Magery as an improvable advantage?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by maximara

I agree but things are kind of muddled with Yrth.

First there is the really bizarre 1988 errata: "P. 51. Since Caithness is a low-mana area, the example given for the number of people to know spells is wrong. 1 in 50 might know a spell or two in a high-mana area, 1 in 100 in a normal-mana area, 1 in 500 in a low-mana area. Perhaps half these people possess Magical Aptitude. Of course, some people with Magical Aptitude, especially in low-mana areas, will never learn magic or even become aware of their talent."

A strict reading of that means you have 1:100 mages in high mana, 1:200 mages in normal, and 1:1000 in a low-mana for the classic version of Yrth.

Firstly there's "perhaps" so nothing is strict at all :)

Secondly I think "these people" refers collectively to to the total "people on Yrth who knows one or two spells", not that there's going to be an identical halfish of spell-knower who have magery. So the GM could spread them out how he likes.

Namely because if I don't have Magery my spell knowledge is worthless if Low/Normal so I'm probably either going to be in High Mana or else nearby to it so I can make use of it.

The rare folk who hang out in Low Mana regions and know spells are likely the archmages whose Magery allows them to cast magic so frequently (anywhere) and whose higher magery level talent bonus offsets the -5 penalty.

Originally Posted by maximara

More over, Banestorm reveals that Ritual Magic exists on Yrth. Now one of the options for Ritual Magery is being able to cast spells at -5 with the ability to learn Fractional Magery (Technomancer pg 123)

Nothing in 3e's Technomancer I can see about that, but page 123 of 4e's GURPS Thaumatology has "Limited Non-Mage Ceremonies" and "fractional Magery 0" for Book/Path Magery.

Book/Path is distinct from Ritual Magery, though the mixup is easy since Book/Path in 4e is basically what "Ritual Magic" used to be in 3e.

Fractional Book/Path Magery 0 is roughly to the first four levels of "Ritual Aptitude" in 3e (Spirits 84) while non-fractional is all 5 levels.

Originally Posted by maximara

-10 to skill in low mana is nuts

Thaumatology 126 gives the option for applying mana penalties to Path/Book magic, although it says in Low Mana (-5) that only those with magery can cast the spells, only highlighting "Limited Non-Mage Ceremonies" as an option for Normal Mana.

I don't see a problem with allowing non-mage ceremonies in low mana (-10) as you say though.

Thaumatology even has Very Low Mana which would create -15 if allowing non-mages to try. You'd need a lot of bonuses to offset that.

T58's "Non-Mages Casting in Lower-Mana Areas" is an interesting alternative (though I think it's intended for standard magic, not path/book) where instead of doing a penalty you just do 10x the base energy cost +1 FP.

That wouldn't really adapt well to the "Effect Shaping" system since there aren't any energy costs to multiply, but perhaps it's feasible for multiplying the Energy Accumulating versions?

You could perhaps try an either/or, like you could take a -5 penalty for Effect Shaping or a x10 for Energy accumulating?

T58's entry about Continuous Mana also has a note for standard magic similar to T123 except it's a -6 penalty instead of -5.

To make muggleborn magic super-rare there's also the idea of applying BOTH notes to standard magic: x10 the base cost AND -6 to skill. This kind of soft double-cap will take it off the table in the vast majority of situations.

Originally Posted by maximara

Of course we could always throw in the Least of Spells to address this issue.

Yeah the '1 or 2' population I'd just assume 99% of them have the LOS.

Also excludes those with 'ritual magery' since they never just know '1 or 2'.

Given mages don't suffer the -5 for Low Mana for IQ/A spells and non-mages can cast IQ/A spells in normal mana, it gives a weird situation like mages aren't more skilled than non-mages in Normal Mana with them. Made-for-muggles basically.

For more consistency in Continuous Mana it's probably something like "ignore up to -5 in mana penalties".

Interesting thing about the LOS rule too...

It doesn't seem to say that these rules would only apply to IQ/A spells introduced in this book...

So in theory if we had a means of which to generate IQ/A spells from IQ/H spells these rules might apply to them too... if so then only the IQ/VH ones couldn't be reduced.

B167 "Optional Specialties" doesn't say you couldn't apply them to spells, it emphasizes applying it to IQ skills but does say you need GM permission.

It sounds reasonable enough just so long as you narrowed the field adequately.

Like for example if you knew the spell "Recover Energy" but specialized it to work best in a certain type of aspected mana?

Or you knew "Counterspell" but specialized it for countering spells of a single college?

If that reduced IQ/H to IQ/VH then it wouldn't just be 1 higher for casting but perhaps even higher than that in low-mana zones by offsetting up to -5 in penalties (possibly +6 higher).

What'd be cool about that is emphasizing more specialization, because there's definitely still too much draw in being a generalist.