Magic as powers: learning by example

[johndallman]

So, I want to design a sleep spell as a power. A bit of searching found me this, which is a good start, but only a start.

The Affliction has been enhanced with the incapacitating condition Sleep, see B.428 for details. But there is no description of Sleep as a condition there. One could argue that you have fallen asleep as per Drowsy, but that's an argument, rather than a clear reading. It doesn't seem to have been errata'ed.

OK, so if we don't have that, and the sleep's duration defaults to the Affliction duration, that isn't very long, a minute per point of failure on the HT roll. So making it last longer is attractive for some kinds of work - I'm thinking about a magical burglar who wants to be able to put guard dogs to sleep, and leave them to wake up a while later. Killing them would be easy, but makes it obvious that there's been an intruder.

So, Extended Duration, B.105? That has limits on what it can be applied to, which implicitly include Affliction, but leave it out of the explicit list.

I'm feeling that this is coming apart on me; am I missing something?

[lexington]

Originally Posted by johndallman

So, I want to design a sleep spell as a power. A bit of searching found me this, which is a good start, but only a start.

The Affliction has been enhanced with the incapacitating condition Sleep, see B.428 for details. But there is no description of Sleep as a condition there. One could argue that you have fallen asleep as per Drowsy, but that's an argument, rather than a clear reading. It doesn't seem to have been errata'ed.

OK, so if we don't have that, and the sleep's duration defaults to the Affliction duration, that isn't very long, a minute per point of failure on the HT roll. So making it last longer is attractive for some kinds of work - I'm thinking about a magical burglar who wants to be able to put guard dogs to sleep, and leave them to wake up a while later. Killing them would be easy, but makes it obvious that there's been an intruder.

So, Extended Duration, B.105? That has limits on what it can be applied to, which implicitly include Affliction, but leave it out of the explicit list.

I'm feeling that this is coming apart on me; am I missing something?

Sleep is probably a typo, they mean Unconsciousness on 429.

Why would you assume Extended Duration can't be applied to Affliction? In fact it lists sleeping gas as an example, something that can only be built with an Affliction.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by lexington

Why would you assume Extended Duration can't be applied to Affliction?

In Horror, they explicitly use it with Affliction.

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by lexington

Sleep is probably a typo, they mean Unconsciousness on 429.

Not so fast. I thought as much as well, but the Basic pg. 36 breakdown of incapacitating afflictions lists Sleep, +150%, as a valid form of incapacitation.

Oddly, Powers pg. 143 has a sample Sleep power that does use Unconsciousness, +200%—but elsewhere in the book, it references the Sleep condition. Hard to Subdue gives a bonus to resisting afflictions with the Sleep modifier (pg. 169); afflictions are referred to as potentially causing sleep (pg. 7); the "Powering Up" section of the Affliction discussion in Powers also differentiates between Sleep afflictions and Unconsciousness afflictions (pg. 41); "Once on, Stays on" states that it doesn't end with Sleep or Unconsciousness (pg. 109).

So there does seem to be a distinction between the two conditions. There just isn't much of a description of what the distinction is.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by lexington

Sleep is probably a typo, they mean Unconsciousness on 429.

B.36 lists Sleep, +150% and Unconsciousness, +200% as separate enhancements on Affliction, so it seems more than a typo.

Originally Posted by lexington

Why would you assume Extended Duration can't be applied to Affliction?

Originally Posted by B.105

To add Extended Duration to an attack, the attack must either have Aura, Persistent, or Wall, or specifically allow this enhancement. You can also add Extended Duration to any advantage that has the Ranged enhancement (p. 107).

The Affliction example in the spell build I linked has none of these.

Yes, I am looking closely at the wording of the rules. This is a piece of GURPS I don't know well. The number of people who advocate magic as powers on these forums had given me the impression that this stuff was better established.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

Not so fast. I thought as much as well, but the Basic pg. 36 breakdown of incapacitating afflictions lists Sleep, +150%, as a valid form of incapacitation.

Oddly, Powers pg. 143 has a sample Sleep power that does use Unconsciousness, +200%—but elsewhere in the book, it references the Sleep condition. Hard to Subdue gives a bonus to resisting afflictions with the Sleep modifier (pg. 169); afflictions are referred to as potentially causing sleep (pg. 7); the "Powering Up" section of the Affliction discussion in Powers also differentiates between Sleep afflictions and Unconsciousness afflictions (pg. 41); "Once on, Stays on" states that it doesn't end with Sleep or Unconsciousness (pg. 109).

So there does seem to be a distinction between the two conditions. There just isn't much of a description of what the distinction is.

My understanding is that they're basically the same, except that when Asleep, the character can be woken up by his comrades or by normal stimulus, but when Unconscious he remains that way until the end of the duration. Then again, I can't find that stated explicitly in Basic, and I'm already down by 3 FP for missed sleep myself... maybe I was thinking of the Sleep spell (which does state that the character can be awakened).

[munin]

Both Sleep and Unconsciousness mean you are dead to the world for the duration of the affliction (although someone sleeping may dream, which might be useful to them or others in some settings). The main difference is what happens after the duration. With Sleep, you might immediately wake up if you weren't previously in need of sleep, or you may continue sleeping if you are; in addition, after the duration you can be woken normally (by noise, someone shaking you, etc.). With Unconsciousness, after the duration you are subject to Recovering From Unconsciousness (p. B423), which mean a minimum of 15 minutes without intervention or the Recovery advantage.

The Sleep ability in Psionic Powers (p. 49) is helpful for comparing the difference between sleep and unconsciousness.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Yes, I am looking closely at the wording of the rules. This is a piece of GURPS I don't know well. The number of people who advocate magic as powers on these forums had given me the impression that this stuff was better established.

A very, very close reading of the rules will uncover this sentence: "The GM way wish to forbid [Permanent Extended Duration] on Afflictions with the Advantage modifier" so even in Basic you can tell that they're meant to go together. The whole rest of that section is incredibly bizarre.

No idea what happened with Sleep, though.

In any event you ran into two ambiguities in your first outing at this, that's bad luck really since they are uncommon.

[Refplace]

I teat Unconscious as a more severe form then being asleep.
Basic p423 says recovering from unconsciousness takes 15 minutes unless you take damage then you may wake up.
Sleep is usually just going to take a loud noise or someone shaking you.

[Flyndaran]

There are magic spells and rituals that can contact and interact with those asleep. And those asleep can dream-walk etc. that I would assume would be impossible if unconscious.