DF Artillery Mages Noodling

[Joe]

Originally Posted by martinl

Anyway, thoughts on names and categories?

I think you actually got the names right in your very first post: the two categories are definitely "boom boom" and "pew pew". :)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Innate Attack is pretty kaboomy...

Right, and just add the limitation that it only works where there is mana, and if you hate it being free make it cost some FP if you like. It's not a trivial build but X for free, 2X for some extra time or FP or both, 3X for more, etc. is buildable with GURPS Basic Set.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not simultaneously inexpensive, powerful, and versatile...

Is that the goal? You should be able to out-fight technology at any given TL and have it be inexpensive, powerful, and versatile?

I can't get behind that at all, so I'll just step aside and let you guys figure out what you want. For me, the kind of thing being talked about should cost a lot of energy to use, or a lot of points. To me, a mage who can fire fireballs that out-do modern weapons is a superhero, and should be built on superheroic point levels.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Is that the goal? You should be able to out-fight technology at any given TL and have it be inexpensive, powerful, and versatile?

I can't get behind that at all, so I'll just step aside and let you guys figure out what you want. For me, the kind of thing being talked about should cost a lot of energy to use, or a lot of points. To me, a mage who can fire fireballs that out-do modern weapons is a superhero, and should be built on superheroic point levels.

Uh, did you follow the thread there? You wrote:

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?

I questioned the assertion that GURPS has other ways to do what you said it did. What you quoted is one response in from that.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Uh, did you follow the thread there? You wrote:

I questioned the assertion that GURPS has other ways to do what you said it did. What you quoted is one response in from that.

As you can probably tell from my suggestion of IAs upthread I definitely didn't get the impression Peter was suggesting that a replacement should have all those features.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Bruno

As you can probably tell from my suggestion of IAs upthread I definitely didn't get the impression Peter was suggesting that a replacement should have all those features.

Oooh, I think I had a pronoun (the 'this' in the last sentence I quoted) mapped to the wrong thing. That makes sense then!

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Is that the goal? You should be able to out-fight technology at any given TL and have it be inexpensive, powerful, and versatile?

That's absolutely not the goal. We'd just like magic at higher TLs to not be an inherently losing proposition. There's a big difference between scaling to keep a rough parity with technology, and completely outclassing technology.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

We'd just like magic at higher TLs to not be an inherently losing proposition.

It's not. Magic is powerful at high TLs in roughly the same way it's powerful at low -- plot-destroying information spells, mind control, buffs, and utility effects. If you make artillery spells useful, you really have to deal with the overpowered stuff in magic.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Oooh, I think I had a pronoun (the 'this' in the last sentence I quoted) mapped to the wrong thing. That makes sense then!

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say - not saying GURPS would allow all of that to happen at once. At least not inexpensively in terms of points, even if it was a "I can blow up a planet for 0 FP every second!" type of power. Lots of points even if it's cheap in actual play.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That's absolutely not the goal. We'd just like magic at higher TLs to not be an inherently losing proposition. There's a big difference between scaling to keep a rough parity with technology, and completely outclassing technology.

Fine, but I'm still bowing out because:

- I don't think GURPS Magic needs to scale on damage. GURPS Magic mages have a whole lot more much better stuff they can do than inflict damage, and I think that's the real upside to mages with that system. Giving them "keep up with the tech in terms of damage" is something I think is a mistake, based on how powerfully effective I find them with non-damaging powers (which they then augment with slow but IME effective damaging attacks). IMO straight-up non-attack magic in GURPS Magic gets dramatically more effective coupled with high technology and Draw Power, not less effective. I'd rather be the mage with Great Haste and an x-ray laser than just a guy with an x-ray laser.

- I don't think you need to do this with GURPS Magic, because you can do it other ways, in a manner that is much more fair in terms of cost to buy the level of effect. GURPS Magic spells are cheap for what they do, and since as I said above I feel what they do is better when combined with tech, I think the way to go is with Innate Attack and Affliction, not scaling the spells.

Obviously folks disagree, so I don't see me putting anything productive into the discussion.

[Bruno]

Although - if you're adverse to Innate Attack, RPM has a pretty darn high damage output built into it. Not surprising, as it's baselined against "Action Hero" TL8 weapons.