How would you make this spell? D&D edition

[Kesendeja]

My player comes from a D&D background and is enamored with a few spells. Right now he’s asked me to create Phantom Steed for his mage. The best I can come up with is a reskin of Create Mount, with maybe lowering the difficulty or raising the duration, since it’s so specialized. Is there a better option?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Kesendeja

My player comes from a D&D background and is enamored with a few spells. Right now he’s asked me to create Phantom Steed for his mage. The best I can come up with is a reskin of Create Mount, with maybe lowering the difficulty or raising the duration, since it’s so specialized. Is there a better option?

When I first tried to convert D&D spells to GURPS back in Classic I ran into similar issues. I found that the best solution was to use the GURPS spell as written.

Phantom Steed (at least in D&D 3.5) takes 10 minutes to cast and lasts 1 hour/level.

Create Mount by comparison takes 3 seconds to cast, lasts 1 hour but can be maintained.

At a base of 8 to cast, 3 to maintain Create Mount is insanely easy to maintain even without Recover Energy. At a base of 1 energy/10 minutes the wizard will have regained 6 energy by the time they have to maintain the spell.

Now the more exotic ones (double or triple cost) will effectively require the wizard to know Recover Energy to make maintaining the spell and have energy to cast spells practical.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by maximara

At a base of 8 to cast, 3 to maintain Create Mount is insanely easy to maintain even without Recover Energy. At a base of 1 energy/10 minutes the wizard will have regained 6 energy by the time they have to maintain the spell.
l.

I would be very dubious of the idea that riding a horse counts as "resting". The mage could actually rest while someone else was riding the horse.

<shrug> D&D magic is higher powered in many respects compared to Gurps Magic. Huge area effects and no concerns about maintenance costs. You'd need a fairly exotic mage with a largish Energy reserve and probably 50 pts of FP Regeneration to really match the capabilities of a D&D Phantom Steed.

[Polkageist]

While riding the horse may not be 'restful' as it were, simple overland traveling without meaningful encounters certainly can include rest periods that satisfy recovery of FP/EP.

With Recover Energy the Wizard needs 15 minutes in that hour to recover enough FP to maintain the mount. Those can come in 5 minute chunks, so stopping to rest for five minutes three times in an hour is pretty reasonable. Everyone's going to need these breaks, not just the wizard, to get a snack, drink some water, stretch fatigued limbs, see men about horses, that sort of thing.

Oh yeah, and if Create Mount is known at skill 15 or greater then the energy discount reduces the maintenance cost to 2 which is now only 10 minutes in an hour or two five-minute breaks.

So unless the Wizard is going all-out hell bent for leather riding non-stop (ironically something that the created mount can do being an entity of magic and not a real animal) then using Create Mount indefinitely for overland travel is very feasible. Given they have reasonable skill levels in Recover Energy and Create Mount, assume that during any given random encounter they'll start down the FP used to maintain the spell (or roll a 1dX, where X is the FP to maintain and pay accordingly).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Polkageist

Mount, assume that during any given random encounter they'll start down the FP used to maintain the spell (or roll a 1dX, where X is the FP to maintain and pay accordingly).

They'll be down the FP used to _cast_ the spell and any spent on maintence. With a cost of 8 (7 w/Skiil-15) there's 35 minute rest period in there intitially along with the maintence costs.

Considering that what you get for that is a pony (albeit a tireless one) buying a real horse looks like a better idea on balance.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

They'll be down the FP used to _cast_ the spell and any spent on maintence. With a cost of 8 (7 w/Skiil-15) there's 35 minute rest period in there intitially along with the maintence costs.

Considering that what you get for that is a pony (albeit a tireless one) buying a real horse looks like a better idea on balance.

How often (and how long) does a real horse need to rest? Assuming a cost of 7/3 and 5 minutes rest per FP, you're looking at needing to cast, rest 35 minutes, travel 25 minutes, rest 15 minutes, travel 45 minutes, and so forth, potentially up to until you need to sleep. Assuming you either eat during your breaks (I think GURPS usually assumes 30 minutes per meal, so you'd generally be breaking your meals up into smaller portions over the day) or while on the move, and need an hour each for making and breaking camp, that allows for up to (45*13 + 25)=610 minutes - 10 hours, 10 minutes - of travel in a day. A quick look online indicates that a highly-fit horse trained for endurance competition can manage around 100 miles in a day. Your horse can theoretically go full-speed* for a bit over 10 hours in a day, which would likely blow that 100 mile value out of the water. Heck, going 100 miles in a day while laden with Medium or even Heavy encumbrance is probably doable for your magically-conjured horse, and you don't need to bother with bringing extra food (and either bringing extra water or having to make detours to go to watering holes en route).

Granted, I think under default GURPS rules, a horse only needs 10 minutes of rest for every hour (5 minutes each hour with Fit, 5 minutes every 2 hours with Very Fit) of hiking, same as a human, and can hike up until it's time to make camp without any consequences, letting it travel further than the magically-conjured one. But such a horse would actually take 4 times as long to recover if under Heavy encumbrance (which costs 4 FP per hour of hiking), dropping it further down. And, of course, if the mage actually has an Energy Reserve, which recovers without rest, you may only need to break for meals and the like.

*Realistically, I think riding a horse going full-speed should probably cost FP for the rider. However, I think Move 5 - to match that ~100 miles per day figure - should be doable without FP loss.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I would be very dubious of the idea that riding a horse counts as "resting". The mage could actually rest while someone else was riding the horse.

<shrug> D&D magic is higher powered in many respects compared to Gurps Magic. Huge area effects and no concerns about maintenance costs. You'd need a fairly exotic mage with a largish Energy reserve and probably 50 pts of FP Regeneration to really match the capabilities of a D&D Phantom Steed.

IMHO D&D is best simulated in GURPS with Wild Mana: "any success on a spellcasting roll counts as a critical success, and costs 0 FP, while any failure is treated as a critical failure, with the spell’s full normal energy cost."

This is different from Very High Mana where, a mage who spends FP (Fatigue Points) to cast a spell on his turn gets those FP back at the start of his next turn. Second, all failures are treated as critical failures – and actual critical failures produce spectacular disasters! In settings with Continuous Mana, High Mana cover the +8 to +10 to skill range. It should be mentioned that originally Very High Mana was "Anyone can cast spell, if he knows them. Mages can do so at no energy cost!" but was changed by Magic during Classic.

Yes, when a spell fails in Wild Mana it is a spectacular disaster (even more so when an actual critical failure is rolled) but GURPS Magic in a Wild Mana setting is not only on par with most D&D spells but has more utility spells to work with.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kesendeja

My player comes from a D&D background and is enamored with a few spells. Right now he’s asked me to create Phantom Steed for his mage. The best I can come up with is a reskin of Create Mount, with maybe lowering the difficulty or raising the duration, since it’s so specialized. Is there a better option?

That's the closest equivalent in Magic. Should be a slightly easier variant of Create Mount. The duration already matches the 5E spell, and since it is creating a 'living' thing, you should probably keep the prerequisites the same. Have it just create a Stock Horse or Saddle Horse with no upgrade options, and you can justify lowering the energy cost a bit.