Magical Styles

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by JAW

Hmm so basicly you get all the spells in fire college with path of fire - right?
So someone with that dragon style could actually trhow fireballs and such but he could only buy up the technique for dragon breath - right? In that case there stylees would actually be pretty flexible.
Or do you need at least on point in a technique for it to work at all?

Nope, you don't need to put any points in individual spells with Ritual Magic. A style's techniques would be the ones specifically taught, so you could learn them faster, but nothing would prevent you from studying other spells on your own, or just putting bonus CPs into them.

Edit, yet again: If you want to limit a style more than that, the GM can define colleges/paths as being smaller, with one Path skill per style - but if the Path skills are narrower than standard colleges, Magery might qualify for a limitation as per Fantasy. The spells in a Path/style wouldn't have to be from the same GURPS Magic college.

If you want mages tied even more tightly to a narrow style, you might port over the Power Investiture rules. Each style would have a ten point buy-in (equivalent to a level of PI) plus Ritual Magic and one Path skill; mages could cast any spell they've put a point into at Path skill with no penalty; the ones they haven't paid for would get the usual prerequisite based default penalty. There shouldn't be more spells in a style than what a god would give to a follower with PI.

Relative to PI-based Ritual Magic, you gain 1) freedom from the inherent Pact limitation priests have and 2) the possibility of learning more than one style (gods generally frown on their priests moonlighting with other gods). Optionally, Magery might add to spells of any style - or spellcasting is simply learned by style, and there is no Magery. In return, you're paying for the equivalent of PI for each style you learn, and dealing with Mana level rather than Sanctity level (generally a relative disadvantage, since priests can raise Sanctity level pretty easily).

[JethroKirby]

I like it. It is flavorful and the ability to craft magical items with rune magic gives the style a lot more flexability, in the long term, than it might otherwise have had.

How do Dwarves cope with their lack of Healing magic? Do they seek bring in outsiders, or send their mages away to learn other styles, or just lump it?

What about Meta spells to use in conjunction with their Stonesong magic? Do they bring in outsiders, send their mages away to learn other styles, or just lump it?

How hard is it for a Dwarven mage to learn another style too? How hard is it for a non-Dwarf to learn Stonesong?

- I was actually planning on none of my styles having healing magic (with the exception of a few minor ones such as Stop Bleeding, Relieve Sickness, or Lend Vitality). Keeping the world with a "gritty" feel.

- As far as meta-spells go, wasn't really planning on spreading them around either. Counterspell will be on most lists, and the dispels and wards will go to protective traditions.

- When it comes to learning traditions not normally allowed for race or culture, I was planning on charging Unusual Background costs at character creation. Barring that the PC will have to make friends with members of that culture and spend time getting a teacher to train him with it.

Thanks for the input by the way

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by JethroKirby

Been following the thread and I have to say that its an interesting idea. Wanted to toss in a few ideas I've come up with for my campaign based off of it. Let me know what ya think.

Magic is not inborn and does not rely of magical talent, thus the magery disadvantage is history. Magic is based off of spirits instead of mana eliminating the effects of mana level on spell casting. Each "style" or tradition requires a Style Familiarty perk with at least one point in all of the required skills to learn it, and has several spells associated with the tradition. A practitioner of a tradition may only use the spells associated with his tradition and must follow the rules established for his tradition. All spells require at least 10 seconds to cast. Spells with a lower casting time increase to 10 while spells that already took longer are ignored - spirits cannot be invoked with a seconds thought. To compensate, all of the prerequisite penalties are reduced by half (round down). The spells do not default to the path skills either, but to one of the required skills for the tradition. Here is an example tradition:

Stonesong – 5 points
Stonesong is the magical tradition of the dwarves. Its practitioners (often called Stonesingers) use the spirits of earth in many different ways. A stonesinger sing deeply in the dwarven language to use his magic and uses the lowest of his skill with the spell or his singing skill for the roll (whichever is lower). Stonesingers are also taught the basics of runesmithing as well, allowing them to craft magical items. They must seek training for the different runes separately.

Skills: Masonry; Ritual Magic (Stonesong); Singing; Symbol Drawing (Runesmithing).
Spells (all default to Ritual Magic (Stonesong): Armor; Awaken Craft Spirit; Counterspell; Divination (Geomancy); Earth to Stone; Earth Vision; Entombment; Explode (earth, stone, or metal only); Find Weakness (earth, stone, or metal only); Flesh to Stone; Identify Metal; Inspired Creation; Metal Vision; Predict Earth Movement; Repair (earth, stone, or metal only); Seek Earth; Seek Pass; Shape Earth; Shape Metal; Sharpen (earth, stone, or metal only); Shatter (earth, stone, or metal only); Stone to Earth; Stone to Flesh; Toughen (earth, stone, or metal only); Weaken (earth, stone, or metal only).

If you see any holes in this, feel free to point em out. Note that I'm probably going to be using this system of magic alongside of the rules for symbol magic.

Sweet! Technically, Ritual Magic requires at least two Very Hard skills - either Ritual Magic (Tradition) plus Path skill, or a VH craft or professional skill plus the Mysteries of the Trade skill associated with it, that's the equivalent of a path skill. This is so spellcasters that concentrate on one Path have to either cast from a steep double default (-6 plus prereq-count-based), or effectively pay double to raise it (2/4/8 points instead or 1/2/4). Path skills and Profession (Magic) skills default to the base skill at -6. So, if your dwarves are only using the one skill, they're technically getting the benefits of +6 to all spells. Plus, if I'm reading that correctly, no default penalties.

To make it book-legal, maybe make Dwarven Masonry a VH skill instead of Easy (and/or defaults from regular Masonry at -3), and limit Stonesong to no higher than Dwarven Masonry. Individual spells take the prerequisite count based penalty when defaulting from Stonesong, and are bought up as Hard techniques. Or see my last post, upthread, for Power Investiture-equivalent narrow styles if you really want all spells to default to Stonesong at no penalty. Or, just ignore the rules for prerequisite count based default penalties - Kromm has said elsewhere that prereq chains are a minor limiting factor on spells, and can be ignored without breaking the game (although that was in the context of regular spell-by-spell GURPS Magic; not sure if he'd say the same for Ritual Magic).

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by JethroKirby

Thanks for the input by the way

Not at all. As I mentioned, if you have any input to offer regarding the styles I wrote, I would likewise be interested to hear it.

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

To make it book-legal, maybe make Dwarven Masonry a VH skill instead of Easy (and/or defaults from regular Masonry at -3), and limit Stonesong to no higher than Dwarven Masonry.

Other possibilities as a limiting skill could be Thaumatology, Theology (Dwarven), Literature (Dwarven), Singing (Dwarven Mystic) or Geology.

[JethroKirby]

Sweet! Technically, Ritual Magic requires at least two Very Hard skills - either Ritual Magic (Tradition) plus Path skill, or a VH craft or professional skill plus the Mysteries of the Trade skill associated with it, that's the equivalent of a path skill. This is so spellcasters that concentrate on one Path have to either cast from a steep double default (-6 plus prereq-count-based), or effectively pay double to raise it (2/4/8 points instead or 1/2/4). Path skills and Profession (Magic) skills default to the base skill at -6. So, if your dwarves are only using the one skill, they're technically getting the benefits of +6 to all spells. Plus, if I'm reading that correctly, no default penalties.

To make it book-legal, maybe make Dwarven Masonry a VH skill instead of Easy (and/or defaults from regular Masonry at -3), and limit Stonesong to no higher than Dwarven Masonry. Individual spells take the prerequisite count based penalty when defaulting from Stonesong, and are bought up as Hard techniques. Or see my last post, upthread, for Power Investiture-equivalent narrow styles if you really want all spells to default to Stonesong at no penalty. Or, just ignore the rules for prerequisite count based default penalties - Kromm has said elsewhere that prereq chains are a minor limiting factor on spells, and can be ignored without breaking the game (although that was in the context of regular spell-by-spell GURPS Magic; not sure if he'd say the same for Ritual Magic).

I guess I could make Singing (Stonesong) a VH skill that defaults to Ritual Magic (Stonesong) at -6, seeing as the act of singing is what produces the effects.

Oh and Xenophile, this is one of the best ideas for magic I've seen with 4E. Two thumbs up! :D

[Greg 1]

Another 27 magical styles, for a different modern setting, can be found here:

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Lineage:Main_Page

I call this setting "Lineage"

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Xenophile

Recently I stumbled across a very workable little concept: what if you combined the rules for martial arts styles with those for ritual magic? It's a good way to create different "schools of magic," and it's incredilby easy.

It's a clever idea and I've decided to borrow it for my upcoming GURPS Cabal "privateers of the Pearl Bright Ocean" campaign.

Bill Stoddard