Resisting a Spell

[Lucian]

As per RAW a resisted spell is supposed to be a quick contest of the effective skill when the spell is cast vs the subjects HT or WIll or w/e.

A problem I am seeing with a lot of my mages in a 150-200 point campaign is that their squishies and want to stay away, so they stay behind by 5 or 6 yards. Lets say 6 .

So Mage casts Spasm at skill 15 at 6 yards, he has a 2 yard magic staff so - 4
hes skill is at an 11, and Joe the Shmuck has an average HT of 10

Joe Scmuck has a fairly good shot at resisting this spell.

Is this how its supposed to work or am I missing something?

I can see how this becomes less of a problem at high skill levels but it seems to be forcing early level mages with little defensive skills and small mana pools too get up close and personal

WHich I suppose is an effective way of weeding out the weaklings lol

Im toying with an idea where the distance still matters with the successful targeting of the spell, but if the spell goes off
than the mage rerolls against his full skill with the spell

what do you think? too over powered?

[Nereidalbel]

Less than 50/50 odds to be out of the fight, no matter how good your armor and skills are? I wouldn't really call that a "fairly good shot" by any means. Giving mages an almost guaranteed win just leaves the rest of the party stabbing the twitching guys on the ground, and getting no actual combat time at all.

[Nosforontu]

A 50/50 shot at hitting your opponent in Gurps is actually not all that bad odds all things considered. Most Active Defense rolls for comparison are probably going to be around 10-13 after modifiers are applied unless you can get behind them or have other favorable situational/environmental mods to bring it down.

At its base Gurps Combat tends to assume a fair amount of missing each round from combatants because landing even a single hit can cause a death spiral affect in a fight.

[D10]

Things are fine. Any respectable mage will have at least 20 in a spell like stun or mental stun and spam it for great justice

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Lucian

So Mage casts Spasm at skill 15 at 6 yards, he has a 2 yard magic staff so - 4. His skill is at an 11, and Joe the Shmuck has an average HT of 10.

Joe Scmuck has a fairly good shot at resisting this spell.

Is this how its supposed to work or am I missing something?

Yes, that is how it works. Close cooperation with the fighter screen helps a lot, but low-powered GURPS mages are not the ranged killers of some other game systems. Buffing and healing can often be better uses of their limited energy supplies.

120-150 point mages can have skill 20 in a spell, but if so, they'll be very specialised. With the classic IQ 14 Magery 3, they get skill 15 for one point, 17 for four points, and 20 for 16 points. That's cost them 80 points for IQ, 35 for Magery and 16 for the spell, making 131. They won't have a lot else.

[Lucian]

So I gave this example because it actually happened in my game, in the same time it took for the Mages spell to be resisted

. My very annoying min maxing geeky friend who is playing a dual wielding hammer guy who gets sw imp damage killed two guys with his 5 dice worth of damage. I believe he's using 2 fine picks
With weapon master. And we're playing where the +4 transfers to 1 dice for more random damage scores because a flat +8 penetrates pretty much everything

Think he has 15 st with 3 striking st, with high weapon skill using deceptive attacks all day long. Even using defensive attacks for the slight reduction of damage in order to keep parry an option .

He's dropping guys left and right while the mage is fiddling with spasm.

It's also true that the mage can do 12d worth of dmg with an explosive fire ball but he's gotta wait a while.

Just seems like mages wait around for an unsatisfying pay off most of the time

[Nereidalbel]

And those picks of his didn't get stuck even once? Your enemies are so under-skilled they never managed to avoid a hit?

[Lucian]

Perhaps it's the traditional idea of the wizard in my mind that's the problem perhaps I should advise my players to concentrate on only a few spells and devote serious attention to active defense options like Parry.

I suppose the idea of the mage raining down fire from 20 feet away is probably closer to 400 500 point character

[Nereidalbel]

Grease + any area spell. Really fun combination!

Also, Steelwraith + the spells from GURPS Magic: Death Spells will give you some very lethal mages that don't just turn into stains on the floor.

[Lucian]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

And those picks of his didn't get stuck even once? Your enemies are so under-skilled they never managed to avoid a hit?

Exact opposite, he loves when they get stuck he has a 95 % chance to remove it for free damage.

And these were enemies with parry and block in the 13 to 14 range

I even cap deceptive attacks penalty at -6 his skill is 20 so he's plain out skilling his foes, which is fine.

The mage is actually built on more character points, than the bruiser, but he focused mostly on mind control, has very few direct damage options

Edit- thanks for reminding me of the stuck rules, it takes 1 round to remove and 1 round to ready it. I was only letting him remove it and if he did I considered it ready.
That should slow him down a bit