[Magic] Easily Understood, Minimally Abused Spells

[simply Nathan]

When I finally start a GURPS campaign, it's going to be a pretty straightforward fantasy using the free resource of GURPS Lite (3e and 4e, thanks to GURPS Update). This way I can easily hand out nearly all the rules to a player.

I'm giving all Magery the "No Spell Prerequisites, +30%" modifier from Thaumatology. This increases the cost of Magery to 7, with +13/level.

I don't use the cost reduction/cast time reduction from high skill; just part of simplifying things(I'm considering making it based on relative skill level, the way Brawling/Karate damage bonus is, with first reduction at IQ level, second at IQ+3, and so on for each +3 to IQ level).

What I want is help with a list of distinct, useful, easily understood(preferably one paragraph description), and minimally abusive spells. But I also want everything that exists in my setting to be justified. My current list so far:

Armor
Blur
Create Fire
Complex Illusion
Daze
Detect Magic
Fireball
Flame Jet
Haste
Lend Energy
Light
Minor Healing(Not sure if I should also add Major Healing)
Shapeshifting(Cat, Falcon, Snake, and Wolf)
Shield
Shocking Touch(Not sure about this one; I just wanted a non-fire attack spell)
Sleep
Stop Bleeding

And Enchantments including the above spells on items and
Accuracy
Fortify
Flying Carpet
Hideaway(Only the non-encumbering version)

I've got the following Elixirs:
Death
Fire Resistance
Healing
Horsemanship
Resurrection
Stealth
Stupefacation
Water Breathing

Is there anything I should particularly add? If you think something will be easily abused in a way which obviously slipped my attention, please give notice and offer an alternative.

Here's a pair of character templates I've made for mages:

Hedge Wizard/Dabbler [50]

Attributes
ST 10; DX 10; IQ 11[20]; HT 10
Secondary Characteristics
BL 20 lbs; Dmg 1d-2/1d; Speed 5; Move 5; HP 10; FP 10; Per 11; Will 11
Advantages
Magery 0[7]
20 points chosen from IQ +1[20], HT +1 or +2[10/level], Languages[varies], Acute Senses[2/level], Animal Empathy[5], Empathy[15], Laguage Talent[10], Resistant to Disease +3[3], and raising Magery 0[7] to Magery 1[20] for 13 points. Put leftovers into secondary skills.
Disadvantages
Pacifism(reluctant killer)[-5]
-20 points chosen from ST -1 or -2[-10/level], Bad Sight[-10], Bad Temper*("Subtle and quick to anger")[-10], Curious*[-5], Delusions[-5 to -15], Gluttony*[-5], Hard of Hearing[-10], Obsession*[-5 or -10], Sense of Duty[-2 to -20], Truthfulness*[-5], and Vow[-5 to -15].
Skills
Primary skills. One of the followig 20-point spell packages:

• ** Minor Healing(IQ+1)[8]-12, Stop Bleeding(IQ)[4]-11, Lend Energy(IQ)[4]-11, and Haste(IQ)[4]-11.
• Detect Magic(IQ)[4]-11, Light(IQ)[4]-11, Haste(IQ)[4]-11, Create Fire(IQ)[4]-11; 4 more points into one of these, making it (IQ+1)-12.
• *** Fireball or Flame Jet, both(IQ+1)[8]-12, Create Fire(IQ)[4]-11, Light(IQ)[4]-11; Innate Attack(DX+2)[4]-12.

Secondary Skills. One of Naturalist or Physician, both (H)(IQ)[4]-11, or Alchemy(VH)(IQ-1)[4]-10. First Aid(IQ+1)[2]-12. One of Animal Handling, Explosives, Merchant, Observation, Occultism, Research, or Writing, all (A)(IQ)[2]-11.

** Requires Magery 1 or Empathy.
*** Requires Magery 1.

Mage Adventurer [100]

Attributes
ST 10; DX 10; IQ 12[40]; HT 11[10]
Characteristics
BL 20 lbs; Dmg 1d-2/1d; Speed 5.25; Move 5; HP 10; FP 11; Per 12; Will 12
Advantages
Magery 2[33]
20 points chosen from DX +1[20], IQ +1[20], HT +1 or +2[10/level], Languages[varies], Acute Senses[2/level], Charisma[5/level], Laguage Talent[10], Resistant to Disease +3[3], Wealth(comfortable)[10], and uprgading Magery 2[33] to Magery 3[46] for 13 points. Put leftover points into spells or secondary skills.
Disadvantages
Sense of Duty(adventuring companions)[-5]
-20 points chosen from ST -1[-10], DX -1[-20], Bad Sight[-10], Bad Temper*("Subtle and quick to anger")[-10], Curious*[-5], Delusions[-5 to -15], Gluttony*[-5], Hard of Hearing[-10], Obsession*[-5 or -10], Sense of Duty[-2 to -20], Truthfulness*[-5], and Vow[-5 to -15].
Skills
Primary skills. One spell, at (IQ+1)[2]-13 if Hard, or (IQ)[2]-12 if Very Hard; five spells, known at (IQ)[1]-12 if Hard, or (IQ-1)[1]-11, if Very Hard, including the +2 from Magery.
Secondary skills. One of Physician or Naturalist, both (H)(IQ)[4]-12, or Alchemy(VH)(IQ-1)[4]-11. First Aid(IQ)[1]-12, Swimming(E)(H)[1]-11, Hiking(A)(HT-1)[1]-10, Observation(A)(IQ-1)[1]-11 and Innate Attack(DX+2)[4]-12. One of Brawling, Knife, or Thrown Weapon(any), all (E)(DX+2)[4]-12; Shortsword or Staff, both (A)(DX+1)[4]-11.

[Captain-Captain]

If you are not going to add Major Healing and presumably the other advanced healing spells, change the cumulative penalty for more heals within a 24 hour period to -1. Damage taken can be viscious and a max heal of 3 doesn't do a lot.

[simply Nathan]

Yeah, now that I think about it, I'm definitely going to add Major Healing, and probably Zombie (because my bestiary already contains Skeleton and Zombie entries, and I want everything to be at least vaguely justified in-world).

I'm considering Charged Scroll and Instant Neutralize Poison. For setting flavor, possibly Awaken Craft Spirit.

Really, I'm open to suggestions and want the opinions of experienced GMs on what spells tend to work well and are easy to get a grasp of.

[kirbwarrior]

For a simple one, there are a lot of damage spells, most of which are easy to understand, esp. Stone Ball.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

For a simple one, there are a lot of damage spells, most of which are easy to understand, esp. Stone Ball.

Yeah, almost all the missile spells work fine. Just make sure to check that they all have 4e compliant damage types.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

If you are not going to add Major Healing and presumably the other advanced healing spells, change the cumulative penalty for more heals within a 24 hour period to -1.

This would allow for very easy repeated casting, and thus make healing more powerful than the addition of Major Healing...

Damage taken can be viscious and a max heal of 3 doesn't do a lot.

Actually, I've had plenty of campaigns with Minor Healing only, and it is definitely playable.
Being able to heal 3 (or perhaps 6-9 if you're lucky) hit points per day is still a huge improvement when you compare it to the "natural" recovery rate of 1 HP/day maximum.

If you want a fantasy campaign with a touch of realism, e.g. where wounds still have meaning and badly battered PCs can't be up and fighting in a few minutes, banning Major Healing is the way to go...

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Lupo

This would allow for very easy repeated casting, and thus make healing more powerful than the addition of Major Healing...

Actually, I've had plenty of campaigns with Minor Healing only, and it is definitely playable.
Being able to heal 3 (or perhaps 6-9 if you're lucky) hit points per day is still a huge improvement when you compare it to the "natural" recovery rate of 1 HP/day maximum.

If you want a fantasy campaign with a touch of realism, e.g. where wounds still have meaning and badly battered PCs can't be up and fighting in a few minutes, banning Major Healing is the way to go...

Well, heroes with Very Rapid Healing recover twice as much. Maybe I'll drop Major Healing; it seems a little redundant in its design, when I've got Minor Healing. Maybe I'll introduce the "Recast Heal" Technique, allowing players to put points toward reducing this penalty when it occurs.

For a simple one, there are a lot of damage spells, most of which are easy to understand, esp. Stone Ball.

Yeah, almost all the missile spells work fine. Just make sure to check that they all have 4e compliant damage types.

I think what I'll do is make it so that for fire there's every kind of damage-causing spell (missile, jet, breath, touch, and weapon enhancer) and have various combinations for the other elements(ice having breath, touch, and weapon enhancer; lightning having missile and touch, etc.). Stone Ball might just be my only Earth attack, and it is a good one.


This is a Game Mechanical World, so any spells which don't make it to the list simply don't exist in my world, including spell-like effects for monsters.

[benz72]

Consider Analyze Magic to let them know what the stuff they find with detect magic actually does (or perhaps come up with some other mechanic to accomout date that need)

The linking meta spells are not particularly simple, but if you want conditional spells for powerful wizzards they are going to be important.

Teleport is easily understood but may break movement restrictive games, as would Flight

Light is pretty weak... throw the guys a bone and toss in Continual Light

There also don't seem to be any blocking spells in your list. Is this intentional?

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by benz72

Consider Analyze Magic

I sure will.

Teleport is easily understood but may break movement restrictive games, as would Flight

Flight, or even Hawk Flight, probably won't hurt a game that also has Shapeshifting(Falcon) which gives an Air Move of 30.

Teleport was one of my favorite spells back when I used to play a lot of JRPGs, wherein it could only teleport
A) The party to the outside of a dungeon
and
B) To a town, when not currently in a dungeon
Of course, I hear that the trek back home from the dungeon, while laden with loot, is supposed to be part of the challenge (and, therefore, fun) of my favorite fantasy playstyle.

Light is pretty weak... throw the guys a bone and toss in Continual Light

I thought for sure that I'd done Continual Light instead of Light. Consider it ret-conned.

There also don't seem to be any blocking spells in your list. Is this intentional?

Nah, I just hadn't thought of which ones to do.

If you are making wholesale changes, it can simplify prereqs to change all spell prereqs to "[X] spells of the same college"[...]

As stated in the OP, I'm not using the spell prerequisites. Magery, IQ, and on rare occasions, Advantages are the only prerequisites I use.

One thing you might do is borrow a page from Final Fantasy — have a Black Magic college for "the spells that make the people fall down". You can still have them double-colleged(think of Protection & Warning), but that way you can keep the full set without worrying about keeping their other colleges around.

I'm mostly not going to bother with keeping track of colleges; basically, I'll have fire spells that offer several ways to kill things, because that's basically all people are gonna want to do with fire; then some other elements will have ways of killing things(Earth with Stone Ball and maybe Flesh to Stone; water with Icy Weapon and the freeze breath one).

Spells I have added to my list since OP:
Charged Scroll(A little complex, but I'm a big fan of this utility)
Deathtouch
Death Vision
Icy Breath (VH)
Instant Neutralize Poison (VH)
Lightning
Zombie(Illegal to the upstanding heroes, but there's lots of skeletons and zombies for the heroes to kill in this world)

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

I think what I'll do is make it so that for fire there's every kind of damage-causing spell (missile, jet, breath, touch, and weapon enhancer) and have various combinations for the other elements(ice having breath, touch, and weapon enhancer; lightning having missile and touch, etc.). Stone Ball might just be my only Earth attack, and it is a good one.

One thing you might do is borrow a page from Final Fantasy — have a Black Magic college for "the spells that make the people fall down". You can still have them double-colleged(think of Protection & Warning), but that way you can keep the full set without worrying about keeping their other colleges around.

If you are making wholesale changes, it can simplify prereqs to change all spell prereqs to "[X] spells of the same college", where [X] is the prereq count. (Thaumatology has the better list for this, but the one in Magic is serviceable.) That way, you don't have to map out the prereq trees, you don't have to graft branches whose prereqs disappeared, you just have to stick the spells in colleges.