[Sorcery] Handling Specialists

[Varyon]

My apologies for the poor title, but "Should Specialists Be Able to Violate the Alternate Ability Rules" seemed... wordy.

The basic idea here is to allow a character with a Limited form of Sorcery to use the Sorcery price without the Limitations when determining Known Spells. As the system currently stands, a character with Sorcery 6 (Earth College Only -40%) [42] can improvise Earth spells more readily than a character with Sorcery 5 [60], but when it comes to Known Spells, the generalist can know higher-value Earth spells than the specialist (notably, the generalist can learn Walk Through Earth, while the specialist cannot). This is an odd disconnect for me, and I'm essentially suggesting that, rather than using the cost of Sorcery for determining what can be Known Spells, we should use the level of it. Sorcery 1 is enough to know spells worth up to [20], [+10] per level. In the above case, the character with Sorcery 6 (Earth College Only -40%) would be able to know both Flesh to Stone (which requires Sorcery 6) and the basic version of Walk Through Earth (which requires Sorcery 5), while the Sorcery 5 character would only be able to know Walk Through Earth.

Would this break the game too badly? Yes, it's obviously a departure from RAW (as I'm letting abilities with a higher cost than the base one benefit from the 1/5 cost), but I feel it's appropriate in this case.

[zoncxs]

your mistake is that you are not comparing the same amount of points.

the earth specialist can have Sorcery 9 (earth only) for 60pts compared to the generalist who can only have Sorcery 6 for 60pts.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

your mistake is that you are not comparing the same amount of points.

the earth specialist can have Sorcery 9 (earth only) for 60pts compared to the generalist who can only have Sorcery 6 for 60pts.

I'm perfectly aware of this. My problem is that specialization (keeping with the Earth Limitation) as it stands isn't "You're specialized in casting spells from the Earth College." It's "You're specialized in improvising spells from the Earth College." While the specialist certainly should be better at improvising within his specialization, it just seems jarringly odd to me that he doesn't have more knowledge within his specialization.

Now, Sorcery Talent does mitigate this somewhat, as having Limitations on Sorcery makes that cost half as much, but then we can just replace generalist with Elementalist (which is probably around 4 Colleges, for -10%) in the above problem.

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm perfectly aware of this. My problem is that specialization (keeping with the Earth Limitation) as it stands isn't "You're specialized in casting spells from the Earth College." It's "You're specialized in improvising spells from the Earth College." While the specialist certainly should be better at improvising within his specialization, it just seems jarringly odd to me that he doesn't have more knowledge within his specialization.

Now, Sorcery Talent does mitigate this somewhat, as having Limitations on Sorcery makes that cost half as much, but then we can just replace generalist with Elementalist (which is probably around 4 Colleges, for -10%) in the above problem.

Sorcery (earth only) 9 [60] lets the earth specialist improvise any earth spells up to 9pts where as the generalist with Sorcery 5 [60] can only improvise spells up to 5pts.

And your original question was about known spells, not improvised. Either way the specialist is more capable at his specialty than the generalist at the same thing.

They both can know the same list of earth spells but the specialist can improve more of them.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Sorcery (earth only) 9 [60] lets the earth specialist improvise any earth spells up to 9pts where as the generalist with Sorcery 5 [60] can only improvise spells up to 5pts.

Yes, which is why I said the character is better at improvising Earth spells than the generalist.

Originally Posted by zoncxs

And your original question was about known spells, not improvised.

Indeed, because Known Spells is where the problem/disconnect comes from.

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Either way the specialist is more capable at his specialty than the generalist at the same thing.

No, the specialist is only better at improvising within his specialty compared to the generalist. I think he should be better, full stop, than the generalist within his specialty. If two people have invested equal time/resources/soul (or whatever you want character points to represent) into studying magic, and one has specialized in the Earth College, I expect the one who has specialized to have more powerful Earth spells than the generalist.

This is my stance. I am not confused - I know the way the RAW works, and I know how my suggestion is a departure from it. What I need to know is if this really "breaks" anything.

[munin]

The limit on the power of known spells is based on the alternative ability mechanic. The way to then get a known spell that exceeds your Sorcery point value, is to take the known spell as the primary ability and Sorcery then as the alternative. If you want only specialists to be able to do this, don't allow generalists to learn known spells whose value exceeds their Sorcery value, and perhaps limit specialists to known spells whose value doesn't exceed that which a generalist of the same Sorcery level could take.

For example, a generalist with Sorcery 5 [60] can learn known spells with value up to [60] bought for [12]. A specialist with Limited Sorcery 9 [60] might be allowed to learn specialized known spells up to [100] (the value of non-limited Sorcery 9) -- they'd buy their most powerful known spell at full value, and buy their Sorcery and other known spells at 1/5th. While the generalist could also buy Sorcery 9 [100] and known spells up to that value, the specialist has spent fewer points on Sorcery yet can improvise at the same level in their field and has more points available for known spells in their field.

Another possibility is to put certain spells off-limit to generalists. Only earth specialists can learn or improvise spells which transmute earth to other materials, etc.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by munin

The way to then get a known spell that exceeds your Sorcery point value, is to take the known spell as the primary ability and Sorcery then as the alternative.

That's one possibility, but seems like it gives too little of a difference. Using a specialist with Limited Sorcery 9 [60], as you note he could learn up to a [100] spell. Doing so would cost him [52] - he saves [48] by making Sorcery an Alternate Ability but spends [100] on the spell. The character is at [112], plus whatever for his other Known Spells.

If the character were to instead boost his Limited Sorcery to 16, for [102], it would cost him [20] to buy that spell. That puts him at [122], [10] above the above scheme. If the spell in question had instead been [95] - making the above scheme cost [107] - he could have boosted his Limited Sorcery to only 15, for [96], and paid [19] for that spell - [115], or only [8] more than the above.

In fact, looking at it, [95] would be a best case, [97] a worst case. Comparing these two, your scheme saves [8] for the first, [13] for the second. That's around a 7% discount in the best case, 10% in the worst. That's a pretty small discount for what we're talking about, but it is a discount, so it would probably work if we want to stick with RAW. It's something to think about, at the very least.

[Lia Valenth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

...
This is my stance. I am not confused - I know the way the RAW works, and I know how my suggestion is a departure from it. What I need to know is if this really "breaks" anything.

It could definitely break things, but I like the idea better than the base one. I do not know how it would break overall, but I would be wary of multiple limitations on Sorcery. I do not own the Sorcery book yet, so this may not even work, but;

While the Sorcery 5 [50] guy and the Sorcery 8 (Earth Only, -40%) [48] having access to a maximum of [50] and [80] respectively is not a big problem IMO, adding a Sorcery 12 (Earth Only, -40% ; Dark-Aspected, -20%) [48] now has access to [120] which is a problem I think. I would solve it by giving +1/level/-10% for limited-college Magery. This would make the Sorcery 12 [48] have 12*8 = [96], which seems more accurate to me.

[Varyon]

I should probably note where probably my main issues with the current setup is. While the Sorcery Advantage is indeed just Modular Abilities (that is, the ability to improvise spells), I feel its primary purpose is as a "gateway" Advantage to getting the various spells as Known Spells. With every other GURPS Advantage, Accessibility and similar Limitations mean the ability works perfectly fine and at full power so long as the Accessibility is met. Sorcery's "gateway" potential doesn't work correctly when the Accessibility is met - my proposal is meant to bypass this.

[weby]

Being a specialist is a limitation not an enchantment to sorcery. Limitations should limit you not enhance you. Being able to have higher point cost abilities as alternate abilities would be an enchantment.