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[ReyAlps]

The 150 skill level enchantment come in play as free fatigue casting bonus and as speed modifiers, and for spells such as pentagram where it is usual to roll a resistance roll against a 50 ST extraplanar and not absurd against a 150 devil or stronger if you play they starship sized. And for Magic Carpet speed.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ReyAlps

The 150 skill level enchantment come in play as free fatigue casting bonus and as speed modifiers, and for spells such as pentagram where it is usual to roll a resistance roll against a 50 ST extraplanar and not absurd against a 150 devil or stronger if you play they starship sized. And for Magic Carpet speed.

What extraplanar can bench-press 2 tons (ST 50 == BL 500 lbs, x8 for bench-press), and what devil can bench-press 18 tons (ST 150 == BL 4,500, or over two tons)? As for "starship sized", I've never seen a devil, demon, or similar thing up in the SM +8 size (for reference, the Millennium Falcon is considered an SM +8 craft).

[cvannrederode]

Originally Posted by ReyAlps

The 150 skill level enchantment come in play as free fatigue casting bonus and as speed modifiers, and for spells such as pentagram where it is usual to roll a resistance roll against a 50 ST extraplanar and not absurd against a 150 devil or stronger if you play they starship sized. And for Magic Carpet speed.

Again, it feels like the wrong tool for the job. To address your example, the Pentagram spell description explicitly states that an existing pentagram can be strengthened by repeated castings, and that large em-placed ones can be very strong after many such castings. (At least according to my memory). But even then, it would have trouble standing up to ST 150, which in 4E is an enormous creature by any measure.

And if I would be running with "starship" sized baddies, I would pull out GURPS Spaceships, with the SS 7 providing stats for "starbeasts". But that's just my choice. Even as a computer science/math geek, I hate having to perform math with a TI-89 during games. Slows things down.

Anyways:

To quote page 172 of the Basic set: "An extreme level (anything over 25) in one skill tends to be excessive and unbelievable..." Using extreme skill and mental attribute scores to allow a person to compete on the basis of power (strength of effect) means that there's a misapplication of the stats.

A single individual standing against anything on the decade scale (or higher), whether it be by magic or something else (psi, raw strength) is very "four-color". A look through GURPS Supers (the 4E version) shows some mechanics that should allow a high powered individual stand toe-toe which bigger forces, using such mechanics as Super-effort. Or by buying their magic as powers, allowing power level and skill to be decoupled. I'm not familiar enough with the new Supers rules in 4E, but I'm sure that power levels aren't tied to skill.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by cvannrederode

A single individual standing against anything on the decade scale (or higher), whether it be by magic or something else (psi, raw strength) is very "four-color". A look through GURPS Supers (the 4E version) shows some mechanics that should allow a high powered individual stand toe-toe which bigger forces, using such mechanics as Super-effort. Or by buying their magic as powers, allowing power level and skill to be decoupled. I'm not familiar enough with the new Supers rules in 4E, but I'm sure that power levels aren't tied to skill.

No, they're not. Power levels in 4e supers are basically following the Psionics rules in the Basic Set and expanded in Powers: power level is set by the Advantages, and you have the option to replace straight Stat (commonly DX, IQ, HT, Will, Per) rolls called for by those Advantages with Stat/H Skills.

Supers for 4e is about 80% genre book, 15% worked examples of existing crunch, and 5% new crunch.

From what I can tell, the magic systems that fit best in a four-color superhero game are Realm magic and Sorcery (a magic-as-powers approach); Realm works best for "sorcerers supreme" like Doctor Strange and Dr. Fate, while Sorcery fits better for "limited trick" magicians like Hellstorm and Amethyst; a grittier "Trenchcoat Brigade" feel for magic, as personified by Constantine, would probably be RPM. Using any variation of Magic-magic in that kind of game doesn't really fit.

It's a case of "know your intended power levels" and "don't be stupid about it". If something looks unbalanced, over-thought, or just plain wrong, it probably is.

In regards to ST scores, remember that in 4e, ST is quadratic, where a +10 to the ST score is x4 in effective real world strength. This is a big change from 3e where ST scores were linear, and a +10 change to ST was a x2 to effective real world strength. Super ST makes the curve parabolic or hyperbolic (I haven't graphed it yet to be sure), where a slight change in ST is a much larger increase in real world strength. At Super ST +17/+1500, 680 points, one can start bench-pressing kilotons, which is getting into late-Silver/early-Bronze Age (~1970-1985) Superman levels of strength. Be extremely careful!

[DWChewie]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

<snip>
Super ST makes the curve parabolic or hyperbolic (I haven't graphed it yet to be sure)
<snip>

Actually, neither.
Super ST scales exponentially.
Every plus +6 equals x10 of the super ST value and therefore x100 the Basic Lift.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

What extraplanar can bench-press 2 tons (ST 50 == BL 500 lbs, x8 for bench-press), and what devil can bench-press 18 tons (ST 150 == BL 4,500, or over two tons)?

Urr... while bench pressing competitions are usually not the focus of stories, it's not that exotic for mythic monsters to operate on a scale where they're used to explain geological features....

However, that's mostly a problem with ST scaling and the way GURPS Magic works.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by ReyAlps

The "point" of them being separate is that they each require a minute or more to cast, a skill roll, a resistance roll, a separate learning, separate durations, separate and independent.

So how did these things survive if they didn't learn the skills in the first place? to get 1 point in something you need 200 hours of study essentially (Without modifier) this would mean they'd be dead before they could learn to drain the attribute.

And they are all set to max rarity. If you are draining stats, this should be very common.

Basically it looks like a truckload of disadvantages to pay for huge levels of advantages.

[ReyAlps]

Updated considering criticisms on 01-25-2016. Thank you all.