Economy wrecking spells?

[weby]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

And this is just a single spell no more flexible than many other spells. (In fact quite a bit less than many other spells.) Personally I regard Very Hard on a spell as the equivalent of Hero's stop sign. "Think twice before letting any PC have a chance to learn this one."

That is perfectly fine, I am just trying to find if there is anything in RAW making it uncommon. House rules are a different matter. (And that house rule does make sense, I have not pernally done any magic house rules as I would "never" run a game using the GURPS magic system without near complete rewrite)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by weby

That is perfectly fine, I am just trying to find if there is anything in RAW making it uncommon. House rules are a different matter. (And that house rule does make sense, I have not pernally done any magic house rules as I would "never" run a game using the GURPS magic system without near complete rewrite)

Well since it doesn't have prodigious scope, that leaves alien, counter-intuitive or secret.

[Jasonft]

Seems I struck a nerve maybe with all this commentary.

But to bring it back to the original topic of the thread - since we all seem to agree that *as written* the spell is thoroughly abusable. Is it sufficiently abusable to wreck an economy? Hmmm... If the criminally inclined mages are creative using it, I would have to say yes.

So how to balance or restrict it in your game world?

Making it so only a very few mages know it might work, but personally I would balance it by tying the spell to the skill you are using it with. If, for example, your effective skill with the spell cannot exceed the skill it is Inspiring?

Thus a caster with Inspired Creation (18) and Forgery (11) has to cast the spell as if it were Inspired Creation (11). Later on that same mage uses it again for Smithing (in which they have skill 15), so when using it with that skill they cast it at (15).

It's still abusable but this way it's a lot riskier for beginners. Thus the spell tends only to be used by (and taught to) those already Master of a Craft skill.

[Verjigorm]

In numerous campaign settings VH spells are either unavailable(Banestorm) or require an unusual background.