Revising GURPS Magic

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I think I'm fine with Energy Reduction being based on Effective Skill instead of Base Skill. And I think buffs just having a bigger impact like Shadowrun or similar would be nice.

My two cents on this:

1 - "Float" Mana reduction to base IQ, don't let Magery influence it at all. In other words it's not how well they can cast the spell when all those other modifiers are flying, but how well they've learned the ins-and-outs and figured out the most efficient ways to cast.

2 - "Float" Mana reduction to 10 (or more likely 15). The 'Magical Rituals' chart will need to get shifted a bit, but this places Mana Reduction on pure skill and skill alone, not natural Talent or raw stat, but EXP.

[Polydamas]

Now that I think about it, there are websites with Krommnotes: explanations of how GURPS 3e magic worked in his house campaign. While his approach to GURPS is not always the same as mine, he had access to some of the things which the authors of GURPS 3e magic took for granted but never spelled out clearly.

Originally Posted by L.J.Steele

GURPS Mysteries has some comments on 4th Ed. Magic. There are implications of concepts like magic having signatures, and traces that you can track, but no real guidelines on how it works. This has a number of implications for how mystery solving works in the setting. Would be nice to see some of those resolved.

I definitely think that we should see what GURPS authors have written about GURPS 4e magic in particular and 'weird powers' in general when deciding which spells need to be removed or tweaked for particular genres. No sense 'reinventing the wheel'!

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There's a variant on it in Worminghall: You can't spend extra time on the spell roll, but you can get a bonus to effective skill in any spell with Symbol Drawing, and you can take extra time on Symbol Drawing, going from one second for a quick squiggle to 30 seconds for an elaborate diagram. That can give you a fair bonus to every spell as a payoff for good lab technique. I tried it out in a campaign about apprentice mages in their first year at university, and it seemed to work pretty well.

Huh. I really meant reducing the time to cast, but this is also something I've been thinking about. Yet another reason to buy Worminghall. I feel like I'm failing my Will roll against your Propaganda.

[dataweaver]

I'd be more conservative with my tweaks:

Casting Spells
Overall, unchanged.

Critical Spell Failure Table
Unchanged, but see Thaumatology for alternate tables.

Distraction and Injury
Unchanged.

Caster and Subject
Unchanged.

Time Required
Energy Cost
Magic Rituals
Keep the Magic Rituals rules exactly as they are, except that instead of skill level thresholds you use point investments. e.g.:

1 point in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 9 or less.
2 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 10–14.
4 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 15–19.
8 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 20–24.
12 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 25–29.
+4 points: same as +5 skill.

Limits on Effect
Unchanged. I have thoughts about implementing a Sorcery Level setting variable similar to Tech Level, and my thoughts include tweaking Limits on Effect to account for SL; but that's a separate topic.

Duration of Spells and Maintaining Spells
Again, keep the rules as is — except that the maintenance cost can never be reduced below 1. Further reductions are instead converted into increased durations: that is, you don't have to pay the maintenance cost as often. Say, once the maintenance cost reaches one point, further reductions increase the Duration by +100% instead.

Casting Spells While Maintaining Other Spells
Unchanged.

[Leynok]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

2 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 10–14.
4 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 15–19.
8 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 20–24.
12 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 25–29.
+4 points: same as +5 skill.[/indent]

This feels awfully generous. Changing every +5 to Skill to effectively every +1? I would go for every 12 points at the least for a reduction to Energy and time.

[dataweaver]

OTOH, the only way to get the time, cost, and ritual benefits is to dump points directly into the spells themselves; you don't get any of these benefits from IQ or Magery.

For comparison: under the current system, you can dump 50 points into Magery to get one step of these benefits. It's reasonably cost-effective because you get other benefits (at the very least +5 to your effective spellcasting level, but also raising the Limits of Effect if Magery) and the points spent end up bolstering all of your spells — which, given the sheer size of the spell list, can be an impressive cost savings from just that alone. If you have to purchase the benefits on a spell-by-spell basis, 4 points per step is arguably too expensive: if you have 13 spells, you're still paying more for less — you get the step up, but only +1 to the spellcasting level. But I can't justify taking it any cheaper than that.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

OTOH, the only way to get the time, cost, and ritual benefits is to dump points directly into the spells themselves; you don't get any of these benefits from IQ or Magery.

For comparison: under the current system, you can dump 50 points into Magery to get one step of these benefits. It's reasonably cost-effective because you get other benefits (at the very least +5 to your effective spellcasting level, but also raising the Limits of Effect if Magery) and the points spent end up bolstering all of your spells — which, given the sheer size of the spell list, can be an impressive cost savings from just that alone. If you have to purchase the benefits on a spell-by-spell basis, 4 points per step is arguably too expensive: if you have 13 spells, you're still paying more for less — you get the step up, but only +1 to the spellcasting level. But I can't justify taking it any cheaper than that.

Interesting clarification... what about making magery work like the Talent advantage? It only applies to a subset of the spells. It allows people to focus on a few spells for a reasonable cost without making it so that ALL spells benefit. Might even make a good method of describing why one person is a "cleric"/healer while another is a "wizard"/blaster.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

1 point in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 9 or less.
2 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 10–14.
4 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 15–19.
8 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 20–24.
12 points in a spell: same rituals, cost, and time as listed for skill 25–29.
+4 points: same as +5 skill.

I would generally split it out a little more, such as:

• IQ+Magery-3 (1p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 9 or less.
• IQ+Magery-2 (1p, 2p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 10-14.
• IQ+Magery-1 (2p, 4p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 15-19.
• IQ+Magery (4p, 8p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 15-19, -1 cost.
• IQ+Magery+1 (8p, 12p in VH): ritual and time requirements as per skill 20+, -1 cost.
• IQ+Magery+2 (12p, 16p in VH): ritual and time requirements as per skill 20+, -2 cost.
• Each additional +2 skill gives -1 cost and half casting time.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

Interesting clarification... what about making magery work like the Talent advantage? It only applies to a subset of the spells. It allows people to focus on a few spells for a reasonable cost without making it so that ALL spells benefit. Might even make a good method of describing why one person is a "cleric"/healer while another is a "wizard"/blaster.

I am interested in possibly refactoring Magery vs. Talents; but my preference would be to make Magery less like Talents (i.e., replacing its spellcasting bonus with something else, as yet undetermined), and then making Talents-as-written available for spells. But that's more than a tweak; so it should probably be discussed elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would generally split it out a little more, such as:

• IQ+Magery-3 (1p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 9 or less.
• IQ+Magery-2 (1p, 2p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 10-14.
• IQ+Magery-1 (2p, 4p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 15-19.
• IQ+Magery (4p, 8p in VH): ritual requirements as per skill 15-19, -1 cost.
• IQ+Magery+1 (8p, 12p in VH): ritual and time requirements as per skill 20+, -1 cost.
• IQ+Magery+2 (12p, 16p in VH): ritual and time requirements as per skill 20+, -2 cost.
• Each additional +2 skill gives -1 cost and half casting time.

As I mentioned in my last post, getting one step per +1 skill is arguably too slow already; I'm not inclined to slow things down even more.

Also, I like the simplicity of the way I have it — though in the interest of making VH spells feel VH, I could see replacing the point investment with the relative skill level:

base−3: same as 9-or-less, +1 cost.
base−2: same as 9-or-less.
base−1: same as 10–14.
base: same as 15–19.
base+1: same as 20–24.
base+2: same as 25–29.
etc.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Leynok

This feels awfully generous. Changing every +5 to Skill to effectively every +1? I would go for every 12 points at the least for a reduction to Energy and time.

Not given that you'd taking away all bonuses for IQ and Magery. Me, I'd go with a skill penalty for "Look Ma No Hands!" and ""Speak No Evil" that adds up to 10 if you cast without moving or speaking, but I would let people cast with less energy if they have more than one point in the skill.