Thaumatology Sorcery prohibitively expensive [Rant]

[David Johnston2]

Look I don't know the nuts and bolts of how Thaumatology Sorcery works, but two things are clear to me. The first is that you are brutally abusing the default system by letting anyone get 30 levels of magery. That's not how it's supposed to work. The second is that you picked an outlier of a sorcery spell by going for not invisibility but invisibility as a beneficial affliction. Beneficial afflictions are the most expensive way to do anything whatsoever and that's because they are are an enormous force multiplier for the whole group.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Out of curiosity, is there any particular set of revised chargen rules you wish for, or would you just like a big book of options with comments about each option and what kind of world it's designed to work with?

What I'd want is a document that charts all the point-based traits in GURPS core (attributes, advantages, disadvantages, skills) and then has columns for "cost by genre". That way I don't have to figure stuff out on my own.

[Nedorus]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The sorcerer can improvise a lot of minor utility effects with ease, and with some difficulty (or a pile of FP) can improvise some quite powerful effects. What they can do is really only limited by the player's imagination (and willingness to engage with the power building mini-game). The Mage cannot do anything like that.

The spells that a sorcerer knows (i.e. has paid points for) are merely the ones they can fire off with but a moment's thought, and are in my experience quite a minor part of their ability (though probably one that sees a lot of use if those spells have been well-selected).

The real power comes from the ability to improvise, and a skilled/talented sorcerer with a modest power level is probably more useful than one with a bit more power and a lower skill and talent level.

Originally Posted by Nedorus

Ah, there you have a point. In my head I didn't want to allow improvising anything other than the spells from the original game. That would be a significant limitation however. I see that now that you mention it.

Any ideas for pricing this "cannot improvise" or "can improvise only pre-defined"?

What Rupert said here prompted me to re-read the improvisation rules from TSOR6. I now realize that this IS an integral part of the Sorcerous Empowerment trait. Otherwise I could just take the Alternative Abilities rules from Power-Ups 8 (PU8:8) and buy the most expensive Spell at full cost and everything else at 1/5th cost ... never minding the Sorcerous Empowerment.

Also TSOR7 Improvisational Limits already gives the "option" to limit improvisation to an approved grimoire for the campaign, which is what I'll do in my game.

Having re-read this as well as the Alternative Abilities rules has triggered me to consider a decisive change in the limitations of Sorcerous Empowerment.

Originally Posted by TSOR4 Special Limitations

Limited Colleges [...] affects the spells you can learn and what you can improvise

This is clearly intended as a limitation for Sorcerous Empowerment. However I think it doesn't make any sense there. Why?

1. You need to spend at least as many points on Sorcerous Empowerment as the full cost of your most expensive spell. Making Sorcerous Empowerment cheaper just results in the need to have a higher level. So applying the limitation to the cost of Sorcerous Empowerment doesn't actually save any points.
2. Due to the above, limiting the mage to a few colleges doesn't let her cast higher power spells (see above), it just limits what she can do.
3. As applying the limitation to the cost of Sorcerous Empowerment will simply result in higher levels the mage will now be able to improvise (very slightly) more powerful spells, as their limit is given by the level of Sorcerous Empowerment NOT the point cost (except for Hardcore Improvisation which again is not impacted by the limitation).

So, limiting a mage in the number / type / college of spells available won't give any benefit in return (none that I see anyway).

I am considering applying the limitation to the full cost of the spells instead of to the Sorcerous Empowerment.

This will allow the mage to learn more powerful spells as their cost is brought down while the cost of Sorcerous Empowerment stays the same.
Assuming the same level of Sorcerous Empowerment the spells which can be improvised are extended as well.

So assuming a Limited Colleges: One College Only, -40% limitation would bring the cost of my current version of the 'Improved Invisibility' spell down to 44 points from 48. The cost of 'Lend Combat Sense' would come down from 25 to 21 ...

This may not seem much but it could make the difference of needing another level of Sorcerous Empowerment (for 10 Points) or not...

Also I'm not currently using Multiplicative Modifiers (P102). That would make the -40% in combination with +200% to +400% modifiers which frequently occur with afflictions much more impactful...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Nedorus

So, limiting a mage in the number / type / college of spells available won't give any benefit in return (none that I see anyway).

It's something I also struggle to see the value of.

[Nedorus]

I was checking the impact of Multiplicative Modifiers (P102) on my already created cybergear (cyberware, cyberdecks, bioware etc) to judge whether I should use those instead of additive modifiers (also reading through the forum to get some impressions on impact and what other GMs do.

I noticed that some stuff would in fact be more expensive while other stuff got cheaper. So I dug deeper and came up with these three basic traits:

Base cost is 100 points each.

Trait 1 100-Point-Starting-Trait (Modifier 1 +100%; Modifier 2 -80%; Modifier 3 -100%) [20]

Adding the modifiers up +100%-80%-100% = -80%


Trait 2 100-Point-Starting-Trait (Modifier 1 +100%; Modifier 3 -100%) [100]

Adding the modifiers up +100%-100% = +0%


Trait 3 100-Point-Starting-Trait (Modifier 1 +100%; Modifier 2 -80%) [120]

Adding the modifiers up +100$-80% = +20%


Using Multiplicative Modifiers they all end up at 40 points

I find this interesting... However I currently don't see any example in my trait lists that I find revolting enough to keep me from using this system.

Most of my cybergear (yes I do have a system where you can buy this with money later in the game, after Char-gen) is only minimally impacted.

The biggest increase is on the high-end stuff like highest level rigger-interface or wired-reflexes.
The biggest decrease is for cyber-weapons.


So the main impact it has is: MORE FIREPOWER (^_^)

[hal]

What I'm about to say may sound heretical, but bear with me...

What precisely are point cost systems? Were you to grab a free copy of WITCHCRAFT (an RPG by C. J. Carella - who coincidentally authored GURPS VOODOO), you would find that in that game system, it is possible to have point values for psionics, deity based powers, magical powers, etc - without major conflicts. Can you do the same with GURPS? Not really.

That being said, point buy game systems are a lot like modern day supply/demand economic based models. The GM gives you a limited supply of currency (character points) and then uses a market pricing scheme for buying things. Now, is paying 80 points for (pulling numbers out of thin air here for purpose of illustration) for an absolute power to turn undead? Some say it is a balanced point value. Others on the other hand will balk and say "hell no, not for THAT price". So - they don't buy that power. If you as GM, price it differently, they MAY buy it at 40 points, or you can go some occult route and price it at 50% because the slew of rules and modifications in GURPS POWERS allows for it with some hefty limitations - but the limitations may still cause the player to say "That's too high priced!" and they still don't buy it.

In the bad old days of GURPS when it had reached its apex at GURPS THIRD EDITION REVISED - some of the advantages worked for characters built at say, 200 points, but broke the game when the GM allowed his players 250 or more points.

Rather than fix the issue of having TOO many character points at character creation, they fixed the whole thing by pricing advantages more obscenely higher to where you needed to have a LOT of character points to include those specific advantages (GURPS PSIONICS for 4e, I'm looking at you).

So - reprice those advantages to where you feel comfortable with them. Here is something I wish we could all do - and that's submit GURPS CHARACTERS that players have built for EVERY single campaign as a sort of survey of "what are the players buying" kind of thing. For example, if you built up COMBAT REFLEXES from the ground up for all that it provides, its cost is MUCH higher than the 15 points that is associated with it. Players buy it constantly. Detect Magic Items as its own power separate from Magery - I doubt anyone buys it at all.

The calculus of pricing advantages to me, just isn't worth it. Name ONE undead that needs to have wealth as an advantage or needs to buy the disadvantage of poor - and I'll just cough politiely saying "REALLY?" with a semi-disbelieving voice. Why is it even in the Monster template? Does anyone ever PLAY undead or is it simply an NPC or even just a moving target for player character heroes?

In a horror campaign, accidentally summoning a reluctant ally whose only goal (thanks to their hatred of all humanity) is to pervert your every command, and kill you if you get careless - is not an Ally by any stretch of the imagination. If a demonic character always had that 1 in 216 chance of a critical success in a contest of wills of possibly winning a contest of wills and posessing the player character - sooner or later, those dice will come up 6-6-6 and the player character is screwed. **shrug**

Game mechanics matter, just as does pricing of advantages or disadvantages. Do NOT be afraid to make the game your own and slap your own pricing scheme on things and just saying "my way is no better nor worse than their way" Try out the new pricing and then watch to see if it causes problems with game play and/or balance. Always talk it over with your players saying "hey, I'm feeling my way here and want to work WITH you rather than be adversarial to you. If this is too cheaply priced, we'll fix it later. If it is too expensive, we'll fix it later.

;)

Truth be told? Despite buying all of the MAGIC systems for use with GURPS, GURPS MAGIC still remains my go to methodology. The time it takes to learn a new spell is a limit. The amount of energy available for spell casting is a limit. The odds of successfully casting the spell is a limit. Couple GURPS SPIRITS with GURPS MAGIC and you have the means to keep magic less than overwhelming in a "hidden magic" campaign where the mana level is LOW. GURPS THAUMATOLOGY was the greatest gift for GMs running a campaign. If you REALLY want to have fun?

When a player wants to have 450 spells for a player character, remind them that it took that character some 200 hours of training to obtain that spell. That causes the character to become MUCH older. Make good use of time/use rules, and then play hob with them when you talk about the rules for failing to use a skill over time. Forgetting how to cast a spell would strike fear into players when they have only 1 character point in a spell.

Play with the rules, own them, and don't hesitate to experiment with them. I've been experimenting with GURPS since 1986. I've built my own rules structures where needed, and ignored rules I don't like as a GM. And yes, I've also ignored pricing upon occasion. ;)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Nedorus

[...] as their limit is given by the level of Sorcerous Empowerment NOT the point cost (except for Hardcore Improvisation which again is not impacted by the limitation).

Are you saying here that Hardcore Improvisation is limited by the point cost? I thought it was limited by the level, such that someone with Sorcery 5 [60] and Sorcery (Single College Only -40%) [36] could both use HI for spells worth up to [60], it's just that the latter is only able to do so for spells in a single college. If that's not the case, were I ever to run a game with Sorcery I'd houserule it to be such.

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

It's something I also struggle to see the value of.

Part of me feels that allowing such characters to break the rules and get the spells at 1/5th cost even if full cost would be more than the (modified) Sorcery Advantage, so long as they have enough levels they would qualify for it at full price, would be fine... but I fear that way invites incredibly munchkinry. Far better, I feel, to simply allow those who meet the prerequisite level to be able to buy their most expensive spell at full price, then have all the other spells - alongside the Sorcery Advantage - at 1/5th cost. And this is a benefit, at least if you don't normally allow people to buy the Advantage outright without Sorcery - your modular ability (which you have to buy to get the spell) costs less. Say our above characters each have 5 known spells (with the latter having all 5 from a single college), each worth [60], [50], [35], [20], and [5]. The first character has Sorcery 5 [60] + Spell [12] + Spell [10] + Spell [7] + Spell [4] + Spell [1], for a total cost of [94]. The second character, meanwhile, instead has Sorcery 5 (Single College Only -40%) [7.2] + Spell [60] + Spell [10] + Spell [7] + Spell [4] + Spell [1], for a total of [89.2], which rounds up to [90]. Saving [4] points overall isn't a huge deal, of course... but then neither is "I can only learn the spells I want to learn."

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Part of me feels that allowing such characters to break the rules and get the spells at 1/5th cost even if full cost would be more than the (modified) Sorcery Advantage, so long as they have enough levels they would qualify for it at full price, would be fine... but I fear that way invites incredibly munchkinry. Far better, I feel, to simply allow those who meet the prerequisite level to be able to buy their most expensive spell at full price, then have all the other spells - alongside the Sorcery Advantage - at 1/5th cost. And this is a benefit, at least if you don't normally allow people to buy the Advantage outright without Sorcery - your modular ability (which you have to buy to get the spell) costs less. Say our above characters each have 5 known spells (with the latter having all 5 from a single college), each worth [60], [50], [35], [20], and [5]. The first character has Sorcery 5 [60] + Spell [12] + Spell [10] + Spell [7] + Spell [4] + Spell [1], for a total cost of [94]. The second character, meanwhile, instead has Sorcery 5 (Single College Only -40%) [7.2] + Spell [60] + Spell [10] + Spell [7] + Spell [4] + Spell [1], for a total of [89.2], which rounds up to [90]. Saving [4] points overall isn't a huge deal, of course... but then neither is "I can only learn the spells I want to learn."

You'll have to forgive me if I can't follow your math, though that's only because I often have trouble following math in text.

In my case, it's not that I think "Single College" should give equal points for spending less character points, it's that I have to wonder whether Limitations are worth using on Sorcerous Empowerment at all. Thematically "Single College" makes sense, but maybe in mechanical terms that should be flavor description. I don't know: I'm not good with this sort of "flavor / mechanics" interaction.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Nedorus

This is clearly intended as a limitation for Sorcerous Empowerment. However I think it doesn't make any sense there. Why?

1. You need to spend at least as many points on Sorcerous Empowerment as the full cost of your most expensive spell. Making Sorcerous Empowerment cheaper just results in the need to have a higher level. So applying the limitation to the cost of Sorcerous Empowerment doesn't actually save any points.
2. Due to the above, limiting the mage to a few colleges doesn't let her cast higher power spells (see above), it just limits what she can do.
3. As applying the limitation to the cost of Sorcerous Empowerment will simply result in higher levels the mage will now be able to improvise (very slightly) more powerful spells, as their limit is given by the level of Sorcerous Empowerment NOT the point cost (except for Hardcore Improvisation which again is not impacted by the limitation).

So, limiting a mage in the number / type / college of spells available won't give any benefit in return (none that I see anyway).

The benefit is in the standard improvised spells, where it can make quite a difference in the power available for these. However, unless your campaign is one where being able to improvise a 7-point spell vs a 5-point spell is commonly useful, it's a very minor advantage for a huge limitation.

If you want to make limited Sorcery more useful, I'd suggest making the limit on known and hardcore improvised spells be 10 x (level +1) points for all sorcerers. This matches the current rule for full sorcerers, and lets limited sorcerers match them within their limits.

Oh, one other thing - if you've any limitation on your power, your talent only costs 5/level, so there's an extra (quite substantial) cost reduction for being limited.

[Nedorus]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Are you saying here that Hardcore Improvisation is limited by the point cost? I thought it was limited by the level, such that someone with Sorcery 5 [60] and Sorcery (Single College Only -40%) [36] could both use HI for spells worth up to [60], it's just that the latter is only able to do so for spells in a single college. If that's not the case, were I ever to run a game with Sorcery I'd houserule it to be such.

The relevant passages from TSOR are:

Originally Posted by TSOR6 Improvised Magic

A sorcerer may improvise any spell with a full cost no greater than his Sorcerous Empowerment level. Note the contrast here – unlike for known spells, the level is what sets the limit, not how many character points were spent on the advantage!

and

Originally Posted by TSOR7 Hardcore Improvisation

A sorcerer who needs to exceed the
bounds of his normal improvisational ability may attempt to push his limits, improvising a spell based on the cost of his Sorcerous Empowerment rather than its level.

It's explicitly different for (normal) "Improvisation" and "Hardcore Improvisation".

Originally Posted by Varyon

Part of me feels that allowing such characters to break the rules and get the spells at 1/5th cost even if full cost would be more than the (modified) Sorcery Advantage, so long as they have enough levels they would qualify for it at full price, would be fine... but I fear that way invites incredibly munchkinry. Far better, I feel, to simply allow those who meet the prerequisite level to be able to buy their most expensive spell at full price, then have all the other spells - alongside the Sorcery Advantage - at 1/5th cost. And this is a benefit, at least if you don't normally allow people to buy the Advantage outright without Sorcery - your modular ability (which you have to buy to get the spell) costs less. Say our above characters each have 5 known spells (with the latter having all 5 from a single college), each worth [60], [50], [35], [20], and [5]. The first character has Sorcery 5 [60] + Spell [12] + Spell [10] + Spell [7] + Spell [4] + Spell [1], for a total cost of [94]. The second character, meanwhile, instead has Sorcery 5 (Single College Only -40%) [7.2] + Spell [60] + Spell [10] + Spell [7] + Spell [4] + Spell [1], for a total of [89.2], which rounds up to [90]. Saving [4] points overall isn't a huge deal, of course... but then neither is "I can only learn the spells I want to learn."

I'm also not sure if I can follow you here.

Móira MacFullmage has Sorcerous Empowerment 5 [60].
She is able to learn spells with a maximum full cost of 60 (!).
She is able to improvise spells with a maximum full cost of 5 (!)
She is able to hardcore improvise spells with a maximum full cost of 60 (!)
She learns five spells:
Spell 1 (full cost 60) [12]
Spell 2 (full cost 50) [10]
Spell 3 (full cost 35) [7]
Spell 4 (full cost 20) [4]
Spell 5 (full cost 5) [1] (why she learns this is an open question, as she could improvise it which is no harder than casting a learned spell)

Mòira just spent 94 points on her sorcery abilities (not including talent which I ignore for now as it's not relevant for the discussion)

Neil O'Limited has Sorcerous Empowerment 9 (One College -40%) [60]
He is able to learn spells with a maximum full cost of 60 (!).
He is able to improvise spells with a maximum full cost of 9 (!)
He is able to hardcore improvise spells with a maximum full cost of 60 (!)
He learns five spells:
Spell 1 (full cost 60) [12]
Spell 2 (full cost 50) [10]
Spell 3 (full cost 35) [7]
Spell 4 (full cost 20) [4]
Spell 5 (full cost 5) [1] (again, why he learns this is an open question, as he could improvise it which is no harder than casting a learned spell)

Neil also just spent 94 points on his sorcery abilities (not including talent)

So what did Neil gain by restricting himself to one college? it's exactly the part marked red.

Does this seem like a fair trade? Me thinks not.

My suggestion / what I am considering would be as follows:

Neil buys Sorcerous Empowerment 5 [60]
He buys five spells.
He learns five spells:
Spell 0 (full cost 100; One College -40% => reduced full cost 60) [12] (or maybe [20]?)
Spell 1 (full cost 60; One College -40% => reduced full cost 36) [8]
Spell 2 (full cost 50; One College -40% => reduced full cost 30) [6]
Spell 3 (full cost 35; One College -40% => reduced full cost 21) [5]
Spell 4 (full cost 20; One College -40% => reduced full cost 12) [3]
Spell 5 (full cost 5; One College -40% => reduced full cost 6) [1]

This way Neil now spends 95 points (one additional point) on his sorcery abilities but for one additional much more powerful spell... limiting himself to One College now really pays off!

Basing the actual cost to pay on the un-reduced "full cost" would result in +20 points. This way the benefit from restricting the mage to One College only allows for more powerful spells but doesn't change any costs. This could actually be the option I will start out with and maybe later reduce the cost as well. as Hal said earlier:

Originally Posted by hal

Do NOT be afraid to make the game your own and slap your own pricing scheme on things

All I need to make sure is that my players know what to expect.