DF Artillery Mages Noodling

[Dammann]

Oh, yeah, I know. Jedi might be a little snotty about modern conveniences, but I was just struck by how much your post sounded like a particular unimpressed smuggler.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Dammann

Oh, yeah, I know. Jedi might be a little snotty about modern conveniences, but I was just struck by how much your post sounded like a particular unimpressed smuggler.

Yeah, it did to me while I was writing it, too. But really, don't fight blasters by out-blasting them. The usual "spells instead of swords" thing is that it's hard to do both. It's trivial to do both when you have UT weaponry.

[William]

Besides, throwing fireballs and lightning bolts in a world where the best ranged weapons are bows makes you unique. It's not so special when the guy beside you can buy a plasma thrower from a crook on a street corner.

If I were creating an ultra-tech world where mages still had something of awe and mystery about them, they shouldn't just be able to do as well as someone with tools. They should be able to do impossible things. It should be about raising the dead. Telling the future. Summoning spirits. Controlling people's minds (and computers) with a word and a gesture. Getting lucky. And if that mage knows a Word of Power, the effects are going to scale with the world, because you can't out-tech reality.

Also, I would have mages be... well... slightly crazy. Tech worlds are big on science. Magic's not science. It's not even rational. They have a DWIM algorithm for the universe, and DWIM algorithms shouldn't exist. If you want to have them match tech for big flashy effects, let them contact spirits with huge energy pools and high-point powers, and convince the spirits to do the work for them, tearing up cities or searching sectors in an eyeblink. But the spirits are not entirely safe to speak to, and only remotely safe if you're a virgin, or a seventh son of a seventh son, or haven't had any salt for 24 hours, or speak to them in Latin, or some other condition that makes no sense to humans.

[martinl]

I don't think there's anything wrong with a setting where wizards hurl missile spells that are competitive with (or even better than) the technological weapons they are competing with. There's not a lot of settings that work that way, of course, but if a GURPS GM wanted to do it and still use GURPS Magic mostly RAW, I'd probably advise spell TLs (to prevent TL 3 wizards from having ~TL8 weapons) tied to damage divisors and range modifiers.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

. . . and probably use guns themselves. If everyone is firing x-ray lasers and you want to compete by shooting fireballs, you would need to up fireballs to a ridiculous extreme to keep up. A GM could do that, but equally could just say, "it's 1d for 1 FP if you do it yourself, but you can use an x-ray laser like everyone else."

At an ultra-tech level of play, where ST plays no role in determine how much a given ranged weapon does for damage, it's going to be hard to compete with personally-generated attack spells. Save them and do other things, IMO, and stop worrying about killing people with your magical powers when you've got a more serious weapon on your hip.

That's possible, of course, but not always the case. Wizardly destructive spells don't have to be moderate. In some settings, rather than approximating hand grenades and maybe pistol fire, wizardly wrath bears more resemblance to high-UT personal weapons, artillery strikes, or even heavy starship weapon batteries.

Evocation being an obsolescent art at higher tech levels mostly follows from fitting wizards for balance at TL ~3 and then transposing them forward without advancement. If the setting isn't really concerned with TL3 balance (either because not-TL3 or not-balance), it can go quite different places with that.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That's possible, of course, but not always the case. Wizardly destructive spells don't have to be moderate. In some settings, rather than approximating hand grenades and maybe pistol fire, wizardly wrath bears more resemblance to high-UT personal weapons, artillery strikes, or even heavy starship weapon batteries.

Okay, so make it possible - but it should cost more. A lot more. If your fireball is a heavy starship battery in strength, it shouldn't cost 1 point to learn and 35 for Magery 3.

The problem I have, really, is the "GURPS Magic should natively do all of this at all levels of scaling, and magic should be inexpensive, fast, powerful, and versatile" approach. I don't think it needs to do that. GURPS has other ways to do this, so why not use them?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Okay, so make it possible - but it should cost more. A lot more. If your fireball is a heavy starship battery in strength, it shouldn't cost 1 point to learn and 35 for Magery 3.

Yeah. Keeping it skill-based is a legitimate option, but if 'disintegrate' is a basic spell, the entry fee needs to be higher.

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

The problem I have, really, is the "GURPS Magic should natively do all of this at all levels of scaling, and magic should be inexpensive, fast, powerful, and versatile" approach. I don't think it needs to do that. GURPS has other ways to do this, so why not use them?

What other ways to actually do that? I don't think GURPS has any ways to do that except buying yourself an ultratech armory. Which would be deliberately missing the point.

And even if you're willing to write off 'inexpensive', there are things GURPS magic does that GURPS alternatives are iffy on. Skill-and-personal-energy driven. Missile spell mechanics. Of course, if you just write your own GURPS Magic for the setting you actually want to play, that can all work out.

[William]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

wizardly wrath bears

Wizardry in ultra-tech settings is a lot more interesting when this is a noun phrase.

[Dammann]

Even mundane wrath bears spice up a setting.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

What other ways to actually do that? I don't think GURPS has any ways to do that except buying yourself an ultratech armory. Which would be deliberately missing the point.

Innate Attack is pretty kaboomy...