Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-05-2012, 10:25 AM   #1
Cheomesh
 
Cheomesh's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: LP City, Maryland
Default My group's Magic system - help?

More or less skirted around this with the current campaign, as none of my players were casters. Instead, I kept magic as a plot item - the wizard casts what he casts because he can. But I have a caster now so he and I spent the better part of 4 hours figuring out how we wanted to do it.

Essentially, we're using Ritual Magic on B242, powered by Threshold Limits from Thaumatology. We have decided that the non-spell pre-req's add a penalty equal to -1 per 10 points they are worth. Magery, we deduced, adds a bonus to your College skills like a talant, as also mentioned in Thaumatology.

We have taken the suggestion from Rev. Pee Kitty in "Upgrading the Magic System" and dropped spells from Hard to Average techniques and we were going to remove the defaults to erase some of the abuses when we came up with another idea:

All colleges default to their core skill at -6, with a hard cap of 9, like in a Move and Attack. So if you have Thaumatology 12, you have the college at 6 and Thaumatology 16 only gets you 9, just like Thaumatology 18, 19 or 20. Not innovative I think, but we wanted to put it before you guys for review; you guys are pretty good at knowing (collectively) everything in GURPS. The spells are Average techniques that default to the college at a level equal to the college skill, less pre-req's.

Speaking of which we were going to use the Pre-req count in Thaumatology, but that doesn't take into account additionals (-1 / 10 point value for non spells). Is that covered anywhere?

Also, does Magery add to IQ -in addition to- adding to the core skill when learning a College under the Ritual system? I know it adds to IQ when learning Thaumatology, so we were left confused.

Any answers are great, especially if you've done something similar before.

M.
Cheomesh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2012, 10:53 AM   #2
vierasmarius
 
vierasmarius's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
Default Re: My group's Magic system - help?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheomesh View Post
All colleges default to their core skill at -6, with a hard cap of 9, like in a Move and Attack. So if you have Thaumatology 12, you have the college at 6 and Thaumatology 16 only gets you 9, just like Thaumatology 18, 19 or 20. Not innovative I think, but we wanted to put it before you guys for review; you guys are pretty good at knowing (collectively) everything in GURPS. The spells are Average techniques that default to the college at a level equal to the college skill, less pre-req's.
Sounds reasonable. I might make the cap 9+Magery, to give those with natural talent an edge there.

Quote:
Also, does Magery add to IQ -in addition to- adding to the core skill when learning a College under the Ritual system? I know it adds to IQ when learning Thaumatology, so we were left confused.
Only add it once - there's no "double-dipping" with Talents.
vierasmarius is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2012, 11:17 AM   #3
Cheomesh
 
Cheomesh's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: LP City, Maryland
Default Re: My group's Magic system - help?

Quote:
Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
Sounds reasonable. I might make the cap 9+Magery, to give those with natural talent an edge there.
I checked my notes; I -think- we decided against that, but I might be mistaken and mis-wrote something. I'll run it by him but I do like the sound of that. It's a high mana world so pretty much anyone can cast spells; an edge might be good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
Only add it once - there's no "double-dipping" with Talents.
So it overrides the entry in the skill section for Thaumatology in Basic?

M.
Cheomesh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2012, 11:28 AM   #4
vierasmarius
 
vierasmarius's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
Default Re: My group's Magic system - help?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheomesh View Post
So it overrides the entry in the skill section for Thaumatology in Basic?
No, Thaumatology still gains the benefit from Magery. Think of it not as +1 level in X skills, but as +1 IQ for the purpose of X skills. A character with IQ 14 and Magery 0 spends 8 points to get Thaumatology at IQ, thus getting his College skills at an effective default of IQ-6. If he instead has Magery 2, his Thaumatology is still IQ+0 [8] and his College skills are still IQ-6, but his effective IQ for those skills is 16, giving skill levels of 16 and 10 respectively. So both skills are getting the benefit of Magery, but none of them are "double-dipping".
vierasmarius is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2012, 12:16 PM   #5
Dragondog
Never Been Pretty
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Default Re: My group's Magic system - help?

Quote:
Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
No, Thaumatology still gains the benefit from Magery. Think of it not as +1 level in X skills, but as +1 IQ for the purpose of X skills. A character with IQ 14 and Magery 0 spends 8 points to get Thaumatology at IQ, thus getting his College skills at an effective default of IQ-6. If he instead has Magery 2, his Thaumatology is still IQ+0 [8] and his College skills are still IQ-6, but his effective IQ for those skills is 16, giving skill levels of 16 and 10 respectively. So both skills are getting the benefit of Magery, but none of them are "double-dipping".
Actually, in the second case he has Thaumatology at IQ+2 [8], including the +2 bonus from Magery. As they always list IQ+ X in comparison to standard IQ.

The Magery entry in the Thaumatology skill effectively says that Magery is a talent for Thaumatology. There is no double-dipping.
Dragondog is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2012, 12:27 PM   #6
vierasmarius
 
vierasmarius's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
Default Re: My group's Magic system - help?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragondog View Post
Actually, in the second case he has Thaumatology at IQ+2 [8], including the +2 bonus from Magery. As they always list IQ+ X in comparison to standard IQ.
Well, however you record it, the point is that the bonus is not doubled by being applied to both the core skill and the default.
vierasmarius is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-08-2012, 08:39 AM   #7
Cheomesh
 
Cheomesh's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: LP City, Maryland
Default Re: My group's Magic system - help?

Has anyone tried / had luck with a scaled side effect table to Threshold? HP / FP have things that happen to you when you hit 1/3; wondered if anyone tried that with Threshold. FREX once you're over 1/3, something malign begins to happen, and then you go over the edge...

M.
Cheomesh is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:44 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.