GURPS Magic Flavor

[doulos05]

OK, probably been asked before but I Crit failed my Research roll. What is the flavor of the default magic system described in Basic Set and Magic (with no options). I'm trying to get a feel for what fantasy books/styles have informed it's creation and what kind of power levels, etc, it gravitates to. Campaign assumptions I'm making are Banestorm with 160 point characters. What are my mages going to look like at that point level power-wise (assume they aren't terrible munchkins but they do understand the basics of point optimization. What about after a bit of adventuring (175, 200, and more)? I ask because I've always either run SF games or used magic as powers but I'm curious about what I'm missing.

[Michael Cule]

Well, your magicians at 160 points (and why 160? Particularly? 150 is the default) will not be fragile flowers but they won't be supermen either. They can afford to have a good basis of useful things they can do for the party, healing, finding things, mind reading perhaps and maybe one good offensive spell. But there will be plenty of things that they still want to learn and lots of room to improve spells to levels that make them very much easier to cast.

As they get more knowledge they get more flexible but increases in power depend more on what sort of stored energy you allow them to acquire. It's unlikely that PC wizards will want to go down the long boring lonely career path of the professional enchanter but they may well make a few nice things for themselves.

Even at the highest levels, most GURPS Wizards are still human beings. Necromancers who decide to become liches excepted.

[doulos05]

No particular reason for 160, I just like it better than 150. The extra points seem to go to background skills for most of my PCs anyway. The energy storage is kinda my biggest question mark. I'm not sure exactly what to expect in terms of power levels there. Assuming they drop as much into powerstones as a front line fighter drops into weapons and armor, what kind of energy capacities are we talking about and how does that translate to the battlefield?

[Refplace]

They could go for the above but some players prefer to focus on one spell and do it really well instead of a large spell list.
Flavor is hard, its more a professional type wizard then a major force or waling cannon.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by doulos05

No particular reason for 160, I just like it better than 150. The extra points seem to go to background skills for most of my PCs anyway. The energy storage is kinda my biggest question mark. I'm not sure exactly what to expect in terms of power levels there. Assuming they drop as much into powerstones as a front line fighter drops into weapons and armor, what kind of energy capacities are we talking about and how does that translate to the battlefield?

Depends on how freely you let them use the system; high Wealth and lots of Signature Gear can go a long way in buying Powerstones. Generally, at that point level, most wizards seem to end up with low-double-figure energy sources, allowing them to roughly double or triple capacity, but a properly min-maxed character could significantly exceed that.

How it translates depends on build. Most battle mages will probably go with standard Missile spells - Fireball and so on - so more magic just means more fireballs. A very focused character can attempt some more spectacular effects with a decent power store, but generally they have long casting times as well as high casting costs.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by doulos05

. Assuming they drop as much into powerstones as a front line fighter drops into weapons and armor, what kind of energy capacities are we talking about and how does that translate to the battlefield?

It won't go far on the battlefield. If the wizard is of average Wealth and spends all $1000 on a Powerstone he gets a 7 pt stone.

The important thing is that it only recharges 1 pt per day. No matter how many stones you have or how big they are that's the usual recharge limit

A 7pt stone is best held as an emergency reserve for unplanned Healings or similar things. An extra 1 pt/day on the battlefield (average) is probably not worth $1000 but saving 1 or even 2 characters might be.

People whoa re serious about casting spells more frequently usually go for Energy Reserve or if their budget is large enough they go for FP Regeneration.

Powerstones might rate ahead of Healing potions in value per $ but a wizard still needs at least one of those to heal himself when he's wounded. Healing spells on himself take a minus equal to the number of HP a wizard has lost.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It won't go far on the battlefield. If the wizard is of average Wealth and spends all $1000 on a Powerstone he gets a 7 pt stone.

The important thing is that it only recharges 1 pt per day. No matter how many stones you have or how big they are that's the usual recharge limit

A 7pt stone is best held as an emergency reserve for unplanned Healings or similar things. An extra 1 pt/day on the battlefield (average) is probably not worth $1000 but saving 1 or even 2 characters might be.

People whoa re serious about casting spells more frequently usually go for Energy Reserve or if their budget is large enough they go for FP Regeneration.

Powerstones might rate ahead of Healing potions in value per $ but a wizard still needs at least one of those to heal himself when he's wounded. Healing spells on himself take a minus equal to the number of HP a wizard has lost.

OK, so it sounds like the smart build is to sink character points into ER (Magic). But I didn't see that on the Battle Mage template in Banestorm so I had forgotten about that advantage. Did it not make that template because of RL timing issues (Didn't Banestorm come out before Powers, which is the first mention of ER I can find in my books?) or was there another reason?

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by doulos05

OK, so it sounds like the smart build is to sink character points into ER (Magic). But I didn't see that on the Battle Mage template in Banestorm so I had forgotten about that advantage. Did it not make that template because of RL timing issues (Didn't Banestorm come out before Powers, which is the first mention of ER I can find in my books?) or was there another reason?

Powers was released (physical print edition) in November'05 (PDF release April '06)
Banestorm was released (both editions) in March'06.

So Powers was released first, but only by a few months, so they were likely in development at the same time, so not too surprising that ER wasn't used in Banestorm.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by doulos05

OK, so it sounds like the smart build is to sink character points into ER (Magic). But I didn't see that on the Battle Mage template in Banestorm so I had forgotten about that advantage. Did it not make that template because of RL timing issues (Didn't Banestorm come out before Powers, which is the first mention of ER I can find in my books?) or was there another reason?

The smart built is to sink 1-6 points into Ally(Familiar) and stick Granted by Familiar -40% on your ER (Magic) and a few other Exotic advantages you might want like extra levels of Margery, Compartmentalized Mind (Spells only) etc