Healing spells in GURPS MAGIC

[hal]

Final Rest.

This is one spell that I looked at and thought "This does not belong in the college of Healing at all." It is a protective spell of sorts in that it prevents the body it is cast upon, from being used in a necromantic ritual or as the target of a necromantic spell. It does not mend the body, nor does it affect the health of the deceased body. It does not preserve the body for later resurrection. In short, I find it difficult to believe that this spell is a healing spell outright. That being said, rules as written specifies that it is indeed, a healing spell.

What I find interesting about the spell cost is this: It costs as much as a regeneration spell. It costs 2.5 times the energy to defeat all attempts of the necromantic spell "ZOMBIE". The question that I'm sure will be raised by those who are creating mage characters is this:

Why would I take this spell? If for instance, the GM were to state that in order for my character to have been a shaman who protected his tribe - it would be required due to the role of my character. But would I pick up the spell for use as an adventuring mage with a limited point budget? Probably not. If what happens to the soul after death is a function of religion, this spell might very well be the domain of religious miracles than of actual spell casting. In a campaign in which zombies are a regular danger, as a preventative, it would be little different than say, hallowed ground.

So, who would have wanted to develop this spell, and why? Analysis of the prerequisites show that this spell has no real prerequisite aside from either of Magery or spirit emapthy. In short, this could easily be researched by a mage in a TL 0 society, let alone subsequent tech levels.

See associated thread "Walk me through Inventing the first spell" for issues involving inventing new spells...

Me? I generally run a GURPS 3.5 version where I utilize mostly GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition concepts alongside some of the GURPS MAGIC for 4e concepts. I generally disallow spells from GURPS GRIMOIRE unless it has been vetted first (which means that while I vet the spells, I do allow some of the grimoire based spell list now combined into GURPS MAGIC for 4e).

In the end? Analysis wise, this spell tends to be utilized by NPC mages rather than by player character mages, and as such, serves the role of something only a guardian against the dead might employ.

[maximara]

The GURPSwiki Magery 0 Magic in World Building page lists (hopefully) all the spells that only require Magery 0 (or can be cast in high mana areas)

Classic: Ice Age throw a huge monkey wrench into things.

For example, take Enchantment: "Magic items in shamanistic magic are not tools manufactured by wizards. Rather, they have inherent magical or spiritual power, affecting anyone who touches or uses them. Such items are very rare, and always natural in origin, though they may have been reshaped by humans." (pg 35)

There are supposed to be 16 spells "available" in the Pleistocene Epoch (2,580,000 to c 11,700 years ago) but only 14 are actually listed: Aura, Banish, Bless, Banish, Curse, Death Vision, Divination, Exorcism, Healing, Pestilence, Remove Curse, Remove Pestilence Object, Spirit Trap, Summon Spirit. (pg 36-37)

IMHO something more akin to Path and Books Ritual Magic rather than the "standard" magic system which really messes things up as that is a totally different mechanic.

Classic: Egypt listed the following (numbers are the Prerequisite Count):
*Book of Coming Forth By Day (Egyptian Book of the Dead)
**Coming Forth By Day (1)
**Not Allowing The Heart To Speak The Truth (1)
**Ushabti (15)
*Amduat (That Which is in the Underworld)
*Book of Gates
*Book of Overthrowing Apep
*Book of the Divine Cow
*Litany of Re.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by maximara

The GURPSwiki Magery 0 Magic in World Building page lists (hopefully) all the spells that only require Magery 0 (or can be cast in high mana areas)

what about Least of Spells which can be cast w/o magery in Normal Mana?

Originally Posted by maximara

Classic: Ice Age throw a huge monkey wrench into things.

For example, take Enchantment: "Magic items in shamanistic magic are not tools manufactured by wizards. Rather, they have inherent magical or spiritual power, affecting anyone who touches or uses them. Such items are very rare, and always natural in origin, though they may have been reshaped by humans." (pg 35)

There are supposed to be 16 spells "available" in the Pleistocene Epoch (2,580,000 to c 11,700 years ago) but only 14 are actually listed: Aura, Banish, Bless, Banish, Curse, Death Vision, Divination, Exorcism, Healing, Pestilence, Remove Curse, Remove Pestilence Object, Spirit Trap, Summon Spirit. (pg 36-37)

IMHO something more akin to Path and Books Ritual Magic rather than the "standard" magic system which really messes things up as that is a totally different mechanic.

Classic: Egypt listed the following (numbers are the Prerequisite Count):
*Book of Coming Forth By Day (Egyptian Book of the Dead)
**Coming Forth By Day (1)
**Not Allowing The Heart To Speak The Truth (1)
**Ushabti (15)
*Amduat (That Which is in the Underworld)
*Book of Gates
*Book of Overthrowing Apep
*Book of the Divine Cow
*Litany of Re.

Sounds like if these aren't made by wizards they'd be made via the options on Thaumatology 110 like "Enchantment Through Age" or "Enchantment Through Deeds" or "Traumatic Enchantment" or "Devotional Enchantment".

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Plane

what about Least of Spells which can be cast w/o magery in Normal Mana?

They are in the list thought I felt that simply shifting magery requirements around (Magery 0 didn't exist when the spell lists

Originally Posted by Plane

Sounds like if these aren't made by wizards they'd be made via the options on Thaumatology 110 like "Enchantment Through Age" or "Enchantment Through Deeds" or "Traumatic Enchantment" or "Devotional Enchantment".

It is hard to tell how in 4e they would be modeled as when Classic: Ice Age came out even Classic: Religion didn't exist and while Classic: Egypt post dated Religion it still used Mana based magic.

As I mentioned before in various threads Classic's had a really weird option for "Clerical" magic - non mages could casts spells as if they were mages (ie they used mana)

Mechanically I think Path and Books make the most sense for Classic: Egypt and perhaps for Ice Age too. With so few spells it is hard to figure out how they would be modeled in 4e.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by hal

Final Rest . . .

In the end? Analysis wise, this spell tends to be utilized by NPC mages rather than by player character mages, and as such, serves the role of something only a guardian against the dead might employ.

The Path/Book ritual Lay to Rest (Thaumatology, p. 162) is substantially easier, but less absolute in its effects: attempts to contact the departed spirit have to win a contest with the ritual.

In a magic-as-powers campaign, I came up with an enhancement to Medium for the same job:

Help Onwards Allows you to show a newly dead spirit how to move onwards, or force it by winning a Quick Contest of Will, where the spirit is at +1 per week it has been dead without moving on. If it moves on, you can cut its ties to the material, preventing it from being brought back. +50%

The point was to make sure that certain villains didn't come back, which is the players' reason for taking any of these abilities.