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Old 10-13-2015, 03:35 AM   #1
scc
 
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Default [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

OK Thaumatology29 has suggestions for basing Magic off an attribute other then IQ and I've been reading through it because of some comments in another thread and an idea came to me: What if Magic is based off a composite attribute, like Basic Speed? Well maybe not Basic Speed, but the idea is still there.

Personally I think the average of HT and Will might work well, but are there any other ideas?
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Old 10-13-2015, 07:32 AM   #2
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
OK Thaumatology29 has suggestions for basing Magic off an attribute other then IQ and I've been reading through it because of some comments in another thread and an idea came to me: What if Magic is based off a composite attribute, like Basic Speed? Well maybe not Basic Speed, but the idea is still there.

Personally I think the average of HT and Will might work well, but are there any other ideas?
Making the attribute/composite attribute dependent upon the college of magic.
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Old 10-13-2015, 07:42 AM   #3
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

In many settings, mages seem to have exceptional perception and willpower, so an average of Per and Will could be appropriate - although then you're better off boosting Per and Will for [10] than buying up Magery for [10]. A 3-way average of IQ, Per, and Will could theoretically be interesting (representing knowledge, charisma, perception, and willpower), but in practice would just mean that few mages would have Per or Will that deviated from their IQ score.

Throwing HT into the mix will result in mages that deviate from the usual assumptions, as mages usually aren't particularly robust.
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Old 10-13-2015, 07:50 AM   #4
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

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...Personally I think the average of HT and Will might work well, but are there any other ideas?
There are a lot of combinations depending on the world you want to make.

IQ and DX could also be a good combination. This is because both (sort of) cost 20/lvl, both govern large groups of skills, and this allows both physical and intellectual wizards. Problems that could arise are IQ being bought without Will and Per, and DX governing its skills, basic speed, and magic.

I also like (IQ+Will+Per)/3, that way buying up magic costs the full 20, and keeps magic as a mostly intellectual pursuit (which I like in theory but have a problem with in practice).

So the question is what kind of wizards do you want? Do you want all wizards to be hard to kill, hard to effect with spells, and seldom sick HT + Will is a good combination. If you want them to be strong and perceptive you could base it in ST and Per (which could be very interesting now that I think about it).
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Old 10-13-2015, 08:23 AM   #5
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

I like Captain Joy's idea of making some Colleges have different mixes. This gives each College it's own flavor, stereotypes for different college users and makes the universal everything mage a bit harder to do so easily.
What goes to what, that would be how you want to flavor youe world. Earth Mages might be known for being stubborn similar to Earthbenders in Avatar, and might have a mix of Will and HT, while maybe Meta Magic requires deep understanding and insight to perform right, taking IQ and Per.
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Old 10-13-2015, 01:13 PM   #6
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

Varying the base for spells by college is an intriguing idea. It came up in either the author-editor discussions or the playtest comments for GURPS Thaumatology, though that was a while ago and the details are foggy now. All I remember is that the book had word-count issues, so another 24-row table wasn't in the cards.

I especially like (IQ + Will)/2 and (IQ + Per)/2, as those discourage wizards from buying IQ and then selling back Will and Per, making so-called "IQ!" a better deal than Magery for the one type of character that ought to value Magery. I also like (IQ + 10)/2 for colleges customarily seen as "hard," particularly Enchantment, Knowledge, and Meta-Spells. Indeed, one could make spells of those types harder than Hard or Very Hard by using (IQ + n)/2 for n < 10. Nothing says you can't combine such options; e.g., (IQ + Will + Per)/3, (IQ + Will + 10)/3, or whatever.

Such measures are most meaningful when Magery is capped at a relatively low level, like Magery 3 or Magery 4. Of course, Magery itself can be figured into such formulas. While (IQ + Magery)/2 might be cruel, especially if Magery is capped, it would certainly encourage wizards to specialize in a few spells rather than drop 1 point per spell to become instant experts.

Separate from all that is the value of adding flavor. While (IQ + HT)/2 might not be the best match to how wizards are sometimes portrayed in fiction, it would be a good fit to Healing and maybe Earth spells as seen in the folklore of many cultures. Likewise, there's something to be said for (IQ + DX)/2 or even IQ/2 + Basic Speed as a base for Movement spells.
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Old 10-13-2015, 02:34 PM   #7
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

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I especially like (IQ + Will)/2 and (IQ + Per)/2, as those discourage wizards from buying IQ and then selling back Will and Per, making so-called "IQ!" a better deal than Magery for the one type of character that ought to value Magery.
I really like the math on that. I was working out a magic system that would benefit from that math since I wanted Will involved.
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Old 10-13-2015, 03:49 PM   #8
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

Buying down Will and Per sounds like an easy way to simulate a character that has lots of knoweldge but isn't actually all that smart, IE: Likely to do stupid things
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Old 10-13-2015, 03:53 PM   #9
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

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Personally I think the average of HT and Will might work well, but are there any other ideas?
How about the average of Per and Will, but basing Per off of HT as in Pulver's article in the latest Pyramid?
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Old 10-13-2015, 04:17 PM   #10
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Default Re: [Thaumatology] Composite Attribute for Magic

Note: The following was done in Cortex, not GURPS, but could be done in GURPS:
In a campaign where everyone in the setting had magic, I based each spell individually off a different attribute based on a combination of my gut feel and trying to get an equal amount of spells based off each attribute (in GURPS, this should be scaled to the cost of the attribute). I also had no magery-like trait that added to all spells. While the campaign failed for unrelated reasons, this seemed to work quite well as it wound up making everyone roughly equally good at magic, but gave some characters a knack for certain things over others based on their attribute mix.

The one thing to watch out for with translating this to GURPS is that attributes were bought from a separate pool in that than everything else in that game, so while this system made there not really be a way to make a real mage-build, that wouldn't be the case in GURPS (as a high attribute build would become the mage build, which may or may not be desired).
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