Magery Enhancement: Longer Range

[Anders]

Magery (Cosmic +100%) - you use the SSR table to determine range penalties for regular and area spells rather than -1/yard.

Obviously you need this on all levels of Magery - you can't just take it for level 0.

This may seem insanely overpowered, but a Magery 3 character is going to pay 35 points for the privilege. That's a lot.

[zoncxs]

Who said you can't take it only on Magery 0?

You can do that. That just means spells that need Magery 1+ are cast regularly instead of using the SSR table.

If anything, as the GM, you can change the cost of things to better suit your game.

[Anthony]

Applying increased range to magery doesn't do anything. Magery is basically a talent plus an unusual background, and you can't modify skills by applying enhancements to a talent.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Applying increased range to magery doesn't do anything. Magery is basically a talent plus an unusual background, and you can't modify skills by applying enhancements to a talent.

But you can! In Thaumatology there are enhancements to Magery that affect all spells, like "Stable Casting". (Which is why I would argue that Magery is not a Talent, although it is Talent-like. It is from the before-times, when there were not Talents.)

Edit: Let's not make this thread into one about whether Magery is a talent or not.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Anders

But you can! In Thaumatology there are enhancements to Magery that affect all spells, like "Stable Casting".

If you're going to cite GURPS Thaumatology, remember that it also says this: "Magery doesn't generally accept enhancements" (p. 28). Because this is unusual, it recommends requiring an Unusual Background to have enhancements on Magery.

And when your first impression of it is "insanely overpowered," that's the warning bell that you're pretty much doing what Thaumatology tellls you not to do.

[Anders]

Ok, let's focus on that.

Is it insanely overpowered? I would love to see this tried out in actual play.

Like I said, if you want to be good at magic, you'll play a crapton of points.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anders

Ok, let's focus on that.

Is it insanely overpowered? I would love to see this tried out in actual play.
.

I don't think it's overpowered. It's only a little useful in combat and generally not useful at all out of combat. Out of combat Mages just go up to touching range on their target.

In combat it turns 2 hexes into zero penalty but so does a Staff and the Staff usually costs no cp. If the Mage figured he could take a -3 penalty in some dangerous combat situation he could cast fro 3 hexes away or 5 w/Staff. With this Enhcnement he ould do it from 7/9.

My general reaction is "Not worth my 35 pts!".

As a final note there's a Perk in Magical Styles that let's you ignore -1 per pt of this levelled Perk on a Specialized Spell. A character would probably not have a huge number of Regular Spells that he really needed to cast from a greater than average range.

[the_matrix_walker]

I think it's quite powerful, but I'm not sure if I'd describe it as insanely so. Mages would become far more versatile, and would change magical warfare depending on how common the variation is.

I'm not sure I like the format of the modified magery, despite the precedent... I might want to look at a UB or use a variation of Christopher R. Rice's wonderful "Other Trained by a Master Advantages" article to build a better Magery 0

https://www.ravensnpennies.com/gurps...er-advantages/

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

Like I said, if you want to be good at magic, you'll play a crapton of points.

It seems like this option would basically cap out at Magery 3, as I don't think there are any spells with a higher prerequisite Magery than that. Characters who want to have higher Magery but want it to apply to this would instead just buy +1 IQ [20], as it has the same cost as Magery (Cosmic, Long Range +100%) [20] but applies to all uses of IQ, and Per and Will besides (unless using the "Per and Will are completely separate, but IQ still costs [20]" houserule... but then you would still prefer IQ). But [35] is probably a fair price here (and may be overpaying a bit).

[Anders]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

I'm not sure I like the format of the modified magery, despite the precedent... I might want to look at a UB or use a variation of Christopher R. Rice's wonderful "Other Trained by a Master Advantages" article to build a better Magery 0

https://www.ravensnpennies.com/gurps...er-advantages/

That's fair enough. I'm very comfortable with modifying Magery.

Originally Posted by Varyon

It seems like this option would basically cap out at Magery 3, as I don't think there are any spells with a higher prerequisite Magery than that. Characters who want to have higher Magery but want it to apply to this would instead just buy +1 IQ [20], as it has the same cost as Magery (Cosmic, Long Range +100%) [20] but applies to all uses of IQ, and Per and Will besides (unless using the "Per and Will are completely separate, but IQ still costs [20]" houserule... but then you would still prefer IQ). But [35] is probably a fair price here (and may be overpaying a bit).

I think there are spells in Death Spells and Artillery Spells that require more, but I'm not sure.