dice well, and bad die rolling practices can fairly easily result in the same number coming up twice in a row.
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