Limitations for Magic as Powers

[mhd]

I'd go with a -1 if you've got a ringing in your ears/are underwater/etc, and -2 if you're totally drunk. Double that if the magical language is supposed to particularly musical (cf. Spellsinger, Sabriel). That makes it similar to the effects of Tipsy/Drunk.

If it's really that much of a problem at all. If the spell doesn't take extra time, it's 1 second, which won't be that many words. Even deaf you should get something out you practised a hundred times. Unless you got turned into Sylvester Stallone and *then* went deaf, of course.

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by mhd

Unless you got turned into Sylvester Stallone and *then* went deaf, of course.

Lol!

Remember, Takes Extra Time may be applied liberally for longer phrases and the like.

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by mhd

Seems a bit too good for me. P181 lists "the need to perform brief incantations, make small “casting” gestures, and have “spell components” to hand" as -10% total. With your system that's between -20% and -35%… Never mind that you'd have to be careful which modifiers are worth anything per spell, as being obvious ("strongly spoken") doesn't get you anything if you're throwing around explosive fireballs.

Originally Posted by nerdvana

Gestures: Full body (-15%), two-hands (-10%), one-hand (-5%), none required (-0%)
Words: "strongly spoken" (-10%), "softly spoken" (-5%), none required (-0%) {Updated in Post #6}
Material Components: Consumable Reagents (-10%), Reusable Focus (-10%), none required (-0%)

Brief incantation = softly spoken
small gestures = one-hand gesture
have "spell components" = D&D-like hand-waving, not real Trigger
And it's about right. This and my gut feeling says that "loudly spoken words (stealth impossible)" should be -10%, not -15% though (I'd say that "have to be able to speak" is -5% and "non-stealthable" nuisance is another -5%).

Originally Posted by mhd

I can understand the gestures a bit, if it requires at least one hand free (although by the same logic, a gun as a Power would have that for aiming and pulling the trigger). And to be honest, if I'd give -10% for components, I'd actually require the wizards to track them, not the usual D&D hand-waving. But, well…

I'd rule that if the character is tied up and has a gun (no "requires gesture" limitation), he's unable to aim and shoot straight before him, but he can shoot someone lying 1 feet from him (as anything that uses Innate Attack (projectile) skill can). But tied up mage cannot toss his fireball (has the limitation) at all.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by mhd

Hmm, missed that. Weird, don't see why it would make a difference whether the base power is psi or magic.

Never mind that it does seem a bit too good. How much of a detriment is a single second of speech? I can understand the gestures a bit, if it requires at least one hand free (although by the same logic, a gun as a Power would have that for aiming and pulling the trigger). And to be honest, if I'd give -10% for components, I'd actually require the wizards to track them, not the usual D&D hand-waving. But, well…

You probably shouldn't use the differing assumptions in the same game. Here's an old post of Kromm's talking about those fantasy Accessibilities.
The rest of that thread might also be of some interest.

[Kallatari]

What I've been using in my campaigns for the past 5 years or so (in which all supernatural abilities are built using Powers) is as follows:

Requires Concentrate: -10% only to cast, -15% to maintain each turn throughout or spell ends. EDIT: Obviously not compatible with abilities that already require concentrate by default, although you could add -5% to require concentrate to maintain.

Requires Gestures: -10% both hands be free or holding a magical implement (wand or staff); -5% if you only need your primary hand free. In both cases, your legs and head must also be free to move for minor gestures (so you can't have your legs tied), but it's not full movement (i.e., you don't have to dance). I use GM prerogative to determine what's acceptable freedom or not.

Requires Incantations: -10% to cast, -15% to maintain each turn throughout or spell ends. I require normal conversation volume. I don't allow whispering for a penalty in my games (but see Flexible Ritual Perk below), as to me, being heard is part of the limitation value, but thinking about it I wouldn't be completely against -5%/-10% for whispering to activate/maintain.

Requires Material Components: -5% for very common (<$10 or free, and easy to find (e.g., dirt, sand, water, spiderwebs); -10% for common material (<$100, easy to find in wild or city market); -15% for uncommon (>$100, or a few days to find); -20% for rare (>$1,000, and quest-like to find (e.g., dragon's blood)). In all cases, materials are consumed with casting, whether successful or not. If a material is reusable, then it's an Accessibility limitation for a focus, not Requires Material Components.

Accessibility: -10% for common material focus, or -20% for rare material focus. I have variations to Accessibility, notably: Accessibility (Skill Modifier) is worth 3/4 as much if you have a -10 penalty to cast without the focus (rather than it not working at all), or a scaling penalty is it's a question of quantity/quality of the focus (e.g., it's not pure silver, so you have a -5 penalty); Accessibility (Weakened): the power is at half-power without the focus, which is worth 1/2 as much (I believe this variation is RAW).

Requires Skill Roll: -10% to cast; -15% if required each turn to maintain and the spell ends upon the first failure. (This assumes no Attribute roll is required, otherwise it becomes a skill roll as a "magical" campaign switch.)


If anyone wants to exchange some of these limitations for skill penalties, I require a Supernatural Perk (Flexible Ritual). It allows: -2 no foot/head motions, -2 only one hand, -4 no hands, -2 for whispering, and -4 for no incantations at all. Penalties are cumulative. (I think these penalties values were from optional rules in GURPS Thaumatology). This Perk specializes by spell (so you need 1 perk for each spell), and I'm strict on limiting my players to 5 Perks (total, not just supernatural) unless learned as part of a Style (which helps promotes magical styles and magical schools for the supernatural perks).


Anyway, the above seems to have been working fine for our group for the last half decade or so.

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

What I've been using in my campaigns for the past 5 years or so (in which all supernatural abilities are built using Powers) is as follows:

This looks well thought out. I'm going to borrow heavily. :)

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

This looks well thought out. I'm going to borrow heavily. :)

Hope it works just as well for your group.

And since you're building your own magical systems Powers-style, here are a few more modifiers from my house rules you may like:


Nuisance Effects (Requires Minor Maintenance): While this ability is active and being maintained, you have a cumulative -1 penalty to activate all other abilities of the same power source (in this case, all other magical spells). value: -5%

Although GURPS Psionic Powers has made this a -0% feature of a power source, I still view this as a limitation, as it would allow me charge different costs for two identical Power systems in which the only difference between the two was the cumulative -1 penalty. After all, you could take GURPS Psionic Powers as is, replace Psionic with Magic, and voila, magic system. If this "magic" system didn't have the cumulative -1 penalty, then it should result IMO in spell abilities being more expensive than psionic abilities, so psionic abilities would get an extra -5% limitation. Now, it's not that important in a setting with only one power source where they all have the same cumulative -1, but my primary campaign is an "anything goes" style game, so I need a way to distinguish these effects when some players have them, and others don't.


Cost Fatigue (Margin-Based): Works just like Cost Fatigue limitation for determining the FP to cast (activate) and maintain each minute, except that, for every 2 points you succeed your casting skill roll, you can reduce the cost to cast and maintain by 1 for that particular use.

For example: You have a spell with Cost Fatigue (Margin-Based) 5, it would cost you 5 FP to cast, and 3 FP each minute to maintain. If you succeed your casting roll by 2, it only costs 4 FP to cast and 2 FP to maintain. If you succeed your roll by 4, it costs 3 FP to cast and 1 FP to maintain. If you succeed by 6, it's 2 FP to cast and 0 to maintain. A success by 8 and 10 gives 1 FP to cast, and no fatigue respectively.

I created this to make the spells feel a bit more "magical" and unpredictable... and to somewhat mirror (but not exactly duplicate) the -1 Energy cost with a skill of 15 and every +5 to skill of the skill-based magic system without needing as high a skill level. And the randomness keeps them guessing, as they never know how much fatigue it will cost them until they cast. Oh, I also charge full FP to cast on a failed skill roll.

Anyway, Cost Fatigue (Margin-Based) is worth 10% less than the normal Cost Fatigue. So, it's -0% for levels 1 and 2 (which you're likely to succeed by enough to eliminated any FP cost with any half-decent skill), -5% for 3, -10% for 4, -15% for 5, etc.


Reduce Fatigue Cost (Margin-Based): Rather than fully eliminating the inherent FP cost to use an advantage that costs FP (such as Healing), this enhancement changes it so that it becomes margin-based, reducing the FP cost of a given use by 1 for every 2 points you succeed your skill roll to cast. This is worth -10%/level.



Anyway, those are my key ones, along with Malediction, of course.

Finally, I recommend having a framework for designing your spells in your campaign setting to keep them inherently consistent. For example, in my games, you cannot have a spell whose base CP cost (the cost before enhancements and limitation) or final cost (after modifiers are applied) is greater than 50 CP x Magery Level, thereby keeping the most powerful spells for those with higher levels of Magery. Also, spells will have a FP cost of 1 per 10 CP or fraction thereof of base cost, except Innate Attack which is 1 FP per level, and should take the appropriate Cost FP (Margin-Based) and/or Reduced FP Cost (Margin-Based) to attain that cost.