Magery 3 in a TL 3 game universe

[hal]

Hello Folks,
As promised in another thread, I thought I'd open this thread up to discuss the effects on life for a player character who takes Magery 3 in a game universe where Magery 3 is not a common affair.

Ok, let's presume for the sake of argument, that your character is a freeman (ie born to parents with status 0 but less than 2). Let's further suppose that the "kingdom" your character belongs in, does not have magical colleges - but uses a Master/Apprentice style of teaching. In other words, the only spells your character can gain, are those that your master knows, and once you are freed from being an Apprentice, the only spells you can gain afterwards are those you can teach yourself via books, or can hire a spell caster to teach (ie 200 hours of teaching with reference materials and the like).

Now, Look at all of those spells that require Magery 3 before they can be learned and cast.

What do you think would happen to your character if word got out that you had magery 3? Who would pursue you? Why would you be pursued? Who might your enemies be strictly because you have magery 3? Who might your friends be?

How difficult might it be to amass more Magery 3 level spells if the only way to learn them, is if you have magery 3? Put another way? The only TEACHERS you can find, will be those with Magery 3.

Gimmicks: Perhaps Magery 2 is your normal magery, but you also have 1 level of Healing College Magery (making you effectively Magery 3 in Healing magic college spells, but magery 2 in all others)?

The purpose of this thread in general, is to get creative juices flowing more in the vein of "World building" than anything else. It is designed to get you (the reader) to think "what if I were that character, and I had to live in that game universe like I do in reality?"

Next question to consider: what would happen if instead of being a freeman, you were a Serf? Then, what happens if you're noble born instead of either a serf or freeman?

Just a thought... :)

[RyanW]

Any spell that exists must be in some way learnable without a teacher or text. After all, who taught that teacher, and who taught his teacher? Someone had to be the first one to learn it. Such a character might be inventing or rediscovering magic that no one else can perform.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Any spell that exists must be in some way learnable without a teacher or text. After all, who taught that teacher, and who taught his teacher? Someone had to be the first one to learn it. Such a character might be inventing or rediscovering magic that no one else can perform.

Unless, of course, the spells are taught by something non-human or simply exist from a pre-lapsarian era with tools unavailable to modern man.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Unless, of course, the spells are taught by something non-human or simply exist from a pre-lapsarian era with tools unavailable to modern man.

That's possible too, but it means any spell that isn't known by an active wizard or recorded in a recoverable record doesn't exist as anything more than an archeological oddity, and without a guild or college structure, likely more spells make that transition every time an accomplished wizard dies or a library roof leaks.

[edk926]

The Death Spells are Magery 3 if you have that supplement.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by edk926

The Death Spells are Magery 3 if you have that supplement.

Killing people is easy. You don't need to go out of your way to find people who can kill someone.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by RyanW

That's possible too, but it means any spell that isn't known by an active wizard or recorded in a recoverable record doesn't exist as anything more than an archeological oddity, and without a guild or college structure, likely more spells make that transition every time an accomplished wizard dies or a library roof leaks.

That would be quite a flavour for a setting, wouldn't it? A struggle to preserve knowledge against the encroaching darkness?

[weby]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Any spell that exists must be in some way learnable without a teacher or text. After all, who taught that teacher, and who taught his teacher? Someone had to be the first one to learn it. Such a character might be inventing or rediscovering magic that no one else can perform.

Well, one could use invention rules for making new magic spells. So if they are not normally available it may be possible to create them.

I personally envision that all the spells were basically invented with invention rules and then spread.

Bugs in spell invention can be specially "interesting"

[hal]

Sorry for the delay in response. Two 12 hour work days plus a power outage will do that... ;)

Ok, having identified some of the issues involved with magery 3 spells, and the inherent issues of spell research/study etc. - let's place the show on a different foot as it were. To wit:

What would you do to attain limited immortality of you were a status 4 individual? How about status 7? What would you do if you couldn't get your hands on a magery 3 spell caster but your worst enemy did?

Now, for purposes of this thread, and the fact that we've done little to define the society involved so as to keep this thread generally generic - using only those spells listed in GURPS MAGIC for 4e, identify how mages would (absent divine methods!) determine who has magery at all, and how they'd go about determining the magery potential?

For example, in a pitch black environment, and having a magic item enchanted with CONTINUAL MAGE LIGHT allows those with magery to see - and any test involving vision in a dark room will potentially identify those with some level of magery. But how to identify those with magery 3 might be a bit more difficult.

Now, absent wild magic, where unlearned spells may be cast and learned, if the character has all of the requisite spells AND a free character point to memorize the wildly cast spell - what would be required (in your opinion based on the rules) to research any of the existing spells with a requisite magery 3, that the potential student wishes to learn, absent any books or teachers?

The idea here, is to explore the ramifications of GURPS MAGIC not only for the players per se, but upon the game world if you want to be a world builder?

If magery 3 characters are 1 in 10,000 people, and IQ 12+ is such that only 40% of the magery 3 population are that smart - what effect might that have on society?

[tshiggins]

Have you paid attention to what people have posted?

The existence of people with Magery 3 does not matter. You've asked the wrong question.

The questions that matter:
1. What spells or abilities exist in the setting?
2. How many people have those spells or abilities?
3. How many people know those spells or abilities exist?
4. How many people can find those who have those spells or abilities?

Once you've answered those questions, you can start to discuss ramifications, but not before then.