[Thaumatology] Powers as (Path/Book) Magic

[dataweaver]

Again though, the main problem with all of these ideas is that both versions of Path/Book Magic are slow, with Effect-Shaping rituals taking a minute for the fastest ones, and more often ten minutes or an hour. Wonder Woman doesn't have a minute or an hour to channel mental energy into her muscles before slamming into a tank and knocking it on its side. In order for this sort of thing to work, you'd pretty much need a level of Ritual Adept for the Time element. I'd also recommend going with Effect Shaping, as even with Ritual Adept (Time) Energy-Accumulation takes too long.

And Ritual Space might also need Adept levels to remove their associated penalties from consideration; because it's very rare for powers to only work properly in specific locations.

Material Components have some limited applications, such as Diana needing her bracelets to deflect bullets or her lasso to compel someone to speak truthfully; but quite often, nothing of the sort is needed. Heck, even when it _is_ needed, the mechanics for Material Components are wrong: they apply a penalty for not having the right component; for Wonder Woman's gear, she doesn't even get to try without the gear. They're less “Material Components” and more “required parts of the ability”.

In short, getting this to work with Path/Book Magic is almost certainly going to require multiple levels of Ritual Adept, bypassing a large chunk of what makes Path/Book Magic what it is.

[Prince Charon]

A variety of modifiers can be applied to Path/Book Adept, so having a very limited form of it is not a problem, as long as the form fits (not just things like One Book Only, as you can make it part of a Mystic Symbol gadget - Wonder Woman's bracelets could be both Material Components and magic circles replacing the Ritual Space and Casting Time, for example). Likewise, as noted, some of them don't even need that, though Sandman is admittedly an unusual case. Any character that appears to have (or can believably be claimed to have) a time limit on an ability or a limited number of uses for an ability could be designed as using Charms or other Conditional Rituals.

I do agree that Energy Accumulating is usually too slow for this, unless you have a high-enough level of Energy Reserve - but doing that makes it rather closer to the spell-based system, or the Ritual variant thereof. That's one of the reasons I don't like RPM for this.

[Prince Charon]

I'll probably want to go back to elementals later on, but for now there's another character type that could be made to work with this concept (largely without a need for Path/Book Adept): The expert archer with a bunch of trick arrows, as exemplified by Green Arrow in DC and Hawkeye in Marvel. In both cases, they have a mix of pretty plausible arrows (not only the usual pointy ones, tear gas or flashbang arrows aren't that far-fetched, and homing beacon arrows are at least possible), and those that are bizarre or ridiculous (the boxing glove arrow is infamous, but IIRC the original had a small enough 'glove' to be not that far off from actual blunt arrowheads that were used historically; handcuff arrows are really stretching it, though, much less sleeping gas arrows or other wild ones).

Contextually, the Trick Archer is an archery build like the Scout in DF, and has some method of getting trick arrows. They might be a Gadgeteer who is really dedicated to their theme, but the idea of a magical style or styles being both the reason they use trick arrows for all their weird effects, even when not mounting things to arrows with be more convenient (e.g. Green Arrow and Speedy having blowtorch arrows that they use to break out of the bad guys' hideout back in the 1950s, AFAICT using them as handheld tools), and the source of the weirder options (like why the handcuff arrows are consistently able to get both wrists) seems interesting to me. Depending on the era, this might be a Magical Engineering style, but a Low-Tech setting might well have a society of magical archers who perform rituals to empower their arrows for various purposes.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Contextually, the Trick Archer is an archery build like the Scout in DF, and has some method of getting trick arrows. They might be a Gadgeteer who is really dedicated to their theme, but the idea of a magical style or styles being both the reason they use trick arrows for all their weird effects, even when not mounting things to arrows with be more convenient (e.g. Green Arrow and Speedy having blowtorch arrows that they use to break out of the bad guys' hideout back in the 1950s, AFAICT using them as handheld tools), and the source of the weirder options (like why the handcuff arrows are consistently able to get both wrists) seems interesting to me. Depending on the era, this might be a Magical Engineering style, but a Low-Tech setting might well have a society of magical archers who perform rituals to empower their arrows for various purposes.

Continuing this thought because I was too tired yesterday (and it's been long enough that just editing the post would feel weird): The Golden Age Green Arrow spent a significant part of his youth living with a Native American tribe on a reservation, and learned archery there. Golden Age Speedy, likewise, had a Native American manservant who seems to have taught him archery (and was murdered in their origin story). In a setting where Path/Book Magic is common enough, it would not be a stretch for folk in the Americas to develop archery-based magical styles, though they wouldn't be the only ones (teaching the style to Oliver would be a bit odd, but fits the comics - or perhaps only Roy started out with magic, and taught it to Oliver, which would be an interesting reversal). Queen and Harper could perhaps combine the style or styles with contemporary technology, or with another tech-based style, or both. I don't currently have the details of the style in mind, beyond the thought that mounting charms to arrows is philosophically important.


Thoughts?

[Prince Charon]

Sorry, it's another tangent, but one that I should have had in the first couple of posts: Rituals that would be very common among Supers that last more than a few issues (as opposed to just being useful occasionally, which basically all of them could). This list is just from GURPS Thaumatology, and a lot of them could need setting-specific or style-specific adaptations or replacements.

Ghost Shirt - In any setting where firearms are common and likely to be used against you, especially repeating firearms, it helps to have reasons why the characters are still unperforated after the adventure. Ghost Shirt is not enough for this, as we must assume that there will be people aiming at you deliberately, but it's a place to start. There are also a number of rules from the GURPS Action series that would help, or rituals could be adapted to imitate them in settings where they would not otherwise apply. An alternative to this would be rituals allowing high DR, such as Dr. Fate's force field, or perhaps one for Insubstantiality (which IIRC Fate also used sometimes), or enchanted items (charms or fetishes) used to parry bullets, as discussed for Wonder Woman.

Succor - If you do still get injured, healing much faster than normal can be very important, and is consistent with a lot of characters in the source material, even those who are alleged to be normal humans.

Endure Elements - Fairly minor, but a lot of those costumes would be unpleasant to quite unhealthy in all but ideal conditions; I mean, Hawkman doesn't even wear a shirt, and he's not the only one!

Warrior's Blessing - Kind of obvious; 'both versions of Warrior's Blessing plus whatever replaces Ghost Shirt' fits well with a fairly low-end estimate of Miraclo, for example.

Weapon Blessing - While not all Supers or other powered characters use weapons, enough do to include this on the list. A variant for machines in general would benefit a fair range of Supers.

Journeyman's Blessing - While some Supers and such are wealthy dilettantes (Ted Knight, Bruce Wayne, Don Diego de la Vega), most have fairly mundane jobs that they want to keep. Sure, Clark's words-per-minute is very high, but he still has to do some of his work in the open-plan offices of the Daily Planet (or Daily Star on Earth Two), surrounded by people who are trained observers. Most others don't have quite the same issue, but they do have others, which also lacking Clark's advantages.

Guise - Secret identities are hard, and this provides an excuse for the ones who seem to have a secret identity with no mask, or an inadequate disguise (though it's less needed than you might think, as that famous scene in the first Christopher Reeve Superman film showed).

Obscurity - Not just for explicitly stealthy types: anyone with a secret identity would benefit from being able to change without being noticed. Likewise, it serves as a good excuse for a lot of villain escapes where they never found the body.


Any suggestions for things I missed, or expansion of the above? Other thoughts on this?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Succor - If you do still get injured, healing much faster than normal can be very important, and is consistent with a lot of character in the source material, even those who are alleged to be normal humans.

Journeyman's Blessing - While some Supers and such are wealthy dilettantes (Ted Knight, Bruce Wayne, Don Diego de le Vega), most have fairly mundane jobs that they want to keep. Sure, Clark's words-per-minute is very high, but he still has to do some of his work in the open-plan offices of the Daily Planet (or Daily Star on Earth Two),

Guise - Secret identities are hard, and this provides an excuse for the ones who seem to have a secret identity with no mask, or an inadequate disguise (though it's less needed than you might think, as that famous scene in the first Christopher Reeve Superman film showed).

Any suggestions for things I missed, or expansion of the above? Other thoughts on this?

For Succor I just want to note the clause that all Crippling Injuries are Temporary. Getting that chance up to 98% is well worth the 5 pts for Rapid Healing but Succor is 100%. Very useful.

As to Clark Kent and the Daily Star, by the time Crisis was coming around in 1985 ISTR that Clark had inherited Perry White's job and had a private office.

This was definitely the case when the Berlanti DC TV shows got to their verison of Crisis and they went to recruit the Superman of Earth-90. This was especially interesting as Brandon Routh played not only that version of Superman (as he had done in the Superman Returns movie) but also the already established version of Ray Palmer. (the Atom). They were even movie magicked into a scene together in the same room and I didn't even think they looked that similar.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

For Succor I just want to note the clause that all Crippling Injuries are Temporary. Getting that chance up to 98% is well worth the 5 pts for Rapid Healing but Succor is 100%. Very useful.

Oh, yes.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As to Clark Kent and the Daily Star, by the time Crisis was coming around in 1985 ISTR that Clark had inherited Perry White's job and had a private office.

Some more thoughts on Superman and his abilities: When comic book readers were introduced to him in 1938, his powers are simpler and less awesome (but still very impressive) than they would later become: "When maturity was reached, he discovered he could easily: Leap 1/8th of a mile [201 meters]; hurdle a twenty-story building...raise tremendous weights...run faster than a express train... and that nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin!" So, quite strong, exceptionally fast, and very hard to injure... but not invulnerable yet, and unable to fly (his Super-Jumping is clearly meant to be an artifact of his strength). His enhanced senses show up fairly quickly, showing both X-Ray vision and super-hearing in 1939, but he doesn't start out appearing to have them; he demonstrates his super breath or super lungs around 1940. Heat vision and freezing breath show up in the Silver Age, with the former being at first 'the concentrated heat of his Telescopic X-Ray vision,' and the latter being a new application of his established super-breathing. The Silver Age is also where New Powers as the Plot Demands became a stereotype of Superman stories, though even in the Golden Age, he had the occasional weird one, like changing his face (with super-muscular control, a pulp staple taken to extremes) to resemble a ceremonial mask twice the height of his head! (The Silver Age was also when we got the Superboy who was 'Superman, when he was a boy' having the same powers at roughly the same level as Superman in the same years-of-publication, but I'd really prefer to ignore that for this thread, and am only mentioning it because someone might bring it up.)

When the clone Superboy was introduced in 1993, his only power was 'Tactile Telekinesis!' (the exclamation point was important, at least to him, since he seemed to use it every time he talked about his power), which allowed him flight, a force field, and a good imitation of super-strength (probably Telekinetic Control with 'Melee Attack, C,' and a variant of PK Shield). Again, he started gaining various other abilities later on, as his experience grew. More recent versions of young Clark, such as the one from the Smallville TV series, likewise seem to come into their powers gradually, without retconning them to have always been available.

My suggestion for this thread is that the abilities he started out with are Kal-El's actual powers, and the newer ones are the rituals. So, he has a high level of Extra ST with Super-Effort (or one of the other versions of super-strength that have been suggested), a lot of DR and some level of Injury Tolerance (probably Damage Reduction), and some abilities that exist as side-effects of his strength, like Super-Jumping and Enhanced Move. Whether he has Enhanced Time Sense or Altered Time Rate, or those are rituals, is another question; possibly he just has extra Speed as a power. The rituals he uses are probably based on some form of Autohypnosis or Meditation, perhaps using Torquasm Vo (if you want to use more of the Post-Crisis version, the rituals would be a variety of Path/Book Psi).

EDIT: Depending on what assumptions you're making about his powers, he may also be a Solar Battery, having a high ER that recharges during the day, and has some level of Regeneration (either ER Only or Includes ER) in direct sunlight. If his rituals are Energy Accumulating, the ER will be very, very useful, but it can still be helpful without that.

[Prince Charon]

Instinctive Rituals

Thinking about Marvel's mutants, and similar characters, such as the supers in the GURPS I.S.T. setting, I considered the Charm perk, and then Meta-Traits, which lead to this: Humans and other beings in such a worldline might be born with a Latent Magic perk. At puberty, or after some other form of trauma occurs (e.g. mainlining a connection to the Spider Totem after being bitten by a magical spider), their inner power is awakened, which is where the Meta-Trait comes in. You have Limited Path/Book Adept and possibly Limited Magery (generally One Path or Book Only, or One Ritual Only, but possibly other modifiers), and if your instinctive style is Energy Accumulating then most likely you've got an Energy Reserve. You may or may not have some perks, disadvantages, or quirks in the Meta-Trait, but certainly have skills and techniques, hence the name - you have one ritual (or perhaps a few) that you are instinctively good at, probably based on a Path or Book with a separate core skill (or your instinctive style only has one Book, so the Book skill is the core skill); you instinctively know these, as well, but might have a disadvantage or quirk that limits your understanding of them (so perhaps you're Incompetent with any use that isn't covered by your ritual). Alternatively, perhaps you have a perk that causes your Instinctive Ritual to default off of IQ, Will, or another characteristic. Depending on your abilities, personality, and setting, you may buy down or buy off some limitations or disadvantages, and expand your range of rituals, or you might not.


Examples

Imagine, if you will, a boy named Charlie, about age twelve, has learned that he can read the minds of those around him:
Instinctive Ritual (Magery 0 (Path of the Mind Only, -40%) [3]; Magery (Path of the Mind Only, -40%) 3 [18]; Path/Book Adept (Path of the Mind Only, -40%) 3 [18]; Path of the Mind [8] IQ+3; Read Thoughts (H) Path of the Mind-6 [7] Path of the Mind-0) [54]

As Charlie grows older (and starts preferring to be called Charles), he learns other rituals in the Path of the Mind (or perhaps the Book of Xavier, or something like that), and seeks to teach other mutants, but also tragically loses the use of his legs.

Similar ideas work for Bobby Drake ('Path of Ice,' perhaps) and Jean Grey (Path of Motion), with the caveat that early Jean had telepathic abilities that were locked away for her sanity, so her Path of Motion-limited advantages later became Two-Path advantages.

When Warren Worthington III was introduced, his wings were depicted as so compressible that a set of belts were enough to completely conceal them beneath his longjohns and tailored suit. In a setting like this, it makes more sense for his winged form to be the result of a ritual, at least at first:
Instinctive Ritual (Magery 0 (One Ritual Only: Skinchange (Winged Human), -80%) [1]; Magery (One Ritual Only: Skinchange (Winged Human), -80%) 2 [4]; Path/Book Adept (One Ritual Only: Skinchange (Winged Human), -80%) 3 [6]; Perk: Skinchange (Winged Human) defaults from HT [1]; Skinchange (Winged Human) (H) HT-6 [7] HT+2) [19]

Possibly, a critical failure later leaves him permanently changed; it makes sense for that to be a possible, or even likely, result of a crit-fail on a Skinchange ritual. This may be common among mutants, and could explain Hank McCoy's issues - every time he tries to fix it, though, something goes wrong, perhaps due to subconsciously sabotaging himself. Another plausible effect of a Skinchange crit-fail is that you get the Alternate Form advantage, but it's cyclic (e.g. changing at the full moon, or sunset), or otherwise not under the caster's control ('Now, whenever Dr. Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs...'), at least at first ('That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry.').

Scott Summers is an interesting case, as is Anne-Marie (Rogue). One way to deal with their abilities is to just give them the advantages with the Always On, -50% limitation, but since I'm already fudging things to fit, I prefer to go with the idea that Scott, at least, has the Uncontrollable limitation on his One Ritual Magery, and add his glasses or visor as a Mitigator on the limitation (this won't change the price at all, unless I can find an appropriate enhancement or two for Magery - something that not every GM agrees is acceptable); his optic blasts going off whenever he's under stress would be dangerous enough that he'd wear a Mitigator all the time anyway. Rogue would likewise have Uncontrollable, but without the Mitigator, and might also have Unconscious Only when she started out. The big problem with Rogue is really designing her ritual, more than the advantages in her meta-trait.


Thoughts?