Missile Spells and casting time reduction / multiplication

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by Mister Negative

... A Magery 2 wizard can output a 6d Fireball. A Magery 3 wizard can output a 9d Fireball (so 31.5 damage on average).
...

So, I've had trouble with gameplay of this concept for years now in the campaign that I am running. Fortunately for me, I previously used to be "the mage" (back in the 3e days), and no one in the group has since picked up the mantle of spellcaster, so the situation does not come up very often. But it has affected my design and use of NPC mages.

Frankly, I'm afraid of using missile spells as written and not sure how to modify them.

The world is standard fantasy, with magic being present, but fairly rare. Healing potions (minor healing), are available, but in short supply. Regeneration type magic is even rarer. Magery 3 is the limit.

Therefore it seems to me that a mage with a built up missile spell (say 6d or greater) is a character destroyer, since there is a great degree of certainty that an undefended hit with such a spell will dismember an arm,foot, arm, leg, or put the recipient into deeply negative HP territory. Most players PREFER the latter since at least they get to roll against HT to avoid unconsciousness and/or death.

I'm interested in hearing actual accounts of campaigns where mages routinely toss around 6d and greater missile spells. How does it actually play out in the short term and/or long term?

I know that a mage will generally be greatly fatigued, and won't be able to cast such spells very often. But resting with a spell in hand is possible.

Reading the forums over the years, I've seen a lot of responses (that seem to be theoretical) about how a mage in such a world should/might require unusual background, how missile spells are an inefficient use of magic etc. I'd like to hear how it works out in practice.

Are there any players/GMs (maybe even game designers) that can relate their actual experiences in a fantasy world where 6d (and greater) missile spells are tossed around?

Back when I was the mage in 3e, I felt pretty badass when I had a 3d+3 stone missile spell in hand. The world was pretty close to the one I am DMing in terms of low magic gritty. Were missile spells really so underpowered in 3e?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Are there any players/GMs (maybe even game designers) that can relate their actual experiences in a fantasy world where 6d (and greater) missile spells are tossed around?

I played a 1500 pt Archmage (Myth rules sort of) late in 3e and I GM'ed in a long camapign for in 4e for a Magery 10 mage.

My 3e guy (Tinker) was Magery 7, had 85 FP and the ability to regain 1 FP/second. He didn't do a lot of Missile spell tossing but he also had access to Gurps Technomancer spells and could throw Particle Beam Spells that charged at 5D per second. The slow charging was a _big_ limitation.

The 4e Mage was called Aldehar the Incendiary and eventualy he outdid Tinker in every way except raw IQ and (maybe) Energy Reserve. He used 4e FP Regeneration rules for 10 FP/second and this was the only thing that enabled him to throw as many Missile Spells as he did.

Also there was Nyx the Barbarian. People and things that tried to ignore her and go for Aldehar tended to die with their brains spalttering the walls.

We had a Cleric of Ra who soemtimes threw biggish sunbeams but he had a huge energy reserve and never charged for more than 1 second. For the msot part casting Flash was far more energy efficient. No, he didn't Regenerate FP. He allso had a dedicated bodyguard.

So my experience with big Missile spells without FP Regeneration and big Energy Reserves they tend to be highly self-limiting.

[Tymathee]

Honestly, if you have mages capable of firing off missile spells every second, combat for all should be upscaled accordingly. Energy, above all else, is the balancing factor here. What quality of energy (modifiers?) what rate of recovery (does it have Slow Recharge?)... Magery generally is very secondary if not outright tertiary in game balance relevance, especially here. There's a Pyramid article with spells for dealing with mass missile fire that provides protection for the whole party, but I'm not looking at my books right now. I'd also imagine within a game world that has missile spells per second is magic gadgetry that lets you set up a self-powered missile shield spontaneously.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Actually it does, and it's the only thing that does. M8 says this explicitly.

Shock would thus affect the final effective skill for a spell cast, but would not affect what rituals the spell required at all.

Looks like I remembered it in reverse.

Probably the only logical over-ride is that the -10 for Very Low Mana introduced in Thaumatology would probably also matter.

I figured the main purpose of "only modifier" is elaborating on "base skill, not effective skill" so that when people apply -1/yard penalties this doesn't tweak the rituals/time/energy needed.

That's because range modifiers are applied to the skill...

IQ modifiers however aren't applied to skills, they're applied to IQ which calculates the base skill, so I don't know if that might be an exception.

The context of "only modifier" might be "only skill modifier" not "only modifier whatsoever including base attribute which determines base skill".

Maybe there's a quote at some point clarifying how IQ penalties impacting base skill do/don't affect Magic Rituals?

There are situations where casters lose IQ which I had assumed would lower not just your chance to cast spells but also your ritual ability too (M32 Permanent Beast Possession, M32-33 Shapeshifting, M33 Permanent Shapeshifting, and M134's Foolishness)

The last does say distinctly "to his IQ and IQ-based skills" though... which is weird since you'd figure if reductions to IQ automatically lowered IQ-based skills then you wouldn't need to emphasize that in a followup phrase...

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

For 2 "master" level Mages with skill-15 in most of their Spells but Magery less than 6 it would require hitting the target Mage with Drunkeness and Foolishness at max power in succession and both Spells are Resisited By Will which is usually quite high for such Mages.

Could be some mages specialize in Foolishness/Drunkenness not just for mage duels but for casually affecting the populace. To eclipse the limits via Magery and Effect might even have one-spell magery dedicated to either or something akin to the Power Casting perk for missile spells.

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I played a 1500 pt Archmage (Myth rules sort of) late in 3e and I GM'ed in a long camapign for in 4e for a Magery 10 mage.
...

Thanks for the reply. I think I made made my request too open-ended (on the high end).

I'd be interested in hearing how game play actually worked out in a gritty fantasy setting similar to the one I described. 150 pts. or so, Magery 3, magic sorta rare etc. Where that 9d fireball is almost always going to blow off a limb every time it hits.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

I'm interested in hearing actual accounts of campaigns where mages routinely toss around 6d and greater missile spells. How does it actually play out in the short term and/or long term?

If it's actually routinely, then they're basically supers and I treat the campaign as such. But if it's more a "capability", then I've never had any issue with it. The amount of points going into making a missile spell better are almost always better spent making a different spell better. I would be hard-pressed to come up with a worse 6 FP spell (and if there are worse, my lack of memory might be because of that).

Originally Posted by Tymathee

Honestly, if you have mages capable of firing off missile spells every second, combat for all should be upscaled accordingly. Energy, above all else, is the balancing factor here. What quality of energy (modifiers?) what rate of recovery (does it have Slow Recharge?)... Magery generally is very secondary if not outright tertiary in game balance relevance, especially here. There's a Pyramid article with spells for dealing with mass missile fire that provides protection for the whole party, but I'm not looking at my books right now. I'd also imagine within a game world that has missile spells per second is magic gadgetry that lets you set up a self-powered missile shield spontaneously.

If they're throwing around 1d missile spells every round, then whatever, the lack of aiming and low damage holds them back plenty. Anything bigger and the FP costs naturally keep in them in check as much as Extra Effort does. If that isn't keeping them in check, then the mage is incredibly powerful (such as 100pts into FP Regeneration).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

I'd be interested in hearing how game play actually worked out in a gritty fantasy setting similar to the one I described. 150 pts. or so, Magery 3, magic sorta rare etc. Where that 9d fireball is almost always going to blow off a limb every time it hits.

<shrug> It's going to hamstring the Mage (FP wwoudl be less than 1/3rd total pretty easy) every time he throws it hit or miss and 150 pts is kind of low when you need 80 pts in IQ and 35pts in Magery and a lot of pts in Innate Attack skill so you don't hamstring yourself for nothing.

You could weasel out some pts by buying down your PER and/or Will but somebody will want to ask about the Disadvantage Limit (which may or may not be there) and it does make you character notably weaker.

With GM permission you could spend one of your Perks on Psychic Guidance and throw at Spell Skill rather than Innate Attack but it's Spell-specific and you need to be really sure you want Fireball rather than Stone Missile (or maybe Lightning Bolt). A 15 only goes so far in dealing with Range Penalties too. The 12 or so in Innate Attack you would probably have without Psychic Guidance of course doesn't even go that far.

CP limit Gurps characters more effectively thna most people realize until they've tried to build a lot of characters of that sort. If the question is "What would it be like if a 150 pt Mage is a gritty Fantasy game did this and this and this and this?" the answer is that he'd probaly run out of cp before he got all of his "thises" finished.

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

If it's actually routinely, then they're basically supers and I treat the campaign as such.

Hrm, I didn't mean routinely as in "do it often in succession", but more like it is a "normal part of their plan" which you seem to you bring up later.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

But if it's more a "capability", then I've never had any issue with it. The amount of points going into making a missile spell better are almost always better spent making a different spell better. I would be hard-pressed to come up with a worse 6 FP spell (and if there are worse, my lack of memory might be because of that).

I alluded to this theoretical discussion in my post, but I wonder about how it actually plays out. A mage with magery 3, casts a fireball, and maxes it out to 9d. It costs 8 FP since we can safely assume he knows the spell at 15. He rests for 40 minutes, and is now fully recovered.

He now continues on his way. If he needs to cast the "better spell" he can do it freely after he blasts a target to smithereeens or sends it into the night sky (he might be able to just end the spell - I forget).

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

<shrug> It's going to hamstring the Mage (FP wwoudl be less than 1/3rd total pretty easy)

The mage can always rest, right?

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

...CP limit Gurps characters more effectively thna most people realize until they've tried to build a lot of characters of that sort. ...

This is a good answer, at least in terms of player characters - along the lines of "try it and see for yourself".

What I'm really worried about is NPC spellcasters blowing off the limbs of my players fairly easily.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

I alluded to this theoretical discussion in my post, but I wonder about how it actually plays out. A mage with magery 3, casts a fireball, and maxes it out to 9d. It costs 8 FP since we can safely assume he knows the spell at 15. He rests for 40 minutes, and is now fully recovered.

He now continues on his way. If he needs to cast the "better spell" he can do it freely after he blasts a target to smithereeens or sends it into the night sky (he might be able to just end the spell - I forget).

Minor thing, the bolded is a pretty big assumption. All of my players have learned that you are never guaranteed rest, even if it seems likely. But also, your statement is just true with any good 8FP spell. Heck, I think there's a cheaper spell that can let you rest indefinitely. And there are expensive spells where you're assumed to be casting in a situation where you have easy access to rest.

Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely issues that can come up. But at it's worst, Fireball is just damage, no matter how much it is. I've seen far bigger things with just Flight and that's a fairly 'mundane' spell. Like, mages are absurdly good, they pull off being jack-of-all-trades so well that I often see them be better at roles than characters optimized for those roles.