GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Ghostdancer will likely answer as well, but.

You can't do this.

You need to hit a foe with full resistance on a weakening spell first, then they will resist further spells at the penalty.

Otherwise you are basically asking for 'how can i break the rule of 16 with rpm/incantation'.

Depending on your gm there may be ways to augment the likelyhood of the weakening spell taking effect (making it a side effect or follow up on a damaging spell to move it to an active defense instead of a resistance for example)

You absolutely can do this. See Bond of Servitude for (Class) p. 24 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic for an example.

Originally Posted by Tinman

Problem is I am the GM & one of my players wants do apply -to resit on the spells. It shouldn't brake rule of 16 anymore than penalizing the resistance roll with a previous spell. Right?

PS: thanks for your interest & help.

Making a spell "hit harder" is Bestows a Penalty of a Narrow type.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Problem is I am the GM & one of my players wants do apply -to resit on the spells. It shouldn't brake rule of 16 anymore than penalizing the resistance roll with a previous spell. Right?

PS: thanks for your interest & help.

It absolutely will break the rule of 16.

Here is the issue- you are a caster with skill 25, and are fighting a foe with will 16.

As per the rule of 16 it does not matter that you have skill 25, it will be 16 v 16, with about a 60% chance of defending successfully (defender wins ties).

If you put a penalty on that spell via requiring more energy (lets say -3) you STILL have skill ~25 (as bestows a penalty is not overly expensive) , and the defender now has reduced defense (13), your spell has turned from having a 60% chance of being resisted to having ~20% chance.

However, I just double-checked, and apparently incantation DOES allow you to put a resistance penalty into the spell and have it apply.

See Censure- p24-25

And it looks like it uses 'single skill' as the modifier.

I think that's overly generous (You are inflicting -6 to resistance in exchange for at most -2 to your roll to activate)- if I would have allowed 'same spell to reduce resistance' I would have used the rules for deceptive attacks (-2 to skill for -1 to defense), but Ghostdancer put a lot of effort into balancing incantation (even more than stock RPM is balanced and it is in my mind very well balanced) so I'm sure there is valid reasoning behind.

Edit: Curse you ghostdancer, I was so close to correcting my error with this post. So close.

[Christopher R. Rice]

The whole reason it's there is this: it let's spells hit harder for less capable casters. You can easily ignore it and it wouldn't break anything, but there is something to be said for a caster to be like "I want to dump energy into this spell to make it hard for it to be resisted." It doesn't exactly BREAK the Rule of 16 - but flouts it a bit, and with GM permission. The GM can absolutely say no to this. I've used this solution for years in my own campaign with little issue. Not that that means much, but I have carefully playtested, balanced, and theorycrafted just about every part of this book for over 2 years (almost 3 now). So maybe that's something.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

The whole reason it's there is this: it let's spells hit harder for less capable casters. You can easily ignore it and it wouldn't break anything, but there is something to be said for a caster to be like "I want to dump energy into this spell to make it hard for it to be resisted." It doesn't exactly BREAK the Rule of 16 - but flouts it a bit, and with GM permission. The GM can absolutely say no to this. I've used this solution for years in my own campaign with little issue. Not that that means much, but I have carefully playtested, balanced, and theorycrafted just about every part of this book for over 2 years (almost 3 now). So maybe that's something.

I can tell you that you did excellent work on the book. My players & I use incantations in place of RPM because it's more clear about what you can do & more easy to use with out energy gathering rolls. (Of course PK did an outstanding job on RPM.)

In this campaign we are playing now, it's a Monster Hunters- sidekicks game.
The additional -2 the mage could put on a spell is a big help as the characters are only 200 pts.

Ghostdancer, thank you for your help.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Tinman

I can tell you that you did excellent work on the book. My players & I use incantations in place of RPM because it's more clear about what you can do & more easy to use with out energy gathering rolls. (Of course PK did an outstanding job on RPM.)

PK is the hero. He blazed the trail, I just paved it a bit. That said, my upcoming urban fantasy campaign (the Chronicles of Ceteri) uses a variation of Effect-Shaping Ritual Path Magic with several customized rules including (but not limited too)...

...13 laws of magic that mess in-game fluff with game mechanics. Examples include the Law of Calamity (Si Quid Errare Potest, Errabit “If Anything Could Go Wrong, It Will Go Wrong”), which represents how botches work with RPM. Also the Law of Knowledge (Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est “Knowledge itself is power”), which represents the maximum bonus you can gain from other effects like materia essentia (see below) or using different ritual parameters.

...ritualistic triggers/substitutions; normal RPM has a "gesture" and a "word." This variation has five things: focus (incumba), willpower (mandato sua), a somatic gesture (gestura), a material component (materia essentia), and a linguistic trigger (incantata). You can then substitute those five triggers for eight others. So instead of those five you could say "I stare off into space and blow 5 FP to cast Banishment" or "I cut myself with a razor blade instead of having a material component." It gets even more interesting when you have established spells that change up the five triggers and require an alternate ritualistic substitution. "This spell doesn't need you to spell or gesture...but you need to bleed enough to do at least 1 HP."

...and other more, interesting things. *mysterious smile*

Originally Posted by Tinman

In this campaign we are playing now, it's a Monster Hunters- sidekicks game.
The additional -2 the mage could put on a spell is a big help as the characters are only 200 pts.

Shiny.

Originally Posted by Tinman

Ghostdancer, thank you for your help.

Not a problem. Always try to help out my fellow GURPSers when I can.

[Tinman]

This just came up in my game:
Incantation gift gives it's bonus to Ritual Magic (Incantation) & the paths.

1) Should it not also give a bonus to Alchemy (Infusions) and Symbol drawing (Scripts) for potion & scroll making?

2) Doesn't a spell casting/Power talent add to innate attack rolls to hit?

Thanks.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Tinman

This just came up in my game:
Incantation gift gives it's bonus to Ritual Magic (Incantation) & the paths.

1) Should it not also give a bonus to Alchemy (Infusions) and Symbol drawing (Scripts) for potion & scroll making?

That's a fair point. It's not in the book, but sure, why not. For that specific purpose only though.

Originally Posted by Tinman

2) Doesn't a spell casting/Power talent add to innate attack rolls to hit?

I'm pretty sure that's a rule from GURPS Powers - I'd certainly allow it.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

That's a fair point. It's not in the book, but sure, why not. For that specific purpose only though.




I'm pretty sure that's a rule from GURPS Powers - I'd certainly allow it.

Awesome!
Thank you Ghostdancer!

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Awesome!
Thank you Ghostdancer!

Sure. No problem. It's what I do.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

The whole reason it's there is this: it let's spells hit harder for less capable casters. You can easily ignore it and it wouldn't break anything, but there is something to be said for a caster to be like "I want to dump energy into this spell to make it hard for it to be resisted." It doesn't exactly BREAK the Rule of 16 - but flouts it a bit, and with GM permission. The GM can absolutely say no to this. I've used this solution for years in my own campaign with little issue. Not that that means much, but I have carefully playtested, balanced, and theorycrafted just about every part of this book for over 2 years (almost 3 now). So maybe that's something.

Given that the Rule of 16 boils down to 'Lowest of own skill, defender's Will or 16' the defender suffering a penalty only matter if their will is greater then 16 or your skill is lower then both 16 and their will, I don't see how it's even bending it.