Magery Enhancement: Longer Range

[Kallatari]

As an alternative to your approach, in my games I use "metaspell perks".

Each "Metaspell" is a Perk in which must specialize to a specific Enhancement (e.g., Affects Insubstantial, Long-Range, Rapid Fire, etc.). With the Metaspell perk, it allows the mage to, when desired (so it's not always in effect), cast any spell they know with the metaspell enhancements but at an increased cost of 2 Energy and a penalty to skill equal to -1 per 10% value of the enhancement added.

This +2 energy applies to the final cost of the spell (e.g., after all built-in modifiers, such as multiplying by radius, etc.). Reduction to energy cost for high skill then applies to the final energy cost, after adding the +2.

You can apply multiple metaspells at the same time to a given spell (e.g., an Armor Piercing, Long-Range, and Affects Insubstantial Fireball). In this case, the skill penalties for all metaspells are cumulative, but the added energy cost is a flat +2, regardless of the number of metaspells applied.

Anyway, for your desired effect, to go from short range (-1/yard) to standard range (SSRT) needs Long-Range 1 +50% enhancement. So you'd have this:

Long-Range Metaspell [1]: lets you, when desired, improve the range penalty of your spell by one or more steps (e.g., from short range to SSRT, or SSRT to long-range, or long-range to no range penalty) for your spell. Doing so will increase the energy cost of the spell by +2, and it will also impose a -5 to your spell skill if you improve the range penalty used by one step, -10 if you improve the range penalty used by 2 steps, or -15 if you improve it by three steps.

I also allow the skill penalties (so, in this case, the -5, -10 or -15) to be bought off as a technique, either individually spell by spell or as a "Wildcard Technique" (i.e., x3 to the cost) to apply it to all spells.


This approach comes from psi techniques, where for +2 energy and -1 per 10% of enhancement you can apply any enhancement to a psi ability, and use techniques to buy off the penalty. However, instead of getting all the enhancements for a single ability, you get a single enhancement (i.e., the metaspell) for all abilities (i.e., all spells).

And yes, a mage with a lot of metaspells can create some very powerful effects, so you do need to keep an eye out for it.

One houserule I've added to keep a bit of a power check sanity is that if you add Area Effect Metaspell, you must first multiply the base energy cost by the radius, then add the +2 to that total. Other built-in restrictions to metaspells I creater are that I've capped RoF (from Rapid Fire) at level of Magery, and I think it's one level of Armor Divisor per level of Magery. There might be one or two more hidden restrictions I added that I don't remember off hand to keep things manageable, but most are enhancements/metapslles can added without issue.

Oh, and you can't have "Reduce Fatigue Cost" as a metaspell as that defeats the main balancing factor of Magery spells, which is the Energy Cost.

My players love this extra flexibility.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

As an alternative to your approach, in my games I use "metaspell perks".

I've got something similar called Auxiliary spells, which are effectively a sub-set of Metaspell College spells. You cast any auxiliary spells first and then cast the spell they modify. Total time and energy costs for auxiliary spells + the main spell are combined, although you need to make successful skill rolls against all the spells involved for the combination to work.

The auxiliary spells add specific enhancements or limitations to the spell they modify.

They could easily be turned into Perks or Techniques when applied to individual spells or colleges.

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I've got something similar called Auxiliary spells, which are effectively a sub-set of Metaspell College spells. You cast any auxiliary spells first and then cast the spell they modify. Total time and energy costs for auxiliary spells + the main spell are combined, although you need to make successful skill rolls against all the spells involved for the combination to work.

The auxiliary spells add specific enhancements or limitations to the spell they modify.

They could easily be turned into Perks or Techniques when applied to individual spells or colleges.

I had dabbled in making them spells as well and requiring the mage to cast both of them, which is basically how the few actual meta-spells already in GURPS Magic work. But I also have a powers-based magic system for my game that essentially allows me to use the same spells but basically flip a switch between you need to buy the ability (advantages + modifiers) and skill for a campaign that uses a powers approach or just buy the skill for one that uses GURPS Magic approach. When creating just meta-spell spells, I couldn't find a way to recreate them as powers. The Perk approach therefore become the solution, and I found it could easily be applied to both approaches, so I ended up choosing that.

But I agree with you. My decision wasn't based on the fact that having them as separate spells didn't work. It was about allowing it to be compatible with other things I did. So making them as spells instead of a perk is definitely a valid alternative method as well for people to consider.

[pawsplay]

There's a perk in Magical Styles that lets you use the ability to modify spells with Enhancements. Modified spells show up in, I think, Thaumatology. I'm pretty sure longer range is a legal construction for modifying a spell.

EDIT: It's Adjustable Spells, Thaumatology p. 39.

EDIT EDIT: Characters p.106, under Malediction. Ranged is 100%, SSR is +150%, Long-Ranged is 200%. So going from regular to SSR is effectively +50%, so would cost +10 Fatigue and would be a technique rolled at -10.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I've got something similar called Auxiliary spells, which are effectively a sub-set of Metaspell College spells.

Are those any where on the web that interested parties might pursue? Meta-spells I think are a good way to handle it if you're using vanilla Magic already.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I've got something similar called Auxiliary spells, which are effectively a sub-set of Metaspell College spells. You cast any auxiliary spells first and then cast the spell they modify. Total time and energy costs for auxiliary spells + the main spell are combined, although you need to make successful skill rolls against all the spells involved for the combination to work.

The auxiliary spells add specific enhancements or limitations to the spell they modify.

I think, in the interest of reducing rolling and speeding play, I'd have just one roll, against the least skilled of the two (or more?) spells. This also reduces the chances of critical failures and removes partial successes, which might not be worth the streamlining, depending what you're after, of course.