GURPS Powers: Divine Favor

[Langy]

I'm fine with Magic as Spells/Spells as Skills in general, but I think it's a real disservice to make *every* type of magic identical to all the others. I mean, what's really the difference between clerical and wizardly magic in base DF? The spell lists. That's the entirety of the difference.

With Divine Favor, you really get the feel that you're actually a priest of some god and not just another wizard with a club instead of a staff. The idea isn't that spells-as-skills is bad, it's that making two supposedly completely different magic systems be functionally identical is silly.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Langy

(. . .) I mean, what's really the difference between clerical and wizardly magic in base DF? The spell lists. That's the entirety of the difference.

For many games, such difference can be enough. But yes, I understand your point and in part, I agree.

Originally Posted by Langy

(. . .) making two supposedly completely different magic systems be functionally identical is silly.

To my mind, that's not necessarily so. And not every fantasy or dungeon fantasy cleric should be automatically regarded as a "full fledged 'Prophet'".

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

. I think the crunchiness and flavor can both stand up against any other similar supplement. I'm even in the middle of using Lulu to make a printed copy for myself -- made a cover and everything.)

glad to hear that you think so.

The crunchiness of Psionic Powers was really useful as a practical example of the Powers system which is my major hope for this PDF.

[PK]

Originally Posted by lachimba

The crunchiness of Psionic Powers was really useful as a practical example of the Powers system which is my major hope for this PDF.

Well, the best thing I can say about Divine Favor is that I don't think it resembles Psionic Powers in any way other than usefulness. (That is, it stands as a fully worked, easy-to-use power system, but it has a unique flavor that's designed specifically to emulate "godly" power, as opposed to any other power or a generic approach.)

[Anders]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'd love to see more Books, especially more mundane texts as secret wisdom like the example Deeper Principia.

Anyone care to write up the Kinsey reports?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Good to know.

Nonetheless, despite the coolness of this book and of the miracles as powers approach, I wouldn't be really interested in substituting the current and "standard" approach of clerical magic as spells for these kinds of gaming styles.

I'd love to see optional ways and ideas for tweaking Dungeon Fantasy templates, but not so much in substituting the way in which it's working currently. (Yes, I like magic as spells and spells as skills.)

Well they you might be interested in how I build Clerics:

Modular Abilities: Divine Inspiration (15 points) (Pact -50%, Physical +100%, Requres Reaction Roll -5%, Trigger: Hold Holy sysbol -20%)[83]; Signature Gear (Holy Symbol) [1] True Faith (Turning +65%) [25]

Disadvantages: Fanaticism (Put the Undead to Rest)* [-15]; Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innosents)* [-10]; Sense of Duty (Innsosents)* [-10]; Vow (Never refuse a request for aid)* [-15];

Skills: Religious Ritual

*Part of the Pact

Divine Favor has a Similar feel, but a different approach.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Anyone care to write up the Kinsey reports?

Interesting, it's past my divergence point, but my world might have something similar. It might resemble the Floating Palaces (or whatever that was called), though, I could just reskin that.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

GURPS Thaumatology's Spirit Mediated Magic

Historical druids are specifically addressed in the Roma Arcana setting

GURPS Fantasy

Isn't that the entire point of 30% of Fantasy and all of Thaumatology?

The issue isn't so much whether or not it can be done as whether or not a prebuilt example of doing it should be published. After all, Psionics can be done without Psionic Powers; but that supplement presents psionics in such a way that you can drop them into your campaign with very little prep work. Divine Favor does something similar with Divine powers; the question is whether supplements that provide prebuilt systems for witches, druids, etc. would be worth the effort of publishing.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

The learned prayers are cheap, but only because you can't buy them until you've sunk a lot of points into Divine Favor.

You know, the Learned Prayer mechanics could also work for a secular magic system, of a particular kind.

The D&D campaign I run occasionally has an unusual historical feature: magic done with standardised spells is comparatively new, only a century or so old. I decided on this because my players include a few who have invented so many spells that the idea that the standard list has been in use for a long time unchanged just isn't plausible.

I never had any mechanics for the historical system, largely because I never needed them. It was based on the idea of individuals having a natural talent with some particular kind of magic, variable in both breadth and power: people who were both broad and powerful were vanishingly rare.

Using a quality that's mechanically analogous to Divine Favour, called something like "Magical Talent (<type>)" with variable cost by breadth, the rules for building Learned Prayers for particular effects, and even the rules for just requesting unspecified miracles as generic applications of talent, would make building such a system fairly straightforward. I don't think I'm going to embark on this immediately, but it's an interesting idea.

All this derives, of course, from this book being an extended example in using GURPS Powers alternative abilities. Indeed, a lot of the stuff you've been writing is examples of how to use Powers thoroughly. Which is a very fine thing.

[dataweaver]

johndallman: you might consider looking at Realm-based Syntactic Magic from Thaumatology as the "Magical Talent <type>" side of things, with individual spells that have been mastered (to the point that they can be cast instinctively) being purchased as Alternate Abilities to the most appropriate Realm.