The Food College Bothers Me

[David Johnston2]

It has one effective attack spell, Thirst. I would kind of prefer it if it had a better Hunger spell. Doing one point of Fatigue per second just doesn't do it for me. Maybe a leveled Hunger spell? Hunger can be really debilitating.

Apart from that, the Food College is just so...utilitarian. When I think of magic chefs I think of Circe who could transform men into animals with the food she served, or that movie about the chef who could put her emotions into her food, or the Wicked Queen's "poison" apple that puts Snow White into hibernation.

[AlexanderHowl]

The Food College was probably developed to deal with the problem of adventures running out of provisions. As for 'attack' spells, there are actually four of them. You have Poison Food, Hunger, Thirst, and Foul Water. Hunger is annoying, Poison Food and Foul Water are quite nasty, and Thirst is absolute horrible (4 FP and 1 HP, with two or more castings making the target unable to speak).

[Refplace]

Not all colleges have to be combat useful. I loved the utilitarian spells in that book. Makes sense in a high magic world that spells would be used for more than adventuring.

[Anders]

Note that Create Food allows you to eat through dungeon walls, shackles, etc.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It has one effective attack spell, Thirst. I would kind of prefer it if it had a better Hunger spell. Doing one point of Fatigue per second just doesn't do it for me. Maybe a leveled Hunger spell? Hunger can be really debilitating.

Apart from that, the Food College is just so...utilitarian. When I think of magic chefs I think of Circe who could transform men into animals with the food she served, or that movie about the chef who could put her emotions into her food, or the Wicked Queen's "poison" apple that puts Snow White into hibernation.

I agree with you. It's bland; insipid even.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

It's bland; insipid even.

You should use the Season Spell then.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Apart from that, the Food College is just so...utilitarian.

The Infinite Cabal party had excellent food everywhere they went, via the Essential Food and Mature spells. They liked this college and used it a lot.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

When I think of magic chefs I think of...

... three examples of a spell cast via a "trapped" object. That is, Delay cast on a food item with the trigger condition "when someone" (or someone specific, like Snow White) "eats this food".

Maybe you want to consider "eat this food" obligatory.

If it's more colorful to have a Delay spell that only works on food, then that's easy enough to create and stick under the Food College. Maybe you'd want to knock the energy cost down as compensation for the limited range of trap objects and/or conditions.

(I actually kind of like the flexibility of GURPS Magic, in terms of being able to construct other effects by applying existing spells. You don't need an exactly specific spell detailing all the colorful limitations for each application. It's not as flexible as an improvised system like Syntactic Magic or RPM. But it's a lot better at rewarding clever invention than most of the spell list systems of its era.)

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Anders

Note that Create Food allows you to eat through dungeon walls, shackles, etc.

I've never liked the idea that you can turn a portion of a larger object into food to wear it down. A entire single chain link, fine. The wall? Unless you have the mana to turn the entire wall, and thus the entire dungeon, into food at one go I'm not allowing it.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Not all colleges have to be combat useful. I loved the utilitarian spells in that book. Makes sense in a high magic world that spells would be used for more than adventuring.

The spells in themselves don't bother me. Utilitarian magic certainly has it's place. it's the college that bothers me. I find myself wanting to either see it expanded with more fantastic spells or incorporated into a more expansive college.