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Old 10-21-2014, 12:01 PM   #11
McAllister
 
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Ritual path magic group casting

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Originally Posted by starslayer View Post
In my own settings I have established that magic 'ripples' forward and backward in time. For small spells its basically unnoticeable, the target of a spell might 'feel' malevolence targeted at them just before it hits.
This is absolutely fantastic. It might be the perfect setting-preserving rule to some of the questions raised by RPM. Now I'm wondering how I'd quantify it a little bit... Anyone who would be directly affected by a ritual using over 50 energy can roll against Per (add Magery, subtract 5 for no Magery) +1 per 10 energy over 50 used in the ritual, and use the margin of success times the Greater effects multiplier to somehow figure out how soon the subject detects the ritual? I might also exempt spells cast off Energy Reserve... and I'm not sure how it would interact with conditional spells.... but it's really cool.
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Old 10-21-2014, 08:08 PM   #12
starslayer
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Default Re: Ritual path magic group casting

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Originally Posted by McAllister View Post
This is absolutely fantastic. It might be the perfect setting-preserving rule to some of the questions raised by RPM. Now I'm wondering how I'd quantify it a little bit... Anyone who would be directly affected by a ritual using over 50 energy can roll against Per (add Magery, subtract 5 for no Magery) +1 per 10 energy over 50 used in the ritual, and use the margin of success times the Greater effects multiplier to somehow figure out how soon the subject detects the ritual? I might also exempt spells cast off Energy Reserve... and I'm not sure how it would interact with conditional spells.... but it's really cool.
Honestly I kept the quantification on the high end, basically anything with a casting cost of less then 200 only provided about as much notice as any other attack would, and I kept the big notifiers for spells that started exceeding that threshold.

Example from play:
A group of insane cultists plan on opening a portal to allow the manna-eater Abandon to traverse from his prison back into this realm. When he was sealed away the wizards who put the spell together with enough time to last until the heat-death of the universe also put in about a huge extra energy reserve, just to make sure it was very secure (overall about a 3000 energy spell).

The cultists starting to hatch a plan that could actually put together 3000+ energy send ripples through time, providing those who are looking 6 weeks advance notice that someone is putting together a spell to release Abandon. No one nessasscarily knows if the spell will work, and only the cultists know where it will be cast. In order to make the lives of those who would undo there work more difficult they cast a lot of scrywalls over there work, so no one can just home in on the details with magic- this scrywall (which no one would have questioned overly when it went up and sent ripples) gave about a days notice and has about 600 energy behind it.

The cultists are further launching a series of 250-300ish energy scrys to look for anyone trying to foul there plan- these scrys provide scant moments of notice of there coming, but tell anyone attmepting to work a way around this that the cultists are keeping an active search going on.

The powers of good, or at least 'want this world to still have functional magic' put together a series of small scouting parties (which they can scrywall themeselves for 250-300 energy without sending too much of a ripple) to try to work around the scrywalls, while the cultists play counter-intelligence, killing scouts or otherwise fouling large castings to penetrate there scrywalls (of which the cultists will get about a day's notice). The party is one of those scouts, and being PCs actually succeeds against the opposition sent to stop them.

The party eventually determines that the cultists plan on pouring antimagic laced and partially alive essential acid into a dwarven city from the top and extracting all the manna from that involuntary sacrifice (The essential acid is alive enough to be 'one of the casters' and therefore in contact with everyone who is sacrificing involuntarily), and at some point in time there should be a climactic battle atop the dwarven city, or a daring raid to the place where the acid-entity is being kept.

Last edited by starslayer; 10-21-2014 at 08:52 PM. Reason: scant != scan
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Old 10-21-2014, 08:18 PM   #13
Kalzazz
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Default Re: Ritual path magic group casting

Hmm, 200 energy means Elli herself can break that barrier, which is confusing, how does it work in game? I mean, Elli decides she is going to cast the spell, and the reality rearranges to counter that, but if the reality is not conducive to casting a spell would she want to cast it to begin with?
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Old 10-21-2014, 09:26 PM   #14
starslayer
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Default Re: Ritual path magic group casting

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Originally Posted by Kalzazz View Post
Hmm, 200 energy means Elli herself can break that barrier, which is confusing, how does it work in game? I mean, Elli decides she is going to cast the spell, and the reality rearranges to counter that, but if the reality is not conducive to casting a spell would she want to cast it to begin with?
The 'ripple' effect is not wrong or breaking anything- its not that your magic is somehow disturbing the world. Just that it has some backward awareness when the spell was cast.

Just some further details from my talking with Kal about how this is inteded to work out:

The ripple happens at time of casting, not at time of activation (IE for delayed rituals or charms), and conveys some knowledge about the spell in question. It does not invalidate using a 'doom bullet' charm from a hidden position by giving the target a heads up. Though through the vulgarities of magic the target would have felt 'bad ju-ju' when the spell was cast and loaded into a charm, they just would not know when and where that was actually going to take place (and neither would the caster).

I kind of described this as 'map space-time into a still but weather effected pond', a 200 point spell is like a 6mm bb being dropped into the water, it creates ripples, but they are barely perceptable and not perceptable very far away in either space or time. However the 3000+ point 'end the world' spell is like a multi-tonne boulder being dropped in, everyone on the planet could feel it and they can feel it weeks in advance.

Next- just because they CAN feel it does not mean they DO feel it. The pond is effected by weather (IE casual fluxuations in magic that are wholly natural), and except for the more massive spells the ripples are dwarfed by those natural effects. Someone would have to have been actively 'looking' at the pond (via magic, or some other ability) to see a 200 point ability being put together. Someone still has to look at the 3000+ ability to 'see' it, but they can do so at any time from that 6 week advance notice point to the point at which it gets cast (If it gets cast).

Further- Ammount of informaiton: a 200 point spell is going to convey 'good' and 'bad' and that's about it. At around the 500 point range you might start getting more details 'good for a large group of people', however even the 3000 point monstrosity is going to be a vague 'world ending magic', 'reshape the landscape significantly', 'restore something huge' etc; and even then its only with studdy of the 'ripple'; of course once you know the spell is coming, you can scry for it with magic of your own.

So if you have an epic level caster who casually tosses around 200 energy spells then a lot of shudders in there enemies or warm feelings in there friends are likely the doing of those castings; however if the enemies were getting twitchy for every shudder, or friends were assuming that every warm feeling was the casters doing they'd be all over the place. Those who watch ripples might 'notice' the spells being cast, but quite frankly they will be one 6mm BB dropping into the pond amongs dozens to thousands depending on the size of the world. Once your castings are getting more to the 600 range then people might get interested enough to scry further- but if your a casual 600 range caster then you could also easily set up a scrywall that prevents casual inquiry into your spellcasting, or you could let those interested see your everyday masterworks.

Keep in mind this is my first attempt to try to make a concrete analysis of how this would work, I might chew on this some more and come back.

My thoughts are: I don't want to nerf attack magic by making powerful spells tell the target what's going on, but I do want to limit the ammount of world destroying magic that a crazed cult (or evil wizard through involuntary sacrifice) can accomplish.
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