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Old 04-22-2021, 05:52 AM   #1
johndallman
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Default [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

Mana Damper [10, 20 or 30] is a supernatural mental advantage. You reduce the local mana level, making it harder or impossible to cast spells. You can never have Magery or cast spells yourself. This advantage first appeared in GURPS Fantasy Folk for 3e, but was revised for 4e.

Mana Enhancer [50 or 100] is likewise a supernatural mental advantage. You increase the local mana level, making it easier to cast spells. You can have Magery, but if you increase the mana level enough, Magery is not necessary for casting spells. This advantage also first appeared in GURPS Fantasy Folk for 3e, and was revised for 4e.

Mana Damper reduces the local mana level by up to three levels, and Mana Enhancer raises it by up to two levels. Both advantages only affect you, and things and people you are carrying by default. Adding a level of Area Effect (+50%) increases the area to your hex; each further level doubles the radius. Making either advantage Switchable is +100%. Selective Area (+20%) combines with Area Effect to let you selectively effect individuals within the area of effect with these advantages, and Ranged (+40%) makes them into powerful, if expensive, attack and support powers. Melee Attack also makes sense, as do some other attack modifiers.

Mana Enhancer has vast potential for abuse, but some things about it are restrained. Two Mana Enhancers don’t “stack”, the more powerful one takes precedence and the other has no effect. It is impossible to combine it with Magic Resistance, and anyone with Magery gets to roll IQ+Magery to spot you as if you were a magic item. You may need to hide from exploitative wizards! Casting in Very High Mana is also dangerous.

These advantages aren’t mentioned a great deal in GURPS supplements, but there are some interesting ideas. Boardroom and Curia applies Mana Enhancer to sanctity instead of mana for religions consecrating temples, and several DF books make it a power-up for wizards and incanters. Fantasy suggests Mana Dampers as Lifebanes, and Infinite Worlds’ reality shards are often Mana Enhancers. Power-Ups 5 has Impulse Buys to permanently change the mana level in small areas, and Powers offers Variable (+5%) to make smaller changes, and Discriminatory (+150%) which replaces Selective Effect and lets you give friends and enemies different mana levels at the same time. Thaumatology introduces the Very Low Mana option, along with continuously variable, wild and twisted mana, and versions of these advantages to support them. It also has the Wild Mana Generator advantage, which you can combine with Mana Enhancer if you’re determined to live fast, die young and leave an indescribably weird hole in space. Thaumatology: Magical Styles has a perk that helps with casting in low mana, and Urban Magics has a way to use a lot of wealth as Mana Enhancer, in the right setting.

I’ve never had either of these advantages on a PC, or used them as a GM. In the occult WWII campaign I play in, there are 28 known Mana Enhancers, all of whom seem to have at least 1 hex area effect, and are German. One was a refugee Jewish musician, who boosts mana when he plays. The others were all due to be sacrificed, by Nazi magicians, as part of a huge magical power source. The PCs sabotaged it, and later rescued them from the resulting magical dead zone patrolled by Waffen-SS zombies. They seem to have acquired their abilities as the power source collapsed: before them they were just healthy young people. We hope they’ll be part of a new German magic system after the war.

Have these advantages been interesting in your games?

Last edited by johndallman; 09-17-2021 at 02:39 PM. Reason: Spelling
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Old 04-22-2021, 06:06 AM   #2
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

I've thought about having a mostly low-mana world where wizards carry staffs (or wands, or amulets, or...) with Mana Enhancer (Low Mana Only, probably -10%). So wizards could still use magic without their staffs but they would be penalized.

Or maybe just make it a rule. That would work too.
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Old 04-22-2021, 08:19 AM   #3
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Have these advantages been interesting in your games?
I think the only time I've used this was in John's Infinite Cabal game, when the party started visiting significant numbers of no-mana worlds. That was a Gadget, but the most crucial modifier was "Only to raise None to Low, -20%". Conceptually this was very much a local effect: the character could use it for Healing others, for example, but not for casting a "learn stuff at a distance" sort of spell, because there's no magical substrate out there for the spell to travel over.
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Old 04-22-2021, 09:16 AM   #4
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
M

These advantages aren’t mentioned a great deal in GURPS supplements,
In the 3e books Gurps Rogues there is (I recall) a thief who spcialized in magic items who ended up with Mana Damper (Switchable).

In the early playtest version he had Magic Resitance but I tried to clarify how and why that wouldn't solve many of his potential problems such as _his_ personal Magic Resistance not affecting the aaility to use Seeker and/or Trace on loot in his pockets. So I suggested Mana Damper instead and I believe that's what got published.

A 4e version of that magic item thief would have the same problem and Mana Damper is probably still the best solution.
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Old 04-22-2021, 11:44 PM   #5
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
A 4e version of that magic item thief would have the same problem and Mana Damper is probably still the best solution.
The 4e solution seems to be Nondectection in DF11:35, which is based on Obscure.
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Old 04-22-2021, 11:54 PM   #6
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

I once tried to build a character with mana enhancer with gadget limitations. He was meant to have some sort of reality shard that enabled magic and superscience to work in a small area surrounding the object. It turned out to be too expensive for my point budget - the smaller Area Effect radius for Mana Enhancer effectively makes it half as effective as regular Area Effect, and Mana Enhancer is expensive already - though given the utility I don't think it's overpriced.

I think I might have made up "Superscience Enhancer" myself by analogy with turning Mana Enhancer into "Sanctity Enhancer" from Boardrooms and Curia, though I could just have forgotten where I saw it!
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Old 04-23-2021, 09:18 AM   #7
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

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Originally Posted by Balor Patch View Post
The 4e solution seems to be Nondectection in DF11:35, which is based on Obscure.
The Mana Damper solution will also let you avoid magical defenses put on the item itself. I'd take it if it were available. I think anything Obscure-based would end up more expensive as well as being more narrowly useful.
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Old 04-25-2021, 05:22 AM   #8
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

I'm trying, and failing, to remember the name of a fantasy-series I read in the 90s where there were people called 'catalysts' that wizards needed to cast magic, which reminds me of the GURPS Mana Enhancer advantage. A search has failed to turn it up.

That could be an interesting premise, a no-mana world where magic is only possible in proximity to one of the few naturally occurring mana enhancers. Magic is basically concentrated in a few places rather than dispersed.
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Old 04-25-2021, 06:51 AM   #9
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
In the 3e books Gurps Rogues there is (I recall) a thief who specialized in magic items who ended up with Mana Damper (Switchable).
Yup, he's there. Interesting character: his best skills are about selling the loot, finding targets, and not getting hurt while taking them. His Lockpicking is more modest, presumably on the grounds that failing that leaves him able to get away.
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Old 04-25-2021, 09:32 AM   #10
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Mana Damper and Mana Enhancer

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Originally Posted by GnomesofZurich View Post
I'm trying, and failing, to remember the name of a fantasy-series I read in the 90s where there were people called 'catalysts' that wizards needed to cast magic, which reminds me of the GURPS Mana Enhancer advantage. A search has failed to turn it up.
That's the Darksword books, innit? I remember reading the back cover blurb and being turned off, but "catalysts" appear to be a thing there.
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