[Magic] Spells as Skills done Properly

[VariousRen]

Hi, I am the DM for a dungeon fantasy game and play a wizard in a low-fantasy game. In both games, we use the standard GURPS Magic system, and after doing some reading I've run into many of the common problems with the system.

The first problem is the difference in cost between Magery and increasing an individual spell. For high skill levels, a level of one college only magery costs 6 points, while another level in the skill costs 4, and upgrading that magery to cover all spells only costs 4. This makes it very inefficient to increase individual spells, and all wizards become generalists pumping lots of points into Magery (and to a lesser degree IQ, although this normally fits the character) and then picking up lots of cheap spells.

The second problem is the reduction in cost based on skill. It provides strong incentive to push your level up to 15, 20, or 25 exactly, and then spam only spells that are now free to cast or maintain. Free spells are certainly good, and for a dungeon fantasy game make it feel as if your wizard is actually good at magic (I'll just light some fire with my hand, matches are boring), but they become abusable at high levels ("Alright, I make us all invisible again, and off we go!").

I would like to discuss a pair of solutions to these problems (beyond simply using another magic system, I feel like magic as skills is appropriate for both of the games I am currently involved with). I am interested in feedback about cost, unforeseen changes this will cause, and information from anyone who has made similar changes to their games. So now, on with a solution!

Problem 1, Magery Spam:

Looking at magery, it seems like there are three distinct parts that are included. First, there is magery 0 which is an unusual background tied in with a slightly useful detect ability. For 5 points the ability to cast spells may be under costed compared to something like trained by a master that is also used as a pre-req for powerful abilities, but TBAM has direct combat potential, which probobly balances things out. Overall, magery 0 is fine as it is.

Next there is the magery bonus for faster spell learning. This is only important if you make use of training time, and has no actual combat potential. Overall it accounts for a perk and is unlikely to see abuse.

Finally, we come to the problem. Included in a level of magery there is medium talent that applies to all spells. My own wizard, fairly focused and of low points (started at 40, now 85) has a collection of 15 or so spells. A medium talent for 10 points buys you at most 12 related skills, so the inherent bonus from Magery is clearly far too large. Using GURPS Magic, that talent may give you a bonus to up to 800 different skills! Magery is clearly massively underpriced for what it provides then, and needs a change.

One possibility is to increase the cost of magery to 15 points a level, to be equivalent to a large talent (13 or more skills), but this is the same cost as increasing IQ without increasing Per at all. Simply increasing the cost is not a satisfactory solution. Instead, I propose limiting Magery to 12 spells chosen when the player takes Magery (allowing them to leave slots open for new spells that they plan to take). This makes Magery much more focused, and their levels in magery define what spells are truly important to the wizard. Aspected magery for one college only at 6 points is also still allowed, representing an even more focused learning (Not just that wizards favourite spells, but their favourite spells that are all similar). Now even with a high level of magery the wizard is not capable of learning levels all spells at a high level after two weeks of study. I would include the faster learning time as a perk that covers all spells (familiarity with magical learning), and allow it the be bought up separately for those who want to use their learning time more effectively.

Problem 2, Spell Cost:

Under normal spell rules, spells receive a -1 to cost at skill 15, -2 at skill 20, and so on. This is only based on final skill without penalties from spells being maintained. The only negative is a -5 from low mana. Because of this, wizards are hesitant to cast any spells that actually require FP, and will instead spam free spells on everyone. An example of this is a protection focused wizard who knows all of their spells at 22. On a party of 4, they can give every person +2 DR and +2 DB for a -8 to all of their spells, giving them skill 14 to cast with everyone buffed. They can maintain the buffs indefinitely, or replace one with a more powerful buff in combat for the normal price. The problem with this is not cheap spells; experienced gandalf style wizards should not feel punished for being able to light their pipe with their fingers, but the fact that it is pure skill that is used to determine if there is a cost reduction.

Instead, I would propose two solutions. The first is the simplist, and replaces skill with effective skill. When you cast a spell, you record the skill it was cast at and take all of the normal cost reductions. Future spells now treat your skill as -1, and thus may require more time to cast, will cost more, and require a more elaborate ritual. As wizards tax themselves more maintaining spells, they must fall back to simpler procedures to allow them to balance it all. This does not solve the problem of casting free instant spells, but solves the problem of perpetual buffs. I believe this solution works well if you are using the changes above to Magery.

The second solution is to treat spells fully like skills, instead of skill like advantages. Karate and Boxing both give bonuses to damage, but the bonus does not apply at skill 15, with another +1 at 20. Instead, the bonus applies at DX+1 and DX+2, in other words it applies when you are specialised in it. If the reduced casting time and ritual was linked to IQ+Magery-1,-0,+1, ect, there would be more reason to spend extra points in spells and spend fewer points in magery. The exact value at which the reduced cost and ritual would kick in will need play testing, reducing cost and then ritual, starting at +1 and alternating seems right. This works well without the changes to magery, because it provides a reason to specialise in spells rather than magery. You can have a high level in all spells but pay full price, or specialise and be very proficient in a few that you can cast in a way that a generalist cannot.

[ericthered]

I like the idea of spells getting discounts to cost by individual spells spent on points. This idea is a winner. It lets me pick (and pay for) a few nice spells I can cast cheaply, without further encouraging magery spam (I really think both of your problems come down to magery+IQ spam).

I really don't think the idea of limiting magery to 12 skills will complish what you want it to WITHOUT also doing something about IQ. Magery is capped at 3 in many games. people just spam IQ instead. The problem is you have so many skills that attributes and talents are very very attractive.

[VariousRen]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I really don't think the idea of limiting magery to 12 skills will complish what you want it to WITHOUT also doing something about IQ. Magery is capped at 3 in many games. people just spam IQ instead. The problem is you have so many skills that attributes and talents are very very attractive.

Perhaps magery should be seperated from IQ in the same way that some people seperate Per and Will from IQ. Each races has a "Magery" score that can be bought up or down (make low magery linked in with magic resistance in some way, that would be interesting). It better emulates the idea that you have goblin wizards and orc shamans who regularly cast spells, but are dumb as posts.

[weby]

Well, back when we used the Gurps magic system, the always on million buffs was a big issue really.

The reduction based on points used in the spell instead of total skill might indeed help there.

As for raising magery/Iq instead of spells, that was not such a big problem due to several campaign rules:
-Attribute raises are really slow compared other raises(characters are now 2000+ points after about 190 sessions and the highest attributes are just now closing in on 20)
-Talents(including magery) cost 1 point/skill influenced/level with no maximum. (The first thing made it still worthwhile to raise even mega talents like magery in many cases, someone had magery cost of more than 30/level I think)
-Even raising talents was slow at maximum 1 point total in talents/session of the average 8-11 awarded(basically 1 point/hour), thus making people want to raise skills(including spells) directly with the extra points.

But in the end we got tired of patching the system and went with another system.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

Perhaps magery should be seperated from IQ in the same way that some people seperate Per and Will from IQ.

I've never liked this idea and would reject playing a wizard unless I began at 15+Magery instead of the usual proposal of 10+Magery.

I think a better fix is to make some spells based on IQ (maybe the majority), some on Will (Blocking spells maybe?), some on Per (Detect/Sense/Analyze spells), and some on DX (Attack spells; also drop the Innate Attack skill or make it a complementary skill roll).

[Skarg]

Having reduced rituals and time/mana based on points in the spell both makes sense and addresses the IQ/Magery efficiency problem while encouraging putting effort into developing specific spells. I think that's a great fit for the problems.

I also think that going through all the spells and basing them on different appropriate things (not just IQ & Magery, but DX, Per, Will, even HT or ST or other things sounds like a very good idea to me.

More complex but fundamental would also be to limit what players can spend points on, which I think is great to do for all of GURPS anyway. Unless you want PCs to rapidly gain arbitrary abilities just for being PCs, I think limiting character development is very useful, but it depends what you want. But the wide-open ability to spend a steady stream of points on anything, compounds any minimax/munchkin issues that may exist. Limiting improvements to things studied and used, and not allowing "because I want more magery or IQ" can also help both this and many other issues of character overdevelopment.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

I propose limiting Magery to 12 spells chosen when the player takes Magery (allowing them to leave slots open for new spells that they plan to take).

I like this a lot. It also solves the same problem as the whole "Magical Styles" thing addresses, but in a much simpler way - it makes GURPS wizards much more individual and flavorful, rather than swiss army knives.

Originally Posted by VariousRen

When you cast a spell, you record the skill it was cast at and take all of the normal cost reductions. Future spells now treat your skill as -1, and thus may require more time to cast, will cost more, and require a more elaborate ritual.

I like this one too, particularly in combination with the above. It removes some of the incentive for the "I buff everyone with X Y and Z all the time" tactic that's so common with GURPS magic as written (and so uncommon in good fantasy fiction)*

*(at least, if we take "good" to mean "the kind I like")

[VariousRen]

It occurs to me now that this would be a direct nerf to spell casters by reducing the number of spells they will know effectively. Is this a major problem for wizards under the standard magic system, or are wizards powerful enough to make up for it by specializing in a few spells that they know well enough to cast for free?

Casting from different abilities feels wrong to me. A wizard is a specialist in mental skills, and in a traditional setting wizards are old men who wear tall pointy hats and study books all day. Making a spell based on HT or DX is basicly the same as saying "Very Very Very Very hard skill", which does not seem like the intent. If the "spell" is based off a different attribute in the game world, it is probably better described by an advantage rather than a skill.

[Bruno]

I couldn't find this in your post, but it could be a reading fail on my part - what resets that stacking penalty? Nothing? Daily sleep? Spending money on expensive alchemical potions/temple donations?

If it's "nothing", I think as a player I might set these proposed rules on fire - or at least look at them funny. Effectively reducing my character value by 4 CP every time I cast a spell is not worth it for nearly all the spells in GURPS Magic. Possibly the big weird effects like putting a city in my pocket - but only if that replaces the FP cost.

Daily sleep - I think that's going to just encourage D&D-isms like the 5 minute working day. That's nearly impossible to combat with a group that is dead convinced that they simply can't function without all their options - any attempt to push that kind of group to working without their options is taken as griefing by the GM.

The complicated option that basically spells "in between adventures" is even more punishing.

If you keep the universal Magery bonus it's not as bad - at least that encourages you to be a generalist, meaning that after you "wear out" a spell you have lots of other options.

[Rindis]

Note the phrase, "As wizards tax themselves more maintaining spells...". I believe the stacking penalty is only on maintained spells. So if you're busy buffing the entire party, you could have trouble...