Working Animal magic into my setting.

[Leofric]

Hi there, I have been working out a setting for a campaign that I want to run, one of my only problems is working out certain spells so that they remain fair.

the main one that i have come across so far is control (animal)

My setting is going to be very reptile/insect heavy (humans are the alien in this setting)

things like control mammal will be next to useless, while, control reptile will be too broad.

I don't want to go too far into breaking up the animal types as the spell becomes too diluted with too many categories, also, I am not a zoologist.

How would you guys get this spell (and others like it) working?

[Refplace]

Are reptil really more common there then mamals here?
If you want to break it downfurther how about snakes and lizards.
Insects culd be insects and arthropods?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Leofric

Hi there, I have been working out a setting for a campaign that I want to run, one of my only problems is working out certain spells so that they remain fair.

the main one that i have come across so far is control (animal)

My setting is going to be very reptile/insect heavy (humans are the alien in this setting)

things like control mammal will be next to useless, while, control reptile will be too broad.

I don't want to go too far into breaking up the animal types as the spell becomes too diluted with too many categories, also, I am not a zoologist.

How would you guys get this spell (and others like it) working?

The simplest solution seems to me to split Control Animal up into two types, Control Animal A and B.

A is as in Magic, and works for slightly broader categories than in Magc if possible, but not insects, reptiles, amphibians or arachnids.

B is harder. If A is Hard then B is Very Hard. B costs more FP to cast, and if A takes longer than 1 second to cast (I'm too lazy to check, and also GURPS Magic has cooties) then give B a castig time equal to 1.25 to 1.5 times that of A. B can be used on Insects, Arachnids, Other Invertebrates, Reptiles or Amphibians.

If slightly broader categories are not possible for A, then you might want to look into reducing its stats, like casting time or FP cost, probably just reducing either by 1 but not both.

[Faolyn]

Originally Posted by Leofric

Hi there, I have been working out a setting for a campaign that I want to run, one of my only problems is working out certain spells so that they remain fair.

the main one that i have come across so far is control (animal)

My setting is going to be very reptile/insect heavy (humans are the alien in this setting)

things like control mammal will be next to useless, while, control reptile will be too broad.

I don't want to go too far into breaking up the animal types as the spell becomes too diluted with too many categories, also, I am not a zoologist.

How would you guys get this spell (and others like it) working?

First question: are you using real-world insects and reptiles (or giant/dire equivalents)? If they're particularly alien critters, then they should have specialized spells just for them.

Probably the easiest way to do it would be to just change the cost of the spells: if mammals are a very minor type of life, than Mammal Control should cost 1/1, which Reptile Control would cost 5/3 and Vermin Control would cost 3/2.

[Dustin]

Do you want to allow Control spells at all? You do have the option of just declaring them to not work if they don't fit the vision you have for your campaign world. Faolyn's suggestion about swapping the costs to reflect frequency of the animal is a really good one, too.

Other considerations:
* Large creatures are expensive to cast Regular spells on.
* Animals usually have Will 10+, so Control isn't a cakewalk.
* Control requires concentration, so the mage will be occupied if he/she wants to use the spell to any effect.

You can also require rare/expensive ingredients to perform the spell.

Continuing with refplace's idea, you could break the categories down just one more level, and they don't have to be zoologically strict (this is magic, after all), for example:
* Snakes
* "Lizards" (really all limbed reptiles, so would include gators & turtles)
* Flying bugs
* Crawling bugs

[Leofric]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I guess I was just bogging myself down with too much worry over too much detail to see some of the easy categories that have been suggested :)

Was thinking about earth and prehistory species, also the dire idea skipped my mind, I am taking that as well now, cheers!!

Happy new year all!

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Leofric

My setting is going to be very reptile/insect heavy (humans are the alien in this setting)

things like control mammal will be next to useless, while, control reptile will be too broad.

I don't want to go too far into breaking up the animal types as the spell becomes too diluted with too many categories, also, I am not a zoologist.

General groups of reptiles are lepidosaurs (snakes, lizards, sphenodonts), archosaurs (crocodilians, dinosaurs, birds, pterosaurs), and anapsids (turtles). Plus a few more obscure ones if you want to delve into paleontology.

Luke