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Old 07-30-2020, 07:51 PM   #71
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
But if Granny who's too old to work casts the spell on you and sits on the porch, resting, that's a whole other ball game. A lot of these spells can be cast on others, like most GURPS spells. Assuming the caster is the subject is probably a bad idea in family units.
Not only is that a good point, imagine the effect on society if women in olden times were often casters?
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Old 07-30-2020, 08:24 PM   #72
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Not only is that a good point, imagine the effect on society if women in olden times were often casters?
An even more sharply divided and distrustful society than what actually existed? You go from suspicion to daily proof proof of supernatural ability, then something bad happens and they get all the blame. Making human sexual dimorphism supernatural as well as physical is not going to do good things to social cohesion.
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Old 07-30-2020, 09:41 PM   #73
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

If women casters often had demonstrable beneficial effects, there's much less reason there would be historical-style witch hunts directed only at old women.
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Old 07-30-2020, 09:42 PM   #74
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Also remember that in settings where ordinary wizards typically have Magery 1 [15] to be able to do more than cast a few simple spells, equally-gifted hedge magicians have Hedge Magician 3 [15], so the average professional will have around 15, and 18 would be for exceptional people. And people with Hedge Magician 7 [35] will be about as common as wizards with Magery 3 [35], and go around casting at 16 with just a point, 19 if they studied as much as someone with a Professional Skill at 12, or 22 if they are exceptional.
The Magery 1 [15] part is more true of Classic Mages then 4e as Magery 0 [5] now formally exists. When you look at it Magery 0 wizards/Magician can due a great deal and so aren't a useless as people tend to think

The Magic in Worldbuilding page on the GURPS wiki collects all the spells in Magic that do not require Magery and would be "useful to the average person and would have a profound effect if common enough".

Yes, it doesn't include spells that would be useful to a limited group of people but could have a profound effect but the list is going for the lowest hanging fruit possible. I think that people would bother will spells that are relatively deep in their college (like Essential Food and Weather Dome) because they are potentially that "powerful".

Essential Food is such a game changer for any army and defender it would totally change the whole fabric of warfare and would be so worth having every that the state would require every magery 0 wizard to learn it. More over unlike Bow (longbow) in our world this spell would be so useful mages would want to learn it and the Food college has enough useful to the average person spells that the 8 prerequisite count is not really an issue (Seek Food, Test Food, Season, Cook, Preserve Food, Purify Food, Mature, Create Food would already be on the wizard's food spells to learn list anyway)
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Old 07-30-2020, 10:35 PM   #75
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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I tend to think it doesn't take much functional magic to play havoc with history. Some of these can probably make the cut.

Ritual of Reaping and Ritual of Sowing are pretty big, reducing the labor needed for the two main labors of (European-style) farming by 20%.

Birth Control is a potential world-shaker of course, if people choose to use it.

Test is also a pretty big deal.

Analgesic could make an enormous difference for people with chronic pain - some of whom are royalty or otherwise high-impact figures. Mostly when trained to skill 15+ for cost reduction, since at 1 FP per minute it's hard to apply long otherwise.

Mer-Speech, Sink, and Diver's Blessing add up to a lot of improvement to low-tech underwater activities.

Sorcerous Signal is actually pretty powerful for first-contact situations with no established common language...assuming you actually care about establishing communication!

Patience is low-key, but a powerful study aid.

Cushion could save some lives - maybe most significant if used to mitigate potentially deadly falls from horseback.

They definitely won't raise the overall TL though. They don't increase productivity in enough areas for that.
While it is true they would not see a rise in the real TL I was asking about ETL ie Equivalent TL which is a totally different thing from actual TL.

Equivalent TL is what the setting appears to be while Divergent TL is what it "actually" is for the purposes of calculating TL penalties with the superscience ("^") mark to help denote this fact.

Here are examples from canon realities using the Guidelines in GURPS Fantasy p. 66

Reality - Actual TL - Equivalent TL; TL Category
Azoth-1 - TL(4+3) - ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Azoth-7 - TL(4+2)^ - ETL12; Faster "interstellar" space flight
Britannica-5 - TL(5+1) - ETL10; Antimatter bombs
Etheria - TL(5+1)^ - ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Futura - TL(5+1)^ - ETL7: Manned spaceflight
Igor-1 - TL(6+1)^ - ETL9 with some inventions

So D&D's Spelljamer would be actual TL(3+2)^ but have ETL9 (Manned interplanetary spaceflight)
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Last edited by maximara; 07-30-2020 at 10:39 PM.
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Old 07-31-2020, 07:13 AM   #76
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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If women casters often had demonstrable beneficial effects, there's much less reason there would be historical-style witch hunts directed only at old women.
Men, women and even animals were accused of and killed for being witches. It's not about sex (or species), its about wealth and power. Once someone has died via various horrible ways for being a witch, their property is up for grabs, their spot (and likely their relatives spots) in the social hierarchy are vacant, and the accuser has acquired respect or fear. Witch hunts have happened across all human history and continue on today, and anyone can be a target. The most saintly and kind of people will be thrown on the bonfire if someone thinks they can advance their personal power by doing so.
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Old 07-31-2020, 11:04 AM   #77
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Ritual of Sowing also does not require a plow, which is a major cost-saver. The bill (made of iron) was very expensive.
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Old 07-31-2020, 01:38 PM   #78
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Ritual of Sowing also does not require a plow, which is a major cost-saver. The bill (made of iron) was very expensive.
You'll still want to plough the land, though - ploughing turns in whatever's on the ground now, turning it into compost over time, and aerates the soil, improving fertility and drainage. It also helps control pest plants because they have to start over, and some species can't handle having to regrow from well under the surface.

Thus Sowing will increase the speed of sowing, and cut down on seed loss to birds and rodents compared to just scattered seed, or speed things up compared to tilling the soil to bury them, but it won't remove need to plough the land if you want high yields, unfortunately.
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Old 07-31-2020, 01:39 PM   #79
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

So we need a Ritual of Plowing... hmm...
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Old 07-31-2020, 02:03 PM   #80
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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So we need a Ritual of Plowing... hmm...
Cast and maintain Flee on the plow animals?
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