Dungeon Fantasy with only one Spellcaster "Class"

[adm]

If I wanted to allow Wizards to do healing, I would add Lend Vitality to them, and allow them the entry level healing spell that only works on themselves. This would keep the Clerics healing abilities powerful enough to be appealing, but allow small parties some healing ability.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

So, something I've been considering as an alternative way of running a Dungeon Fantasy game is to drop the restricted spellcaster templates (Cleric, Druid and Wizard) and replacing them with a single, broad "Mage" Template that can be customized to serve different roles, including that of Healer or "Druid". Maybe using the Magical Styles approach.

I don't see an issue with this. Indeed, I've considered the same myself. You'd have to use normal GURPS Magic instead of the stripped-down Dungeon Fantasy Spells, however.

[evileeyore]

It's certainly workable. You'll loss the "D&D" feel, but that may be an advantage for you.

[Colarmel]

We've run GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy that way, sort of. Really more adding healing to the repertoire of professions that don't get it normally. And I think this is probably the best way to handle it. Don't suddenly open the floodgates and let everyone cast everything – that way madness lies.

But if you've got someone who wants to play a wizard, and no one who wants to play a cleric, you'll have a lot more fun letting that guy do heals than you will having some player "jump on the grenade" and play a character they're not interested in.

The limited spell trees are there for three reasons, as near as I can figure.

1) Flavor: A wizard whose favorite spells are all about controlling trees, should just call himself a druid and have done with it. It's weird if your cleric focuses on hurling explosive fireballs, etc.

2) Niche Protection: This is the most important reason, but, when you've only got one caster, it's moot. Unless you've got a Holy Warrior and a wizard who keeps casting very clericy spells.

3) Player guidance: Often overlooked and shouldn't be. One of the best things about DFRPG is that we're back to being able to pretty quickly create characters around the table. I can't remember the last time I felt like I could do that with GURPS, just because of the massive amount of options provided by our gaming group's rather expansive library.

[Edges]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

So, something I've been considering as an alternative way of running a Dungeon Fantasy game is to drop the restricted spellcaster templates (Cleric, Druid and Wizard) and replacing them with a single, broad "Mage" Template that can be customized to serve different roles, including that of Healer or "Druid". Maybe using the Magical Styles approach.

In one campaign, I am using a house rule in which there is only one caster class. The catch is that Magery may only be taken with the Three College Only (-20%) limitation. So they only pay 8 character points per level of Magery but they pick three colleges of magic when they make their character and can only pick spells from those.

It has worked well so far. The only hiccup was spell prerequisites often included spells from colleges players didn't pick. To remedy this, I allowed people to spend one point per spell to waive outside-collage prerequisites on that spell.

Everyone seems to like it.

YMMV

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Edges

It has worked well so far. The only hiccup was spell prerequisites often included spells from colleges players didn't pick. To remedy this, I allowed people to spend one point per spell to waive outside-collage prerequisites on that spell.

Unless the spell requires magery, you can learn spells outside of those colleges. You just can't actually cast them outside of a high mana zone, and you don't get magery bonuses.

[Pseudonym]

In a similar vein to the last few posts I allowed a bard to use the shortcut to power from Magical Styles to get access to Concussion, technically a Sound college spell, but using prerequisites from outside the purview of Bards.

I kept the special prerequisite condition that it required a total of 20 points in spells, but it felt like a nice capstone to have one explicit attack spell after getting a bunch of (admittedly super helpful) support and information spells.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Edges

It has worked well so far. The only hiccup was spell prerequisites often included spells from colleges players didn't pick. To remedy this, I allowed people to spend one point per spell to waive outside-collage prerequisites on that spell.

In the event you ever actually learn one of those spells (by multi-classing or whatever) I'd even let you convert that point into a (second) point in the skipped prerequisite spell itself when you actually study it. You've already got most of the principles down.

[JoelSammallahti]

How about wizards get access to healing spells, but they don't get to add their Magery to those spells? You could return the favor for Clerics and Druids and give them access to some subset of wizard-only spells - but they don't get their Power Investiture bonus. It's a compromise between opening up all the spell lists and keeping the niches strictly separated.