Wild Mana and Shapeshifting Spells

[Raekai]

I have a very important question that has to do with the balance of the game. If this isn't resolved, I'm sure my GM won't allow to do the following:

I made my own race for our game. They're called Eidolons. More specifically, my character is a Seidolon, but that doesn't really matter. The point is that they can shapeshift into massive and powerful creatures through a rune spell and blah blah blah. Well, that massive creature has the Wild Mana Generator advantage. So it's now super easy for me to maintain that godly-awesome form. So... I don't see any drawbacks. The Wild Mana is taking care of the cost to maintain such a spell and I get to sit around and destroy things. This is obviously very over-powered, and my GM isn't available right now so I thought I would post my problem here.

Am I missing something?
If not, how could I go about making an appropriate drawback?

[samd6]

I presume you are paying loads of points for a "godly-awesome form". I don't know anything about the setting (I'll just assume it fits), or about the mechanics you are using. If you could post the mechanical write-up, that would be a big help.

Also, expect your GM to play up the ... less stable... side of Wild Mana

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by samd6

I presume you are paying loads of points for a "godly-awesome form". I don't know anything about the setting (I'll just assume it fits), or about the mechanics you are using. If you could psot the mechanical write-up, that would be a big help.

I wouldn't necessarily make that assumption ... it appears to me that its' a racial spell (as in, "pay 1 point for this" standard magic system spell) rather than the Alternate Form advantage.

Also, expect you GM to play up the ... less stable... side of Wild Mana

Heh. Thats' always fun.

[Raekai]

Well... Okay... It's not really that godly awesome. I mean... It gets to be, but that comes later.

I guess the Seidolon part is important. Seidolon stands for Sage Eidolon. He has access to the Sage Rune in the Eidolon Rune Magic.

There are different levels of Runes.
The Least Rune costs 0 fatigue to use.
The Lesser Rune costs 1 fatigue to use.
The Great Rune costs 2 fatigue to use.
The Greater Rune costs 4 fatigue to use.
The True Rune costs 8 fatigue to use.
The Sage Rune is special as it normally costs 16 fatigue, however there are some special features. To use it as a True-level Rune, you pay the 8 fatigue, but you get a -1 to roll. To use it as a Greater-level Rune, you pay 4 fatigue but you get a -2 to roll. This pattern continues like this both ways. It's a little overpowered, but no one else minds.

Eidolons can either use the True Rune or the Sage Rune (in conjunction with other runes like the Body Rune, etc.) to take their Natural Form. It's something like this. Basically it gives them the physical attributes you can see here. They can also change size. They are wild mana generators. They can likewise wield magic themselves.

Of course, this form does have an upkeep of 4 fatigue (half of 8) so not many Eidolons would be able to hold it up for long (they have human-level fatigue).

Need any other important info?

[vierasmarius]

Presumably, you're talking about the Shapeshifting spells from Magic pg 32-34. Those spells let the caster transform into a variety of natural animals, unless the GM specifically allows certain supernatural specimens. Shapeshifting also carries with it a grave hazard: every hour in the altered form, the caster has to roll vs IQ or temporary lose one point of IQ (repeating hourly until he reaches the same IQ as the animal). If he every drops to IQ 5, he can no longer voluntarily return to his original form, requiring a Remove Curse to reverse the spell. If I were the GM, I'd also throw steep and bizarre penalties on the caster as his IQ drops, for being within a Wild Mana Zone.

There's another shapeshifting spell, Permanent Shapeshift, which costs 5 times as much to cast but has no maintainence cost. It can be kept on indefinitely, with the caster rolling only once per day to retain his IQ. If your custom race has innate Spell-based shapeshifting, I'd use that version instead.

But it sounds like your race really just has a powerful and unique Alternate Form, which it accesses by performing a magical ritual. As such, I wouldn't use the Shapeshifting spells for it at all, and instead look to the Shapeshifting: Alternate Form advantage in Basic (pg 83). If you have GURPS Powers you should read some of the additional options and suggestions for Alternate Form there (pg 74). And if you have any questions on how to make it work like you envision it, come on back to the forums! We're happy to help.

EDIT: Since you're using a custom magic system, I guess you can ignore the advice about the normal Shapeshifting spells. You may still want to take a look at Alternate Form, however.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Presumably, you're talking about the Shapeshifting spells from Magic pg 32-34. Those spells let the caster transform into a variety of natural animals, unless the GM specifically allows certain supernatural specimens. Shapeshifting also carries with it a grave hazard: every hour in the altered form, the caster has to roll vs IQ or temporary lose one point of IQ (repeating hourly until he reaches the same IQ as the animal). If he every drops to IQ 5, he can no longer voluntarily return to his original form, requiring a Remove Curse to reverse the spell. If I were the GM, I'd also throw steep and bizarre penalties on the caster as his IQ drops, for being within a Wild Mana Zone.

There's another shapeshifting spell, Permanent Shapeshift, which costs 5 times as much to cast but has no maintainence cost. It can be kept on indefinitely, with the caster rolling only once per day to retain his IQ. If your custom race has innate Spell-based shapeshifting, I'd use that version instead.

But it sounds like your race really just has a powerful and unique Alternate Form, which it accesses by performing a magical ritual. As such, I wouldn't use the Shapeshifting spells for it at all, and instead look to the Shapeshifting: Alternate Form advantage in Basic (pg 83). If you have GURPS Powers you should read some of the additional options and suggestions for Alternate Form there (pg 74). And if you have any questions on how to make it work like you envision it, come on back to the forums! We're happy to help.

As exemplified in my last post, I am using more of a homebrew Rune Magic system for my race. The GM has approved everything up until now. He said that I should look more into it and take a look at adding drawbacks and whatnot. He has been super busy so I haven't been able to contact him again. I knew about the IQ-dropping thing... Could I replicate a similar effect for this spell? Obviously, since the creature is supernatural, the time to reroll could be a lot less than an hour with a much steeper price than the loss of one IQ.

On the note of IQ, if it makes any difference, the costs of IQ and DEX are only 10. However, everything else is 4e.

[Raekai]

I know this hasn't fallen that far, but bump. I'd really, really appreciate some help with this. My mind won't be at ease until I can solve this! Haha.

Thanks to everyone so far.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Raekai

I know this hasn't fallen that far, but bump.

There's no need for that, and the moderators don't look kindly on thread bumps. Just a heads up.

Based on how you describe the magic of the setting, I think we can safely ignore the part about this being a custom race, and just address the spell itself. Basically, you have a spell that gives the character a new form, and in this case the new form includes Wild Mana generator. Your question is whether that will let the spell be maintained indefinitely. Putting on my hypothetical GM cap, I'd say "no". GURPS in general bars Magic from feeding on itself; it would be like Wishing for more Wishes. As a GM I would either ban Wild Mana as a magically-bestowed power, or at least exempt the Shapeshifting spell's upkeep from the Wild Mana discount.

Alternately, I might allow it but require a skill roll at every upkeep interval. Since the subject is in a Wild Mana zone, any success would be a Critical Success (no upkeep cost), but any failure would be a Critical Failure. Thus, the spell could be maintained at no energy cost, but at increasing risk. I might even keep a tally of the total energy that would have been spent on upkeep. At the point of Crit Fail, all of the deferred energy cost would hit the subject at once, with potentially fatal results, on top of whatever mayhem is unleashed by the Critical Failure itself.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

There's no need for that, and the moderators don't look kindly on thread bumps. Just a heads up.

Based on how you describe the magic of the setting, I think we can safely ignore the part about this being a custom race, and just address the spell itself. Basically, you have a spell that gives the character a new form, and in this case the new form includes Wild Mana generator. Your question is whether that will let the spell be maintained indefinitely. Putting on my hypothetical GM cap, I'd say "no". GURPS in general bars Magic from feeding on itself; it would be like Wishing for more Wishes. As a GM I would either ban Wild Mana as a magically-bestowed power, or at least exempt the Shapeshifting spell's upkeep from the Wild Mana discount.

Alternately, I might allow it but require a skill roll at every upkeep interval. Since the subject is in a Wild Mana zone, any success would be a Critical Success (no upkeep cost), but any failure would be a Critical Failure. Thus, the spell could be maintained at no energy cost, but at increasing risk. I might even keep a tally of the total energy that would have been spent on upkeep. At the point of Crit Fail, all of the deferred energy cost would hit the subject at once, with potentially fatal results, on top of whatever mayhem is unleashed by the Critical Failure itself.

Thank you for that warning.

And I like your alternative take on it. That sounds PERFECT for something like this. It also prevents him from wanting to use it with a low skill-level. Do you have a recommendation for the upkeep interval on something like this? 10 seconds? It is pretty powerful.

[vierasmarius]

The upkeep interval is entirely dependent on the specifics of the magic system. The standard College-based magic system give Shapeshifting a maintainance interval of 1 hour. In the "Flexible" magic systems from GURPS Thaumatology, the duration of the effect is determined at the time it is cast, and no upkeep is required (though a ritual can often be "renewed" to extend the duration by recasting it). You're really gonna need to discuss this with your GM.