GURPS Sorcery: Protection and Warning Spells

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Overheat

Catch Missile does not seem to list a weight limit for what you can catch. Is it your BL because of the parrying heavy weapons rules on B376? I would assume so, but axes can be pretty heavy!

It's just like a normal parry - I see no exemption for parrying heavy weapons- so yeah, that's how I read it.

[GM Joe]

Talking about the naming convention for this volume...

Reading the PDF while in the waiting room at the car dealership brought to mind the 80s "D&D is evil" moral panic and how reading something with "SORCERY" in large letters on the cover would have been...suspect back then.

But "Thaumatology"? No problem...no one would have known what that word meant. :)

[Humabout]

More PK power builds? YES PLEASE! I just wish RPM still got some loving support of this nature. I guess I can only hope for a future PK release for that line. He has been a touch busy lately, after all...

[ghezbora]

Utter Dome:

. . . Jet and Missile spells that hit the dome simply dissipate . . .

Static (Magic; Area effect, 2 yards; Only around the border . . .)

Isn't this not how Static works? Per Kromm here

From the viewpoint of Static, a psychokinetically impelled rock, a Stone Missile spell, and Og the Caveman hurling a chunk of mountain at you are all just "rock."

There are two exceptions where Static will make a difference against an Innate Attack:

If the Innate Attack is generated within the target – as is usual for things that bypass DR by virtue of Malediction or Sense-Based – then Static blocks it.

If the user of the Innate Attack is standing within the zone of Static enhanced with Area Effect, then Static prevents the attack from being generated in the first place.

Put another way, Static (Power Source) [30] (Powers, p. 98) is identical to Immunity to Power Source [30] (p. B81); it's just that Static has some special verbiage for powers and allows some special modifiers. Two quotes are relevant:

Resistant does not protect against effects that Damage Resistance or Protected Sense either stop or provide a HT bonus to resist.

Static only interferes with attempts to affect you or your personal equipment directly. For instance, if you had Static (Psi), a psychokinetic couldn’t snatch your gun away or levitate you . . . but he could take control of a nearby sword and hit you with it, or drop a ton of rocks on your head.

The upshot is that if the effect would interact with DR before reaching you and/or your gear, these traits aren't relevant; the sequence there is "effect is generated locally, effect is projected to remote target, effect encounters physical shielding." If the effect affects you and/or your gear wholesale, these traits are relevant; the sequence there is "effect is generated on remote target, effect encounters resistance." Just about all abilities of powers are in the second category, and stopped by Static/Immunity, but unmodified Innate Attack and Affliction are exceptions because the specific defense against them is Damage Resistance.

He's talking about powers, but regular spell v. missile spell usually have the same mechanical differences as power-based malediction v. innate attack. And if you're countering a sorcery-based spell, then it is an innate attack.

[Bruno]

The normal behavior: "If the user of the Innate Attack is standing within the zone of Static enhanced with Area Effect, then Static prevents the attack from being generated in the first place. "

The behavior of Utter Dome: If you are in the Dome, and you generate your Innate attack, it WORKS.

If I'm in the Dome, and you are in the Dome, we can fireball each other all day long or until charcoal.

[Crystalline_Entity]

I bought this a couple of days ago and have had chance to digest it. I like it. My initial reaction was "Why Protection and Warning?" but having looked at it, it covers a wide variety of different types of spells, and that's useful material for generating your own, so I'm pleased with that decision.

For spells such as Armor and Shield and the Resist X spells, do they stack? Can a character cast multiple "Armor" spells on someone and continue to build up their DR? I can't seem to find anything about this in the description of Affliction in the Basic Set.

A couple of things I thought were particularly interesting:

• The use of Persistent to give a duration to advantages, this never occurred to me
• The cost of Resist Acid - I was surprised that something I'd considered a niche spell was so expensive. Having read it, it makes perfect sense, and if I'd created the spell myself I'd have forgotten to protect against ingested acids.

Extra kudos for including the spells from Death Spells too. I'd be interested in further volumes in this series.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

For spells such as Armor and Shield and the Resist X spells, do they stack? Can a character cast multiple "Armor" spells on someone and continue to build up their DR?

Nope. See the description of Buffs on p. 9 of GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery -- "Specific benefits from Buff spells do not 'stack'; always use the largest or best benefit."

Extra kudos for including the spells from Death Spells too. I'd be interested in further volumes in this series.

Thanks! We definitely want to make more if this one sells well!

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

If we did want stackable buffs what changes would need t be made?

You would at least need to add Cumulative to the Afflictions but its a scary munchkin zone you would be headed into.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Refplace

You would at least need to add Cumulative to the Afflictions but its a scary munchkin zone you would be headed into.

Quoted for truth, especially the bold part.

The Cumulative enhancement for Affliction is something that can break your game if you aren't careful. In fact, it would be reasonable to think of it as a +400% version of Cosmic -- "Can stack with itself" -- and treat it with commensurate trepidation.

Otherwise, even a single level of a spell can grant theoretically unlimited power. Armor 1 + Cumulative would grant someone +2 DR per second spent granting it, with no upper limit other than the sorcerer's FP pool. Sorcerers will be reluctant to ever buy more than level 1 in a Buff spell, unless subsequent levels are very cheap, since the potential power in the +40-point version is so much higher.

And in case it isn't obvious . . . if your campaign allows Alternative Rituals, Energy Reserve (Magical), Regeneration (Very Fast; Fatigue Only), or any similar ways of avoiding that 1 FP cost, you're basically allowing the PCs to achieve temporary demigodhood through Buffs.

[Refplace]

Just bought and read it.
A great job of catching some of the harder spells to build as Powers and giving builds for them.
There really isnt a spell here I didnt like.
Mystic Mist, Sense Observation, and Nightengale probably my favorites.
I like the Internal Defenses from BioTech being listed and I liked the DR Thresholds.
Building Immunity as "Enough DR to cover any threat in the campaign" is something talked about often enough on the forums, nice to see it in print.