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Old 07-24-2016, 02:00 PM   #1
Ragabash Moon
 
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Default Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

Okay, so the way that GCA handles Magery made me wonder... If I take "One-Spell Magery" then do I still have Magery 0 unmodified? That is, I can still cast any spells that do not require Magery 1+ (I just don't get my Magery bonus), or do I still only have Magery for that one spell, not even Magery 0, because I am totally a non-mage in regards to all other spells?
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Old 07-24-2016, 02:34 PM   #2
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

Did you put One-Spell Magery on the Magery 0, or just the Magery 1?
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Old 07-24-2016, 03:01 PM   #3
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

Oh yeah I know that I am asking this in a general game rules point of view, the GCA just make me think to ask.
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Old 07-24-2016, 03:32 PM   #4
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

I mean the question -- Socratically -- in a general way. You could, in theory, separately limit each level of Magery. If Magery 0 has no Limitations, then it behaves like Magery 0 normally does, regardless of whether or not Magery 1 has any limitations.

Whether or not that kind of thing makes sense as a character concept is a more difficult question. You could probably come up with a story to explain a general Magery 0 with a One-Spell Magery 1. But it's certainly simpler and more straightforward if you apply the same Limitations to every level of Magery that you have. (And I'd have no problems with a GM that made that a ruling just to keep things simple.)

Slightly more complicated would be requiring Limitations to "nest" such that once a Limitation shows up at some level of Magery, that Limitation also has to be taken on all higher levels.

You could even have many levels of higher Magery, all with different Limitations, meaning at any given point in game time some of them would apply and some of them wouldn't. Knowing what level of Magery the character has requires evaluating all the Limitations whenever it matters. That would be quite complex to keep track of during play, and whether or not all that complexity is worth while is one of those things for the GM and player to work out.
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Old 07-24-2016, 03:46 PM   #5
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
I mean the question -- Socratically -- in a general way. You could, in theory, separately limit each level of Magery. If Magery 0 has no Limitations, then it behaves like Magery 0 normally does, regardless of whether or not Magery 1 has any limitations.

Whether or not that kind of thing makes sense as a character concept is a more difficult question. You could probably come up with a story to explain a general Magery 0 with a One-Spell Magery 1. But it's certainly simpler and more straightforward if you apply the same Limitations to every level of Magery that you have. (And I'd have no problems with a GM that made that a ruling just to keep things simple.)

Slightly more complicated would be requiring Limitations to "nest" such that once a Limitation shows up at some level of Magery, that Limitation also has to be taken on all higher levels.

You could even have many levels of higher Magery, all with different Limitations, meaning at any given point in game time some of them would apply and some of them wouldn't. Knowing what level of Magery the character has requires evaluating all the Limitations whenever it matters. That would be quite complex to keep track of during play, and whether or not all that complexity is worth while is one of those things for the GM and player to work out.

Um. No you absolutely do not put limitations on Magery 0. The program tells you not to.


Now, forget the program. As a Mage with one spell Magery, my Magery bonus only applies to the one spell. But I still am a Mage, so can i still cast other spells as long as they don't require Magery 1+?
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Old 07-24-2016, 03:53 PM   #6
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

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Originally Posted by Ragabash Moon View Post
Oh yeah I know that I am asking this in a general game rules point of view, the GCA just make me think to ask.
In Basic the assumption was that you couldn't limit Magery 0 on the principle that even you had the "Must Dance" limitation, you would still be able to sense magic and use magic items without dancing. But that's a default setting assumption, not something inherent.
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Old 07-24-2016, 03:54 PM   #7
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

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Originally Posted by Ragabash Moon View Post
Um. No you absolutely do not put limitations on Magery 0. The program tells you not to.


Now, forget the program. As a Mage with one spell Magery, my Magery bonus only applies to the one spell. But I still am a Mage, so can i still cast other spells as long as they don't require Magery 1+?
Sure, you can do all the things somebody with Magery 0 and no other levels of Magery can do.
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Old 07-25-2016, 06:18 AM   #8
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

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Um. No you absolutely do not put limitations on Magery 0. The program tells you not to.
The program tells you not to put the pre-created limitations for Magery 1+ on Magery 0, because of bonus handling - it would make bad math. This is why Magery 0 is a separate advantage in the program, too.

So. Magery (regular Magery, not Magery 0) is a leveled advantage which is coded to give a +1 to all spells. The one college modifiers (and possibly the others, I dunno) have to cancel out that bonus, so they do it by giving a blanket -1 to all spells. Then they give you back your bonus to the one college. So you get +1-1= +0 to all spells, and +1-1+1=+1 to the one college.

If you apply that to Magery 0, you have a problem. Magery 0 doesn't give a bonus to spells. So you get a -1 to all spells and a +0 to your college.

EDIT: This is also why GCA gives you strict warnings about not applying the limitations from DR onto other advantages - they do the same thing to remove the general DR, and if you put that on, say, Regeneration (to make Very Fast Regeneration (Only vs Heat/Fire, -40%) [60]) you'd get a -4 to DR (Very Fast is the 4th level of Regeneration, if I'm counting on my fingers correctly).
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Old 07-25-2016, 07:34 AM   #9
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
In Basic the assumption was that you couldn't limit Magery 0 on the principle that even you had the "Must Dance" limitation, you would still be able to sense magic and use magic items without dancing. But that's a default setting assumption, not something inherent.
I believe this assumption was also backed off from in GURPS Thaumatology (IIRC), which allows you to add those modifiers to Magery 0 on the assumption that your Magery 0 will also be limited to when those limitations apply. Magery 0 (Fire College Only, -40%) [3] means you can only cast Fire spells in normal mana areas and can only detect Fire related magic items and effects. Obviously, if you have Magery 0 (Fire Only) you would also need to take Magery 1 (Fire Only); however there are instances where mixing and matching could easily be done, such as Magery 0 (Fire Only) and Magery 1 (Fire Only, Dance), which means your Magery only works with Fire spells, but you in order to get the +1 bonus and cast any Magery 1 prereq spells you'd need to dance first.

In GCA there is a separate set of modifiers for Magery and Magery 0, for exactly the reason that Bruno mentions. Historically we had many issues with users going to the giant list of All Modifiers and grabbing one at random to add to whatever ability (or even equipment) they were building and then not understanding why their Regeneration is giving a minus to DR or their Flak Vest is giving a bonus to Spells. This is why we added the warning dialogs and, in later versions, made it so you couldn't just get the giant list of All Modifiers without changing the program preferences.
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Old 07-25-2016, 12:09 PM   #10
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Default Re: Magery 0 vs. Magery 1+ and modifiers?

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I kind of wonder though, if one-spell magery only costs 2 points, why would anyone ever spend the 4 CP per point to level up the skill when you can just buy one-spell magery for it instead?

I think the only reason is I think there was some kind of cap on how many one-spell mageries you could buy, so those would be your specialty spells and then once you reached the cap, you couldn't buy one-spell magery any more and had to buy the skills instead if you wanted to specialize.

Of course there's always one-school magery which is probably cheaper than buying up the skills to higher levels in those schools if you were doing so beyond a certain number.

Or just buying up magery itself instead of buying up many magic spells...
You've got it, the only thing that keeps Magery in line is that it's usually limited to 3-5 levels in a game, and after that the Mage must spend points in the spell or IQ.

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What I do wonder is how one-school or one-spell magery would work on Magery 0.

Does that only allow you to cast the school/spell or would it also limit your ability to only being able to sense that school/spell?

Eric I like your approach to this, limiting the ability to sensing certain kinds of magic is interesting and I like having a mechanic for it.
I believe it would, yes. If you limited Magery 0 with One Spell Only, you would only be able to detect that one spell.

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I kind of wish we could split Magery 0 though... I want to be able to, for example, have a guy who could cast ice spells but not be able to sense them. The casting/sensing component of Magery 0 should be divisible.

Couldn't we do that by thinking of limited 'Detect' as a component of Magery and "No Detect" being a Disadvantage?
I don't have any links, but I do recall a thread some time ago that agreed that the ability to detect magic would be considered 1 point (Magery 0, Can not cast spells -80% [1]), so being unable to detect them would most likely be a Quirk, or a -20% limitation on Magery 0.

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Can we combine limitations on magery now? Basic set said you could only take one, which I didn't like (nothing wrong conceptually with night-only fire-only magery) so I sure hope a later book got rid of that.
I've never liked that rule, it takes away a lot of potential interesting flavours, like say someone had 4 levels of Magery, all 4 had Fire College Only, but 2 are limited to only be able to be cast at day. You end up with a firemage that somewhat resembles Avatar's firebenders.
Instead, I tend to just halve the value of any Limitations past the first, since a lot of Magery's Limitations are quite generous, probably because they limit you only to 1.
I do not know if there is any official uncap on Magery's Limitations.
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