DF Artillery Mages Noodling

[simply Nathan]

I think the healing abilities out of Magic are better than what you will get at any tech, ever. In theory it's even possible to cast the Resurrection spell if you can manage to get 300 thaums of energy together at once.

Not to mention legit summoning of the spirits of the dead to communicate with them and other stuff I don't think technology is ever going to touch.

I think for DF artillery mages are good enough as they are. For other genres artillery mages don't make as much sense and there's loads of better things you can do with magic.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by 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.

And this is the important part!

GURPS Magic's baseline is 1d~ as it presumes a Low-Tech setting where most attacks are 1d~ (ST 10~ with a -2 ~ +2 weapon). If your setting isn't using that as its' baseline attack, then you should adjust the spell's damage values accordingly; if your setting's baseline attack is 9d(10), then replace the '1d' in the spell description with '9d(10)'.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

And this is the important part!

GURPS Magic's baseline is 1d~ as it presumes a Low-Tech setting where most attacks are 1d~ (ST 10~ with a -2 ~ +2 weapon).

The average damage output of characters at the point level of mages is upwards of 2d cutting. I'd normalize it at 3 fatigue for the equivalent of a TL-appropriate rifle (including range, accuracy, and rate of fire).

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Anthony

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.

If non damaging magic is really good, I don't see how having damaging magic suck is going to balance things.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by martinl

Since I'm not running DF right now, it remains a temptation.

Thoughts?

You're not running DF, but you're playing in one, and speaking as the Cleric who has to fire off a Sunbolt at the beast when you're missing from game, I hope you get this sorted soon. Theltemes died in the line of duty last night while you were off 'moving into a new home' whatever that means. :)

-P

PS: Theltemes deserved it, using a druid with a spear to poke an ogre only made it *angry*. I used a *lot* of healing to prop our barbarian up and my medical knowledge was insufficient to bringing Theltemes back from the brink.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Innate Attack is pretty kaboomy...

I hadn't realized that Martinl was looking at how to do this. He and I are in the same gaming group. I've used Innate attack to simulate a single bread and butter combat spell that does low damage instantly on need (Anyone who has seen "Sorcerer's Apprentice" with Nicholas Cage: Plasma Bolt!)

Then, I go and buy all the other spells from the standard spell table so that I can drop higher powered spells at longer intervals as needed.

-P

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by martinl

If non damaging magic is really good, I don't see how having damaging magic suck is going to balance things.

It means that you can't be really good in two separate categories at once for a trivial cost. If you limit mages to one school or a really small number of spells, sure, make the damaging spells better.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It means that you can't be really good in two separate categories at once for a trivial cost. If you limit mages to one school or a really small number of spells, sure, make the damaging spells better.

Guns/TL8 (Rifles) is an Easy skill. The current suggestion for a modern or ultra-tech mage who wants competitive ranged damage output is to take that skill. Easy skills are trivial point investments; any alternative should be of comparable cost.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Guns/TL8 (Rifles) is an Easy skill. The current suggestion for a modern or ultra-tech mage who wants competitive ranged damage output is to take that skill. Easy skills are trivial point investments; any alternative should be of comparable cost.

Guns/TL8 (Rifles) is worth diddly squat unless you have a gun. Which costs money, is subject to law and social control, and can be dropped.

That's how equipment works in GURPS. You're comparing to a small segment of the cost, and complaining that that small segment is cheap. The problem is that the "cost" of equipment is payed in various different currencies, of which points is only one.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Bruno

...

Either I've lost the subthread I'm responding to or you have. Reconstructing ...

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

And this is the important part!

GURPS Magic's baseline is 1d~ as it presumes a Low-Tech setting where most attacks are 1d~ (ST 10~ with a -2 ~ +2 weapon). If your setting isn't using that as its' baseline attack, then you should adjust the spell's damage values accordingly; if your setting's baseline attack is 9d(10), then replace the '1d' in the spell description with '9d(10)'.

Originally Posted by Anthony

The average damage output of characters at the point level of mages is upwards of 2d cutting. I'd normalize it at 3 fatigue for the equivalent of a TL-appropriate rifle (including range, accuracy, and rate of fire).

Originally Posted by martinl

If non damaging magic is really good, I don't see how having damaging magic suck is going to balance things.

Originally Posted by Anthony

It means that you can't be really good in two separate categories at once for a trivial cost. If you limit mages to one school or a really small number of spells, sure, make the damaging spells better.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Guns/TL8 (Rifles) is an Easy skill. The current suggestion for a modern or ultra-tech mage who wants competitive ranged damage output is to take that skill. Easy skills are trivial point investments; any alternative should be of comparable cost.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Guns/TL8 (Rifles) is worth diddly squat unless you have a gun. Which costs money, is subject to law and social control, and can be dropped.

That's how equipment works in GURPS. You're comparing to a small segment of the cost, and complaining that that small segment is cheap. The problem is that the "cost" of equipment is payed in various different currencies, of which points is only one.

Done. And, so, thereby: Erm? (I'm not trying to be an ass. Really, I'm not. You appear to be coming at it from an angle that doesn't make any sense to me and so I'm confused.)

My argument, such as it is, is that if the GM wishes missile-mages to be competitive with other ranged damage dealers, then the GM should scale the missile-spell's damage to the setting's baseline damage and that the GM shouldn't charge the mage more points to be competitive than the GM would charge any other ranged damage dealer to be competitive.

Saying, "But you can do all these other things!" isn't especially relevant; you get what you pay for. Each and every single one of those other currencies also cost points. [Everything in GURPS costs points, directly or indirectly.] The factor of it being a mage doing it vs it being a sniper doing it is essentially a Feature. A rifle-equivalent missile spell costs fatigue, is subject to legal/social controls and can't be dropped. A rifle costs G$, is subject to legal/social controls and can be dropped. The difference washes out in terms of costs and benefits.

I'd still prefer the rifle over the missile spell because the rifle doesn't cost fatigue [fatigue is worth more to me than the G$ spent on bullets; gear comes and goes, fatigue loss gets you dead and there are so many other things a mage can be spending that fatigue on] and because the rifle can be gotten rid of [walking around with the world knowing that you are armed with a dangerous weapon they can't take away from you is an excellent way to become an "unfortunate accident" if you ever run afoul of the law].