Stats for D&D spells in a Fantasy game?

[thom]

Hi all.

I'm prepping to DM a group of D&Ders in GURPS, since I've come to love the system. To make it easier for them, I'm converting some 'classic' D&D spells for them to feel more comfortable with. The only ones I'm having trouble with are the Clerical spells of Prayer and Spiritual Weapon. What I've come up with so far is:

Prayer (cleric spell only)
probably requires Power Investiture 2 or 3
Area spell
Duration: 1 minute?
Cost: 2? (for a 1 hex, so 4 for 2 hex, etc.) Cannot be maintained.
Time to cast: 2 rounds?

To avoid the whole mess of being Resisted, I'm limiting the effects to:

This spell affects all allies within the area by adding +1 to all attack skill rolls with weapons, and +1 on all damage rolls with weapons.

Sooo...how does that sound? Is the cost reasonable for what the spell accomplishes? Too much? Too little?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

As for the Spiritual Weapon spell-yoicks! I can't even begin to decide how it would work in GURPS! Any ideas? ::sheepish grin::


Thanks for any help!

[Refplace]

Been a long time (almost 30 years) since i played D&D, so what does Spiritual Weapon do?
Imbuements and Divine Favor are kind of nice things to look at for Clerics.
The basic magic system is nice but makes them too similar to mages if you use that for spells for both groups.

[thom]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Been a long time (almost 30 years) since i played D&D, so what does Spiritual Weapon do?

Basically, the spell gives the caster his deity's favored weapon as an independent, ranged attack-at the caster's ability. So if the god's favored weapon was a mace, and the cleric had Mace-12, the spell would invoke a vaguely spectral 'mace' that would attack the chosen target at that skill level for the duration of the spell. The cleric could take a 'concentrate' round to move the spell to new target...

I'll have to look at imbuements to see if they can help with Prayer...

[Diomedes]

Spiritual Weapon should probably be comparable in energy cost to Poltergeist or Winged Knife, its closest GURPS counterparts.

[Refplace]

Ok then Try Distant Blow M p144 or go for a non enchantment version of Dancing Weapon. But Distant Blow should be close enough for you I think.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by thom

Hi all.

I'm prepping to DM a group of D&Ders in GURPS, since I've come to love the system. To make it easier for them, I'm converting some 'classic' D&D spells for them to feel more comfortable with. The only ones I'm having trouble with are the Clerical spells of Prayer and Spiritual Weapon. What I've come up with so far is:

Prayer (cleric spell only)
probably requires Power Investiture 2 or 3
Area spell
Duration: 1 minute?
Cost: 2? (for a 1 hex, so 4 for 2 hex, etc.) Cannot be maintained.
Time to cast: 2 rounds?

To avoid the whole mess of being Resisted, I'm limiting the effects to:

This spell affects all allies within the area by adding +1 to all attack skill rolls with weapons, and +1 on all damage rolls with weapons.

Sooo...how does that sound? Is the cost reasonable for what the spell accomplishes? Too much? Too little?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

As for the Spiritual Weapon spell-yoicks! I can't even begin to decide how it would work in GURPS! Any ideas? ::sheepish grin::


Thanks for any help!

First, it is not a good idea to conver the mechanics from one system to another. Specially in D&D, the mechanics are often slightly (or completelly) abstract, and GURPS is a concrete system. Convert the concept, ditch the flavour.

As for prayer, that looks like either Grace and Might, Grace and Orichalcum Edge (Pyramid #3/35), or Bless. Bless is probably the closest you can get to the original spirit of the idea. It's more limited than bless, since it doesn't last until triggered, but instead lasts for a short duration, and probably shouldn't have the finish early to save your bacon aspect, but it can affect the caster, so you could have it at base cost 8 or so.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Been a long time (almost 30 years) since i played D&D, so what does Spiritual Weapon do?
Imbuements and Divine Favor are kind of nice things to look at for Clerics.
The basic magic system is nice but makes them too similar to mages if you use that for spells for both groups.

I hear that someone took Divine Favor, adapted it to Dungeon Fantasy, and wrote a Pyramid article on it...

Originally Posted by thom

Basically, the spell gives the caster his deity's favored weapon as an independent, ranged attack-at the caster's ability. So if the god's favored weapon was a mace, and the cleric had Mace-12, the spell would invoke a vaguely spectral 'mace' that would attack the chosen target at that skill level for the duration of the spell. The cleric could take a 'concentrate' round to move the spell to new target...

I'll have to look at imbuements to see if they can help with Prayer...

Option 1: Distant Blow spell
Option 2: Project Blow Imbuement
Option 3: Build it with Innate Attack, ST based

In all cases, you might need extra traits to make it independent.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

First, it is not a good idea to conver the mechanics from one system to another. Specially in D&D, the mechanics are often slightly (or completelly) abstract, and GURPS is a concrete system. Convert the concept, ditch the flavour.

I'm going to go further and try to argue against converting at all. I understand that this is a thread about converting D&D spells to GURPS but, respectfully, in regards to the intent of the original poster, I think it might be a bad idea.

I remember doing the same thing once for a group, and I so successfully converted D&D into GURPS that, at the end of the experience, the group said "Well, GURPS doesn't do anything that D&D doesn't do, so we don't see why we should change systems," and went back to D&D. I've learned since then that if someone is open to a new system, they often want to see what the new system actually does, how it's different, how it stacks up, and so on.

If they're not actually open to a new system, they're not going to care how much effort you put into it, because they've already made their decision and they're just going to suffer through your session and declare it a failure anyway, so conversion is pointless for them too.

What you do want to do is show them that they can play their favorite genres in GURPS. Dungeon Fantasy is great for this, because it's about going into dungeons, beating up monsters and taking their stuff, but unlike D&D it doesn't involve rigid classes or the mage-as-artillery concept or abstract war-gamey mechanics.

So I say showcase its strengths and how its different and let them judge it honestly. Don't file off the serial numbers and present them "D&D with 3d6 instead of a d20."

(This is not an argument against converting anything from D&D, just against trying to sell D&D-types on GURPS by making GURPS look as much like D&D as you can).

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I'm going to go further and try to argue against converting at all. I understand that this is a thread about converting D&D spells to GURPS but, respectfully, in regards to the intent of the original poster, I think it might be a bad idea.

I remember doing the same thing once for a group, and I so successfully converted D&D into GURPS that, at the end of the experience, the group said "Well, GURPS doesn't do anything that D&D doesn't do, so we don't see why we should change systems," and went back to D&D. I've learned since then that if someone is open to a new system, they often want to see what the new system actually does, how it's different, how it stacks up, and so on.

If they're not actually open to a new system, they're not going to care how much effort you put into it, because they've already made their decision and they're just going to suffer through your session and declare it a failure anyway, so conversion is pointless for them too.

What you do want to do is show them that they can play their favorite genres in GURPS. Dungeon Fantasy is great for this, because it's about going into dungeons, beating up monsters and taking their stuff, but unlike D&D it doesn't involve rigid classes or the mage-as-artillery concept or abstract war-gamey mechanics.

So I say showcase its strengths and how its different and let them judge it honestly. Don't file off the serial numbers and present them "D&D with 3d6 instead of a d20."

(This is not an argument against converting anything from D&D, just against trying to sell D&D-types on GURPS by making GURPS look as much like D&D as you can).

I sometimes convert settings (Since GURPS doesn't offer much in the way of settings) and even if I try to keep the conversion at the conceptual level (I prefer minimalistic conversions that only convert what appears in the vignetes and backstory of the setting) sometimes you need to convert some mechanical aspects that are very ingrained in the fluff. What I usually do is search for the nearest GURPS equivalent, and only if it doesn't exist, create something.

Also, I've found that everything works best is you gloss over the mechanical details of the other systems when converting. Most of the time, if they're justified, they're justified Ex Post Facto, meaning that I've seen the fluff twisted into a pretzell because it must accomodate for the neat mechanical idea. In those cases, I apply Occam's Razor...

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I sometimes convert settings (Since GURPS doesn't offer much in the way of settings)

Well, I also happen to think converting settings is a bad idea, but I hope that wasn't what came across in my post as I feel it's off-topic. I'm not trying to say that a D&Dish world, or even Forgotten Realms, is a bad place for new GURPSers who're used to D&D to start, even though I wouldn't do that. I'm trying to say that you should let the GURPS mechanics speak for themselves, and that includes using relatively generic stuff like (in my opinion) GURPS magic*

I do very much agree with your approach, though, Kuroshima. Were I to convert, I would do just what you do.

*I must admit, though, given the many-faceted approach to magic that GURPS has, this is a pretty weak argument. Think of it as a general philosophy: "Let GURPS be GURPS." It's arguable that GURPS can still be GURPS with combat-oriented vancian magic in it, of course.

[Bruno]

Cut Spiritual Weapon back to its basic fluff - it conjures a magic weapon that chases one of your foes around on the battlefield and attacks him. It can attack spirits, and has no "body" to be the victim of attacks.

Call it a variation/upgrade on Create Warrior - as a wizard spell it probably has prerequisites like Affect Spirits, and one of Create Warrior or Dancing Object or (Animation and Grace).

It creates a "haunted", flying weapon that has the stats from Create Warrior (ST 12, skill 16 etc), but you can only attack the weapon itself (see the weapon breaking rules from Basic Set). It can attack spirits as per Affect Spirits. 1 second to cast, 10 second duration, 6 to cast, 4 to maintain. It has a much shorter duration and a more expensive startup cost, but its much faster to cast than Create Warrior, comes with its own weapon, doesn't need armor, and can attack spirits.