I am working on a custom fantasy setting, I want to make the theme of the campaign to be conflict, between the races, religions and the magic systems.
I read through Thaumatology and came up with what I thought what a good plan. I wanted three different major systems:
- Arcane", the traditional generic magic system in GURPS. Also worth noting is that Magery is going to be a racial trait.
- "Divine", this uses Clerical Spell-Magic (Thaumatology p.65) and Threshold-Limited Magic (Thaumatology p.76) and is slightly different for each religion in the campaign, most religions are race specific but any member of any race can get Divine spells.
- "Shamanism" is the final form and used Assisting Spirits (Thaumatology p.90), this type of spell casting is gained by signing a contract with one of the "Great Spirits" of the world, worth noting that the Great Spirits do not care about race or religion. In theory it would be possible for a single individual to gain all three types of magic.
There were a few other things, Verb Noun magic practiced exclusively by the immortal demi-god kings, arcane magic practiced by a race that shouldn't be able to, and universally forbidden Blood Magic.
All this depends on the spells in GURPS Magic though, which I recently found out was less than ideal. As far as I can tell these are the major problems:
- Immunity spells, some spells grant outright immunity.
- "Uncapped" spells, some spells can get quite ridiculous, ex. Enlarge
- Prerequisites don't correspond at all to power of the spell.
As I see it I have two options:
- Balance every single spell, this is an intimidating task, specifically I don't think I'll be able to get them balanced against each other, let alone against non magic users. Actually I could try and recreate the spells using advantages and check their point values but that would be a lot of work for 850-ish spells.
- Use a different system(s), I actually like this option a lot more. I was thinking of using Thaumatology - Sorcery for the Arcane spells, Powers - Divine Favor for the Divine spells. But I don't know what I should use for the Shamanism spells. I'm hesitant to bring in Ritual Path Magic because it is so different from the others. Same goes for Path/Book, realm or verb noun magic. Maybe something with spirits as Allies but I'm not sure how to work that.
So basically I want to have a lot of interaction between multiple magic systems but I'm worried about balance with both option. so my questions are these:
- Is there already something that would work based on Advantages for Shamanism?
- Are there any minor variations I could do for added flavor, i.e. Blood Magic?
- Is there a faster and / or easier way to balance the default spells?