Spells I have an issue with

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Someone who wants to build a pyro mage might be inclined to put Fire College Only on their Magery - except then such a character is crippling their ability to recover FP, by not allowing for Recover Energy.

Actually, it doesn't. Recover Energy is a special case under One College Magery, per p. B67.

I agree Recover Energy would make more sense as an advantage of some kind. It dates from early in the history of GURPS, when doing everything with skills was a visible line of development, and I suspect it's been retained because rebuilding the whole spells-as-skills magic system is such a big job, and it doesn't seem worth breaking compatibility with smaller changes.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Actually, it doesn't. Recover Energy is a special case under One College Magery, per p. B67.

I agree Recover Energy would make more sense as an advantage of some kind. It dates from early in the history of GURPS, when doing everything with skills was a visible line of development, and I suspect it's been retained because rebuilding the whole spells-as-skills magic system is such a big job, and it doesn't seem worth breaking compatibility with smaller changes.

When I'm working with the standard system, I like to treat recover energy as a skill with no prerequisites rather than as a spell. even when I'm using broader systems like the ritual magic skills with penalties equal to prereq counts. Though now that you say it, I agree: it probably should be an advantage, not a skill. 5 points, maybe?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Though now that you say it, I agree: it probably should be an advantage, not a skill. 5 points, maybe?

5pts is the cost of Fit which includes a +1 to all HT rolls, recovers FP ls9ot to physical exertion as well as spell casting and doesn't rely on mana.

No more than 3pts and it might be a Perk.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

5pts is the cost of Fit which includes a +1 to all HT rolls, recovers FP ls9ot to physical exertion as well as spell casting and doesn't rely on mana.

No more than 3pts and it might be a Perk.

I'm pretty confident Fit explicitly doesn't work for recovering FP lost to spellcasting.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm pretty confident Fit explicitly doesn't work for recovering FP lost to spellcasting.

<goes and looks> Hrm, it does say that in the last paragraph. I may have been relying on my House Rule where I don't keep track of how FP were lost. I don't know how the character's body distinguishes between them either.

[AlexanderHowl]

It is literally magic, so it could easily be mental fatigue (or spiritual fatigue) rather than physical fatigue.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It is literally magic, so it could easily be mental fatigue (or spiritual fatigue) rather than physical fatigue.

....but what is the game mechanic that distinguishes them from physical fatigue?

Go ahead and base Magic on "mana pts" and give every mage 10 to start with if you want to but try and bifurcate FP.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Animal Control: The spell itself is fine, but the cost to cast being based on the racial IQ of the most intelligent species within the category is absurd.

I'd just set it as the IQ of whichever animal you're controlling because I'm not even sure what they mean by "animal category" TBH. Like if it's "simians" then does the IQ5 of certain hominoids mean paying 5 energy to control some IQ 3 monkey?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Tickle: I have my doubts as to whether tickling would be effective on an injured person. It's kind of an easy and undignified way to win by paralyzing someone for a minute.

It does feel like pain should help distract you, like maybe turn IQ penalties from shock or pain into an IQ/Will BONUS to resist this spell? This should make it easier to guard Low Pain Threshold people from tickling (they suffer more shock) and harder to guard HPT from it (no shock, less Pain penalty)

Also feels weird that if you succumb that you can just be paralyzed by an Incapacitating Condition (B428) indefinitely. Would be a bit less extreme if they at least got a new chance to resist the spell each minute the duration resets, or maybe each time they suffer a new injury?

B429 says a Seizure makes you lose 1d FP at the END so I guess that's one reason a mage might want to let it expire after a minute, so that a 2nd seizure (with a 2nd save) could deplete another 1d FP.

This only takes one second to cast, and seizures cause foes to fall down if standing (collision dmg with ground if they fail their Breakfall technique roll? I figure you could still try that since "you can do nothing" is prob like a "Do Nothing" maneuver which wouldn't prohibit defenses or mitigation techs)

Even though seizures result in instanteous falls, the idea of people instantly collapsing when tickled is weird to picture so I think instead treating it like an automatic fall each second which is avoidable by a Breakfall would work better. You don't really need to think CLEARLY to do basic stuff like "try not to fall and get injured".

MA69 assumes you'll want to land crouching after a fall, but there should be options to assume other postures instead. Maybe like a +1 bonus if you're kneeling/sitting +2 if crawling +3 if lying? This seems like the only way to change posture when you're forced to "Do Nothing" (like from a stun) since the other options for it (MA98) require a Step or a Movement Point and AFAIK the Do Nothing Maneuver doesn't give those.

Alternatively: perhaps if Retreats are possible on a Do Nothing or a Change Posture (both say Movement: None so I'm not sure) and those counted as an extra step, that would allow it? If you're using "Aim" with a braced 2H weapon it also prevents a "step" so should a retreat override that too? Doing so would spoil your aim so allowing that doesn't seem too harsh.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Timeport: Actually timeporting back ten seconds to the start of a fight is much, much more problematic than timeporting ten centuries. So the cost and penalty table is all messed up.

Seems like "I'm going back 10 minutes" gives you more prep time than "I'm going back 59 seconds".

Going back 100 years for -8 essentially gives you infinite prep time since you can improve your character by 200 CP by living a decade and then fast-forward again to go and win that fight.

Or maybe cast info spells in the past to discern who the parents of your enemies are and make them infertile/barren.

There's the alternate timeline risk but you have plenty of time to figure that out.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Recover Energy: Recover Energy pushes every wizard towar dabbling in Healing. I'[m actually inclined to give every college their own Recover Energy spell.

I like that idea because then you could benefit from them in Aspected Mana (F43) where normally only Healing-Aspected Mana would allow this to work, unless it has a weird exception like One-College Magery does.

We should perhaps also allow "One-College Energy Reserve" too?

There's already a hint of "One-College FP" in Fantasy already: F129 "Divided Magery". It's just a system which I think assumes "only mages cast spells" though, because if you can't spend FP on certain spells due to a limitation on your magery: it puts you behind non-mages who cast spells on skill alone in High Mana, when really you should always be a better caster than them.

Magery w/ "External Energy Only" (T24) has a similar problem: Magery 0 with -60% from that is 2 points: but non-mages in High Mana are better than you.

Would actually think perhaps we could make "can use personal FP to cast magic" as a 3 point advantage which mages buy, or they can opt not to buy it.

Having a limitation remove it from Magery 0 treats it like an ability which Magery 0 gives, even though you can use personal FP to fuel magic in High Mana without having magery.

T23 similarly: instead of treating "can't use external energy" as a limitation (as if using external energy was something Magery 0 imparted) we could treat "Use External Energy" as an advantage which mages buy.

Normal people's inability to use magic could then be represented by lacking either advantage: they can't use external OR internal energy: they would only be able to cast 0 FP spells and few would have the skill 15+ needed for such a discount even if they knew some started stuff via Wizardly Dabbler (at IQ-5) or even assuming defaults existed for spells (at IQ-6) as implied by how Dabbler normally functions.

Exceptions: critical successes (cost 0) so you could allow them to roll spells, but unless they get a crit success nothing happens. In Wild Mana this'd be ANY success.

You could still make them pay FP/HP on unsuccessful attempts: you PAY the energy you just don't USE it. This makes sense as otherwise it's a "gamble nothing" situation which normally is not legal: a mage can't specify "I'm casting a 1 FP spell only if I critically succeed and don't need to pay for it".

In this case you still have to pay, you just don't get an effect on a normal success (or a failure) outside of Wild Mana.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Create Animal/Mount: OK, the spell's fine, but really...shouldn't this be an Animal spell as well?

I dunno, it seems like you're just creating a tactile illusion but not a real animal. Real animals can't be cancelled and I'd be hesitant at thinking "Create Rooster" could be used to fertilize chicken eggs.

Given the prereq of "Create Water" (not required for servant/warrior) there could I guess be something "more alive" about these things though. That'd be an interesting distinction TBH: created animals are real and can actually reproduce but warriors/servants are not (there's no water!)

Based on the "water is life" interpretation I'd be tempted to say that the humanoid creations (warrior/servant) enjoy "No Blood" while animals (being water-based) do not, and suffer blood loss rules in exchange for the benefit of being actual living animals?

"Create Living Animal" v "Create Animal Facsimile" could also both be options. Latter could drop "create water" as a prereq, but require Magery 3 as Create Servant does.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Create Warrior: Where does that skill 16 come from? Maybe include a Summon Spirit prerequisite?

This is an issue with "Create Servant" too if you take the "skilled servitor" option.

The issue of contention in either case might be "how does a mage program a creation to perform a skill he lacks?"

The relative cost increase is "1 to cast, 1 to maintain" for a skilled servitor, so if we wanted an "unskilled warrior" that should in theory be "3 to cast, 3 to maintain".

That would make unskilled warriors the same creation cost as unskilled servitors, with the +2 maintain being due to the +1 IQ / +2 DX / +2 ST / +2 HT which the warrior enjoys relative to the servant.

It feels off, like maybe Create Warrior should have a higher creation cost, following the Servitor patterns of creation costs being higher.

"Brute" also seems to lack consitency: servitor Brutes are +7 to ST and +3create/+1 maintain whereas warrior brutes are +6 to ST and +2create/+2maintain

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Enlarge Object: There seems to be a bit of a scaling issue if you've got a lot of energy to dump into it.

One weird thing (based on higher FP costs to affect high SM stuff) is due to x2 FP to cast on a SM+1 thing: that would be 4 energy per pound to change SM+1 to SM+3

whereas to change SM+0 to SM+3 would only cost 3 energy per pound of original weight.

I do like the subtle implication that you should get +1 DR per +2SM though, probably a good idea when designing giants.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Seek Air: OK, I'll admit it, There's a remote possibility that it might be useful for a Wizards IIIIIN Space! campaign. But save it for that source book. In the main Magic book its just clutter included because there are Seek Earth Water and Fire spells. It's not even useful as a prerequisite. But those are actually useful. What might be useful is a maintained "Sense Bad Air" spell so you can walk along and not be taken off guard by a patch of mine damp.

It seems like something that also might be useful:

1) if you're underwater and looking for the surface (too dark)
2) if you're underground and trying to find a cavern
3) if you're underwater and trying to find an entrance to a cavern

Guess it depends on what "significant amount" is?

M23 has one significant phrase here:

Any known source of air may be excluded if the caster specifically mentions it

This makes it useful above-ground too, if you're looking for a hidden room you think might be behind some wall, but aren't sure which one since you don't have a blueprint.

It would basically let you "detect a hollow" because you can specify excluding all known quantities of air.

It might even let you "detect which barrel is empty" if there's dozens of casks full of alcohol and you need to know very quickly which one you can hide inside and ride down the Brandywine river.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Youth: It's kind of weird for the super old ancient wizards to all end up being young adults. Also it invalidates other very interesting life extension spells.

Can all the super old wizards afford 100 energy per attempt though?

At one try per month and -1 year per success, you can de-age at a rate of 11 years per year assuming all rolls succeed...

Perhaps one way we could slow this down is by coming up with penalties so this fails more often?

M88 mentions a skill penalty equal to missing HP, so what if you did a penalty based on the age of the subject? IE it would be harder to cast youth on someone already very old.

B154 has a chart with 4 columns listing specific years for Short Lifespan. Assuming a -0 penalty for "sub-maturity" (no penalty to turn a 17 year old into a 16 year old) you might for example charge -1 per column change: so -1 to turn someone 19/49 into 18/48 ... -2 to turn someone 51/69 into 50/68 ... -3 to turn someone 71/89 into 80/88 ... -4 to turn someone 91 into 90.

Any sort of "HP lost to old age" could further penalize this. This would be what happens when you fail a HT roll at an aging interval and your ST goes down.

This sort of ST/HP loss is temporary damage: it lasts indefinitely in THEORY but regaining youth reverts it per B444's "Artificial Youth":

you do not have to “buy back” the recovered attribute levels

This actually complicates the record-keeping for aging: you can't just reduce your attributes but actually need to note "ST lost due to failed roll at age 65" or similar as actual disadvantages.

It's basically like a Mitigator... "attribute penalty only while I remain older than the age at which I incurred it" which means you're higher-value as an old person who lost attributes than a young person w/ same stats who never had higher values: the old person can regain without spending CP while the young person must spend the CP.

5 years of age is a -15 disadvantage according to B361, though I could see changing how much [-15] amounts to based on Short/Extended Lifespan, doubling years required for EL, halving for SL.

Another way might be to just rank everyone's "effective age" per human norms, but have SL age faster (2 years per year) and EL age slower (6 months per year). In which case you could have a static "effectively aged" value of -3*years.

This could even mean you have an "old unaging person" like for example if you were 95 years old and THEN gained unaging: you might not die of old age while you have this power, but if you're ever deprived of it you're at more immediate risk than someone who is effectively 20 w/ unaging.

- -

This also avoids exploiting the "Steal Youth" enhancement for Leech (P96) if you have it steal from effective age. Someone with 7 levels of Extended Lifespan (B53: mature at 2304, aging onset 6400) could in theory be fed upon with little harm to them, which doesn't sit well in the spirit of how dangerous Steal Youth is meant to be (inflicting a -3 disadvantage per 12 seconds)

This could also mean you could let Steal Youth work against "Unaging" targets: unaging could just be immunity to natural aging, not age-theft abilities. You could define "Resistant to Leech" as giving a bonus to your Will roll against Leech enhanced w/ Malediction or your HT roll against Leech which has "Resistible" added to it as you can for Toxic/Fatigue Attack (which seems reasonable to allow). The "Immune" level of resistant would then let you auto-pass those rolls.

As for imparting a resistance roll against Leech without those modifiers: well, DR doesn't normally protect against Leech, but maybe you could allow "Hardened" DR to do that.

If the Leech had Malediction I think for DR to work against it you'd not only need Hardened (to reduce the inherent "ignores DR" Leech enjoys) but also Malediction-Proof +50% (from Psionic Powers) to reduce the "ignores DR" which Malediction imparts.

That's a dilemma which normally doesn't happen (you can't take 2 penetration modifiers like Cosmic: Irressitible +300% w/ Malediction +100%) but seems to here since Leech has Cosmic: Irresistible built into it.

- -

When I think about what we view aging as, it might be like this...

-1 ST [-10]
+1 ST (only at age below the age I failed my HT roll -80%) [2]

Another approach might be using "Only in Alternate Form" (-10%) with "younger than when I failed my roll" being that form.

The only difference is once you become old again perhaps you don't automatically lose the attribute, I think you'd make an entirely new HT roll to see if you lost it.

If that seems like pure benefit: it isn't. That's also an entirely new opportunity to fail rolls that you previously passed!

That'd be up to the GM: it seems like the drawback of "automatically fail HT rolls that I already failed" would be offset by "automatically pass HT rolls that I already passed" when talking about someone who bounces back and forth past HT roll thresholds.

Rerolling each time could be a lot more interesting but keeping record of previous rolls the FIRST time you passed a threshold would be less book-keeping.

Originally Posted by Anders

Recover Energy is just a weird spell.
It should be an advantage.
Maybe 5 points for the skill-15 version and 10 points for the skill-20 version.

One thing worth comparing would be:

Fit (Magical -10% Reliable 2 +10%) [5]

This recovers FP at twice normal rate (1 per 5 min) only when it's lost to exertion/heat (not psi/spells)

Look what I can buy for 3 pts:

Ritual Magery 0 (One Spell -80%) [1]
Thaumatology [1] IQ-2
Path of Healing [1] IQ-2

I would have Recover Energy at IQ-3, meaning if my IQ is 18 it will be at the 15 needed to recovery 1 FP per 5 minutes.

So for high-IQ guys there wouldn't be incentive to take Fit at all: because Recover Energy not only replenishes FP lost to ALL tasks (not just magic ones) but also to any ER that I might have.

Maybe instead we could have a B55 variation on "Fit" but instead of "physically fit" (all HT rolls, FP lost to exertion/heat) it could be "magically fit"

Could be cheaper since there's no HT rolls to benefit, or maybe more expensive since there's more variety of magical tasks you can spend it on.

One approach I just had in mind: make it so normal FP can't fuel magic, but have mages buy ER (Magical) as an Alternative Ability to their FP (1/5 cost) where reduction to one reduces other. This 1/5 cost is better than the -50% for "Drains Familiar" limitation but would require a ready maneuver to switch between FP and ER so you couldn't easily combine spellcasting and EE in combat.