Things for Magery to do outside of spells

[Salabasama]

I am presently putting together a setting which will feature GURPS Magic alongside abilities built with advantages to represent the distinct magical traditions of different cultures. I like the idea of Magery being a born feature which grants enhanced magical power, but presently it would only benefit GURPS Magic users significantly, since in the fairly sparse rolls involved in advantage-based abilities, characters would be better served by taking more IQ or Reliable.

Because of this, I'd like to get some advice on other things to have levels of Magery above 0 do for the character. It was suggested to me that all magical abilities could require a roll against something plus Magery to activate, but I feel that that just disadvantages the advantage-based magics and also still doesn't make it worth the price. It was also suggested to me that the Magery level be tied into using some magical resource in the world such as leylines or magic dust, Magery itself determining how well or how much the user can do.

I haven't come up with any particularly good answers yet myself, so do you folks have any ideas?

[lvalero]

You might create some advantages with the Power Modifier Magic -10% AND a required level of Magical aptitude of a specific tradition.

For example "Speak with dead" can be an advantage with "Requires Magical Aptitude 3 - Necromancy". By RAW a "required ability" is a feature that costs +0%

[(E)]

You might want to have an innate attack tied to Magery that is precursor to spell use. The actual attack might be fairly feeble, but points can be spent to upgrade it.

[scc]

Magery grants a bonus to Thaumatology rolls just like it does to spells. Beyond that Powers suggests it as the default Power Talent for Powers with a Magical Power Source.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Salabasama

all magical abilities could require a roll against something plus Magery to activate, but I feel that that just disadvantages the advantage-based magics

Well, yes. Or "Limits" then, to use the GURPS jargon, which not coincidentally makes them cheaper. "Requires (Attr) Roll" also covers a skill roll instead of a straight attribute, and is a -10% Limitation. You'll see it used everywhere in the Psi Powers builds, for instance.

RSR is handy to model settings where magic (or other powers) are a learned art at which you can practice, as opposed to the sort of magic that's just an inborn abiilty that you can "just do", like innate racial powers. I often find it's useful for the mechanics to have two axes, skill and power, so that you can have distinct character concepts in the four corners (potentially powerful but untrained apprentice, wise old master, hedge wizard, Dr. Strange, etc).

At any rate, Magery is most like a Talent is that it boosts skills. That of course really matters only when you have a lot of spell-based skills. If there's another kind of magic that doesn't use any skills, then it would be silly to buy the Talent for magic skills. (Your players probably aren't asking why Smooth Operator doesn't also help their ability magic.)

But notice that any extra abilities you give Magery -- let's say your innate connection to the Force lets you get "a bad feeling" about things (Danger Sense), or sense nearby creatures much like the way you can sense magic (Detect (Life)) -- will benefit the skill-based casters just as well as the advantage-based casters. You'll still have a differential benefit. The only way to fix that is to make up a rule that _only_ works for the advantage-based magic but not spell-based users. That assumes that there *is* such a global benefit. If it's not skill, it's probably power -- but increased power is probably already handled by the levels in your leveled, another thing that gets improved spell-by-spell rather than across the board.

Or better yet, split the two. The extra benefits are quite likely separate Advantages. (Those Force users have an excuse to buy Danger Sense. That doesn't mean that being Force-sensitive automatically gives you that advantage built into some basic 5-point form.)

So, perhaps both kinds of magic-user can buy Magery 0 (which gives you that basic awareness to detect magic). Skill-based casters buy "Skill Magery", which works like the one in Characters. Advantage-based casters can buy "Innate Magery". And those benefits are the ones you have to decide upon. (Since you haven't described the mechanics or setting otherwise, I'd just be guessing.)

GURPS Powers has the concept of a "power talent", which in this case acts as a bonus to use any of the abilities that are part of the magic power. (Many Advantages require some sort of roll to activate in their baseline description, often based on an attribute like IQ or Will, even when they don't have an explicit skill that can be individually improved. Strictly speaking, those aren't "skills", but they're functionally the same. If you're using "Skills For Everyone", then a power talent is just that much more valuable.) If few magical abilities actually involve rolls to use them (no activation rolls, no resistance rolls, no Aerobatics rolls to fly, etc), then you'll want to reduce the price. Maybe it's only 5 points per level instead of 10 because there are so few activation rolls in practice.

You could also build in some other abilities to make the Innate Magery more valuable. Perhaps the innately talented are more sensitive to magic, so they get a more general "detect magic" ability -- say, able to notice ongoing spells, or recognize other people with Magery. Such mages might be able to "read auras", which is likely an ability built on Empathy or Psychometry. It might also come with a Disadvantage, such as lowering resistance rolls because the mage is so very sensitive to magical disturbances, or comes with the Nightmares Disad (in this case not necessarily literal nightmares, but the same mechanics just due to disturbed sleep every time there's a magical bump).

If you do want an ability that can boost the power of any magical ability that comes in levels, then that's really the fluff text for a Modular Ability that can only used to buy additional levels of existing spells. (You might also squeeze it in as an Alternative Ability, but the math there will probably get annoying if there are a lot of spells; probably easier just to take the largest "level" cost and see if you can use a standard +5, or +10, or +20 CP for calculating the price.)

I tend to prefer unbundling things where possible, though, because it's usually simpler to design things in smaller chunks, and also because it opens up more character possibilities from mixing and matching. (When the setting demands that some abilities always go together, then I'd likely just have a rule that says "you have to buy the same number of levels of X and Y" or phrase one as a prereq for the other, rather than rewrite the description to include everything from X and Y and sum their prices so you can't break them apart. Perhaps the latter seems simpler to you, though, so you bundle the parts for presentation and ease of play.)

[AlexanderHowl]

In Realm Magic, Magery usually does not add to anything. It often serves as a cap on Realm levels or Skill levels. It also serves often as a cap on Path/Book levels in Energy Accumulation Ritual Magic.

I have come around to the position that Magery should not be a Talent, and I have started to allow it to reduce FP/energy/threshold cost associated with magic instead. I think that it prevents magical skill inflation (meaning that enchanted items become much rarer), and it makes Magery quite valuable. A character with Magery 3 is no more skilled than a character with Magery 0, but they pay -3 FP/energy/threshold.

[Kelly Pedersen]

You should check out GURPS Powers, if you haven't already - Magery is basically a Power Talent for abilities with the Magical source limitation, and Powers provides lots of ideas for bonuses from Talent to abilities that don't have activation rolls.

One idea comes to mind for me: abilities with the Magical limitation that don't have activation rolls should still be penalized in low-mana areas. The general suggestion is for every -1 to the activation roll convert to -10% effectiveness for a non-rolled ability. So, for example, if you have Damage Resistance 10 (Magical, -10%), then in a standard low-mana area, which gives -5 to activation attempts, you instead lose 50% of the ability's effectiveness, in this case reducing you to DR 5. Magery, however, could effectively counter this. So, using the same example, someone with Magery 4 would only have their DR reduced by 10%, to 9, in the low-mana area (because -5 + 4 is -1).

[Chris Goodwin]

You could play around with Magery itself. Magery 0 is very similar to an advantage-built Detect Magic (Vague, -50%) for 5 points. You could allow any magic-detecting advantage to stand in for Magery 0 as long as it at least meets that requirement.