[Sorcery] is too expensive(?) for 150 pt game

[rsqrdroberts]

Hi. I was fairly excited when GURPS: Thaumatology: Sorcery first came out. I still like the basic idea, but I'm less enthusiastic about how it actually works out for low to mid power games.

First off, there is a great review of the system at https://blindmapmaker.wordpress.com/...ology-sorcery/

The one negative gist of the review is that combat spells are MUCH, MUCH cheaper than affect spells, e.g. Sunbolt vs. No-Smell.

It turns out that for my game with 150 pt starting characters, a starting mage who wants to learn **just** No-Smell would have to invest 70 pts in Sorcerous Empowerment, and then another 13 points for No-Smell. That's 83 points for one spell. That is way too expensive for a 150 pt game. Since the cost of Invisibility would come out to about the same order of magnitude as No-Smell that makes my translation of the Bandit Mage (http://gurpswiki.wikidot.com/m:bandit-mage) unworkable.

With the regular Magic system I can currently get Invisibility with Magery 2 along with 2 pts in each of 5 Light&Dark for a total of 35 pts, which is still pretty high, but doable.

I've tried adding Costs Fatigue (B111), but that is only -5% per FP. I'm normally not going to go beyond 5 FP per spell. I also considered Skills for Everyone (Powers 162), which doesn't even add a power cost modifier at all (why?).

Does anyone have any ideas about how to use Sorcery in a 150 - 200 point fantasy game?

[Nosforontu]

My biggest piece of advice would probably be to use a fair amount of Hard Core Improvisation. Remember with 70 points burned on your magery with 2 concentraion actions, 3 fatigue and a Will + Talent +/-modifiers you can actually cast any "spell" in the game world whose final value is 70 points or less.

Additionally you can also cast using moderate improvisation for any spell that costs 7 points or less allowing for a wide variety of magical perk level spells that might give you a nice situational skill modifier.

[Peter Knutsen]

You can - probably - boost the cost of attack spells by using the UB rules. I think the UB rules are in GURPS Powers or something. They charge an UB on any Innate Attack (or DR, IIRC) that's on par with the most powerful handheld available weapons at the TL, and a higher UB for combat abilities that exceed what's available.

You could try doing something similar with mobility-enhancing powers, charge an UB for them if they exceed certain thresholds.

But at modern'ish TLs that won't (and shouldn't) do anything to low-level Innate Attacks nor to modest amounts of DR.

[Emerald Cat]

Using Multiplicative Modifiers from GURPS: Powers may make it easier to bring down the point cost of powerful spells through limitations.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Using Multiplicative Modifiers from GURPS: Powers may make it easier to bring down the point cost of powerful spells through limitations.

I would just like to second this. Multiplicative Modifiers are wonderful, especially when used with Sorcery. I've tested it out a couple of times.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Using Multiplicative Modifiers from GURPS: Powers may make it easier to bring down the point cost of powerful spells through limitations.

That might do wonders. The -80% floor on total discount causes a lot of problems because it limits how much magical powers can be gimped.

Hero System uses something a bit like multiplicative, but the only writeup I've seen for Hero that had a lot of "Limitations" piled on actually ended up not reducing the cost much. I think to about 5% of total, equivalent to a -95% Limitation in GURPS. And that ws in exchange for a huge pile of big gimps to the base trait.

It may well be the case that it'll work better in GURPS, though, and actually do the job that needs to be done, and do it well enough to justify the added complication (whereas Hero Systems' way of handling its "Enhancements" and "Limiations" seems to me to not be justified).

[weby]

Basically the example you give about 83 points for a spell is basically the same as someone using the normal magery system and saying:
"Standard magic is too expensive for a 150 point game. I need IQ 13+, magery 3 and 21 prerequisite spells just to get Suspend time. That costs 60 for IQ, 35 for magery and 22 points to get the spell for a total of 117 points and that is too much in 150 points."

Obviously in a 150 point game using the standard system you would in reality not chose spells requiring IQ 13, magery 3 and so many prequisite spells. Instead you would chose "ok, I have a total of X points leftover after all other stuff that I must have to use on magic". This might be something like IQ 12 for 40 points, magery 2 or 3 for 25/35 points and 10-15 points in spells+directed spell skill.

The same thing for sorcery: You first select what you want to spend and then you will look at what you get for that budget.

Though it is true that some of the effects are indeed very expensive and some may be seen as silly expensive, most of the spells I built from the inspiration in GURPS magic turned out about 30-40 points with the more expensive ones like teleport and great haste being 50-90.

So a fairly good spell capacity can be gotten with say 40-50 points in sorcery and few maximally 40-50 point spells at 1-10 points each along with maybe 20-40 points on raised will and directed spell skill(and maybe thaumatology) and you are in basically the same 75-90 point budget as the standard mage, but you can do hardcore improvisation! You can also sling attack spells all day if needed by being obvious about it if the GM allows alternate rituals. But even without alternate rituals you can still cast a lot more than the standard system mage that can blow all their FP in 1-2 spells.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by weby

Basically the example you give about 83 points for a spell is basically the same as someone using the normal magery system and saying:
"Standard magic is too expensive for a 150 point game. I need IQ 13+, magery 3 and 21 prerequisite spells just to get Suspend time.

I think you're basically right here, weby, but it might be worth pointing out that the spell the OP is looking for is hardly Suspend Time - it's no-smell. Not really an unreasonable thing to expect from a 150pt sorcerer.

As I said, though, I basically agree with the rest of what you've said, in principle.

[Varyon]

RAW, I think you'll pretty much have to accept that many spells are extremely expensive, and either go with a different character concept or spend a lot more of your point budget on spells than you'd anticipated. Note, however, that with Improvisation (particularly Hardcore Improvisation) a sorceror with Sorcerous Empowerment 6 [70] can manage some pretty serious improvised spells. Sure, your Type IV Bandit Mage needs Sorcery 5 [60] for Invisibility (built as Affliction: Invisibility (Light Encumbrance +20%), with Fixed Duration and Extended Duration for 30 minutes, and the standard increased 1/2D, No Signature, and Sorcery modifiers, for a total cost of [60]), then another [12] to buy that as a Known Spell. That's slightly under half his entire budget, so he'll need a more modest IQ (fortunately, IQ isn't as important for Sorcery as it is for Standard Magic). DX 11 [20], IQ 12 [40], Will 14 [10], First Aid 14 [4], and Spear 12 [4] puts him right at his point limit, although that's before Disadvantages like Social Stigma come into play. Some of his lesser spells he can probably squeeze into his budget as known spells, some of them he can just straight-up Improvise (making an object glow, as for Continual Light, could arguably be something akin to an Accessory Perk), and the rest he can manage through Hardcore Improvisation, particularly with that high Will of his. Drop IQ a bit and he can fit some more in. Note also that, unless I'm mistaken, the Invisibility build above is actually better than the Invisibility spell, as it isn't lost upon attacking (you could drop its price by including such a Limitation, however). Of course, you don't have to use Invisibility - giving your Bandit some Stealth and going with Chameleon 5 (rendering him functionally invisible when standing still, and still tough to find when moving) means you only need Sorcery 3 [40] and [7] in Chameleon. Obscure 5 (built with Defensive and Stealthy) will make him and those nearby extremely difficult to locate, will only require Sorcery 3 [40] to have as a Known Spell (full cost is [40], so it's [8] as a known spell), and can be scaled up (each additional level of Obscure is +[5] to full cost).

If you're willing to step away from RAW, I've previously suggested using the price of Sorcery before Limitations to set which Known Spells you can have. In this case, you could limit your bandit mage's Sorcery enough to get it down to a manageable cost, and still pick up Invisibility for [12], so long as you have the needed 5 levels of Sorcery. A more RAW version of that means you can have Invisibility as a Known Spell, but you pay full cost for it and have Sorcery as an Alternative Ability to it, rather than the other way around. The non-RAW version can save you a lot of points, the semi-RAW version can at least save you a few.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Joe

it might be worth pointing out that the spell the OP is looking for is hardly Suspend Time - it's no-smell. Not really an unreasonable thing to expect from a 150pt sorcerer.

This is more an issue with Obscure than with Sorcery, of course. It would probably be more appropriate if Obscure's cost was based on the sense involved. Offhand, I'd say Vision should be [2]/level, Hearing maybe [1.5]/level, and Taste/Smell and Touch (including Vibration Sense) maybe [1]/level. Using No-Smell as the basis, this would cause the following price structure:
No-Sight [63]
No-Sound [52]
No-Smell [40]
No-Feel [40]