Discussing Yrth History & Evolution of GURPS MAGIC

[maximara]

Originally Posted by hal

Nice Catch.

GURPS FANTASY 1st edition predates the invention (or conceptualization) of Magery 0 and a few other things.

Did the pre-Religion way of Clerical magic exist in GURPS Fantasy 1st edition as it did in Classic: Magic? If so by a strict RAW it was Magery 0 in all but name. It would go a long way on explaining why the Errata for GURPS Fantasy 1st edition is written the way the way it is.

"A simple clerical advantage is to allow non-mage clerics to use spells of one (or a few) colleges as though they were mages. So, even in normal and low-mana areas, a cleric of (for instance) a healing-oriented power can cast Healing spells."

Originally Posted by hal

Now, some might talk about Magery levels 4+ - which is distinctly a GURPS 4e concept. Me? I don't generally ALLOW magery 4+ in my games for only ONE reason...

We have Magery 0 spells (by default, any spell not requiring magery 1+)
We have Magery 1 spells that require magery 1 as a requisite to learn
We have Magery 2 spells that require magery 2 as a requisite to learn
We have Magery 3 spells that require magery 3 as a requisite to learn

Where are the magery 4 spells that require magery 4 as a requisite?

IIRC they only exist in Pyramid 3/76: Dungeon Fantasy IV. (2015) meaning they are a very late comer to 4e and aimed at Dungeon Fantasy which is not Yrth.

Originally Posted by hal

Magery was not only the ability to cast spells in low/normal/high/very high mana regions, it was also, essentially a way of differentiating how so terribly complex a spell was so as to be incomprehensible to a mind to study.

Without Magery 3, no one can learn a magery 3 spell regardless of how much time and effort that goes into studying the spell.

Until there is a systemic method for denoting what spells are complexity 4, 5, 6, 7, etc - we really shouldn't have Magery 4+ in the campaign.

I agree. As I stated a while back GURPS 4e Magic could have eliminated the need for things like Least of Spells by having "requires Magery 0" for some of the spells.

Originally Posted by hal

The thing to keep in the back of your minds when discussing whether or not one can have a medieval TL 3 society with some of these spells is that not only do they violate genre conventions, but also in some instances, violate the basic framework of GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition.

Well that "framework" includes non-magery/non-Power Investiture Clerical magic, Rune Magic, and Alchemy so there is still a lot on the table.