Magic system revisited.

[jjgrey]

I am looking at assembling a fantasy game using the most basic books necessary (Characters, Campaigns, Magic, and Powers).
Because it seems like all the potential players in the area know only D&D 3.5 and closely related systems I wanted to model a magic system that closely mimicked the feel of that system, while giving a not insignificant cost to every type of spell casting out there.

The one other change from basic GURPS standard I have made is the setting of the four basic stats ( ST HT DX IQ) to having a 'spendable' pool that actual skills and abilites are based on (Hit points, Fatigue, Agility, and Will Power) and damage types can affect each of these as well - a sanity attack reduce will power, a confusion causing attack can reduce agility, etc. before or in addition to reducing hit points or other effects.

So each type of magic will have an 'energy cost' deducted from one of these pools. The players

I have started the write up of how these magic powers work in my GURPS fantasy world-
Please take a look, and tell me if I have missed anything big, like a loop hole that will allow players to become uber-gods on less than 200 points, or if I am re-inventing the wheel and could do all of this a lot easier some way else.

First up :
Wizardry – this is very similar to what is described in GURPS as the default spell caster, each spell required learning from books or a teacher, and costing a certain amount of fatigue points (the energy cost) to cast. Wizardry only recieves a bonus of +1 for colleges effected by the lunar cycles, it never receives a negative for the wrong lunar cycle. Wizardry requires at least the magery 0 advantage to cast any spell costing more than 1 point of energy cost or having any prerequisit spells. Wizardry has access to most of the colleges of magic, and can be learned by anyone willing to pay all the costs. Magery can be inborn or granted via an involved and somewhat dangerous ritual cast by someone of 3 levels greater magery. Magery is available up to level 5. No spell may be cast that has more prerequisits than the caster has levels of magery nor can a mage spend more than 5 times their magery level in energy in a single day.

Wizardry takes significant time to learn the basics of being able to cast so many diverse spells (basicly understanding the underpinnings of wizardry requires learning the Thaumatology skill up to at least level 15 based on IQ, and a roll against Thaumatology is required for a wizard to understand any spell and add it to their spell book.) Spell books are required for wizards, any wizard without a spell book will begin forgetting their spells, starting with their least used ones, until they know only one spell that has no prerequisites. Wizard spells all require at least 3 of the below components to not suffer a casting penalty –
1) Verbal – the wizard must speak a mystical phrase
2) Somatic – the wizard must move and gesture requiring at least one free hand and foot
3) Material - the wizard must have some esoteric materials
4) Contagion – the wizard must have something tieing or associated with the result or target (a picture and some hair works for vodoo, ashes and a spark for a fireball spell)
5) Ritual – the caster must spend 3 orders of magnitude the listed spell time performing an involved uninterupted ritual to cast the spell ( a 1 second spell will take ½ hour to cast via ritual)

For each mising component the wizard will take a -2 penalty to the spell roll, and increase the chance of a failure becoming a critical (18) failure by +1.

Wizards can resort to spending hit points and will power if they run out of fatigue points to power spells at a ration of 2 hit points and 1 willpower for 1 fatigue point.

Wzards have no limit on how many spells they can learn. They must spend at least an hour a day studying to keep their understanding of Thaumatology keen, if they fail to do so they will suffer a -1 penalty to their spells for each day missed.

Wizards can cast any spell they know as long as they have the energy to do so.

All wizardly magic with a duration of ‘permanent’ can be detected as magical and dispelled and will only last a number of years equal to the amount of successes achieved by the caster.

[jjgrey]

Second up is probably simultaniously the most powerful and shortest of the Magic write ups for my game:

Sorcery- at first seems very like wizardry. Sorcerers can cast a lot of the same more more obvious spells, and often need similar spell components. But sorecerers do not required a teacher or spell books and only require two components from the wizard list of components to cast a spell without a -1 penalty. The sorcerer always runs an increasted risk of critical magical failure. Sorcerers power their spells with their Hit Points making casting spells actually physically injurious, and these injuries can only be healed with time but take half the time of a normal injury to heal. The cost of a sorcerers spell is always the same (unless they over charge it) at 1 Hit Point per spell no matter what the energy cost is. Furthermore sorcerers may ignore the first 2 levels of spell prerequisits when choosing which spells to learn.
Sorcerers can only learn as many spells as ½ their will power. They may however trade out spells when they have the opportunity to learn a new spell.
Combined, these facts about sorcererous abilities, usually allow sorecerers to cast a few really powerfull spells.
Sorcerrous spells always get a +1 to their spell roll on the full of the black moon and -1 on the dark (its knowing the diffrence that’s the trick) no matter what college the spell is in.
If down to 1 hit point a sorcerer may spend ALL their will power to cast one more spell.
Sorcery requires the new advantage ‘Sorcerous blood’ costing 15 points that allows the detection of magic and the ability to cast spells from the sorcerers list, Sorcerous blood prevents learning magery or divine magic.

Sorcerers do not need to study anything; except new spells once when they first learn that spell.

All sorcerous magic is impermanant in duraction any spell with a duration of ‘permanent’ only lasts as many months as the amount of successes obtained at most, or until dispell magic is cast upon it.

[jjgrey]

Third up of my magic system revisions are what I call the 'divine' magics -

Divine Magic- cast by Clerics, Druids, Rangers, and Bards. All clerical magic costs the caster a reduction in agility points equivilent to the energy cost as the casters nervous system handles the stunning surge of mystical power, and being able to cast it requires a certain level of adherance to a code of behaviour. Violating the code and attempting to cast a divine spell will incure penalties and a likely roll against a critical spell failure chart. It might even earn the ire of any dieties called upon. Divine magic is not ‘learned’ it is granted by mystical sources. The skill level a spell is cast at can never exceed the underlying skills – Theology for clerics and preists, Naturalist for druids, Survival for rangers, and Performance for bards. A caster does not need to be member of a recognized organization in order to cast divine magic, but belonging to such group helps maintain the requisite code of behavior.
Spell prerequisites still apply- a caster must have previously been granted access to a prerequisit spell to get access to the more advanced spell.

Bardic casters can postpone the agility cost of their spells for as long as they continue the required perfomance- unfortunately in rare cases this can kill a bard if they loose enough of their agility it will cost them hit points and a health roll with a penalty equal to the number of agility points spent. Bards must practice their performance daily, otherwise they receive a -2 per day penalty on all their spells.

Clerics can choose to spend hit points to supplement their agility points at a 3 for 1 ration (3 hit points for one additional agility point). They must spend an hour a day in religious devotions to maintain the spells they know and an additional hour per prerequisite to learn a new one. Failure to spend an hour a day in religious devotions costs a cleric a -2 penalty per spell cast including the first one. Clerics may learn only the spells related to the colleges supported by their diety.

Druids and Rangers do not have the option of over exerting themselves but they do get a reduced cost for high skill levels. They learn new spells by meditation and communing in wild places often taking days of solitary introspection and fasting to discover a new spell. They can remember previously granted spells, for later use without any further meditations.

All divine spells suffer a penalty or bonus of +/- 2 for the lunar allignments of the pro and anti lunar influences on their respective colleges. For example Vlad the Cleric of Death – a necromantic college diety- is casting a necromantic spell during the full of the Pearl moon (granting a -2 to necromantic college spells) while the Ebon moon is at its new moon phase (granting a further -2 to necromantic spells). With Vlads impressive skill of 16 with his spell he must roll a 12 or less in order to have any effect.


(I will be assigning most colleges of magic one of five moons as a positive lunar influence and in most cases one of the moons as negative)

[Aumtecka]

It seems quite limiting for mages.

• Reduced Spell Selection
• Increased Ritual Requirements
• Risk of Character Point Loss
• Need for rare materials such as spell books.

The cost also seems high for mages in particular. To even get basic spells that have 5 or fewer pre-requisites the character point cost starts at 55 for magery.

Combined with the crippling limits on energy expenditure per day mages will be rare in your game world and non-existent as characters. Given enchant has 10 pre-requisites no magic items will exist either unless they were created by divine sources.

Not overpowered at all if that was your concern. No exploitable loopholes so far.

[sir_pudding]

I see you've gone far off in a different direction, but GURPS Fantasy does have a number of suggestions for cast and forget magic systems.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by jjgrey

Because it seems like all the potential players in the area know only D&D 3.5 and closely related systems I wanted to model a magic system that closely mimicked the feel of that system, while giving a not insignificant cost to every type of spell casting out there.

Are you sure that's what they want? Most (A)D&D-turned-GURPS players I know generally preferred the flexibility of the GURPS magic system. The only grumbling that was remotely common was dealing with prerequisites.

[Aumtecka]

I agree with Copab. Having played both systems one of the things I like most about GURPS magic is the flexibility.

[Captain-Captain]

My experience has been that players who are used to fire and forget magic, which D&D itself has largely cast under the bus (Wizards still have to preselect their Daily Powers as in days of olde). Know a low FP cost spell at a high enough skill (15-19 for a -1, 20-24 for a -2, in theory it goes on like this though few characters will see spell levels higher than 21 realistically) and it's free to cast. You don't need components, at higher skill levels you can cast spells while tied and gagged, and you have flexibility in range and effect. You can opt to exclude certain hexes with area spells, hit the guy who is hidden from sight, yeah there's penalties but...

My suggestion: play up the differences. Your players, if they see more of the D&D same o will likely want to play D&D because they are familiar with how to tweak it for character benefits etc. Give them a reason to go thru the GURPS learning curve.

I suspect most of the people responding here can give you a few tips on usin spells creatively.

Here's a favorite of mine: Shape Earth as a foxhole maker. Presumption: Skill 15- or better. For 1 energy point actual cost to the character, you can lift a cubic yard of earth out of the ground and put it in front of the hole you created. you can have the earth split apart as it rises, so you could have two 18" barriers protecting two of your three forward hexes of all 3 of them at 1 foot thick diameters.

At six inches thick you can surround the entire hex. Step in, allow for a slot to let you see out and you're firin your spells from cover.

Edit: Trick #1: At the moment of casting, a wizard can set spell duration to a shorter than usual time. Doing so here so it expires when your foxhole is complete eliminates the "Spell On" penalty for further spell castings.

The Drawback to this is that the spell has expired, you can't use the spell to repair your earthen walls if an attack damages them.

And maintaining it costs half so your at 1 fatigue with a free point of fatigue free from skill. You could keep it running as long as you remain conscious for free!

Once the magic is on it the earth doesn't have to stay contiguous and range doesn't matter unless you have to see what you are having the earth do. At night, a couple of foot shaped pieces of that earth barrier around the foxhole could move off, slowly since you have to concentrate on one, then the other, making 'footstep' sounds once they've floated a few yards from you which will draw enemy fire, revealing THEIR position in the dark.

[Stoob]

Casting time (IMHO) is something that D+D players have a tough time getting used to in GURPS. Many players who are used to D+D are overwhelmed with the number of spell choices in GURPS and the flexibility. In my experience, D+D players tend to generalize too broadly (wow look at all these spells!!!!) and then become disappointed when it takes them X turns in GURPS to grow a fireball big enough to hurt the bad guy.

Whatever system you choose, make sure your GURPS Mages understand that casting time, for a battle-type mage, is an essential part of being deadly in GURPS.

[Aumtecka]

He won't have to worry about his mages being deadly. Even at magery 3 they max out at 15 energy per day. 2 maybe 3 missle spells per day and they are done.

Even if powerstones could be used to overcome this limitation the fact that the entire enchantment school is off limits nixes the idea.