Changes to spells from GURPS

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

From where I'm standing, one of the biggest changes is the fact that Bless counts as a "spell on" for the purpose of accumulating casting penalties. The party still wants the cleric to cast Bless on them if they can't get it from elsewhere- a bonus to all rolls is wonderful, to say nothing of the chance to avoid disaster, and DF spellcasters have plenty of skill levels to spare-, but now it's at least a bit of a choice rather than a complete no-brainer. Also, from a world-building prospective, there's now a reason why everyone in the campaign setting isn't carrying the spell on them, which is hard to explain otherwise given its essentially unlimited duration and extraordinary utility.

Oh huh, that's interesting. It took me a few minutes to track down the relevant references, but it seems Magic itself is actually pretty vague about what spells count as "on", though the FAQ took the position that only maintainable spells count as "on". Spells in contrast says non-maintainable spells with finite duration do count as "on".