Seek Sorceries

[VIVIT]

I was messing around with Sorcery the other day, trying to build the equivalent of the Seek spells from Magic. The only advantage that seems appropriate is Detect, which is really quite expensive compared to most Seek spells, with one interesting exception: Seek Gate. Because Gates are rare, Detect (Gate) would cost only 5 points as an advantage, but the spell has a whopping prerequisite count of 10, and requires Magery 2.

This drew my attention to a rough but inverse correlation between the cost of the Seek spells in all categories—energy, time, and prerequisites—and the point cost of Detect. Detect is priced by the rarity of the substance you can detect as a sort of built-in Accessibility modifier, but Seek spells for rarer, more specific specific things tend to cost more than those for more common, more general things (outliers in bold):

• Seek Air (1 energy, 1 second, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Fire (1 energy, 1 second, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Food (2 energy, 1 second, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Water (2 energy, 1 second, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Plant (2 energy, 1 second, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Earth (3 energy, 10 seconds, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Fuel (3 energy, 10 seconds, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Machine (3 energy, 10 seconds, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Plastic (3 energy, 10 seconds, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Power (3 energy, 10 seconds, 0 prereqs)
• Seek Coastline (3 energy, 10 seconds, 1 prereq)
• Seek Pass (3 energy, 10 seconds, 1 prereq)
• Seek Radiation (3 energy, 10 seconds, 1 prereq)
• Seek Magic (6 energy, 10 seconds, 1 prereq)
• Seek Gate (3 energy, 10 seconds, 10 prereqs plus Magery 2)

In short, it seems like Seek spells in Magic assume that common things should be easy to find and rare things should be difficult to find, but the Detect advantage from Basic Set assumes the opposite.

At first, it seemed like Magic had it right and Basic Set had it wrong. In most settings, Seek Air is going to be pretty useless, but Seek Magic will be very useful in any setting where GURPS Magic is used (unless you're a lone super-mage with Mana Enhancer in a no-mana supers setting or something). Even if you generalize the idea of magic-that-seeks beyond the Seek spells that Magic gives you, "rarer should be more difficult" seems to hold: what's more valuable? The ability to search for "Metals" or the ability to search for "Precious Metals"? Metals are more common than precious metals, but precious metals are more valuable, and are valuable precisely because they are rare. If you're prospecting for precious metals and you have Detect (Metals), all the non-precious metals in the area are going to get in your way.

But then I realized that Detect has two parts to it: it lets you find a substance and then analyze it. It's certainly more useful to be able to identify "metals" than it is to be able to identify "precious metals". But for magic system purposes, it feels like these should be different spells: Seek (Noun) and Analyze/Identify (Noun)—yet there's no way to cleanly separate the "detection" part of the Detect advantage from the "analysis" part, let alone any way that results in a sensible point cost. There's the special limitation Vague (-50%), but that also removes the ability to know direction and quantity, and there's no way at all to have the "analysis" part without the "detection" part.

I'm really stumped here. My goal is to build sorceries that do mostly the same thing as Seek spells, possibly in a different way, but without being able to do anything more and preferably doing it for for cheap—most seek spells are entry-level spells for their respective colleges. Is there any rule anywhere that allows for finer customization of the Detect advantage? Do any other "Look For Things" advantages exist?

There is only one solution I can think of, and it borders on the perverse: convert the Seek spells themselves into advantages using "Skills to Advantages" from Pyramid #3/44 and offer those advantages as Sorceries. That just feels wrong.

[Emerikol]

Just to address one idea you posed. Should it be easier to detect rare things or easier to detect common things?


So I would think if you were seeking any example of a type, it would be easier if it was something common. If you were seeking a very specific case of something otherwise common it would be harder.

Also, detect will reveal ALL cases right? Whereas seek would find you the first one it finds? So if there are ten easter eggs hidden in the forest, seek will find you one egg whereas detect will reveal all of the eggs.

I know this is metagamey but how do these powers affect the game. If they have little effect I wouldn't worry about it that much and do whatever you want. If they seem too good or apt for abuse then I'd try to find some downsides and limitations to add to make them less over the top useful.

I notice GURPS goes for realism most of the time which I like most of the time. Sometimes though, I'd think a GM can make exceptions based upon game utility and not ultimate world utility but you may feel differently.

[ravenfish]

I don't know about the broader issue, but "analysis only" and "cannot analyze" are available in Psionic Powers, priced at -50% and -10% respectively and doing more or less what they say on the tin.

EDIT: The GURPS Detect advantage is more expensive for broader groups because, per Word of Kromm, it can effectively look for a subtype or subcategory, so "detect metals" is strictly better than "detect precious metals" because the former can substitute for latter can but also look for lead when needed. It might be well worth searching out Kromm's postings on detect- in places he comes close to completely redefining it while saying "that's what it meant all along", and, after these "clarifications", it seems to be a lot more fairly priced.

EDITEDIT: See for example http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...5&postcount=20

EDITEDITEDIT: So turning Detect back into a simple "dowsing" advantage like the seek spells should logically be a substantial limitation bringing the price down to more appropriate levels.