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Old 07-14-2021, 05:31 AM   #1
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

No, I'm not talking about allowing, say, RPM Magery into a campaign that already allows standard Magery, no something more interesting.

Magic says that Magery is present in between 1% and 2% of the population and Thaumatology says that it may be genetic (I think, that could be Magic again or Infinite Worlds), and in Banestorm it is true. So taking those two facts, 1-2% of the population are born with Magery and those without it can never acquire it, at least not by mortal means, and assuming that Magery is in the ON position when people are born, leaves you wondering what kind of other talents/abilities various Wizards Guilds have cooked up/discovered trying to make non-Mages into Mages.

So these abilities all share two common rules:

1. Someone with one of these abilities can't be or acquire Magery, or any other of these talents, without Divine intervention.

2. For the purposes of determining if someone is a Mage, someone with one of these abilities is a Mage, they can use Mage Only Magic Items, you can determine through aura reading the nature of their gifts, and abilities that affect Magery also affect these abilities.

So the only one I've been able to think up so far is this:
Living Magic Battery
You are a living store and font of magical energy, this grants you three things abilities:
1. Whenever participating in ritual magic you can always contribute 2 points of energy per Knows The Words;
2. You can cast Lend Energy at IQ, but only on people with Magery and only to restore energy lost to spell casting, and know Restore Energy at IQ.
3. You may purchase ER (Magical) to fuel all of this.

So does anyone else have any ideas?
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Old 07-14-2021, 09:09 AM   #2
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
Thaumatology says that it may be genetic (I think, that could be Magic again or Infinite Worlds), and in Banestorm it is true.
One thing I find strange about this approach is that Magery is a Mental advantage (ie if your mind swaps to another body, your magery comes along, while another force occupying your body does not have access to it) and it's hard to think of a mental advantage as being genetic.

I think any setting which has 'genetic magery' ought to tack on "requires HT roll" to shift it into being a Physical advantage.

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
So taking those two facts, 1-2% of the population are born with Magery and those without it can never acquire it, at least not by mortal means, and assuming that Magery is in the ON position when people are born, leaves you wondering what kind of other talents/abilities various Wizards Guilds have cooked up/discovered trying to make non-Mages into Mages.
there's a spell to give others magery in the new 'Horror Magic' supplement that might be used as a baseline

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
So the only one I've been able to think up so far is this:
Living Magic Battery
You are a living store and font of magical energy, this grants you three things abilities:
1. Whenever participating in ritual magic you can always contribute 2 points of energy per Knows The Words;
2. You can cast Lend Energy at IQ, but only on people with Magery and only to restore energy lost to spell casting, and know Restore Energy at IQ.
3. You may purchase ER (Magical) to fuel all of this.
So does anyone else have any ideas?
Do you recall which book "Know the Words" is in?

I'm not sure what the worth of 'you can purchase ER' actually is (unusual background?) but if you just start them off with ER 1 then isn't it sort of implied that having ER means you can spend future bonus CP on improving it? Or perhaps even 'Improvement Through Study' transferring hours into CP like with skills?

I would consider "Lend Energy to Mages only" to be something like B169's Optional Specialties if GMs were to allow that idea to be applied to spells. So instead of being IQ/H it'd be IQ/A and the classic version of the spell would default at -2 (net -1) as if it were a VH spell.

I figure by Restore Energy you mean Recover Energy on B248?

If you only wanting them to use these two-spells you could just give them 2-spell magery per Thaumatology which is -75%.

Rather than invest a full point you could know both spells for a single Wizardly Dabbler perk to know both at IQ-4 instead of the usual IQ-2 for a point in Hard skills.
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Old 07-14-2021, 12:56 PM   #3
martinl
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

I've used lots of variants of "Magically Talented" - this is a regular talent mixed with magic. You can do magical stuff with your talent skills, although the penalties might be high.

So someone with magical healing talent can reattach a severed arm at TL3. Someone with magical smith talent can make magic items from metal, or repair broken magic items. A magical outdoorsman might predict weather a month ahead of time, or track a fish through a stream.

Usually my penalties for "magic" stuff start at -6 for even minor stuff, but extra time (as rituals) helps, I'll allow flavorful reagents, and a PC with +4 talent can often eat pretty steep penalties anyway.

Note that there is a fair amount of realism in this - many historical craftspeople had rituals they thought of as magical or religious they preformed to make their products better.
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Old 07-14-2021, 05:28 PM   #4
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
One thing I find strange about this approach is that Magery is a Mental advantage (ie if your mind swaps to another body, your magery comes along, while another force occupying your body does not have access to it) and it's hard to think of a mental advantage as being genetic.
I think the best way to handle this is to not think about it too hard because it's magic
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Do you recall which book "Know the Words" is in?
It's from DF15
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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I'm not sure what the worth of 'you can purchase ER' actually is (unusual background?) but if you just start them off with ER 1 then isn't it sort of implied that having ER means you can spend future bonus CP on improving it? Or perhaps even 'Improvement Through Study' transferring hours into CP like with skills?
This isn't a meta-trait, it's a single trait with a cost of 5 points because it should probably be at least as common as Magery 0, I now realize I should have put that in my opening post.
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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I would consider "Lend Energy to Mages only" to be something like B169's Optional Specialties if GMs were to allow that idea to be applied to spells. So instead of being IQ/H it'd be IQ/A and the classic version of the spell would default at -2 (net -1) as if it were a VH spell.
This isn't a case of people getting learnable skills/spells, they can just use them at certain levels, so it you want to increase it you have to increase the stat.
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I figure by Restore Energy you mean Recover Energy on B248?
*Head desk* Yes.
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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
If you only wanting them to use these two-spells you could just give them 2-spell magery per Thaumatology which is -75%.

Rather than invest a full point you could know both spells for a single Wizardly Dabbler perk to know both at IQ-4 instead of the usual IQ-2 for a point in Hard skills.
Not what I'm going for, these people aren't technically Mages.

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Originally Posted by martinl View Post
I've used lots of variants of "Magically Talented" - this is a regular talent mixed with magic. You can do magical stuff with your talent skills, although the penalties might be high.

So someone with magical healing talent can reattach a severed arm at TL3. Someone with magical smith talent can make magic items from metal, or repair broken magic items. A magical outdoorsman might predict weather a month ahead of time, or track a fish through a stream.

Usually my penalties for "magic" stuff start at -6 for even minor stuff, but extra time (as rituals) helps, I'll allow flavorful reagents, and a PC with +4 talent can often eat pretty steep penalties anyway.

Note that there is a fair amount of realism in this - many historical craftspeople had rituals they thought of as magical or religious they preformed to make their products better.
This sounds more like a Power or limited Magery then what I'm going for.
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Old 07-15-2021, 12:38 AM   #5
Inky
 
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

If on the other hand you like having in-universe reasons for things (and it does sometimes give more opportunities for things to play about with), and want both "magery is genetic" and "magery follows the standard rules for mental advantages" to be true in your world, I suppose it could be something like the gene doesn't actually give you Magery, it just gives you the ability to get it, like maybe it gives you the particular kind of psychic power needed to establish contact with the spirits of magic or whatever, and once you have got it you have got it and the gene is no longer relevant.

This might allow for plot shenanigans like a non-mage trying to swap bodies (presumably using a magic item made by somebody else) with a mage's child and nick the magic before the kid was old enough to claim it herself. (And this kind of thing is why I like knowing some of the rules of how the magic works - then the characters can exploit them!)

As for the technical questions of things that could happen while trying and failing to develop Magery and how they would work rules-wise, I have no idea, I'm a bit out of practice with the rules :-D It could be a good justification for various chi things, I suppose, if in your setting (as in the standard rules) they're two different things. Didn't succeed in developing a sense of magic, did succeed in developing a sense of something else. Don't know whether that was the kind of thing you were asking about.
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Old 07-15-2021, 09:13 AM   #6
Michael Cule
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

Where my campaigns allowed people to become Mages after character creation it worked by giving them the physical trait which was Magery 0, allowing them to access magical energy.

You could either allow them to have higher levels of Magery when the transformation took place or only allow them to gain it as they practiced and grew in magic or not allow higher levels at all. All of these options are consistent and give a slightly different feel to the setting.

Other things Mages might have learned how to instill include Magic Resistance Detect Magic (as an advantage) and Mana Dampener.
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Old 07-15-2021, 06:50 PM   #7
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
If on the other hand you like having in-universe reasons for things (and it does sometimes give more opportunities for things to play about with), and want both "magery is genetic" and "magery follows the standard rules for mental advantages" to be true in your world, I suppose it could be something like the gene doesn't actually give you Magery, it just gives you the ability to get it, like maybe it gives you the particular kind of psychic power needed to establish contact with the spirits of magic or whatever, and once you have got it you have got it and the gene is no longer relevant.

-Snip-

As for the technical questions of things that could happen while trying and failing to develop Magery and how they would work rules-wise, I have no idea, I'm a bit out of practice with the rules :-D It could be a good justification for various chi things, I suppose, if in your setting (as in the standard rules) they're two different things. Didn't succeed in developing a sense of magic, did succeed in developing a sense of something else. Don't know whether that was the kind of thing you were asking about.
This is my thoughts, with the initiation ritual need to grant people their Magery requiring specially treat Marijuana and Opium, resulting in the Mages Guild supporting a ban on those substances, as people keep trying to bypass the Guild's authority over all Mages and screwing things up and the Guild being expected to clean it up.

Interestingly this means Mages might have professional prohibitions against using mind-altering substances.
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Old 07-16-2021, 06:02 AM   #8
Emerikol
 
Join Date: May 2021
Location: Eastern Kentucky
Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
One thing I find strange about this approach is that Magery is a Mental advantage (ie if your mind swaps to another body, your magery comes along, while another force occupying your body does not have access to it) and it's hard to think of a mental advantage as being genetic.
Yet intelligence is without a doubt a genetic outcome. Smart people have smart babies more often than dumb people do.

So however the "soul" or "spirit" gets the improved magical ability, it may originate in early development from some genetic marker.

I would just treat the non-physical aspect of existence as something that is affected by the physical. Last I checked when I'm tired, I don't think as clearly as I do when I'm fresh so there is some connection there that matters.

As for the guy that suggested we just treat magic as magic and ignore the thinking, why? Half the internet arguments would go away if we did that and where is the fun in that. My fellow roleplayers are where I get to discuss the quasi geeky stuff I can't get a discussion for anywhere else.
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Old 07-16-2021, 08:02 AM   #9
maximara
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Default Re: Extra Forms Of 'Magery'

Quote:
Originally Posted by scc View Post
No, I'm not talking about allowing, say, RPM Magery into a campaign that already allows standard Magery, no something more interesting.

Magic says that Magery is present in between 1% and 2% of the population and Thaumatology says that it may be genetic (I think, that could be Magic again or Infinite Worlds), and in Banestorm it is true.
The key word in that is "may". Thaumatology also says this:
*"Supernatural Inspiration: Some or all magic could be a gift from unearthly powers, or the product of special insights into the supernatural realm. "
*"Education: If magic needs or benefits from something more than natural talent and intuition, then an education system is likely to emerge."

Yrth has had tweeks over the years. 1e-2e Yrth had only half of the wizards with Magery.

3e tried to fix that glitch but Classic: Magic still had its form of Clerical Magic which allowed "non-mage clerics to use spells of one (or a few) colleges as though they were mages. So, even in normal and low-mana areas, a cleric of (for instance) a healing-oriented power can cast Healing spells."[1] The cost of this 'Blessed (can cast spells as if mage)'was determined by the number of colleges the cleric could use[2] but was still mana dependent.

n 4e it is expressly stated that Power Investiture is unknown on Yrth but elsewhere it is stated that Ritual Magic does exist on Yrth, with the Closer To Heaven talent providing a bonus to the skill. Maxed out to +4 this puts non mage Ritual Magic wizards (Clerics) at only a -1 compared to their mage counterparts.

While Ebhla and Gormgrimm Runehammer from Classic: Wizardsexpressly use Rune magic they only show other forms of magery based magic exists on Yrth.
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Old 07-16-2021, 05:34 PM   #10
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
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n 4e it is expressly stated that Power Investiture is unknown on Yrth but elsewhere it is stated that Ritual Magic does exist on Yrth, with the Closer To Heaven talent providing a bonus to the skill. Maxed out to +4 this puts non mage Ritual Magic wizards (Clerics) at only a -1 compared to their mage counterparts.
That's not the Ritual Magic system in Magic, that's a skill for asking spirits to do magic for you, and I believe that it only works in Sahud.

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While Ebhla and Gormgrimm Runehammer from Classic: Wizardsexpressly use Rune magic they only show other forms of magery based magic exists on Yrth.
Where any rules for this rune magic ever released?
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