Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

Yes, absolutely. I should have been clearer, my comment wasn't meant to be purely a criticism. I have been developing my own house rules (simply by adding a Combination spell, which allows more than one spell to be cast at the same time, at a skill penalty, one can effectively expand the spell list), using the magic system as the primary structure, and I'm quite happy with the way magic works in GURPS generally. That being said, I do think the lack of minor enchantments was an oversight.

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

You mean, like Temporary Enchantment, Magic p 16? With it, you can enchant a Dragonbane Puissance +1 Sword, good for one strike against a dragon for 15% of the normal energy cost, or 53.

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

That depends... A pure damage-dealing battle mage can be quite a bit cheaper with Powers (80 pts IQ plus 35 pts Magery buys a lot of Innate Attack!) But as far as flexibilty and variety, Magic spells will be far cheaper than Powers given that it only takes a handful of points to gain each additional ability...

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

I'm fairly sure they already have that, under the Making and Breaking school. I was using it as a base for a spell I was creating called "Essential Edge," then I realized the enchantment section already had what I was looking for.

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

Temporary Enchantment as written are often inefficient and expensive... your example shows it clearly (53 energy for a single +1 damage??)

If you want to use them extensively in your campaign (that is, "most mages use temporary enchantments, they are the typicall party enhancing spell") you'll have to greatly reduce its cost.
You might be interested in Sharpen (M118) who works on both cutting and impaling damage.

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

How could a single magic system possibly model both D&D and Mage the ascension?
GURPS has a very functional "power building" system (that is, GURPS Powers) that will allow you to build any possible magic system (though it can be complex).
GURPS Magic is quite customizable, and can cover most fantasy magic system, but makes certain assumptions, and if you use it as written, it will be different from D&D, Mage or any other system.

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

Okay then, I guess we need some new spells, then. How about something like "Empower Weapon", granting a flat +1 to weapon damage per two points of Energy spent?

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

Yes, like you said, Powers attempts to be the toolkit to do just just that..

My concern is that when Steve Jackson Games has put out game world books in the past, they force the game world to work wih the GURPS Magic system basically developed for the Banestorm GURPS Fantasy book long long ago. While I think the system has many merits, it is NOT the system of any other world but Banestorm..

And now that many of the old worldbooks will never be translated upto 4th edition... we remain stuck with an alien magic system. It is an aborration to the genericness of GURPS..

I am pleased that powers is in place that they can change this with future magical worlds and I beg and pray that they will use powers to describe magical abilities in future non-Banestorm world books.

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

Skimmed through, here's my complaint; Gurps Magic is Too General and Not Universal enough. Whereas the rest of the Gurps books tend to be just general enough and almost unfathomly universal.

I was reading through Gurps Basic trying to make a vampire and about half of the advantages and disadvantages could have been explicitly ripped off of the idea of a vampire. I read through it again with a different mindset after this discovery and tried this with cthulu type detectives (on cthulu's side). Same thing.

This is Universal at work. And the advantages and disadvantages are general enough to be used Universally. "Yes you can use this for vampires, but it can also work for [x] [y] and [z]!"

Magic is pretty set in stone. It's way to general for something as wonderful and splendid as magic is supposed to be. And worse still is that most people who say if you dont like it change it a little. It doesn't need a LITTLE change, it needs a lot of it. "Every mage on the planet uses this spell to deal fire damage to someone quickly. If you don't like this, change the name of the spell."

Infact I think Gurps Magic actually tells us this, and it's only marginally helpful. Mortiques Eliminating Illuminating Immolation works exactly like Fireball. Sure it's got an impressive title, but there's a level of suspension of disbelief Gurps Magic isn't achieving doing this. Anyone in on the joke (all of the players) know that an MEII is about as fearsome and powerful as any other fireball.

So yeah, too generic, not universal enough, though from what I hear Thaumotology might be fixing this. (Hope they have a decent chapter on dealing with Gurps Powers to those ends..)

Re: Genericness of Magic in GURPS
 

Yeah, I think the metamagic anticipated for Thaumatology will cover this. Fireball is Fireball, but Mortique has a technique that lets him use the Long-Range table instead. He's serious artillery.