Lesser and Greater Magic

[Silverblade]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Do you have Pyramid 66? Because I already did most of the work for doing this using RPM as a base.

I do. It's one of my favourite Pyramids.

I just don't like Energy Accumulating that much, and the lesser/greater effect distinction. Path Realms take them out, but that's again a bunch of advantages.

Turning it into effect shaping just encourages extremely high skill. That's why I'd like "Magery caps skill" for syntactic magic.

What I try to achieve is:

1. Use a single Magery advantage for all spellcasting.
2. Use Ritual Magic (not Ritual Path Magic) (low level) for spellcasting.
3. Rearrange College skills into something that is also useable for Syntactic Magic -> As "nouns"
4. At the higher levels, Syntactic Magic becomes available (or effective)
5. When using Syntactic Magic, College skills are capped by Magery, it doesn't add to it - like for "low" level spells
6. What verbs the mage can use is determined by his Magery similar to Realm Magic -> Higher level, more difficult Verbs.
7. Use Margin of Success for all Parameters, disregard Energy costs for now.
8. At some point, extended workings (repeated attempts, but not for Energy Accumulation, you gather Margins of Success to achieve greater range, area effect and so on as described in Thaumatology)


Bonus: I can work Sorcery in there, too.

More Bonus: Eventually, there needs to be some limit to keep Extended Workings somewhat sane - as suggested by Thaumatology under extended workings. So spellcasters have to pay some cost. I think Threshold Magic would fit nicely there. Since Mages can use Threshold casting at the high levels, I'd also like to use it at low levels - but make it less effective there. Thus, Lowbie Mages could use it as well but add a random number in addition to the full cost of their low level spells.

Ideally, characters would pay for all this in one single advantage.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Silverblade

I do. It's one of my favourite Pyramids.

I just don't like Energy Accumulating that much, and the lesser/greater effect distinction. Path Realms take them out, but that's again a bunch of advantages.

Turning it into effect shaping just encourages extremely high skill. That's why I'd like "Magery caps skill" for syntactic magic.

What I try to achieve is:

1. Use a single Magery advantage for all spellcasting.
2. Use Ritual Magic (not Ritual Path Magic) (low level) for spellcasting.
3. Rearrange College skills into something that is also useable for Syntactic Magic -> As "nouns"
4. At the higher levels, Syntactic Magic becomes available (or effective)
5. When using Syntactic Magic, College skills are capped by Magery, it doesn't add to it - like for "low" level spells
6. What verbs the mage can use is determined by his Magery similar to Realm Magic -> Higher level, more difficult Verbs.
7. Use Margin of Success for all Parameters, disregard Energy costs for now.
8. At some point, extended workings (repeated attempts, but not for Energy Accumulation, you gather Margins of Success to achieve greater range, area effect and so on as described in Thaumatology)


Bonus: I can work Sorcery in there, too.

More Bonus: Eventually, there needs to be some limit to keep Extended Workings somewhat sane - as suggested by Thaumatology under extended workings. So spellcasters have to pay some cost. I think Threshold Magic would fit nicely there. Since Mages can use Threshold casting at the high levels, I'd also like to use it at low levels - but make it less effective there. Thus, Lowbie Mages could use it as well but add a random number in addition to the full cost of their low level spells.

Ideally, characters would pay for all this in one single advantage.

I see what you're trying to do (sorta), but you're trying to mix too much stuff together and it's just not going to work the way you want. In GURPS you can either settle for good enough to work in game and achieve your visions or you can get something that works great in game but doesn't work for your vision or something that doesn't work but does perfectly achieve your vision.

Good is the enemy of done and if you ever want to actually use something in a game it must be done.

This just seems like effect-shaping RPM with Path Realms at higher levels.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Silverblade

1. Use a single Magery advantage for all spellcasting.
2. Use Ritual Magic (not Ritual Path Magic) (low level) for spellcasting.
3. Rearrange College skills into something that is also useable for Syntactic Magic -> As "nouns"
4. At the higher levels, Syntactic Magic becomes available (or effective)
5. When using Syntactic Magic, College skills are capped by Magery, it doesn't add to it - like for "low" level spells
6. What verbs the mage can use is determined by his Magery similar to Realm Magic -> Higher level, more difficult Verbs.
7. Use Margin of Success for all Parameters, disregard Energy costs for now.
8. At some point, extended workings (repeated attempts, but not for Energy Accumulation, you gather Margins of Success to achieve greater range, area effect and so on as described in Thaumatology)

You have a lot of moving parts here. I anticipate your players finding some interesting exploits at the boundaries. On the subject of players, some questions:

1) Is this going to be the sole magic system in your game? If not, you're at considerable risk of your players avoiding it, since it is complex, and will require years of play for characters to make use of the higher-level parts.

2) Are all the player characters meant to be magicians? If not, you may well end up with all your players deciding to leave the complex magic system to someone else.

If the answers to (1) and (2) are both "yes" then you need to think about the starting character point levels for your game, and the rate of character growth. You may well find that the high cost of Magery makes the players feel they "aren't getting anywhere."

I've GM'ed a character who used Ritual Magic, and found that it has some problems. The character was run by a very detail-orientated player, which is necessary to use the system effectively. He found after a certain amount of character growth that he could meet all of the challenges of the campaign, and lost interest. That campaign started on 150 points plus up to 75 points of disadvantages and quirks. Since it was basically Call of Cthulhu under GURPS, I had to keep the challenges somewhat constrained to avoid wiping out the characters.

I've GM'ed and played alongside characters who used a threshold-limited syntactic magic system that is intended to model mystic Zoroastrianism. They just don't use it much, and stick to their other abilities. The comments other people are making about players preferring to avoid Threshold magic have some truth to them.

Bonus: I can work Sorcery in there, too.

I'm afraid there are no prizes for this.