The Problem With Magic

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Symbolic Magic does not necessarily require Magery (and does not necessarily receive a skill bonus from Magery), so it could potentially be used by any non-mage character (mages could learn it, but they would probably not bother if they did not receive a skill bonus from their Magery). By introducing Symbolic Magic as a complement to Standard Magic, you could have any character possess relatively constrained magical abilities. When compared to the dozens of spells that mages have at their fingertips, mages would consider the handful of scrolls that a practitioners of Symbolic Magic could keep 'ready' to be a quaint practice.

In addition to Symbolic Magic there is Craft Magic, Natural Magic and Oath magic.

[edk926]

If you have a firm attribute cap but are open with skills and start off at a fairly high point, you can amass tons of different skills and 112+ pts worth of skills easily.

[AlexanderHowl]

But why bother with an Attribute cap if your characters are going to have excessively high Skills anyway? You end up trading one form of 'cinematic' for another form of 'cinematic'. Now, I completely approve of Attribute caps for beginning characters, I generally cap DX, IQ, and HT at 14 for beginning characters to avoid the 'characters who would have no reason to be in the party' problem but I think that it creates weird discrepancies to cap attributes after character creation.

Instead of an attribute cap, I think that it is better to give mechanical bonus to invest points in skills. In the case of spells, I would suggest reducing spell penalties by one and increasing effective skill level for determining ritual effects by one for every four points invested in a spell. Therefore, a character with IQ 12 and Magery 0 that purchased Continual Light (H) IQ+9 [40]-21 would reduce spell penalties by ten and would have an effective skill of 31 for determining ritual effects (time to cast would be 1/8, rounded up, and cost to cast would be -4 FP). Practitioners would have a vested interest in investing more points in spells rather than just purchasing high IQ and high Magery.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

The Sage:
Archaeology (Megadungeon) (10), Architecture (Megadungeon) (11), Area Knowledge (Megadungeon) (12), Hidden Lore (Megadungeon) (12), History (Megadungeon) (10), Survival (Megadungeon) (11), Alchemy (14), Occultism (16), Thaumatology (14), Haz Materials (Magical) (12), Hidden Lore (Elder Things) (16), Hidden Lore (Any) (11), Diagnosis (13), Esoteric Medicine (Alchemical) (13), First Aid (15), Pharmacy (Alchemical) (13), Physiology (Elven) (13), Psychology (Elder Things) (14), Poisons (13), Surgery (12), Cartography (14), Linguistics (13), Philosophy (Cynicism) (11), Research (12), Speed-Reading (14), Teaching (11), Writing (11), Exorcism (10), Religious Ritual (Elder Things) (14), Theology (Elder Things) (14), Area Knowledge (Guild) (12), Area Knowledge (City) (12), Current Affairs (12), Heraldry (11), Savoir-Faire (Guild) (13), Savoir-Faire (Bureaucrats) (13), Diplomacy (16), Merchant (13), Streetwise (13), Connoisseur (Alcohol) (11), Connoisseur (Art) (11), Connoisseur (Coinage) (11), Connoisseur (Gems/Jewelry) (11), Connoisseur (Magical Items) (11), Gesture (12), Lip Reading (8), Holdout (11), Lockpicking (12), Observation (11), Scrounging (12), Search (11), Stealth (10), Smuggling (11), Traps (14), Urban Survival (11), Climbing (9), Hiking (9), Staff (10).

If you look closely you can see what the important skills are... (Hint, the words 'Elder Things' are attached to them)

This points to potential a GM problem rather then a player problem.
Six skills are Megadungeon specializations. Why?
Five are sub specializations of Connoisseur. Again, why?

If these are needed then wildcard version would cut down the skill count:

Megadungeon knowledge! (11): eliminates 5 additional skills
Connoisseur! (11): eliminates 4 additional skills

The 58 skills (I think I counted right) now becomes 49.

I should point out the number of skills is not as important as the points that go into the skills. "Each point is the equivalent of 200 hours of learning." (Basic Set pg 292)

Take a good look at the iconic characters in the Basic Set. They range from 47 points to 127 and several of them are well over 30 total skills.

Professor William Headley has 28 mundane skills and 9 magic skills (three paths, 6 spells) using 48 points. He is 43.

Sora has 33 skills and 12 techniques using 86 points. She is 23. She has enough time at the age of 23 to have put 17,200 hours or nearly 2 years into her skills! I have to ask how old is the Sage supposed to have been?

Xing La at first glance has a moderate 23 skills but one of them (Drive!) is a wildcard skill which equates to every specialization of the skill in the game (there are 9 listed under Driving).

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by maximara

I should point out the number of skills is not as important as the points that go into the skills. "Each point is the equivalent of 200 hours of learning." (Basic Set pg 292)
.

That only work in one way : if you learn for 200h, you may put 1 point in a skill if the training rules are used.
But it doesn't mean that 1 point in skill require or imply 200h of training. Especially in a DF setting.
In 3e, yes, there was an age based limit for cp in skills. Not in 4e.
A cp in skill may represent learning but also natural talent, intuitive understanding, innate ability, ...

[kirbwarrior]

(There's a lot to respond to, and it's not easy to break up quotes, so I'm going to respond differently than normal)

146 IQ skills? Now I feel less bad about breaking Per and Will from IQ. Good to know.

837 spells? That's nearly triple the entire spectrum of skills in base GURPS. Further, every single skill added is both IQ and boosted by Magery. A ten point talent that affects every non-magic skill seems far too good, why does magic get to do triple that?

1 in 7 spells can be spammed is far more than I thought, ten always useful spells being free seemed great already. That going up to 1 in 3 is crazy good. And the skill 20 break off further points out how magic gets much better as you go up in it (spells are cheaper AND you negate more of the "spells on" penalty).

Bow being better than any missile spell kind of makes my point of how bad the missile spells are.

The knowledge college makes sense for IQ since both are "I know things" traits. Fireball might be based on IQ for flavor reasons, but Gun is DX based and I'm not certain what the difference is (although I guess there's the point that Fireball also requires another DX skill... which again shows how bad the missile spells generally are).

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Realize that now ALL your players have access to Powers and that instead of Batman or Conan the party fighter is more likely to resemble Superman in stats.

I don't understand. It sounds like you understand my point (that wizards are far more capable than their point totals suggest).

Even Kromm has pointed out that prerequisites aren't the balancing tool behind spells, time and cost are (I wish I could find the link, but I swear I've also seen this by many members and in a few books)

I've yet to GM or play in a campaign with default Magic where the wizard wasn't basically better in almost everyway to any other character... in almost any system. The progression really seems to be (from worst to best) Warrior -> Rogue -> Wizard -> Face. Maybe I'm doing things wrong, but it really seems that Rogue and beyond can just avoid combat and get to where they want with their respective skills (just as Wizard does for Rogue and Face often gets better results than Wizards if with less spectacular effects). The only time this seems to be false is when both GM and Player force the moment to be combat without a way to avoid it (which has always felt artificial).

"Experience" with a vague or subjective system rarely means I get better at it (I sometimes find myself getting worse). If someone could clear up how to get better in this regard, I would love that!

Power-As-Magic doesn't have to have anti-magic built in. I can just have many of the features of magic without the -10% Mana Sensitive.

Magic 14 has bit about making new spells.

I've been using Timeslip as an example because it's blatantly an abuse of perfectly legitimate effects; I have someone attack them so it's actually used as a Blocking spell (I didn't see any rules about resisting Blocking Spells) and for some reason it has a clause about being "stuck" in time if your hex is blocked. It looks like it might be even more abusable than 3e's was (I do admit I haven't seen 3e's Magic in a while).

"go in those rooms (and fight those enemies) or go home empty handed" - You don't have to fight the enemies if the treasure is in easy to grab locations if you have any ability to avoid obstacles like the ability to turn insubstantial or warp after using a spell to see into the room and point out all the enemies and traps.

It's not obvious if any college should just be taken out wholly, especially if they make sense thematically before knowing what the effects of the spells are (and thus it's not obvious if any are too good or not good at all).

An invested fighter with 18 ST, 16 DX, and 16 HT is already 260pts alone and less capable than an invested wizard of 100pts less (with the large advantage of being hard to outright kill)

That apprentice wizard still has the starting point of IQM 18, so every point you get is an entire extra spell and another tool in your arsenal.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I personally despise 'min-maxing' in that fashion (and I strongly suspect the GM would have hit me with a rolled up rulebook if I tried it).

Besides, 20 in DX and IQ is 400 points alone, that's more like an 800+ point Character for me. This was a 300 point Character (DX and IQ more in the 14-15 range).

20 in both, sure, but I could easily create a fully capable character on the 250~ area with either one at 20 with skills chosen based on what I want at 14-15 or 19-20 (easier with IQ).

As for that skill list, that seems pretty paltry (I see a lot of 11s which is exactly below reliable and still more further below). I'm not certain what this character is doing, honestly.

Originally Posted by scc

For those who don't believe the thing about lots of skills, Kromm made a post about skills every character should have, it's repeated on page 24 of How to Be a GURPS GM which lists 10 areas where he feels characters and parties need to be able to cover and how each character should have at least some competence in each. That's 10 points on skills, minimum and an easy 20 at least.

I like that list, but it also depends on campaign type how important that list is. If I was to restrict everyone in the party to making those skills necessary, there'd be a lot more focus on those general areas instead of making fun, disparate characters that work together.


Basing things on a D&D style generic fantasy isn't a problem... but that system itself shows off how broken wizards are (I even remember someone back in the day explaining to me how a 12th level wizard can be simultaneously better than every other class combined with the right build). That's the problem, when the wizard just gets to be better because "Only wizards get access to 95% of the cool stuff" that system brings.

As for enchantments being rare/non-existent, I thought that was the base assumption (such that even things like magical "torches", a +1 sword, and a staff of fireball would be incredible treasures, not something you just go to a store down the street to buy). That's why I assumed non-wziards had not much access to magic.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

If it's broken, and you didn't realize that until play time, you'll know it when it becomes an issue. Then you'll fix it. That's play-testing, and no amount of guidelines from the publisher is going to let you automatically avoid that.

With a system already in place (the point system of powers, for instance), I have something to base things on and see what parts of a given ability are too good. With Magic, I don't. I don't know what spells might go from "broken" to "worthless" with even just a 2 FP cost difference, or if that will even solve the actual problem (it might make a spell both too good and not worth using, instead of good enough and worth using)

Originally Posted by maximara

Actually the 'average' person in D&D was even more pathetic having 1-3 HP. Bellcurve wise the MU was better of then the peasant (2.5 vs 2 on average not counting any Con bonuses). A 1st level thief with a 3.5 HP average could wear armor (something the D&D MU could not) improving his survivable.

That's my point. Compared with other things in the system, I can confidently say I'm better than any level 1 character from 3.5 (aside from supernatural effects) and I'm probably around 20 or less points in GURPS. It didn't make any sense.

The Poison Blood spell is cool, but I'm not sure why any of those things were picked (except the damage lines up with other damage spells). Why is it a "fire and forget" spell instead of maintained one? Why those prerequisites?

As for the 'toxic synergy", how do I know what spells shouldn't exist? I might not even know it's broken if no one thinks it's worth taking or never uses it to it's maximum capability.

The "reverse drain" spell might be better as a Meta/Healing spell that lets you take the effects of a healing spell onto yourself instead of spending FP to fix (such as Empathic from Powers for healing). How much would it cost? Would it require a roll?

On that note, why is Recover Energy a skill? It might be the only "passive" spell and skill in GURPS, when passive effects seem to be normally advantages.

(I hope I addressed the points properly)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

I should point out the number of skills is not as important as the points that go into the skills. "Each point is the equivalent of 200 hours of learning." (Basic Set pg 292)

Sora has 33 skills and 12 techniques using 86 points. She is 23. She has enough time at the age of 23 to have put 17,200 hours or nearly 2 years into her skills! I have to ask how old is the Sage supposed to have been?
.

"Equivalent of" is not the same thing as actually being 200 hours. In fact just the opposite is true. A character can pick up a point in under a day's worth of activity.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, there are a few ways that fighters can counter wizards. With 20 CP, fighters can have Magic Resistance 10 [20], which makes them almost impossible to target with magical spells, except for missile spells (which they can defend against normally), meaning that wizards will have a really bad day against them. If the campaign allows powers, fighters can also develop their own powers, which will probably be chi-based or something similar, meaning that fighters are immune to the powers of the mages, but mages are likely not immune to the fighter's powers.

In that scenario, you could have two 250 point characters, one a female fighter and the other a male mage (for example). The female fighter possesses ST 12, DX 14, IQ 12, and HT 14 (for 180 points) while the male mage possesses ST 10, DX 12, IQ 16, and HT 12 (for 180 points). The female fighter possesses Ambidexterity, Combat Reflexes, High Pain Threshold, and Magical Resistance 10 (for 50 points) while the male mage possesses Ally (Familiar; 50%; 15-; Special Abilities, +50%; Summonable, +100%) and Magery 3 (for 50 points). Each character will have 50 points of disadvantages and quirks and 70 points of skills and techniques.

The female fighter will probably make mincemeat of the male mage in direct combat (though a mage mage may be capable of turning invisible and be an annoyance that way). Even if the male mage possesses Flame Jet (H) IQ+9 [28]-25 and Innate Attack (Beam) (E) DX+4 [12]-16, he will likely be a less capable fighter than the female mage with Shortsword (A) DX+6 [24]-20, Shield (E) DX+4 [12]-18, and Knife (E) DX+2 [4]-16.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Well, there are a few ways that fighters can counter wizards. With 20 CP, fighters can have Magic Resistance 10 [20]

That exemplifies my problem with anti-magic. If anti-magic exists as a balancing concern, then a wizard is either too good or worthless, basically whenever the GM wants. If it's not a balancing concern, then there's no real reason for it to exist.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The female fighter will probably make mincemeat of the male mage in direct combat

Which is why I avoid direct combat when playing a wizard. One GM I played under for a few years made it very obvious when and how to avoid situations where my character is useless (this applies to any character type). If I was suddenly thrown in that situation, I know I'd have a handful of spells to get out of there on my turn. That's not even unusual, this hypothetical wizard has IQ16 and would be smart, both planning ahead and knowing plans aren't enough.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

The knowledge college makes sense for IQ since both are "I know things" traits. Fireball might be based on IQ for flavor reasons, but Gun is DX based and I'm not certain what the difference is .

Casting the spell is not at all the same thing as hitting with the spell.

The Poison Blood spell is cool, but I'm not sure why any of those things were picked (except the damage lines up with other damage spells). Why is it a "fire and forget" spell instead of maintained one? Why those prerequisites?

There are answers to those questions that I thought of in the under two minutes I devoted to thinking up that spell, looking up Poison Food and writing it down. But here's the thing. Those answers would not be different at all if I had designed that spell using a point design design system. (I'll put them at the end because they're actually irrelevant to the issue at hand). The worst possible reason to make a worldbuilding design choice is "It fits into my budget". As a GM you shouldn't have a budget.

It has those characteristics because those are the characteristics I wanted it to have at that moment. Now that I look at it again I realize I also want a higher chance of more than one turn of damage so I'd put a negative modifier based on margin of success, decreasing by one with each cycle.

As for the 'toxic synergy", how do I know what spells shouldn't exist?

Once again, not a problem that is really solved with point-building systems.

The "reverse drain" spell might be better as a Meta/Healing spell that lets you take the effects of a healing spell onto yourself instead of spending FP to fix (such as Empathic from Powers for healing). How much would it cost? Would it require a roll?

Well you can already spent hit points to cast spells.

On that note, why is Recover Energy a skill? It might be the only "passive" spell and skill in GURPS, when passive effects seem to be normally advantages.

Recover Energy is an obsolete idea that needs to be red penciled or rewritten.

The reasoning behind Poison Blood: It's a modified Poison Food. It requires a Body Control prereq to be able to affect a living body and Drunkenness is a Body Control spell that simulates a toxin in the body. This is a just a different toxin.