Some more questions on my magic system...

[Emerikol]

So in brief here is my system...

There are twelve colleges each with a skill that cannot be higher than the Thaumatology skill. Each spell is a technique in one of those colleges.

Each spell has a classification: common, uncommon, rare.

In addition each spell has a formula that must be known. So you can't learn spells without that formula. Wizards trade and sell these formulas. Common spells are available fairly easily and guild membership will almost guarantee access. Uncommon spells are attainable but often consistently only in larger cities. Rare spells are generally unavailable or those having them are keeping them as personal secrets. Not that they can't be traded for but it's really hard.

The spells will be informed by the rules in Artillery spells and Death spells.

Techniques which default from the college skill will not be as penalized as in normal ritual path magic but still fairly good. So I see skill-20 as a max penalty and most of the more difficult ones falling between skill-10 and skill-20. Most of the easy spells will be usable from the default so a wizard will have many spells as soon as they put a few points in the college skill.

All the normal rules for how you cast spells (using movements and words etc... but being allowed to cast without with penalties). Also a few spells may have some component requirement.

Spell formula will be kept in grimoires. You don't need a grimoire to use your magic but you want one so you can trade spells and collects spells from others.

I have some spell rules for wands and staffs but that is outside the scope of this post.

I've toyed with a maximum number of ready spells (IQ+magery basically) but not sure it's really a limit that is worth enforcing. I feel the rest of the system covers it.

[Shostak]

So ... what are the questions?

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Shostak

So ... what are the questions?

I'm sorry I just wanted to know if it made sense and if as a player you'd have any questions.

[Emerald Cat]

This is a good write up. It does make it clear what rules options you chose. But it is a little too detailed for players to skim through quickly. A cheat sheet would be helpful, especially since you are pulling rules from multiple sources.

[dataweaver]

How do you determine which spells a character starts off knowing, and how long does it take to learn them? I'd suggest raiding the Familiarity rules for this:

Start out with as many Common* spells as a skill like Guns or Driving starts out with Familiarities, and it takes as long to learn a spell as it takes to pick up a Familiarity (8 hours of effort, if I recall correctly). Until you familiarize yourself with a spell, you must have a grimoire on hand to cast it, and you suffer a Familiarity penalty on top of the Technique penalty.

* Uncommon spells are acceptable with explicit GM approval; Rare spells also need GM approval, and are only available with a suitable character trait to justify them, such as Hidden Lore or an appropriate Perk or Advantage.

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

This is a good write up. It does make it clear what rules options you chose. But it is a little too detailed for players to skim through quickly. A cheat sheet would be helpful, especially since you are pulling rules from multiple sources.

Thanks. I will probably have to spend some time explaining as this will be our first GURPS campaign but yeah a cheat sheet would be handy!

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

How do you determine which spells a character starts off knowing, and how long does it take to learn them? I'd suggest raiding the Familiarity rules for this:

Start out with as many Common* spells as a skill like Guns or Driving starts out with Familiarities, and it takes as long to learn a spell as it takes to pick up a Familiarity (8 hours of effort, if I recall correctly). Until you familiarize yourself with a spell, you must have a grimoire on hand to cast it, and you suffer a Familiarity penalty on top of the Technique penalty.

* Uncommon spells are acceptable with explicit GM approval; Rare spells also need GM approval, and are only available with a suitable character trait to justify them, such as Hidden Lore or an appropriate Perk or Advantage.

Well I was thinking without a formula, you can't learn them and with a formula it's fairly trivial to learn the spell at default which might have a massive penalty of course if it's a super good spell. I'm using the prerequisite counts as a guide but since there are other restrictions to getting spells I probably won't go a high as that list goes.

So whoever you studied under will have supplied you with your initial spells. I'm guessing maybe something like 8 or 10 common spells.

For uncommon and rare spells, I'm thinking I will make a city state that gives the chance you have of finding someone in the city who has the spell. Also, I might give a percent for a week and for two months. Because some people don't want anyone to know they have a spell.


Spell Research:
I'm not outlawing spell research but I want that to be expensive enough that trading is the preferred method for most wizards. If you have a genuinely new spell that no one knows about to create then of course you now have a rare spell and that is worth a lot so research is not out of the question. I think it will be akin to magic item creation in terms of time and cost.

[Varyon]

Presumably, mages tend not to let others learn spells from their grimoires free of charge. You may want to come up with how much it costs to learn spells (I'd be inclined to base this on the penalty to use it at default), and instead of mages knowing some arbitrary number of spells to start out, they have to pay for said spells out of their starting money (note this is appropriate even if they didn't pay for it - you still pay $ for the armor you inherited from your father or the sword your combat instructor gave you as a graduation present). This could be problematic if they then turn around and sell access to their grimoire to recoup lost funds and make more besides, but that's easy enough to curb by stating there's no demand for their spells (which is easy to justify if they start with only Common spells - they can't sell access to their grimoires because most people who would want to learn their spells already have).

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Presumably, mages tend not to let others learn spells from their grimoires free of charge. You may want to come up with how much it costs to learn spells (I'd be inclined to base this on the penalty to use it at default), and instead of mages knowing some arbitrary number of spells to start out, they have to pay for said spells out of their starting money (note this is appropriate even if they didn't pay for it - you still pay $ for the armor you inherited from your father or the sword your combat instructor gave you as a graduation present). This could be problematic if they then turn around and sell access to their grimoire to recoup lost funds and make more besides, but that's easy enough to curb by stating there's no demand for their spells (which is easy to justify if they start with only Common spells - they can't sell access to their grimoires because most people who would want to learn their spells already have).

These are good points. This is an example of me not fully grasping the GURPS way if you will but what you say makes sense. So buying your initial spells just like you would armor or weapons is a good idea.

Here is how I see it working perhaps in a bit more detail.
1. Most cities have at least one guild and larger cities will have guilds and societies devoted to specific colleges. I see a lot of the common spells being available just with membership in the guild. Now if you are a general practitioner joining every guild in town might be too much. Guild membership is expensive but I feel like it would be worth it to most wizards. Then you might try to buy a spell from a guild member without joining the guild. The price could be based on a combination of how common the spell is and the technique penalty to the college skill.

2. Guilds might provide these other benefits to members. Rental of labs. Hiring of assistants. Hiring out of spell casting in general at the guild rate. Protection in some instances against those who oppose magic use.

3. The demand from wizards for a spell they know will be determined by the same factors like how common the spell is and the technique penalty to the college skill. But finding a buyer is also another factor and something you'd have to roll against with a penalty based on where you are selling. So if in a big city the chance is perhaps high but each time you sell a spell the chance of finding another buyer will go down. In smaller towns and cities the chances will be a lot less and of course the penalty will still apply. Perhaps based on city size, there might be a max penalty.