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Old 06-25-2021, 06:20 AM   #11
Emerikol
 
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I'm unsure if you are charging points to learn each spell?


Having a set number of "ready spells" sounds awesome, especially if it allows the wizard to learn any spell in their book (and the ability to find new spells without spending points to learn it). I suppose it'd be a sort of modular ability, where the grimoire is the list that can be read from.
The idea is that you can cast a spell at default if it is in your grimoire. You know a spell any time you study it's formulae. It's yours forever. If you lose your grimoire though, you can't give the spell to anyone else so that would be bad but you wouldn't lose your spell casting ability though.

So all of the easy spells with defaults-1 kind of stuff will almost immediately be usable and those are the spells most likely available widely. Really hard spells with default-20 or something like that would of course require some improvement in the spells skill level to be usable. At this point perhaps that spell is a technique. Still deciding how to do that.
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Old 06-25-2021, 07:18 AM   #12
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

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Originally Posted by Emerikol View Post
And your question about what magery adds to is a good one because I realized that if it adds only to Thaumatology then it would only affect the default. So maybe it applies to both Thaumatology and the College skill. Have to think more on it.
I'd add Magery to Thaumatology, College, and Spell skill levels if you are using spells-as-skills. If you are using spells-as-techniques, only add Magery to Thaumatology and College skills. Also applying Magery to the spells-as-techniques would result in double counting Magery.

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I wanted the idea that you have innate magic which is your magery. That is what you are doing when you just pay the cost and deduct if off of Fatigue. So how good you are dictates how big a gulp you can take of magic in a given turn. So perhaps multi-turn spells would get to add magery every turn. If you are skillful then of course that is drawing on surrounding mana as well as your internal reserves. I only have a single mana level in the campaign.

Just a limit on how much you can draw on magic per turn. This allows for those who dabble in magic to do minor things but not huge things.
That makes sense. I'd recommend reading through the fatigue costs of various spells before setting the fatigue spending limit. Otherwise, you could unintentionally relegate spells to ceremonial casting.

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Well I wanted the idea of being able to find spells as a treasure. I intend on many common spells to be widely available. So it won't be a big challenge to get a lot of spells. But I thought perhaps some of the more exotic ones would be rare and harder to find. Wizards might jealously guard their secrets.

Yes, I'm thinking that maybe the spells become techniques and it operates just as you say. You can cast any spell at the default if you know it. The grimoire is just a list of spells that you know. It's the only way you have of communicating your spells to another mage. You don't need it though to use the spells you know on a day to day basis. But you must understand formulae because you can't learn a new spell without the written spell existing somewhere.
That makes sense. A mechanic like this is a good way to handle spells-as-treasure. Another possibility would be to hand out enchanted items that the players can reverse enchant to learn the underlying spells.
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Old 06-25-2021, 09:12 AM   #13
ericthered
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

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The idea is that you can cast a spell at default if it is in your grimoire. You know a spell any time you study it's formulae. It's yours forever. If you lose your grimoire though, you can't give the spell to anyone else so that would be bad but you wouldn't lose your spell casting ability though.
And you can only be "up to speed" on a handful of default spells, needing to study up before casting one you haven't looked at recently? That works out nicely, just don't apply it to known spells they paid points for.
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Old 06-25-2021, 11:51 AM   #14
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

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And you can only be "up to speed" on a handful of default spells, needing to study up before casting one you haven't looked at recently? That works out nicely, just don't apply it to known spells they paid points for.
The idea is that the second you have the college skill you can in theory cast any spell in that college. You have to find the spells though and put them in your grimoire. I may classify spells as common, rare and very rare so the common ones will be super easy to pickup in any city. The others will vary and might be pricey. The very rares might be treasures.

Now the spells are likely to be techniques so some of them will have reallly bad defaults. Others won’t. So spells with defaults up to -4 perhaps never get any technique points. Whereas a default of -29 will almost certainly get points spent.
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Old 06-26-2021, 12:44 PM   #15
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

I'd be tempted to allow the Taking Extra Time bonuses for casting while using the book as a reference. Can't do that in combat easily but allows non combat spells when you are not in a time crunch.
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Old 06-27-2021, 06:39 AM   #16
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I'd be tempted to allow the Taking Extra Time bonuses for casting while using the book as a reference. Can't do that in combat easily but allows non combat spells when you are not in a time crunch.
This is a good idea. I think that is a great idea.
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Old 06-27-2021, 06:44 AM   #17
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I'd add Magery to Thaumatology, College, and Spell skill levels if you are using spells-as-skills. If you are using spells-as-techniques, only add Magery to Thaumatology and College skills. Also applying Magery to the spells-as-techniques would result in double counting Magery.
Gotcha. I think we are on the same page on this part.


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That makes sense. I'd recommend reading through the fatigue costs of various spells before setting the fatigue spending limit. Otherwise, you could unintentionally relegate spells to ceremonial casting.
Will do. Perhaps another option would be to allow any spell to be extended in casting time to allow for more power to be added. So if you have magery 2 you can take 2 seconds to complete the spell and effectively have magery 4 for power limitation purposes.

I probably don't mind some of the really powerful non-combat spells being ceremonial only. That wouldn't bother me. I may also have some magic items that improve the ability to use certain spells. A crystal ball for example might improve a spell where you are doing clairsentience. I haven't studied the spell list enough just yet as I am nailing down the big picture but absolutely I am not afraid to go back and revise.

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That makes sense. A mechanic like this is a good way to handle spells-as-treasure. Another possibility would be to hand out enchanted items that the players can reverse enchant to learn the underlying spells.
That is my point in a way. I am wanting the secrets of magic to be a treasure.
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Old 06-27-2021, 06:11 PM   #18
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

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Edit:
I went and read your linked blog post. Nice. I agree if magic is commonplace and low cost then the world is a far different place than most fantasy worlds present it.
Even if uncommon magic can still cause problems if powerful. If you follow through on the logic even a low magery world like Yrth (0.5% in Classic; 2% in 4e) Magocracy (government by professional wizards only) would become the rule.

For example, in the Thundarr reality wizards are few and far between but all of them are rulers of their domains with many of them building magitech war machines on par (or even beyond) with anything TL9 could crank out.
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Old 06-28-2021, 05:23 AM   #19
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Even if uncommon magic can still cause problems if powerful. If you follow through on the logic even a low magery world like Yrth (0.5% in Classic; 2% in 4e) Magocracy (government by professional wizards only) would become the rule.

For example, in the Thundarr reality wizards are few and far between but all of them are rulers of their domains with many of them building magitech war machines on par (or even beyond) with anything TL9 could crank out.
I tend to control how many wizards I want in a particular setting by controlling the frequency of magery. Without magery, it is impossible to work magic unless you have a powered magic item.

So one of my campaign duties early on is to decide how many people in a given population will have magery 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.

I guess it depends on how far you go with "powerful" magic but I feel with GURPS a wizard can't dominate the game as easily as other systems.
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Old 06-28-2021, 08:17 AM   #20
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Default Re: Magic Guidance Question

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I tend to control how many wizards I want in a particular setting by controlling the frequency of magery. Without magery, it is impossible to work magic unless you have a powered magic item.

So one of my campaign duties early on is to decide how many people in a given population will have magery 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.

I guess it depends on how far you go with "powerful" magic but I feel with GURPS a wizard can't dominate the game as easily as other systems.
It all depends on how magic works. Going back to Thundarr the humans are more or less at TL3 while the wizards have TL9 created via their magic.

For example, the first episode, "Secret of the Black Pearl" the wizard Gemini uses robots and in the final showdown animates the Statue of Liberty and gives it a insanely powerful Flame Jet.

Either the wizards in that setting have huge amounts of fatigue or the world has Unlimited Mana/Wild Mana/Raw Magic as this would require 81 energy to cast Animate (3 base x 3 for being metal and x 9 for being 151' tall) and 41 to maintain each minute and that is not counting the insanely powerful Flame Jet that its torch generated.

The only way Thundarr beat Gemini was to throw the Pearl at the statue. Given how it works I would say it was akin to a Mana Vortex.
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