[DF] Easy arcane magic for Dungeon Fantasy

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Attack

vs

Cast, Attack


Or if you prefer comparing it to a Regular spell, "Doesn't take 1/yd range penalties".

We were talking about Lightning Stare, Breathe Fire, and the like, which are Regular spells but don't take range penalties (since the caster is the presumptive "target"). The whole reason I brought them up is that you attack with those spells as you cast them, so if you have skill 20 (they have a 2 second casting time) you can make an attack every second.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Gnome

We were talking about Lightning Stare, Breathe Fire, and the like, which are Regular spells but don't take range penalties (since the caster is the presumptive "target"). The whole reason I brought them up is that you attack with those spells as you cast them, so if you have skill 20 (they have a 2 second casting time) you can make an attack every second.

Neither Breath Fire nor Lightning Stare mention anything about not taking range penalties, and they mention the target as being the person who takes injury, not the caster; thus, they most certainly do take that -1/yard range penalty.

I also disagree that most DF wizards will invest so much more in Magery/IQ that they'd be able to take spell skills to level 20 with only 2 or 4 CP. Still, even if they did, even a bare-minimum, unmodified 5-point Innate Attack is better than what you get from Lightning Stare/Fireball/anything else. This is because the base magic system sucks, especially for direct-damage spells.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Langy

Neither Breath Fire nor Lightning Stare mention anything about not taking range penalties, and they mention the target as being the person who takes injury, not the caster; thus, they most certainly do take that -1/yard range penalty.

Now this is a good example of where Magic (as written) has issues of interpretation.
Strictly, Breathe Fire, etc (Flame Jet is a clearly example), as Regular Spells should suffer the -1/yard range penalty to the Spell Skill roll. However, Flame Jet explicitly says to treat it as a Hand Weapon with a Range = 1x points of energy, which makes it more like a Melee Spell, except that has a different meaning.
Lightning Stare has a Range of 2x points of energy, does than mean you should take -2 penalty per point of energy, or do you only apply the actual range to the target?
Flame Jet can be maintained, so you can't really charge a penalty for the range to the 'attacked-target' since the target can change between turns, and you use an Innate Attack Skill roll to hit the target, and since the caster wields the Flamejet like a hand weapon it does lend credence to the caster being the target.

I wouldn't apply any range penalty when casting this kind of spell, since I'd agree with the caster being the target of the spell; the person taking injury is the subject of the Innate Attack skill roll to hit! - but its at best ambigious as written!

[zoncxs]

spell classification is described before the spell list in GURPS MAGIC. regular spell have range 1/2D 10 MAX 100, uses the -1/yd penalty for range, and a few other things I just forgot. so if the spell is listed as a "regular spell" (which can be found at the spell list table or even next to the spells name in it description) then it suffers from the range penalty of -1/yd.

edit:: also note that some spells rewrite their own rules and those rules take priority over the others for said spell.

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Langy

even a bare-minimum, unmodified 5-point Innate Attack is better than what you get from Lightning Stare/Fireball/anything else. This is because the base magic system sucks, especially for direct-damage spells.

A 5-point burning attack does 1d, while a Lightning Stare could do up to 6d (with Magery 6). That's a pretty big difference in damage. Applying range penalties to a spell that should clearly work like a jet is just silly. Innate attacks are more powerful than spells for direct damage, no question. However, they offer very little versatility, and it's not impossible to make a wizard with a decent damage output if you invest just a few points in high skill.
I once made a wizard with a 30 Lightning skill and the Psychic Guidance perk. He regularly shot enemies in the eye with a 4d (no FP) Lightning Bolt! Granted, he was a 400 point character...but he also had about 100 other spells, all at at least skill 25! I couldn't have made him nearly as powerful with innate attacks...

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I once made a wizard with a 30 Lightning skill and the Psychic Guidance perk. He regularly shot enemies in the eye with a 4d (no FP) Lightning Bolt! Granted, he was a 400 point character...but he also had about 100 other spells, all at at least skill 25! I couldn't have made him nearly as powerful with innate attacks...

That seems to me to be a very good argument against using GURPS Magic.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That seems to me to be a very good argument against using GURPS Magic.

It's an example of how skill-based Magic encourages PCs to invest unwholesome amounts of points into IQ and Magery. I wouldn't say it's necessarily broken, but it's certainly not a character build that I'm very comfortable with. Magic-as-Powers feels more scalable than skill-based - useful and balanced at most point levels.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Gnome

A 5-point burning attack does 1d, while a Lightning Stare could do up to 6d (with Magery 6). That's a pretty big difference in damage. Applying range penalties to a spell that should clearly work like a jet is just silly. Innate attacks are more powerful than spells for direct damage, no question. However, they offer very little versatility, and it's not impossible to make a wizard with a decent damage output if you invest just a few points in high skill.
I once made a wizard with a 30 Lightning skill and the Psychic Guidance perk. He regularly shot enemies in the eye with a 4d (no FP) Lightning Bolt! Granted, he was a 400 point character...but he also had about 100 other spells, all at at least skill 25! I couldn't have made him nearly as powerful with innate attacks...

And that 6d attack can only be used once or twice an adventure, while the 1d burning attack can be used much, much more frequently.

Further, you could get a 4d burning attack with no modifiers for 20 points - about the same number of points needed to go from skill 25 to skill 30, and it'll wind up being both longer-ranged and generally more useful than Lightning Stare.

The base magic system quite simply sucks, especially if you need to have skill 25-30 before it's in any way useful.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I once made a wizard with a 30 Lightning skill and the Psychic Guidance perk. H

What psychic guidance perk?

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What psychic guidance perk?

It's a perk from Thaumatology - Magical Styles (pg 29) which lets the caster use his spell skill instead of Innate Attack skill to target a Missile spell.