[Thaumatology] Powers as (Path/Book) Magic

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

A couple of reasons: First, it's an intellectual exercise that I won't know whether it's useful unless someone tests it; I do a lot of those.

I can certainly get behind that. I do plenty of those myself.

It seems like the types of powers that will be the most difficult to handle with this type of system would be something like Super Strength, or the abilities of the Biomorph template from GURPS Supers. E.G. Abilities that are always on, as opposed to abilities like those of the Blaster Template from GURPS Supers which all require activation. This will also extend to powers that are deeply interconnected with racial templates, like the abilities of a werewolf, vampire, or fire elemental. Anything truly innate and supposedly second nature will feel awkward in a system that is entirely about using skills to activate effects. You certainly can train innate abilities (hiking and running and lifting are all skills for improving innate capacities humans have) but those skills tend to work very differently from a Path or Book.