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Old 08-09-2016, 08:14 AM   #41
jamesfoxbr
 
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

Hello. I have a question about the burning Hands spell in the blog:

Where you found this "Reduced Range 6, -60%" ? I just found the level to reduce 1/10 costing -30% in the RAW rules. I miss from some other book or it's a house rule for this spell?
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Old 08-09-2016, 03:13 PM   #42
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

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Originally Posted by jamesfoxbr View Post
Hello. I have a question about the burning Hands spell in the blog:

Where you found this "Reduced Range 6, -60%" ? I just found the level to reduce 1/10 costing -30% in the RAW rules. I miss from some other book or it's a house rule for this spell?
My guess is it's a house rule extrapolated from the levels in the RAW.
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Old 08-12-2016, 07:52 PM   #43
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

Sorry for the delay here, fell ill last week, and haven't been paying attention to a few things.

Yes, the -60% Reduced Range limitation is an extrapolation of the chart on B115. The normal range for anything that has it is 100 yards, and AD&D specifically mentions 'jets of flames 3 feet in length', so I wanted to go for that, and certainly not allow a 10 yard cone....

I rather like that it forces a probably lightly-armored magic-user up into the front line to use it. But if the enemy is wearing burnable clothes (some cloaks...) or not much at all, it could be really scary for the bad guys.

Here's another that I think I've worked out most of the holes on:

Charm Person (VC)
Enchantment, Somatic, Verbal, Resisted (Will)
36 points/level
Casting Time: 1 second
Casting Roll: Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
Range: 100 yards
Duration: Special

Successful use of this spell will make a subject (which must be a ‘person’; an intelligent non-magical humanoid, e.g., humans, elves, brownies, gnolls, orcs...) come under the delusion that you are a friend and ally who must be protected. This does not give you control over the subject, nor any ability to communicate with him that you did not already have, but he will look upon anything you can say to him in a very positive light.

Roll against Innate Attack (Gaze) to ‘hit’ the desired subject. Upon success, you and the subject make a Quick Contest of Will, and he will be charmed for 5 hours per MoS. Sorcery Talent adds to your effective Will, and additional levels of the spell add a -1 penalty to the target’s Will.

Note that this spell only makes the target trust you. You can’t order him around, and you certainly can’t order him to commit suicide. You can’t make him turn on his actual trusted friends, unless you can give him a good reason why, but you could tie everyone up in a debate with the subject as to who to trust more. Demonstrating that you can’t be trusted will break the charm, and anything that would cause second thoughts can either be role-played, or handled as a Reaction Roll, with a Poor or worse result breaking the charm.

Affliction 1 (Will; Disadvantage: Severe Delusion, “The caster is my close, trusted friend.” +15%; Accessibility: Non-magical, sapient, IQ 6+ humanoids only, -10%; Extended Duration, x300, +100%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Sorcery, -15%) [3.6x10]
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Last edited by Rindis; 08-19-2016 at 10:18 AM.
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Old 08-28-2016, 06:27 PM   #44
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

I've gone in and redone the opening post, now that I've blocked out a lot of basics.

Current list of problem spells to work on:

Affect Normal Fires: You can make all fires in the area flare up twice as bright, or bring them down to hot coals, or even go out completely. Seems like Control (Fire) with a really big Accessibility modifier, but Powers implies that even if you consider that to be 1% of what Control (Fire) normally allows, that's a -40% limitation. Even making it a -80% still gets a ~19-point/level ability (largely thanks to Collective, +100%). Illusion (only of variations of existing fires) might be a better fit, but is probably still too expensive, and what about the ability to put them out?

Dancing Lights: Can make one to four lights appear that look like torches or will-o-wisps. Or, a single 'glowing man-like shape'. The general application is to make it look like there's a party with torches off in the dark somewhere (or maybe a fire elemental). This seems like a an Illusion ability, but I'm not convinced there's a way to figure appropriately strict limitations for this (my current build is 27 points, which seems high for this, but I'm interested in hearing thoughts on that). An interesting note is that it's classified as an Evocation instead of Illusion, which puts me in mind of a full rewrite of the spell where it's more than just light, but I'm not sure what yet.

Enlarge: This is pretty obviously a level of Growth. Though having to add ST to the target dependent on its original SM makes things complicated. I'm pretty set on just pricing it with an assumption that it only affects SM 0 and smaller, with a note that larger spellcasters probably learn a higher-priced version of it (and halfling mages may well learn a cheaper version that they can't use on their human friends). Which brings up the question: Does anyone have a good formula for the ST demanded by Growth (assuming upright proportions)? My attempt came out to 1.5^(SM+7)–1.5^(SM+6), but I'm hoping there's a cleaner answer.
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Old 09-10-2016, 02:03 PM   #45
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

I've been pondering how to get an effect like Basic D&D's Sleep spell. The general idea is that a variable number of creatures will be affected, starting with the 'weakest' (lowest hit dice) ones first.

To a certain extent just going with area effect and letting the dice fall where they may is fine. Things with lower resistance rolls will succumb more often than those with better stats.

Of course, that can turn into a lot of dice rolling. All or Nothing (Sorcery 17) is great for preventing that, but then the roll goes to the most resistant person, and no one is affected if he makes it.

My first thought is a variation of that where you do a single roll for everyone, and figure out what resistance was needed for that to succeed. ("Okay, the caster succeeded by 2, the resistance roll was 12, so everyone with a HT less than 14 (including any bonuses) goes to sleep.")

I kind of figure its just a simplified method for the normal AoE rules, and is a +0% 'switch' (even a game switch/house rule for simplifying things). But I'd like other's thoughts on that.

A second, more complicated, thought (also less in line with what's wanted here, but could be neat elsewhere) is for the spell to generate an "damage roll" that generates a total margin of success, and then targets are checked one at a time, burning through the total MoS until its gone. ("Okay, your attack rolled 10, the first guy made his resist by 5, so he goes to sleep, and uses 6 of your MoS, the next two both failed, so they use one each, you have 2 MoS left, and the next guy... succeeds by three and stays awake.")

I think that could be pretty neat, if a trifle slow, but it means coming up with some form of entirely new enhancement.
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Old 09-10-2016, 02:24 PM   #46
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

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Originally Posted by Rindis View Post
Sorry for the delay here, fell ill last week, and haven't been paying attention to a few things.

Yes, the -60% Reduced Range limitation is an extrapolation of the chart on B115. The normal range for anything that has it is 100 yards, and AD&D specifically mentions 'jets of flames 3 feet in length', so I wanted to go for that, and certainly not allow a 10 yard cone....
The correct modifier would be "melee".
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Old 09-10-2016, 02:43 PM   #47
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

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The correct modifier would be "melee".
An AOE melee attack? Keep in mind, it's only one hex long, but it's three wide.
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Old 09-10-2016, 03:39 PM   #48
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An AOE melee attack? Keep in mind, it's only one hex long, but it's three wide.
You can have an AOE even closer range than melee - it's an Emanation, where you have to stand in the center of it. A melee reach C, 1 cone 3 yards wide sounds like exactly what you need.
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Old 09-10-2016, 04:06 PM   #49
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rindis View Post
I've been pondering how to get an effect like Basic D&D's Sleep spell. The general idea is that a variable number of creatures will be affected, starting with the 'weakest' (lowest hit dice) ones first.

To a certain extent just going with area effect and letting the dice fall where they may is fine. Things with lower resistance rolls will succumb more often than those with better stats.
Sleep works well in D&D because everything has a level. So figuring out who is the weakest is easy.

But since GURPS doesn't have levels, this makes this tricky. My first inclination is to keep things simple and let the dice fall where they lay.
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Old 09-10-2016, 06:53 PM   #50
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Default Re: [Sorcery] Those Other Spells...

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You can have an AOE even closer range than melee - it's an Emanation, where you have to stand in the center of it. A melee reach C, 1 cone 3 yards wide sounds like exactly what you need.
Cone specifically mentions that it doesn't combine with Melee Attack.

Emanation is just a Area Effect centered on and excluding you. Pairing it with Cone instead of AE could work, but is also forbidden by the RAW of Cone.

I'll note that Melee: C, 1 + Cone 3 is +60%. Emanation + Cone 3 is +60%. While Cone 3 + Reduced Range 1/10 + Increased 1/2D x10 is +35% (forgot that last earlier). That does imply that my build may be too cheap. But it's the only one not disallowed by RAW. (Well, other than the entire extrapolating the Reduced Range mods bit....)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Emerald Cat View Post
Sleep works well in D&D because everything has a level. So figuring out who is the weakest is easy.

But since GURPS doesn't have levels, this makes this tricky. My first inclination is to keep things simple and let the dice fall where they lay.
As I implied, I'm just going with 'lowest resistance is weaker'. Did you look over my first variant thought? It seems a decent way to keep things fast, and over time, it should be fair (though individual castings can go strange because of the dice). And I like it a lot better than All-or-Nothing's everyone or no one effect.
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