GURPS Magical Styles: Horror Magic

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Taneli

So change the spell for your modern game, or introduce elements that can go through the protection.

"Change the spell" sort of defeats the point of forcing the GM to do a lot of work. "Ban the spell" might be easier, though Missile Shield is hardly the only problem spell, so there's still some work involved. That's actually why I like Horror Magic: it provides a flavorful way to constrain casters to make them fit in a more modern setting. Though as I said, I'm not sure what, say, a "superhero" style would look like.

And point for point, standard magic will give more bang for your character points unless you introduce heavy UB cost for magic.

More bang for your character points compared to what? Powers? That's exactly the problem, if you want something like supers or Monster Hunters where magic and powers are both supposed to play an important role.

[Greg 1]

Oh yeah! This one is just made for me.

Every now and then there comes along a GURPS product that is an instant buy. :)

[Michael Lewis]

Magical styles: Horror Magic- The Dark Path.
Do you have to take the prerequisite spells first in each of the spell list packages? Or can you take them in any order?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

Magical styles: Horror Magic- The Dark Path.
Do you have to take the prerequisite spells first in each of the spell list packages? Or can you take them in any order?

Pg 8 says "its spells don’t have other spells as prerequisites, only Magery levels" so it sounds like it somehow bypasses the standard prereq system.

In that way it seems like it might somehow resemble Power Investiture (except still using Mana not Sanctity) ?

T67's Power Investiture as Modified Magery says that No Spell Prerequisites is normally +30% while Limited Spell List is -30% which basically works out to 0% net.

This however seems to be doing a "substitute prerequisite" approach of higher-than-normal Magery in place of spells.

A fixed +30/-30 is probably flexible considering you have to ask "just how many prereqs am I actually ignoring in my spell list?" and "just how many spells am I limited to", so if it doesn't work out to exactly zero, substituting alternate prerequisites might smooth out the gaps.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

my reaction to it is 80% to wish GURPS Magic had been fully converted to Sorcery.

Even if I'm going to use classic magic instead, it's always great to see more Sorcery replications because they tend to give a lot of good ideas for advantage-tweaking and maybe even the intent perceived in classic spells (even though clearly it's not always a complete replication, like with Reflect Missile having damage limits)

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Missile Shield granting absolute immunity to missiles is one thing when most people use melee weapons but another matter when guns dominate.

would be neat to have some approach for big damage reduction on at least a gamble, like using Extra Effort or rolling dice for DR perhaps

Originally Posted by cultureulterior

Also, I really like defining more spells into the system- sacrifice was good

I've been trying to think of some ways to exploit this...

Like for example if you start off with an IQ1 animal then M135's wisdom could increase the multiplier from the lower of the two physical attributes...

It probably wouldn't pay off with high maintenance costs unless you're talking huge physicals to multiply by, unless of course you had enough skill in Wisdom to maintain it for free...

There's something just pure evil-seeming about giving an animal sapience just long enough to murder it...

edit: cancel that, forgot M133's note you can't use MC spells on sub-sapient creatures... guess you'd need some other means of boosting IQ like an Affliction or maybe an enhanced spell using Thaumatology rules