GURPS Magic: Artillery Spells

[mouthofgod]

Very happy with the spell creation guidelines. Would love to see more of this in future magic supplements.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Bruno

An excellent read, very enjoyable. My only real complaint is that we don't actually have some sort of artillery Knowledge and Food spells. Come on! We've got the Death Spells precedent to live up to!

For instance, for the Food college a spell called Mass Slaughter seems pretty self evident...

Something for the designer's notes in Pyramid.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

. . . chocolate at a moderate distance. Possibly a result of the strange additives like oat flour among other dubious things.

and

The original D-ration bar was reputed to be the most heinous thing that could ever be mistaken for chocolate at a moderate distance.

A deliberate effort to keep troops from snacking on them.

C. 20 years ago I told a relative of mine, who had served in a US Infantry regiment in WW II, that there was a company attempting to reproduce actual C-rations for re-enactors. He literally turned green and was nearly ill at the very thought.

[(E)]

Mass seasoning
(This is also an animal spell)
This area spell makes those who don't resist irrisitable to creatures that eat one type of food. All animals with matching diets that encounter the subjects of this spell will treat them as the most delectable examples of their preferred foodstuff.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Kromm

This stuff also has the potential to break the game. In true GURPS tradition, "arms control" is left to the GM. If you wouldn't let characters start out with rocket launchers and flamethrowers in your modern-day grime-and-crime campaign, you won't want to let starting delvers learn these spells. Which makes grimoires containing them the perfect reward for high-powered casters who complete difficult quests!

This warning is surprising to me on several levels. (1) Nothing in the book itself seems to suggest it (2) game-mechanically it's hard to see the breakage potential (except maybe if combined with massive power items), and (3) if I'm wrong about 2, this is more work for the GM than I expect out of a book based on the Basic Set magic rules.

On (2): with most of these spells, you're spending at least 3 or 4 FP per 1d of damage, whereas single-target blasting spells only cost 1 FP per 1d of damage. It seems like a question of taking out a bunch of fodder vs. taking out a boss. Neither is inherently more prone to "breaking the game", they're just useful in different situations. The spells feel more like pipe bombs than rocket launchers—which is good, from a game-balance perspective!

[Michael Thayne]

That's weird. Possibly due to the server issues, seems like the site isn't recognizing my last comment as the most recent one on the post? Has this been fixed?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

That's weird. Possibly due to the server issues, seems like the site isn't recognizing my last comment as the most recent one on the post? Has this been fixed?

Server/site is still having some bumps. A few posts I made yesterday finally showed up today... (of course the site was down for maintenance this morning, so that could have been part of it).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

This warning is surprising to me on several levels. (1) Nothing in the book itself seems to suggest it (2) game-mechanically it's hard to see the breakage potential (except maybe if combined with massive power items), and (3) if I'm wrong about 2, this is more work for the GM than I expect out of a book based on the Basic Set magic rules.

On (2): with most of these spells, you're spending at least 3 or 4 FP per 1d of damage, whereas single-target blasting spells only cost 1 FP per 1d of damage. It seems like a question of taking out a bunch of fodder vs. taking out a boss. Neither is inherently more prone to "breaking the game", they're just useful in different situations. The spells feel more like pipe bombs than rocket launchers—which is good, from a game-balance perspective!

I haven't gotten this book yet myself, but I must note regarding (3) that GURPS Magic is hardly lacking in potentially game-breaking stuff.

It's not the damage spells that are the usual suspects for that sort of thing though.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I haven't gotten this book yet myself, but I must note regarding (3) that GURPS Magic is hardly lacking in potentially game-breaking stuff.

It's not the damage spells that are the usual suspects for that sort of thing though.

Yeah, and the issue with GURPS Magic seems to have as its root cause, porting every single 3e spell over without much filtering/revision. I expect more out of a book of new spells.

[Jürgen Hubert]

I finally got around to checking this out. It's nice to see "upgraded" versions of the rather lousy "Explosive" damage spells which divide damage by the distance in yards rather than three times that amount - but that's still rather cost ineffective.

I rather like the "Mine" spells from the "Making and Breaking" college - including the fact that they have clearly specified fragmentation damage. That "Explode" from "GURPS Magic" doesn't have any explicitly listed fragmentation damage has led to interpretation that the 1d or 1d+2 damage dealt to the object is also the fragmentation damage dealt, which is far too powerful (though very useful for utterly destroying large mobs of unarmed foes, especially when combined with things like "Delay").