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Old 01-05-2014, 07:54 PM   #1
simply Nathan
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Default [Magic] Resurrection

The spell costs 300 energy to cast. I have a hard time seeing how it's supposed to be done.

Powerstones mostly stop being viable around 20 thaums and my market expectations put them around 10 thaums. A wizard isn't likely to have more than 20 FP+ER at anything less than epic power levels, from what I can tell (IQ and Magery eat up lots of points and wizards -do- tend to have traits that don't directly bolster their magical potency like DX, academic skills, and combat skills).

Ceremonial casting can get you another 100 thaums from spectators, unless they are themselves mages who can then contribute 3 each (unlikely unless you've got a village full of elves).

Apparently the Power Item rules from DF allow you to make a temple-sized house of healing into a Power Item worth about 160 thaums. So I guess there's the totals:
160 from a one-time charging of the temple, 40 from the lead healer's FP, ER, and personal Powerstone (letting him do this roughly once a month), and 100 from assistants/churchgoers if it's a Divine spell rather than my usual assumption of Arcane magic.
Or 300 FP from having 100 elves/non-elf NPCs around who happen to have Magery 0 or better.

Powerstones and Power Items aren't supposed to coexist to my knowledge though. And if you're dipping into DF might as well make a Charged Scroll of Resurrection.

The spell's other limitations, such as its casting time and the penalties for casting it somewhere other than the person's death location, further limit this already nigh-uncastable spell.

So what am I missing here? Aside from the fact that a spell this mind-bendingly rarely known (tail-end of a very long prerequisite chain) and difficult to cast spell should cost a huge sum of money to cast.

Also, why is there no enchantment for making an item to cast this?
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Old 01-05-2014, 09:14 PM   #2
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

Any time the spell description says something about rumors of items, that means it becomes a setting decision.

Also, recovering from death is supposed to be hard.
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Old 01-05-2014, 09:27 PM   #3
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

To start with, any mage in the group who knows the spell at 15+ can contribute as much energy as he wants, which will include 1 powerstone for each. The limit of 3 only applies to mages who know the spell but not at 15, and they don't count towards the spectator limit of 100, either. So it can be done, but it's not easy so the spell should cost a ton per casting.

A Charged Scroll, a la Dungeon Fantasy, would do the trick nicely, too.
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Old 01-05-2014, 10:19 PM   #4
simply Nathan
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Any time the spell description says something about rumors of items, that means it becomes a setting decision.
The existence of Craft Spirits is also a setting decision, that doesn't stop them from giving it an energy cost.

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Also, recovering from death is supposed to be hard.
That I can agree with, at least. Better this than a revolving door afterlife I guess.

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Originally Posted by cbower View Post
To start with, any mage in the group who knows the spell at 15+ can contribute as much energy as he wants, which will include 1 powerstone for each.
It's a difficult spell to learn though, as outside of Dungeon Fantasy Magery 3 is usually the highest and rarest level, it's got a long prerequisite chain, and not every Magery 3 wizard is even going to go into healing in the same way that not all the Magery 2 wizards become enchanters.

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Originally Posted by cbower View Post
and they don't count towards the spectator limit of 100, either.
[/QUOTE]

Well now it suddenly sounds doable. Crazy difficult, but possible for groups that aren't elves/unicorns/pixies.
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Old 01-06-2014, 12:29 AM   #5
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

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Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans View Post
Well now it suddenly sounds doable.
There's a Jewish hospital in Tredroy that does Resurrrections in this way, and for princely sums, too.
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Old 01-06-2014, 02:00 AM   #6
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

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Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans View Post
Also, why is there no enchantment for making an item to cast this?
Because enchanting any such item by conventional means would take so long empires would rise and fall as you continued to chug away at it. Although there's always a Great Wish.
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Old 01-06-2014, 03:09 AM   #7
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

There's also meditative magic (GURPS Fantasy). A hermit on the mountain might meditate for years and then, when called up, descend from the mountain to raise the worthy dead back to life. And there's points-for-energy from GURPS Thaumatology, where the caster sacrifices something from himself to make the magic work. Resurrection is a bargain, there, for a mere 12 points. Personally, I think Resurrection should cost 600 energy, bringing it closer to the 25-point cost of Extra Life.
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Old 01-06-2014, 05:03 AM   #8
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

And also Mass Magic in GT:Urban Magic p.25.
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Old 01-06-2014, 07:04 AM   #9
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
There's also meditative magic (GURPS Fantasy). A hermit on the mountain might meditate for years and then, when called up, descend from the mountain to raise the worthy dead back to life. And there's points-for-energy from GURPS Thaumatology, where the caster sacrifices something from himself to make the magic work. Resurrection is a bargain, there, for a mere 12 points. Personally, I think Resurrection should cost 600 energy, bringing it closer to the 25-point cost of Extra Life.
Except that you're resurrecting another, not yourself. I would compare it to the cost of buying Extra Life on an Ally.
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Old 01-06-2014, 08:34 AM   #10
simply Nathan
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Default Re: [Magic] Resurrection

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
Personally, I think Resurrection should cost 600 energy, bringing it closer to the 25-point cost of Extra Life.
And I think Extra Life should cost closer to 5-10 points than 25.

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Originally Posted by roguebfl View Post
Power Investiture counts as Margery for this Purpose too. and is very likely if you casting in a Temple. Especially a High Temple rather than some rural temple.
The assumptions in Magic are that this is being done by wizards, not by clerics. Getting together a bunch of people with Power Investiture is harder than getting together a bunch of people with Magery, especially in settings where the former does not exist. And people with both traits, who could help meaningfully with either casting, are vanishingly rare.

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And that limit of 3 is only if they don't know the spell a less than 15. If they know the spell at 15+ they like the main caster they are not limited.
This is a spell with a long prerequisite chain including the highest level of Magery for wizards, and -usually- requires a high level of Power Investiture for clerics (though GMs can be as arbitrary as they want about this as part of the latter trait's design). So you're going to have a lot more people with Magery or Power Investiture and don't know the spell who can contribute 3 energy rather than those that know the spell at 15+ and can give it their all.

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20 Acolytes provided 3 each plus 80 lay member of the congratulation is 140, nearly half way there.
5 Priest priests provided 20 each brings us to 240
1 High priest provided 40 and leading the circle gives use 280
What kind of city is going to have that many clergymen? Probably a lot bigger than any fantasy settlement I've run into. I'm used to a "big city" having about 1,000 people and most villages having <200 including adventurers at the inn, each settlement divided from the next by several days of travel through untamed monster-infested wilderness.



And as an aside, spell-casting clerics are one of the D&Disms I wanted to break away from which helped me get into GURPS (more so than class-and-level characters). Your demonstrations work as well for "Archmage" and "Wizard" as they do for "High Priest" and "Priest".

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Paut is probably the big one. A Mage can drink enough Paut in a day to temporarily (5 minutes) raise his FP by 6xST. Think of it as like chugging a 2 liter at 1 ounce per pt.
I thought Paut was a potion for restoring FP after it has been spent on magic...
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