Standard magic - effect on gameworld, playability etc.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I would have trouble playing an idiot like that. I don't ask for much. Just some outward reason for my character to not do something.

If your preferred genre is Papers & Paychecks, then you do not sign up to play Dungeons & Delvers. Easy! If you do sign up for Dungeons & Delvers, then you do not try to sabotage it into being Papers & Paychecks. Tis rude to the other people in your group.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

And I don't think gainful employment and making money is ever counter genre for any setting with humans.

Gainful employment is pretty much counter genre for most adventuring settings. In any case, the economic uses of GURPS Magic have a tendency to be slow and boring and not really that significant on the scale of a single PC, it's just that if you assume a bunch of NPC mages out there you wind up wildly distorting the economy.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Standard magic has a lot of problems, ranging from industrial spells (e.g. the Earth spells above), to plot-breaking stuff (many information spells are grossly overpowered), to literally world-breaking (there are ways of destroying planets for less than 100 energy), to mind-controlled legions, to making a mockery of point totals (exchange bodies, spells with energy costs based on point total, such as Golem or Lich), to causality problems (hello time travel). It's basically only fixable by declaring that this campaign doesn't care about plausibility (which many games don't -- but GURPS Magic doesn't even do cinematic very well), changing several rules, or severely hacking the available spell list.

I hate to be thick... but can you give some more specific examples?

With some time and forethought, I find a lot of abuses can be curtailed by applying real world penalties of "manipulating the system". As I haven't read GURPS Magic 4e maybe some of the old tricks don't work, but a lot of them are straightforward:

1) Inflation
2) Politics
3) Mana Zones/Magic Resistance
4) Using the PC's ideas against them

Oh, and if this is mostly about access to easy wealth... GURPS is about paying for what you get. If it is hard to justify a mage not being rich and powerful... tell your players they had better take Wealth and Status or have a good reason why their characters lack them and that they'll pay in more than character points if they choose the latter and then try for the former.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Otaku

I hate to be thick... but can you give some more specific examples?

With some time and forethought, I find a lot of abuses can be curtailed by applying real world penalties of "manipulating the system". As I haven't read GURPS Magic 4e maybe some of the old tricks don't work, but a lot of them are straightforward:

1) Inflation
2) Politics
3) Mana Zones/Magic Resistance
4) Using the PC's ideas against them

I wasn't actually limiting my point to stuff the PCs can do. You can make a semi-coherent world using GURPS Magic (though you'll still have to swat down effects that will quite literally end the world, such as blowing 60+ fatigue on Enlarge Object, and time travel probably needs to be banned as well), it just won't be anything like a traditional heroic fantasy setting, or even especially playable.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I wasn't actually limiting my point to stuff the PCs can do. You can make a semi-coherent world using GURPS Magic (though you'll still have to swat down effects that will quite literally end the world, such as blowing 60+ fatigue on Enlarge Object, and time travel probably needs to be banned as well), it just won't be anything like a traditional heroic fantasy setting, or even especially playable.

Thanks for explaining, though I could use even more clarification if you (or someone who knows what you mean) was up for it. Did Enlarge Object change a lot from 3e to 4e, or am I just missing how to abuse it/misreading the old rules? For that matter, the same with Time Travel? How do these destroy the world (whether you meant ruining a game or destroying the world/planet/etc. in the game)?

I've always been skeptical of claims of "breaking" the game world every since someone told me of his "brilliant" Supers character that required both him and his GM misunderstanding rules for the "Does Knockback Only" limitation and the GM making what I thought was a bad call on eight levels of Increased Knockback. Given how many people are in agreement... yeah, still assuming I just am missing the obvious. >_<

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Thanks for explaining, though I could use even more clarification if you (or someone who knows what you mean) was up for it. Did Enlarge Object change a lot from 3e to 4e, or am I just missing how to abuse it/misreading the old rules? For that matter, the same with Time Travel? How do these destroy the world (whether you meant ruining a game or destroying the world/planet/etc. in the game)?

Making a large stone into a ten mile wide boulder that can flatten a city takes about 25 energy. Combine with Flight.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Thanks for explaining, though I could use even more clarification if you (or someone who knows what you mean) was up for it. Did Enlarge Object change a lot from 3e to 4e

It became slightly more expensive to destroy a planet in 4e, because it changed from a cost per doubling to a cost per +1 SM. Taking a 1 lb rock (about 8 cm) an enlarging it to the size of the earth (12,000 km, or 1.5 billion times larger) is 55 fatigue in 4th edition (+55 SM), 31 fatigue in 3rd edition (x2^31). With the exception of the fatigue costs for regular spells scaling based on SM, everything that's broken in 4th edition was also broken in 3rd edition.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It became slightly more expensive to destroy a planet in 4e, because it changed from a cost per doubling to a cost per +1 SM. Taking a 1 lb rock (about 8 cm) an enlarging it to the size of the earth (12,000 km, or 1.5 billion times larger) is 55 fatigue in 4th edition (+55 SM), 31 fatigue in 3rd edition (x2^31). With the exception of the fatigue costs for regular spells scaling based on SM, everything that's broken in 4th edition was also broken in 3rd edition.

That... doesn't sound like the 3rd Edition rules.

Originally Posted by GURPS Grimoire p69 (3e)

Cost: 1 per pound of original weight (minimum of 1 pound) to double weight, and double cost for each subsequent doubling of weight. Same to maintain.

I believe mine is the third printing - I noticed there is an erratum to this spell entry for the first and second printings to change it to the above. So turning a 1 lb. stone into a 2 lbs. stone is just one Energy, turning it into a 4 lbs. stone costs 2 Energy (double one Energy), turning it into an 8 lbs. stone costs 4 Energy (1 doubled twice). 64 Energy could turn it into a 128 lbs. stone... at least as I read it. The description also states that the object doubles in scale for every eight-fold weight increase... so our 1 lb. starting stone didn't double in size until it was Enlarged to an 8 lb. stone.

Seriously, am I misreading/miscalculating it that badly to get such a dramatically different answer?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Seriously, am I misreading/miscalculating it that badly to get such a dramatically different answer?

I recall it's per doubling in linear scale, but making it per doubling in mass just increases the energy cost to 93, which is still plenty attainable by an apocalyptic cult.

[Otaku]

I thank you for your patience Anthony, but I still don't understand how you're destroying the planet with so little Energy... again at least by 3e rules.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I recall it's per doubling in linear scale, but making it per doubling in mass just increases the energy cost to 93, which is still plenty attainable by an apocalyptic cult.

Can you show me your math and actually reference RAW, because I am not following you at all. Just to be clear, I am speaking of 3e rules; if 4e rules are broken, I wouldn't know because I've never read the Enlarge Object spell for 4e. By my calculations, making a 1 lb. object weight just over 1 ton costs 1024 Energy.

If you doubted my Typing up of the cost, this is just a cut and paste from the errata here:

Originally Posted by Errata - GURPS Grimoire (First and Second Printing)

P. 69. Enlarge Object's cost is 1 per pound of original weight to double weight, and double cost for each subsequent doubling of weight.

I set up a spread sheet to crunch the numbers for me (of course I could have also messed that up) and 93 Energy falls in between costs for starting with a 1 lb. rock. You mentioned "linear scale", are calculating the cost based on doubling the scale automatically with a casting? So that spending 1 Energy results in an object doubling its scale, not its weight? If that is not what you're doing, please forgive me; I am really lost as you can tell. >_<