Mages and CQC (close quarters combat)?

[Polkageist]

Death Touch is good, I really like the elemental approach so Burning Touch, Shocking Touch, Icy Touch are also good and fun.

If you're armed, then Icy/Flaming/Shocking weapon buffs are great. They're low cost and really boost your weapon damage.

Icy/Flaming/Shocking breath are also good spells because they leave your hands free to wield weapons and do good amounts of damage. A nice surprise, especially if you need to not attack to keep an unbalanced weapon ready to parry.

Body of <Foo> is great to transform yourself into something that's really hardy or hard to hit. Body of Fire and start grappling opponents. Body of Air and rely on the touch spells to carry the day. Body of Stone or Metal and tank all day erry day. Crazy costly but crazy effective.

Save or suck spells are good, but GURPS damage causes a save-or-suck effect in its own right so a direct-damage dealing wizard is not without the ability to stunlock an enemy just by causing major wounds.

All this is really costly, as either the skill side will have to be very narrow to allow for spells, or vice versa. Dungeon Fantasy professions have nice lenses that you can apply to the baseline characters that can cleanly pull off the magicky fighter, or fighty mage.

[khorboth]

Originally Posted by rerednaw

That is a question a few players had for me. In a situation where folks start at close range they felt that a mage (Magery 3 limit, no innate attack) would have trouble vs. a weapon master. Or even a turtled tank with stacked armor.

A mage will not have the same amount of points available to put into physical stats that a non-mage would. As this determines Speed, it means the mage has to survive until his turn. This could mean 4 attacks from a dual-wielding weapon master.

And of course there is the fatigue issue...the warrior could be slashing long after the mage has used up his fatigue....

How would one go about making a mage that could fare well in such situations? (We’d be using GURPS Magic and the main rules.)
Thanks!

There are too many variables here. The first is total point value. At 75 points, I'd expect the mage to do ok. The fighter is only a bit more physically capable and the wizard will probably get off a spell to level things out. At 1500 points, if the wizard had no time to prepare, I'd expect the fighter to go through the wizard in a single round like a buzzsaw.

Second, how specialized are they? Is the wizard totally glass cannon vulnerable or has he spent some points hedging against this eventuality? A few points in weapon skills is a good idea, but not required. Old-world Dragonlance, for instance, would prohibit this. Is the fighter pure dumb brute, or is his will above an 8?

Finally, How much preparation time did they have? For a wizard, a few seconds to cast protective spells could be a life-saver. For a fighter, gearing up could be the thing.

Overall, though, I agree with Varyon. You're setting it up as "if things are tipped in favor of the fighter, will the fighter win?" the answer is probably "yah." On the other hand, if the wizard is not totally built to ignore defense they can probably hold out for a few rounds while calling for help. This seems pretty much in-genre to me. Don't let the orcs get to the wizard. If they do, rescue him quickly.

[Donny Brook]

Armor, and high touch-range attack skills to land touch-range spells.

[RyanW]

In my favored fantasy setting, if you don't have ten minutes to prepare a conditional casting, an automatic pistol is your best friend.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by rerednaw

That is a question a few players had for me. In a situation where folks start at close range they felt that a mage (Magery 3 limit, no innate attack) would have trouble vs. a weapon master (...) how would one go about making a mage that could fare well in such situations? (...)

It depends, what is the budget of the character? Is this a character in the making or already in campaign?

I like most of the suggestions here, but IMO some require a lot of CP and/or may deviate the mage from specialization, which might be required to shine in a given magic school.

Anyway, the mage could be a fighter that actually infuses his weapons with magic. This is a whole other concept, though.

Originally Posted by Anthony

In general, the mage losing here is Working As Intended; mages generally have a lot wider range of options than warriors, so they should lose when forced into a situation that fits the specialization of a warrior. Honestly, my main problem here is that the mage has a chance of winning.

I pretty much second this.

[Michael Cule]

If the mage is going anywhere near a battle Reverse Missiles (or even just Missile Shield) is their friend. Five minutes of protection for quite a light cost.

A powered enchantment to put it up for them is even better.

Other than that, get away! or have automatic defences cut in. But Reflex casting is quite a high level spell.

[edk926]

It depends on the points. If it's say 250, you should be able to make a good battle mage. Both Banestorm and Fantasy have templates for lower point versions. Staffs and touch spells are your friend. You'd have to research casting times, but there should be good options in the Body, Mind, and Movement colleges. Luck could help as well.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by khorboth

At 75 points, I'd expect the mage to do ok. The fighter is only a bit more physically capable and the wizard will probably get off a spell to level things out. At 1500 points, if the wizard had no time to prepare, I'd expect the fighter to go through the wizard in a single round like a buzzsaw.

Been a while since I was involved in a high-powered magic game, but I'm pretty sure a 1500pt wizard would be nigh-invulnerable. They'd have a dozen protective spells maintained indefinitely to start with, and likely be draped with magic items to boot, then soul jarred for good measure.

[Polkageist]

Dungeon Fantasy wizards (250pt budget) have access to Blink, Iron Arm, Phase, Command... all those are blocking spells that can get you out of a bad spot, and pretty easy to access at least one or two of them. Plus they've got a decent staff skill (14) that gives them a parry of 10+2 with the staff bonus. Alternate option of the wand/buckler which adds a block option (and good use of the shield spell!)

This does not mean that you'll survive if the MONSTER of physical combat breaks through and gets all up in your face. But it does mean that if an orc, or wolf, or something like that makes an end run around the front line you can hold out for a round or two until help arrives. That's what you should be planning for, and a prudent mage would put a small portion of their spell budget into that kind of contingency.

The total budget for this (assuming a not horrible DX, and maybe you're not playing DF proper but a general adventuring fantasy game) is 8 for the staff, and probably 6-10 for the spells depending on your choice of defense. Max 20 points to not immediately die when pressured. Not to win or defeat the attacker, just survive long enough and well enough for a party member to bail you out. This is a team sport remember, so you're not operating alone. Your job is to not die for a round or two until help arrives.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Been a while since I was involved in a high-powered magic game, but I'm pretty sure a 1500pt wizard would be nigh-invulnerable. They'd have a dozen protective spells maintained indefinitely to start with, and likely be draped with magic items to boot, then soul jarred for good measure.

I doubt he would be any "more or less" invulnerable than any other 1500pt archetype (excepting of course the every popular "1500pt Lump of Sitting There and Generating Loot for People to Take" character that is so inexplicably beloved) .....

As with anything there is no defense ever conceived that didn't have a weakness. Lets be real, at 1500 points its barely a "wizard" anymore, its more a checklist of advantages and abilities that happens to cast spells while it spins the world and keeps gravity functioning properly.

I think the earlier responders that said some form of "he should lose if the situation is such that he should lose" had it correct.

Some people seem to have the assumption that there should exist a build at any point value where this is no longer true. I would say that is more a limit of imagination or an artificial construct of the individual.

No build should be invulnerable in all situations, otherwise there's no sense in playing anything else, or there is no challenge to play and probably a couple really poorly thought out house rules in play. I would guess that you could come up with an equal point value char to defeat your 1500pt wizard if you gave it some thought and didnt worry about if you would want to play it.

I also suspect that the intended question was probably talking around a more "normal" point value in the 150-300 range, but it was never implicitly stated.

A 75pt "wizard" is pretty disadvantaged vs a fighter built to close combat. At 150-200pts its starts getting interesting but I still think the fighter is slated to win that one because the situation is still to his advantage. At 300+ it starts to get super vague because the overall build of the wizard could contain some pretty hefty mitigation factors in specific conditions (though I still think "generic vs generic" the fighter wins).