Enchantment Through Deeds

So the New Dawn campaign starts Thursday. It's going to have a couple of new players, and that accidentally exposed some issues with GURPS Enchantment that bothered me.

The Benefits and Problems of Named Possessions

GURPS Fantasy came up with the idea of Named Possessions: for the cost of a Perk, one of your PC's Signature Items could freely earn enchantments as the PC earned CP. In a long-running campaign, this is an amazing perk: 50 CP is worth 750 energy points of enchantments, which is 2-3 decent enchantments. Conceptually, it's neat that as your PC grows from zero to hero, his favorite weapon or armor grows with him.

Named Possessions have a lot of problems. First off, the equipment needs to be Fine and Signature Gear, which means it's easier to have Named Hand Axes ($500 and 1 CP for Signature Gear in most Fantasy games) than Named Two-Handed Swords ($3600 and 10 CP for Signature Gear in most Fantasy games) and nearly impossible to have Named armor (because Fine armor starts at $2000 and goes up quickly). Second, a PC gets the most benefit from having a Named Possession at the game - if a new player starts to admire a more experienced player's Named Possession 10 sessions in and buys the Perk then, the new player's Named Possession has 375 energy at the time the experienced player's has 3750. Finally, Named Possessions discourage upgrading your weapon: if you have 3000 energy of free enchantment's on your named Balanced Longbow, then getting a Fine Balanced Elven Composite Bow as a reward from the Faerie princess might be a step backwards because you lose all those enchantments.

On balance, Named Possessions are probably more trouble than they're worth. But the concept is neat, doubly so because it means that a non-magical fighting type can get a powerful magical weapon without having to be nice to a wizard so the wizard will enchant it for him. I like the idea that non-magical fighter types can get by without wizards, so I want to preserve that concept. The following rules try to preserve the good parts of Named Possessions and reduce the bad parts.

Enchantment Through Deeds

Each PC has several pools of Deed Points that normally start at 0 (in a high power game, the GM might start them at some other level). Deed Points stay with a PC and can be applied as CP to buy Advantages, Perks, and Skills for specific pieces of equipment. After Deed Points have been applied to a specific piece of equipment, they stay with that equipment but are still available (subject to some restrictions) for applying to other pieces of equipment.

Deed Pools

Normally, a PC has three Deed Pools: Weapons, Armor, and Miscellaneous.

Earning Deed Points

There are lots of ways to earn Deed Points. The general rule is to do stuff, and then to do awesome stuff on top of that:

• A PC earns 3 Deed Points (1 Weapon, 1 Armor, and one that can be applied to any pool) for every significant fight they're in.
• A PC earns Deed Points for doing significant non-combat activities (sneaking into a fortress to open the gates, negotiating an alliance with the minotaurs, finding the Lost Orb of Phantasma). The GM will specify the amount and which pools the Deed Points apply to.
• A PC earns a Weapon Deed Point for defeating a foe in a memorable manner (massive damage, an arrow to the eye, a really impressive critical hit, picking up the foe and throwing them out a window).
• A PC earns a Deed Point for surviving an impressive set of attacks (Actively Defending against 4 or more skilled foes in a single turn, dodging multitple lows from a giant that can disable the PC in a single hit)
• In Mass Combat, a PC earns a Deed point for being involved in the battle, and another for any Significant Actions by the PC. If the Significant Actions don't break into a Detailed Action, the PC earns another 3 Deed Points.

Spending Deed Points

Deed Points can be spent to enhance equipment, including the PC's body, by buying Advantages, Perks, and Skills. Once spent, Deed Points cannot be changed.

• Weapon Deed Points can be spent freely between the PC's equipment and the PC's body.
• No more half the Deed Points in the Armor and Miscellaneous pools can be spent on the PC's body.

No Advantage, Perk, or Skill comes into effect until the PC has spent at least 10 Deed Points on that piece of equipment. Weapon, Armor, and Miscellaneous Deed Points applied to the body count separately for activation purposes.

Each Deed Point buys 1 CP worth of Advantages, Perks, or Skills.

• Extra skill for equipment costs a flat 4 points per level of bonus and only applies when using that piece of equipment.
• Imbuement skills can be bought for the item, and in addition to the Imbuement advantage, the individual Imbuement skills cost 4 points for level 12 and 4 points for each additional level. Item Imbuement's are always independent of the user's abilities, though the user has to pay the Fatigue costs unless the item has an Energy Reserve.

Changing Equipment

The first time a piece of Deeded Equipment is passed on to someone else (voluntarily or involuntarily), it immediately loses 10 Deed Points worth of enhancements. If that leaves it with less than 10 Deed Points, it no longer has any active Enhancements. Killing the owned of a Deeded item does not strip the item of existing Deed Points, beyond losing the usual 10. If the original owner of a Deeded Item recovers it, it immediately recovers the lost 10 Deed Points and the owner may spend any additional earned Deed Points on it.

If a PC picks up a new piece of equipment, they may immediately use any active Deed enhancements. After earning another 5 Deed Points with that piece of equipment, the PC may spend their full Deed pool on the new equipment.

Example: John has 20 Deed Points in his sword. He fights the Sanguine Count, who has 45 Deed Points in its spear. John claims the spear as his new weapon and can use its 35 Deed Points, and gives his sword to his squire, who can use its 10 Deed Points. After John earns 5 more Deed Points with the spear, he can spend all 25 of his Weapon Deed points on it. If after earning another 10 Deed Points with the spear, he loses it to a rust monster and has to start again with an ax, he'll have to earn 5 more Deed Points before enhancing the ax with his 40 Weapon Deed points. If his squire dies and he gets his original sword back, the sword goes back to having 20 Deed Points and John can spend another 20 Deed Points on it (he has earned 20 Weapon Deed Points since giving up the Sword).

Upgrading Equipment

Upgrading equipment (by making it Balanced, Fine, or whatever) does not change the amount of Deed Points in the equipment. Armor with Deed Points can be upgraded piecemeal, as long as at least 55% of the armor coverage stays the same and 5 Armor Deed Points are earned and applied between upgrades.

Example: John's career starts with him wearing a mail shirt, leather pants, and a pot helm. After earning 10 Armor Deed Points, his armor is magical. John replaces the leather pants with plate greaves. The enhancement stays. After earning 5 more Armor Deed Points, John replaces the pot helm with an Orichalcum helm and the enchantment stays. He then also replaces the mail shirt with plate harness, but since that changes more than 45% of the coverage, the enchantment moves with the shirt and his new plate harness is not enhanced (and the mail shirt loses 10 Deed Points and also becomes unenhanced). If John then earns another 10 Armor Deed Points, he can spend all 20 Armor Deed Points on his plate harness.

Sample Items

• Bracers of Force (12 Deed Points) - These DR 6 metal arm guards project a minor forcefield, protecting the wearer from harm. DR +2 (Force Field +20%) [12]. 7 lbs. 
• Hammer of the Forge God (50 Deed Points) - This minor artifact destroys inanimate objects and makes the wielder a better smith. Smithing Talent +4 [20], Crushing Innate Attack 20 (Melee Reach 1 No Parry Follow-up -30%; Accessibility: Inanimate Objects Only -40) [30]. Treat as a Fine Mace in melee combat. 5 lbs.
• Ever-Distant Bow (36 Deed Points) - This bow shoots at long distances incredibly well, though it can be very fatiguing to use. Imbue 2 (2 skills only -60%) [8], Imbuement Talent 2 [10], Guided Weapon (Bow)-14 [4], Far-Shot (Bow)-14 [4], Energy Reserve 4 [12].

Comments

I've tried to make this system as simple as possible, but I'm not sure I've succeeded. My concerns are:

• Record keeping for keeping track of the Deed Points available to the PC and the Deed Points invested in an item (especially for items that have had multiple owners). Hopefully limited the new owner charge to a 1 time deal will minimize this.
• Keeping track of when PCs earn Deed Points. It's mostly Rule of Cool plus some simple static guidelines, so hopefully everyone will keep track, but I suspect people will forget. I don't have a good solution for this.
• Whining about whether something counts as Cool enough to earn a Deed point is potentially a problem. My theory is it that it has to be memorable: it's not enough to get a critical hit, it's got to be a critical hit to the head that takes someone out or something like that
• Favoritism towards certain builds. Hulking warriors and eagle-eyed elf scouts are much more likely to get one shot kills than weedy kobold thieves. To some extent, the requirement that actions be memorable will mitigate against this: the elf's 3rd eyeshot in the same fight isn't memorable, while the one time the thief backstabbed that guy to the neck is memorable. 
• Power level: things could get out of hand quick, with everyone earning 10+ Deed Points per session and getting new and wonderful items regularly while handing off reasonably potent stuff to their allies. If it looks like people are trying to game the system to an unreasonable extent by changing to identical equipment to power it up and pass it on to allies, then I'll have to take steps but I hope/expect it won't be a problem.

Astral Diamonds, Magic Items, and Dungeon Fantasy

+Peter V. Dell'Orto at Dungeon Fantastic wrote a post on magic item shops versus the domain game: the way that if adventurers can upgrade their abilities by buying magic items, they'll generally do that to the limit if their wealth, while if they can't, they'll spend that money on castles, inns, henchmen, minions, and other facets of the "domain game." I'm already seeing that in the D&D 5e game I'm playing in: now that all the PCs have the best mundane armor that money can buy, we're throwing our funds into turning the dungeons we've conquered into bases because we can't really buy magic items. Whereas in my old Dungeon Fantasy games, PCs poured money into their magic items all the time.

I commented that I've seen one work-around for the magic item shops vs the domain game dichotomy: powerful magic items are only traded with non-mundane currency (astral diamonds, for instance), so after a certain point, a pile of gold can only be spent to upgrade your castle because it can't buy a better magic item. Meanwhile, any found astral diamonds can't be used to upgrade your castle, because they're only used for buying magic items.

I'm already on record as disliking how magic items work in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: the utility of any random item is generally pretty low compared to its sale price, so everything turns into vendor trash so that the PCs can buy an actually useful magic item or better mundane equipment. Now I'm wondering if astral diamonds might be a partial solution to the issue. I'm going to noodle around with idea and maybe someone will comment on it.

Only Astral Diamonds Here

Dungeon Fantasy doesn't allow PC enchanters, and makes the rules for enchanting vague since PCs can't access them. So I'm going to rule that every enchanter can only make one powerful magic item every decade or so, unless he has access to astral diamonds: astral diamonds can be converted in powerful magic items at some rate, and powerful magic items can be converted into astral diamonds at some rate. Most powerful magic items are exchanged for astral diamonds, and vice versa, though sometimes you'll find someone with way more money from sense that will buy a powerful magic item for a ridiculous amount of gold (which is how enchanters get the gold they need to pay the mortgage and buy dinner), but people with many magic items rarely or never buy them with gold: it's astral diamonds or get out.

This means that PCs delve, searching for powerful magic items, astral diamonds, and gold. Gold can buy mundane gear, castles, and minions. Powerful magic items and astral diamonds can be traded for each other, but not for gold, so there's no point in trying to trade a Puissance +1 sword for a suit of fine plate armor. Gold can, in theory, be traded for powerful magic items, but the exchange ratio is so awful that delvers will rarely do so: PCs are generally kind of reluctant to pay $10000 for a Puissance +1 sword, there's no way they're going to pay 100x that amount especially when they have a stack of otherwise worthless astral diamonds that could be used to make the trade.

Where Do Astral Diamonds Come From?

Astral diamonds are found in dungeons. Specifically, the souls of powerful monsters and heroes leave astral diamonds behind when they die. Monsters and delvers hoard astral diamonds, and some monsters can consume them in order to become even more powerful. This requires a lot of them, consumed in a short period of time, so if a major demon needs 50 astral diamonds to become an archdemon, eating 3 a year of 17 years doesn't do the job.

Diamonds for Items, Items for Diamonds

The biggest problem I have with astral diamonds is deciding how to price them versus magic items. This is part of my rant about GURPS Magic's magic items in general: Steve Jackson set the energy costs for enchanting back in 1986 or whatever and those costs haven't been changed or really even been looked at very much since. I don't think there's any justifiable reason why Burning Touch costs 300 energy to enchant but Shocking Grasp takes 1500 energy. I'm not about to go through the spells and try to come up with a consistent pricing scheme, and even if I were, I don't think I'd know how.

Still, one theme I've been pounding on here is powerful magic items. Maybe the best solution would be to make a virtue out of craziness and say that a single astral diamond converts to 2500 enchantment energy, and for every 2500 energy worth of enchantments, an item can be converted into one astral diamond. So the minimum magic sword has Accuracy +2, Puissance +2, and Defending Sword +1, and the minimum Cornucopia quiver produces $50 arrows: so Fine Balanced Silvered arrows or some such.

Lesser Magic Items

Under this scheme, should there even be minor magic items? I'm torn, but I'd almost be tempted to say that anything under 150 energy can be bought with gold (and can't be turned into astral diamonds) at a reasonable price: $5 per energy point, or something. My only concern there is that some of the most annoying enchantments are under that threshold: Deflect +1, Fortify +1, Lighten +1, and Cornucopia of normal arrows are all under 100. The best solution is probably just to fiat those spells to a higher cost or knock them out of existence.

Other Problematic Points

Given that I envision people having 5-10 astral diamonds at a time, it's going to be awfully tempting to commission magic items with Power 3+ and Speed 3+ and then a half dozen other useful enchantments. I think the problem there isn't with the astral diamond concept, but with the Power and Speed enchantments being too cheap for their effects and possibly just too powerful at any cost. Again, some kind of modification of those spells is probably the best solution. I think Power would probably be okay if it could only provide that free energy for 1 spell at a time (so Power 4 can maintain 2 spells of 2 energy maintenance each, or 4 spells of 1 energy each, or 1 spell of 4 energy, not 14 spells of 4 energy maintenance). Speed needs to either have its cost increased by a factor of 10, or just have the last sentence from its description removed, in line with 4e rules for faster casting.

Starting PCs Under This System

In a standard DF game using this system, I'd suggest that each PC start with 1 astral diamond - or the equivalent in enchantments - with no option to purchase more. For a more low magic feeling, PCs don't start with any astral diamonds and have to find them by delving.

College Ritual Book Magic: Some playtest results

I've been using my College Ritual Book Magic system in my Castle of Horrors game, which has been the most sustained playtest of it so far. (+Nathan Joy used it a bit in +Uhuk of the Guard's Chaos Scar game, but those sessions were scattershot and Nate's attendance was spotty and it was hard to really evaluate what was going on.) I think it's held up fairly well, which doesn't really surprise me since it's really a codification of a bunch of existing GURPS optional rules, but there have been a couple of things we need to change.

Rational Spell Damage Changes

The biggest thing we noticed is that [Elemental] Weapon and [Elemental] Missiles are overpowered, the latter especially so when combined with modern firearms. Adding 4-7 points of damage to every shot from an automatic weapon for a minute is overpowered for 4 energy points.

My intent with [Elemental] Weapon/Missile was to make it a more powerful spell: +2 damage for 4 energy and 2 seconds casting time might have been acceptable in 2nd edition GURPS, with 100 point adventurers, but it fails to be useful under 4th edition expectations of 200+ point adventurers with rapid strikes and Weapon Master. I think I went too far.

One easy change is to double the energy cost. Then these spells compete with Great Haste as highly desirable combat buff spells, but with a different tactical role: Great Haste turns a warrior into a cuisinart against foes he can already harm but can only be cast after the fighting starts, while [Elemental] Weapon/Missile can be cast in anticipation of a fight and can give a warrior a more effective damage type against foes nigh-invulnerable to his usual attacks.

The other change we made was to rule that either spell's bonus damage can only be applied to one damage roll per attack roll. This is a simple way to reign in autofire and area effect attacks.

One other change is giving the spells a lesser form. For 4 energy and 1 second casting time, the bonus damage is fixed at 2 points.

Finally, +Kevin Smyth suggested blocking versions of each spell that would work for a single attack. It's a good suggestion, but I don't see why there needs to be two spells for such a minor effect.

Here's the new versions:
(Element) Weapon: Imbues a melee weapon with elemental energy that does 2 points of damage as a follow-up attack on a single damage roll from a successful attack with the weapon, with the element's usual damage type and damage modifiers. This spell takes 1 seconds and 4 energy to cast and has a duration of 60 seconds, with a maintenance cost of 2 energy. Enlarging the spell doubles the energy cost and increases the damage to slow progression. As a separate concentrate action that may be repeated, the spell can also be enlarged to apply to another weapon, at 4 or 8 energy per extra weapon. The weapon is not harmed by the elemental energy. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and Shape (Element), Resist (Element), Create (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Missiles: Imbues a missile weapon with elemental energy that does 2 points of damage as a follow-up attack on a single damage roll from a successful attack with the weapon, with the element's usual damage type and damage modifiers. This spell takes 1 seconds and 4 energy to cast and has a duration of 60 seconds, with a maintenance cost of 2 energy. Enlarging the spell doubles the energy cost and increases the damage to slow progression. As a separate concentrate action that may be repeated, the spell can also be enlarged to apply to another weapon, at 4 or 8 energy per extra weapon. The weapon is not harmed by the elemental energy. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and Shape (Element), Resist (Element), Create (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Strike: This is a blocking spell that imbues a melee  or ranged weapon with elemental energy that does 2 points of damage on a single damage roll from a successful attack with the weapon within the next second. It costs 1 FP to cast, but can be cast for 3 energy in which case the follow-up damage uses slow progression damage instead. The weapon is not harmed by the elemental energy. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and Shape (Element), Resist (Element), Create (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.

Threshold and Calamity

Kevin has been casually letting his tally go over his Threshold, and he's suffered some minor penalties from calamity for doing so. The risk has been been pretty manageable, and if it looks like a spell will get people out of jam, or prevent a badly wounded comrade from dying, it's worth going over Threshold. Given that in my prior limited experience with Threshold magic, no one went over Threshold for fear of exploding, I'm very pleased with the new table.

I'm not as pleased with the balance point on Threshold magic in general, though. Wizards are still generalists, and they pick up a lot of power for not a lot of points. I'm toying with changing the cost of Extra Magic Ability, the advantage that increase Threshold and Recovery Rate, from 10 points/level to 15 or even 20 points/level. Wizards will still be able to do a lot of stuff, but they'll run out of power faster and risk Calamity earlier. I haven't made the change yet, but it's something to keep in mind as we do more with the system.

Learning Spells

In my original thoughts for the system, I assumed there would be two types of spell-casters: dabblers, who would pick up individual spells as Mental/Easy skills using the existing prerequisite system, and wizards, who would learn entire Colleges as Mental/Very Hard skills and would use grimoires to improve their skills with individual spells. Which was fine, as far as it went, but there was never a good solution to question of a wizard who wanted to specialize in a specific spell.

My current suggestion is that a wizard can use the points spent to learn a College to learn "virtual prerequisites," so a wizard with 4 points in the College of Fire could effectively know Ignite Fire, Create Fire, Shape Fire, and Fireball - and then learn Explosive Fireball as a M/E skill for 1 point at IQ+Talent level. He still wouldn't be able to learn Fast Fire, because he wouldn't know the prerequisites of Extinguish Fire and Slow Fire, but he could cast it at the normal default penalty and improve his effective skill with a grimoire.

"Possessions Under Control" and Magic

"Possessions Under Control" (PUC) is a nifty article from Pyramid v3 #83 that rewrote the rules for possessions and mind control. Instead of a one-time only quick contest, possessions became a series of rolls based on Technical Grappling's control points. Despite generally positive response on the forums, there's some oddities in the rules and I want to explore using the concepts of PUC with magic.

First, I'm going to present some suggested house rules for using PUC with GURPS Magic. Then, I'm going to do an example of play using the standard rules for mind control and possession, followed by the same scenario using PUC.

House Rules for Possession Magic

Control Person, Possession, Dispel Possession, Permanent Possession, Exchange Bodies, Loyalty, Charm, and Enslave are Possession spells for these rules.

All Possession spells have half their normal casting time, and when successfully cast, allow the caster to make Concentrate maneuvers while performing a mental grapple. The time spent in the mental grapple does not count against the spell duration, but the caster must make a Concentrate maneuver at least once per turn to continue the spell. If the caster does not, the spell lapses and the mental grapple fails.

Mental Grapples
Mental grapples follow the rules on p28 of PUC under the heading "Technical Possession." The attacker rolls against his effective skill in the spell (modified by casting time, gestures, target distance, etc) or technique and counts as having full bought up the Possession technique. He may use any other Possession based technique normally.

Most Possession spells use the Average or Meditation track for Trained Will.

Exorcisms
Dispel Possession is a form of Exorcism. It can only be used to remove a Possession and uses the Fast or Exorcism track for Trained Will.

Example of Play: Our Combatants

I'm using the stock Dungeon Fantasy templates from Adventurers and Henchmen. Anything that isn't mentioned below uses the standard template values, so Singeon (for example) has IQ 10. There are two teams: Singeon and Sir Albrect, versus Mad Donald and his guards.

Singeon is a standard Dungeon Fantasy Swashbuckler with Appearance (Handsome), Enhanced Parry 2 (Saber), Extra Attack, Two Weapon Fighting (Saber/Saber), ST +2,  Saber-20, Knife-Throwing-16. He carries 2 balanced, fine, weapon bonded sabers and wears Lightened 25%, Fortified +2 Heavy Leather Armor. He is, in short, a very offense focused DF swashbuckler.

Singeon's buddy Sir Albrecht is a standard Dungeon Fantasy Holy Warrior with Blessed (ST), Blessed (DX), DX +1, ST +1, Shield-Wall Training, Thrown Weapon (Axe)-17, Axe/Mace-21. He carries a Fine Large Shield, a fine, dwarven axe (with hammerhead and top spike), a Blessed Holy Symbol, and wears Lightened 25%, Fortified +2 Heavy Mail. He's a pretty typical DF Holy Warrior.

Their enemy is Mad Donald, a standard Dungeon Fantasy Wizard with IQ +1, Energy Reserve +3, and various mind control spells, most importantly Enslave-16. He carries a bejeweled quarterstaff with the Staff spell (it's worth $25,000 and is a 25 point Power Item) and wears Fine, Lightened 50%, Fortified +3 Heavy Leather Armor.

Mad Donald's guardsmen are 3 Guards with HP +1, Striking ST +1, Sacrificial Block, Sacrificial Parry, Shield Wall Training, Broadsword-13, Shield-12. They carrying Large Shields and Broadswords and wearing Lightened 25%, Fortified +1 Mail.

Example of Play: Standard Rules

Singeon and Sir Albrect encounter Mad Donald and his guards in a 10' wide corridor. The guards form a shield wall with Mad Donald 2 yards behind them. Singeon and Sir Albrect start 10 yards away.

Round 1
On his turn, Singeon runs forward 7 yards. Sir Albrecht follows and runs 4 yards. The guards take All-Out Defense (Block) maneuvers but don't move. Mad Donald steps forward and takes an All-Out Defense (Dodge).

Round 2
Singeon wants that staff! He makes a Move and Attack to close with the shield wall and attacks a guard, rolling a 9 versus Saber capped at 9. The guard blocks with a 10, rolling against a 14. Sir Albrecht also chooses to Move and Attack, slipping past Singeon to shield rush the same guard with a -1 deceptive attack: he rolls a 7 against a 15. The guard's neighbor takes advantage of Shield-Wall Training to block for him and also rolls a 7, blocking easily.

Mad Donald is now 2 yards away from Singeon, and thinks that a skilled swashbuckler would make a great minion. He swings his staff forward and casts Enslave, rolling a 9 versus a 16 (no distance penalty thanks to his Staff spell) and succeeding by 7. Singeon resists and uses his Luck, rolling a 9, an 11, and a 13: success by 1 is not enough to beat Mad Donald, and now follows Mad Donald's commands. The guards continue to All-Out Defend (Block).

Round 3
Singeon does what Mad Donald wants, and Mad Donald wants Sir Albrecht dead. Singeon is already behind Sir Albrecht, so he uses an Attack maneuver to make three telegraphed attacks against Sir Albrecht's. He rolls 12 three times, easily succeeding against a net 21, and does 2d+4 cu versus DR7, for 12, 6, and 0 injury. Sir Albrecht isn't dead immediately, but he's in really bad shape.

Notes
This was not exactly the most engaging combat ever, was it?

Example of Play: Possessions Under Control

Singeon and Sir Albrect encounter Mad Donald and his guards in a 10' wide corridor. The guards form a shield wall with Mad Donald 2 yards behind them. Singeon and Sir Albrect start 10 yards away.

Round 1
On his turn, Singeon runs forward 7 yards. Sir Albrecht follows and runs 4 yards. The guards take All-Out Defense (Block) maneuvers but don't move. Mad Donald steps forward and takes an All-Out Defense (Dodge).

Round 2
Singeon wants that staff! He makes a Move and Attack to close with the shield wall and attacks a guard, rolling a 9 versus Saber capped at 9. The guard blocks with a 10, rolling against a 14. Sir Albrecht also chooses to Move and Attack, slipping past Singeon to shield rush the same guard with a -1 deceptive attack: he rolls a 7 against a 15. The guard's neighbor takes advantage of Shield-Wall Training to block for him and also rolls a 7, blocking easily.

Mad Donald is now 2 yards away from Singeon, and thinks that a skilled swashbuckler would make a great minion. He swings his staff forward, chooses to prioritize the mental struggle, and casts Enslave, rolling a 9 versus a 16 (no distance penalty thanks to his Staff spell) and succeeding by 7 and then steps back. Singeon attempts a mental parry using Trained Will and rolls a 9 versus a target of 8; he fails and Mad Donald inflicts 1d+2 MCP or 5 MCP. Singeon is now at -2 to IQ, DX, Per, and Will. The guards continue to All-Out Block.

Round 3
Singeon shouts "He's in my head!" He knows he's going to eventually lose this struggle, but he can fight back physically if he can just get through to Mad Donald. He elects to prioritize physical activity and makes a Committed (Determined) attack and chooses to make two steps for a -2 on attack rolls. First, he steps into a guard's hex and Acrobatically Evades: he's at a net -7, and uses Luck to roll 12, 9, and 16 for a success by 0. The guard rolls a 12 and fails by 1, so Singeon gets past him and steps again to get within reach of Mad Donald. Singeon slashes 3 times for Mad Donald's face, rolling against a 15: 11, 15, and 6 are all hits. Mad Donald retreats and dodges the first blow and retreats and performs a dual weapon parry against the dual weapon attack, but with a -4 this will be hard: he rolls a 12 against the dodge and a 5 for the parry, so he takes a sword blow to the face for 7 injury. That's a major wound, and he rolls HT-5 to avoid stunning: a 15 fails so badly that he falls unconscious and releases his mental grip on Singeon.

Sir Albrecht had been about to use his Blessed ability to perform an exorcism, but he thinks Singeon has it under control. He steps back and grimly begins beating up Mad Donald's guards.

Notes
That was not exactly a titanic struggle, but it was a little more interesting and could have easily gone differently. PUC makes mind control a slower and less certain process, which is probably a good thing: mind control is very powerful, and it shouldn't be a single roll to decide the outcome.

In Review

I like Possessions Under Control, but I'm really dubious of the rule that possession attacks and defenses are distracting and require focus. It effectively means that even not very successful possession attacks stun the target. I think I'm going to abolish that rule, and now I want to see how the combat would play out without it.

Example of Play: Possessions Under Control with a House Rule

Singeon and Sir Albrect encounter Mad Donald and his guards in a 10' wide corridor. The guards form a shield wall with Mad Donald 2 yards behind them. Singeon and Sir Albrect start 10 yards away.

Round 1
On his turn, Singeon runs forward 7 yards. Sir Albrecht follows and runs 4 yards. The guards take All-Out Defense (Block) maneuvers but don't move. Mad Donald steps forward and takes an All-Out Defense (Dodge).

Round 2
Singeon wants that staff! He makes a Move and Attack to close with the shield wall and attacks a guard, rolling a 9 versus Saber capped at 9. The guard blocks with a 10, rolling against a 14. Sir Albrecht also chooses to Move and Attack, slipping past Singeon to shield rush the same guard with a -1 deceptive attack: he rolls a 7 against a 15. The guard's neighbor takes advantage of Shield-Wall Training to block for him and also rolls a 7, blocking easily.

Mad Donald is now 2 yards away from Singeon, and thinks that a skilled swashbuckler would make a great minion. He swings his staff forward, casts Enslave, rolling a 9 versus a 16 (no distance penalty thanks to his Staff spell), and then steps back. Singeon attempts a mental parry using Trained Will and rolls a 9 versus a target of 8; he fails and Mad Donald inflicts 1d+2 MCP or 5 MCP. Singeon is now at -2 to IQ, DX, Per, and Will. The guards continue to All-Out Block.

Round 3
Singeon shouts "He's in my head!" He knows he's going to eventually lose this struggle, but he can fight back physically if he can just get through to Mad Donald. He makes a Committed (Determined) attack and chooses to make two steps for a -2 on attack rolls. First, he steps into a guard's hex and Acrobatically Evades: he's at a net -7, and uses Luck to roll 12, 9, and 16 for a success by 0. The guard rolls a 12 and fails by 1, so Singeon gets past him and steps again to get within reach of Mad Donald. Singeon slashes 3 times for Mad Donald's face, rolling against a 15: 11, 15, and 6 are all hits. Mad Donald retreats and dodges the first blow and retreats and performs a dual weapon parry against the dual weapon attack: he rolls a 12 against the dodge and a 5 for the parry, so he avoids everything.

Sir Albrecht chooses to Exorcise Mad Donald, and rolls Exorcism (at -2 for distance and +1 for his Holy Symbol), succeeding with a 13. Mad Donald parries with Enslave, rolling an 11 and cancelling the attack.

Mad Donald steps back and sustains his Enslave attempt, attacking Singeon again with a 15, while Singeon mentally parries with a 6, somehow successfully defending! One of the guards takes a Move maneuver to reposition himself next to Mad Donald, while another Waits to step into Sir Albrecht's way, and the third makes an attack maneuver. He drops his sword, turns around and steps into Singeon's hex, and grabs him with a telegraphed Wrestling attack: a 9 is sufficient to grab Singeon, and Singeon cannot defend since his back was to the guard.

Round 4
Singeon is in trouble, but when has that ever stopped a swashbuckler? He performs an All-Out Attack (Double). First he uses an attack to Break Free, rolling a 9 against the guard's 12, and slips out of the grapple. He moves up to Mad Donald and launches three attacks to the face, rolling 11, 12, and 10 against a 15. The guard next to Mad Donald performs a sacrificial block and parry, rolling a 10 and an 11, and intercepts one of them. Mad Donald dodges the other two while retreating, rolling a 10 and a 7, dodging both.

Sir Albrecht steps closer to Singeon (and ends up in the same hex as the guard trying to intercept his movement) and tries another exorcism. He rolls an 8 and succeeds easily, and Mad Donald attempts a parry with a 13 against an 11, failing. Sir Albrecht rolls 1d for MCP, getting a 6 and breaking Singeon free of Mad Donald's grip!

From this point, the fight is mostly over: Mad Donald doesn't have enough energy to try another Enslave, and Singeon and Sir Albrecht can deal with some guards in a few seconds.

Final Evaluation

I think these rules can work and make for interesting combats in the mind. I do think getting rid of the distraction rules really helps, but other people might have a different opinion.

Rational Damage Spells: Revising the Costs

When I first wrote Rationalizing Damage Spells in GURPS, I pretty much eyeballed the effects of the elements. My intention was for them to be balanced at around 10-12 CP/die of damage for the standard Ball spell, but I didn't sit down and crunch the numbers.

I had some free time this morning, so I finally went back and did the math. I was pleased with the results: most of the spells came in at 10-13 CP/die, or only needed slight adjustments to bring them into that range. The only element that was really out of line was Deprivation, which pays through the nose to ignore DR and inflict a starvation hazard. Given that it's already a low damage attack (-2/die) that doesn't play well with other attacks (does FP damage), I'm not too concerned that it's so expensive.

While I had GCA open, I added a couple new forms:
Hellfire (Demonology): +1 damage per die. Treat as a Burning Innate Attack with Affects Insubstantial, Armor Divisor 2, Underfoot, and Costs 1 HP. Ranged Attacks are Acc 1, Range 25/50.
Calamity (Death, Necromantic): -2 damage per die. Treat as an Impaling Innate Attack with Affects Insubstantial, Cosmic (Ignore DR), Unblockable, and Accessibility: Only Living or Once Living creatures. Ranged Attacks are Acc 1, Range 15/30.


Fundamentally, these are pretty similar to Fire and Blight, but they have enough differences to be worthwhile and expand the role of the Necromancer and Demonologist templates. Underfoot was introduced in DF 11: Power-Ups (p 24) and works much like Overhead, except the attack comes from beneath instead of above.


Here's the revised effects of the forms:
Lightning (Air): -1 damage per die. Treat as a Tight Beam Burning Innate Attack with Double Knockback, Arcing Surge, and Side Effect (Stun). Ranged Attacks are Acc 4, Range 50/100. Double knockback, in this case, lets it do knockback damage as though it were a crushing attack.
Thunder (Air, Sound): +3 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Armor Multiplier 2, Double Knockback, and Hearing Based Side Effect (Stun). Treat attacks against swarms or vaporous creatures as area effect attacks, even if the spell form is normally a single target spell. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 30/60.
Blight (Body): -1 damage per die. Treat as a Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only living or previously animals and humanoids; cannot target locations). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.  Deathtouch should affect zombies, but not stone golems or trees.
Deprivation (Body, Food): -2 damage per die. Treat as a Fatigue Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Hazard (Starvation or Thirst, chosen when the spell is learned), and Resistable (HT -4). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Enervation (Body): -1 damage per die. Treat as a Fatigue Innate Attack with Armor Divisor 2. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Stone (Earth): +2 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Double Knockback and a followup Crushing Innate Attack with No Wounding. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. Essentially, calculate knockback based on quadruple the rolled damage. 
Fire (Fire): +1 damage per die. Treat as a Burning Innate Attack with Incendiary and Armor Divisor 2. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Poison (Food): +3 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Blood Agent, Cyclic (5x10 seconds), Resistable by HT-5. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.
Sun (Light): +1 damage per die. Treat as a Tight Beam Burning Innate Attack. Ranged Attacks are Acc 8, Range 100/200, and get +1 to hit. Sun attacks are laser beams, and should benefit from having a built-in laser sight.
Ruin (Making and Breaking): -1 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only never living inanimate objects; cannot target locations). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. Making and Breaking spells can't affect golems, zombies, or housecats, but they can destroy cars and furniture.
Force (Movement): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Cutting Innate Attack with Affects Insubstantial and Double Knockback. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 50/100.
Cessation (Necromantic): +3 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only zombies; cannot target locations). Targets that take damage have a 1 in 6 chance of being forced to flee out of sight of the caster for one day. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. 
Sound (Sound): +2 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Side Effect (Stun). Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 25/50.
Acid (Water): +1 damage per die. Treat as a Corrosive Innate Attack. Ranged Attacks are Acc 1, Range 25/50.Frost (Water): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Burning Innate Attack with No Incendiary and Armor Divisor 5. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 50/100.
Ice Shards (Water): +2 damage per die. Treat as an Impaling Innate Attack with Armor Divisor (0.5). Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 100/200.

Specific changes were:
Thunder's armor divisor improved from 1/5 to 1/2. Incidentally, this makes the spell much more useful against lightly armored foes.
Blight's and Ruin's damage modifier reduced from +0 per die to -1 per die.
Enervation's damage modifier reduced from +0 per die to -1 per die.
Stone was rewritten slightly so that the second attack was follow-up, not linked, and didn't have Double Knockback. The intent was to do knockback based on 4 times the damage rolled, not 6 times.
Poison's cyclic modifier was increased from 3 to 5. It's a slow but horribly effective element if it's used with a form that has an area effect.
Force's damage modifier was increased from -1 per to +0 per die.
Acid's damage modifier was increased from -1 per to +1 per die. This makes the spell much more useful for casters with low ability, dramatically increasing the chance of corroding DR.
Ice got renamed to Frost.
Ice Shards got added to the water college as a long-range, low penetration impaling attack.

Merging and Splitting GURPS PDFs

I knew that some of my friends had used software tools to split up and merge their GURPS PDFs. For instance, combining both of the PDFs for the core rules into one file, or merging the various Mystic Knight articles from Pyramid into one file. I hadn't done it because I thought it would be really hard, time-consuming, tedious, and/or require expensive tools.

As it turns out, there's an free, open-source tool with a decent GUI that lets you merge a half dozen PDFs in minutes. I'm going to write another blog post about it soon and go into more details, but it was really easy and it beats digging through a couple of different directories and files to look up all the rules for creating a Mystic Knight or a Dungeon Saint. I'm really excited about it.

College Ritual Book Magic: Grimoires, Prerequisites, and Thaumatology

Thursday is GURPS day! When I remember.

I've been thinking about College Ritual Book Magic recently. We're using it in my online group's Chaos Scar game, so it's getting playtested a bit.

One possible issue that has come up is that there's no value to getting a grimoire of a spell with a positive value more than its prerequisite count. I wrote it that way to discourage people from putting 1 CP in a bunch of difference colleges and then cherry-picking the best spells with expensive grimoires. Which is a good goal, but it also means that there's no value in finding the Archmage's grimoire of Fireball +6.

I'm throwing this out as a possible fix:
A CRB spellcaster can use a grimoire to give a bonus on casting a spell in a College that she has at least 1 CP in. If the sum of grimoire bonus and spell prerequisite penalty is more than 0, then casting that spell is somewhat difficult, and the spell costs additional energy equal to the net bonus.

If a CRB spellcaster uses a grimoire to provide an effective skill on a spell greater than her Thaumatology skill, then she doesn't fully understand the process involved. She can still cast the spell at higher skill, but any failure to cast the spell causes an immediate roll on the Catastrophe table at her current tally.

These two effects combine if the CRB spellcaster is subject to both of them.

I think these two rules get the feeling I want. It's possible to use high value grimoires to cast spells at high skill level, but it's energy intensive and possibly dangerous. On the other hand, a focused spellcaster with very high skill in a single college can cast some basic spells without a problem, even if they don't understand the underlying magical theory. Anyone who wants to cast spells with huge prerequisite counts needs both a powerful grimoire and a lot of skill in Thaumatology if they want to be safe and successful.

What I need to next is rationalize prerequisite counts, but that's a rant for another day.

More Rational Damage Spells

When I wrote Rationalizing Damage Spells, I didn't try to expand on the existing spell forms very much. Breath spells got changed to use Cone mechanics, because there needed to be a way for spellcasters to generate Cone effects and having Breath spells just be slightly more damaging Jet spells was lame. But other than that, I didn't add any new forms and I don't think I really added any new elements.

Since I wrote that article, I've been tinkering with it. I'm pulling those changes to a separate article, so people can notice them and possible comment on them.

New and Changed Elements

The Air element got renamed to Thunder, and added to the Sound college so as to provide for the Concussion effect. Physical Disruption is an effect, not an element, so it got renamed to Blight, even though it's still based on Deathtouch. Disintegration is also an effect, so that group got renamed to Ruin.

I added Deprivation and Enervation spells to give some fatigue effects. They probably need better names.

Having given the Food college an attack spell, I went whole hog and gave them a Poison line of dubious utility.

The Cessation element needs a better name, but it's basically the Turn Zombie spell as an attack spell. Conceptually, I like it a lot, but it may be overpowered: Weapon/Missile of Cessation give the melee and ranged combatants some very powerful attacks against undead, and Rain of Cessation pretty much guarantees that undead will not move through a certain area. On the other hand, Saints with Smite already have very powerful attacks against undead, and it's probably not a bad idea to have more ways to deal with insubstantial foes.

The Sound effect is currently boring, but the sample sonic spells and weapons in GURPS are also boring.

Thunder (Air, Sound): +3 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Armor Multiplier 5, Double Knockback, and Hearing Based Side Effect (Stun). Treat attacks against swarms or vaporous creatures as area effect attacks, even if the spell form is normally a single target spell. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 30/60.
Blight (Body): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only living or previously creatures; cannot target locations). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.  Deathtouch should affect zombies, but not stone golems or trees.
Deprivation (Body, Food): -2 damage per die. Treat as a Fatigue Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Hazard (Starvation or Thirst, chosen when the spell is learned), and Resistable (HT -4). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Enervation (Body): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Fatigue Innate Attack with Armor Divisor 2. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Poison (Food): +3 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Blood Agent, Cyclic (3x10 seconds), Resistable by HT-5. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.
Ruin (Making and Breaking): +0 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only never living inanimate objects; cannot target locations). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. Making and Breaking spells can't affect golems, zombies, or housecats, but they can destroy cars and furniture.
Cessation (Necromantic): +3 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only zombies; cannot target locations). Targets that take damage have a 1 in 6 chance of being forced to flee out of sight of the caster for one day. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.
Sound (Sound): +2 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Side Effect (Stun). Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 25/50.

New Forms

One of the very, very sad things about GURPS Magic for 4th edition was that it was printed in a hurry and never really updated to take advantage of 4th edition mechanics. There really needs to be at least one spell that lets the spellcaster make an RoF attack. The Volley form fills that gap.

Volley went through a lot of adjustments as I wrote it, mostly to tone it down. It gives the wizard a low damage, high Rcl, and energy intensive attack spell. I'm inclined to believe that Fire Volley or Earth Volley would be reasonably balanced spells, but that Sun Volley might be problematic (because of Sun's high Acc and innate bonus to hit) and Ruin Volley and/or Blight Volley are probably broken (low damage means less if you ignore DR). But that's what web commentary and playtesting are there to discover.

(Element) Volley: Creates a missile that does damage as though it were an area effect spell, even though it is a single target spell with RoF 5 and Rcl 3. It can still be used for suppressive fire, walking fire, or to otherwise engage multiple targets using the normal RoF attack rules. It has a base cost of 3 FP per die of damage. Enlarging the spell can increase the damage at double FP cost, increase the RoF to 10 at double the FP cost, or both at triple FP cost. Prerequisites are Rain of (Element), Element (Ball), and Element (Breath).

Summoners and College Ritual Book Magic

For the most part, the summoner templates introduced in DF9: Summoners work very well with my College Book Ritual Magic system. Instead of getting a trivial discount on Magery in exchange for getting a drastically limited spell selection, they become masters of a single college, augmented by a focused and inexpensive talent. The only difficulty is the shaman, who uses a Power Investiture system instead. I have some thoughts on improving the shaman, and I'll add some comments shamans for CBRM.

CBRM Demonologist

Replace Demonic Attument 3 [24] and 10 points in demonologist spells with Magery 0 [5], Extra Magical Ability 2 [20], College of Demonology (VH) IQ [8]-15, and the Perk: Reader of the Black Grimoires [1]. Add additional levels of Extra Magical Ability to the general advantage list. If using Rational Spell Damage, add all forms of the Blight, Fire, and Ruin elemental attack spells to the College of Demonology.

The Close to Hell talent no longer gives bonuses to Religious Ritual or Theology but gives bonuses to College of Demonology and College of Death instead. Reader of the Black Grimoires allows the substitution of Hidden Lore (Demons) for Thaumatology when using grimoires to cast College of Demonology spells (even if the grimoire was written for an entirely different magical tradition!)

CBRM General Elementalist

Replace Elemental Influence 3 (All Elements) [30] and 20 points in elementalist spells with Magery 0 [5], a suitable 5 point talent [5], Extra Magical Ability 2 [20], the Perk: Elemental Understanding [1], and 19 points distributed among College of Air, College of Earth, College of Fire, College of Metal, College of Water, College of Wood, and/or College of Void, as appropriate. Add additional levels of Extra Magical Ability to the general advantage list.

Elemental Understanding allows the substitution of Hidden Lore (Elementals) for Thaumatology when using grimoires to cast spells from an Elemental college (even if the grimoire was written for an entirely different magical tradition!)

CBRM Specific Elementalist

Replace Elemental Influence 3 (One Element) [24] and 20 points in elementalist spells with Magery 0 [5], a suitable 5 point talent 2 [10], Extra Magical Ability 2 [20], the Perk: Elemental Understanding [1], and College of (One Element) (VH) IQ+2 [8]-17 (includes a +2 bonus from the talent).

CBRM Necromancer

Replace Deathliness 3 [24] and 10 points in Deathly spells with Magery 0 [5], Extra Magical Ability 2 [20], College of Death (VH) IQ [8]-15, and the Perk: Secrets of the Dead [1]. Add additional levels of Extra Magical Ability to the general advantage list. If using Rational Spell Damage, add all forms of the Blight and Cessation elemental attack spells to the College of Demonology.

Secrets of the Dead allows the substitution of Hidden Lore (Undead) for Thaumatology when using grimoires to cast College of Death spells (even if the grimoire was written for an entirely different magical tradition!)

CBRM Revised Shaman

As normal for CBRM, Shaman spells are individually IQ/E skills, and are sorted into three colleges.
College of Life: Beast Summoning, Command, Compel Truth, Cure Disease, Daze, Deathtouch*, Dream Projection, Dream Sending, Fear, Madness, Major Healing, Mass Daze, Mental Stun, Message, Minor Healing, Panic, Paralyze Limb, Presence, Remove Contagion, Retrogression, Rider Within, Rooted Feet, Sense Life, Silver Tongue, Sleep, Soul Rider, Spasm, Stop Spasm, Strike Blind, Strike Deaf, Strike Dumb, Strike Numb, Terror, Total Paralysis
College of Spirits: Affect Spirits, Animation, Animate Shadow, Astral Block, Astral Vision, Awaken Craft Spirit, Banish, Beacon, Command Spirit, Control Elemental, Create Elemental, Entrap Spirit, Final Rest, Materialize, Pentagram, Planar Summons, Planar Visit, Planar Shift, Repel Spirits, Sense Spirit, Skull Spirit, Solidify, Soul Jar, Summon Demon, Summon Elemental, Summon Shade, Turn Spirit, Turn Zombie
College of Wisdom: Bless, Create Door, Curse, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Divination, Force Touch*, Hide Object, History, Know True Shape, Magic Resistance, Mystic Mist, Nightingale, Pathfinder, Predict Weather, Projection, Remove Curse, See Invisible, See Secrets, Sense Mana, Sense Observation, Sense Spirit, Summon Shade, Suspend Curse, Trace Teleport, Utter Dome, Watchdog.

A spell's effective prerequisite count (and its penalty to casting rolls) is equal to it's PI - 1, so a shaman can cast all PI 1 spells in a College at his skill in the college. Shamans do not use grimoires, but have spirit guides that serve a similar purpose.

Each level of Power Investiture (Shamanic) increases Threshold by 10 and Recovery Rate by 15, with both starting at 0. Power Investiture (Shamanic) does not provide a bonus to learn spells.

On the template, replace 10 points in Shamanic spells with one of the following spell packages

• Focused caster: One Shamanic College at (VH) IQ [8]-14 and the other two colleges at (VH) IQ-3 [1]-11; or
• Generalist caster: Two shamanic colleges at (VH) IQ-1 [4]-13 and the other college at (VH) IQ-2 [2]-12; or
• Scattered caster: Choose 10 shamanic spells at (E) IQ [1]-14.

Spirit Guides

A spirit guide is a friendly or controlled spirit who advises a shaman in the practice of magic. A shaman may have zero or more spirit guides.

Each spirit guide gives a bonus to casting one or more spells from the college default. The bonus can only buy off the prerequisite penalty to cast the spell and the effective skill cannot exceed the shaman's Hidden Lore (Spirits) skill.

A spirit guide is a 1 point advantage and can give on of the following sets of bonuses:

• +1 to three different spells
• +2 to one spell and +1 to two different spells
• +2 to one spell and +3 to another
• +4 to one spell

Spirit guides can be transferred from one shaman to another. Spirit guides can be voluntarily transferred between shamans as an act of will, but the shaman who gives away the spirit guide loses any bonuses immediately and the shaman who acquires the guide does not get the bonuses until he has slept (or meditated for shamans who do not sleep) for at least 8 hours and made contact with the spirit guide.

A shaman can steal another shaman's spirit guides. Spirit guides may be stolen from another shaman's physical body (including his corpse) or from a shaman's house or other place of power. The ritual to steal a spirit guide takes an hour to perform and fails automatically if it is interrupted in any way.

Design Notes

Most of this is pretty straightforward application of CBRM concepts to the summoner templates.

Shamans are obviously a bit weird. I think converting PI levels back to prerequisite counts is a workable solution, but it is a bit unorthodox.

Spirit guides are basically Fine, Dwarven Grimoires purchased as signature gear. The rules for stealing them are intended to make stealing someone else's guides about as difficult as stealing a wizard's physical grimoires would be. I figure that a thief had an hour's uninterrupted access to a wizard's house could steal the wizard's grimoires.

The Role of Wizards

In the online game I play in, one of the players just introduced his new wizard character. But he hadn't been happy with the existing GURPS Magic system, and he and the GM were unsuccessfully trying to cobble together a better system (Threshold limited Realm magic influenced by Ritual Path Magic or something) more or less on the fly. It was quickly moving to end in tears, and we convinced the player to play his old ninja instead.

As part of the discussion of the magic system, we asked, "What is the role of a wizard in a delving band?" There's a lot of ways to answer that question, but I want to lay out something I think is a common view.

What Should a Wizard Do

A wizard is a master at dealing with the weird stuff: magical items, magical traps, magical foes. He has less utility against mundane foes.

• Fighting diffuse and insubstantial foes - No matter how skilled the swashbuckler or scout is with blade or bow, they're going to have a hard time killing a living tornado or an animated cloud of fire, or even engaging a creature that lives on another plane of existence. Fighting these creatures is where the wizard should shine.
• Fighting puzzle monsters vulnerable to certain elements - Abominable snowmen, magma monsters, water weirds, and all kinds of other weird creatures can be killed by mundane means, but can be killed more efficiently by using the appropriate elemental counter-effects. A knight might have a flaming sword or a ninja might have a Liquid Ice grenade, which can deal with some subset of these creatures, but a wizard should have a range of abilities that let him exploit vulnerabilities.
• Crowd Control and Ability Shutdown - A wizard shouldn't necessarily be able to kill every foe, especially mundane foes like a horde of orcs. But he should be able to use magic to break up their clusters and force them to engage in smaller, more manageable groups. Creating barriers for instant choke-points or walls to prevent enemy arching from massing fire should be an essential part of the wizard's repertoire.
• Dealing with Magic - As the magic guy, a wizard should know about magic. He should be able to analyze magical items, identify and counter magical curses, and dispose of magical hazards and threats.

What a Wizard Shouldn't Do

Part of the problem with most RPG magic systems is that magic quickly becomes a license to do everything, eventually leading to the failure of quadratic wizards, linear fighters. Magic needs limits, and there should be some things that a wizard doesn't do.

• Devastating Direct Damage - A wizard needs to contribute to a fight against mundane foes, but his attacks shouldn't be show stoppers. When fighting something like a dragon or a giant, a wizard should be able to chip away at the monster, but not fast enough to kill it before the monster kills the wizard. 
• Scouting - The wizard shouldn't be the primary scout. Letting him augment the primary scout through spells, or use his spells to be an assistant to the primary scout is fine, but he shouldn't be betting at sneaking and noticing stuff than the primary scout.
• Bypassing Obstacles - The wizard also shouldn't be the first choice to go to in order to get past an obstacle, whether that obstacle is a locked door or a bottomless chasm. I'm torn as to whether it's better to forbid wizards the abilities to easily bypass obstacles, or just make the opportunity cost of doing so high enough that people prefer to ask someone else to give it a go first. If it takes 1/3rd of a wizard's daily magical ability to open a locked door, people are going to bring a thief along.

 

How Does the Dungeon Fantasy Wizard Stack Up?

If the role of the wizard is to deal with diffuse and other weird foes, crowd control mundane foes, and not steal niche from thieves, martial artists, and scouts, then the DF Wizard is a mixed bag.

On the plus side, spells such as Concussion, Flash, Shape Earth/Air/Fire, Stench, Grease, and Glue make the wizard good at mundane crowd control. Most wizards have access to a variety of elemental effects, and can help exploit elemental vulnerabilities. Wizards know about magic.

On the down side, the ability to build up massive 9d+ missile spells means that wizards can potentially deal devastating direct damage, though very slowly and with low hit chances. Wizards can scout by casting Invisibility and Mage-Stealth, though it's probably more useful to cast those spells on a Scout or Thief and let them sneak ahead. They can also Created Servants to find traps or danger, but those Servants aren't really good for finding some of the weird traps or noticing anything hidden.  Constantly renewable fatigue, low prerequisite chains for useful spells like Lockmaster or Walk on Air, and low energy costs for those spells means that wizards can easily bypass obstacles and invade other people's niches.

Most regrettably, wizards aren't amazingly good at dealing with diffuse foes. Explosive missile spells take a lot of time and energy to cast in order to reliably deal with a single diffuse foe. A Mystic Knight with Shockwave (Bow) can do 1d+4 im exp to diffuse foes every round or two for a single fatigue point; a wizard casting Explosive Fireball is spending 2-3 FP for the same level of damage.

My article on Rationalizing Damage Spells addresses several of these issues, and using Threshold Magic (to force wizards to ration their power on a daily basis) and/or increasing the costs of some of the more problematic spells (Lockmaster at 12 FP is only going to get cast if the thief is dead) would do a lot to address the others.

Grimoire costs for College Book Ritual Magic

Most spellcasters in my College Book Ritual Magic system need a grimoire in order to cast spells well. In theory, they can cast any spell from any College that they know, but the prerequisite penalties can make successful spellcasting improbable in practice. Here's the rules for those grimoires.

Grimoire Quality

Grimoires come in three qualities, which basically represents paper weight and grade. Cheap grimoires are made from thick, heavy paper. Good and fine grimoires are made from thinner and stronger paper. Grimoires can come in any size, but are bought in blanks of 100 pages.

Grimoire Quality Cost ($)/ 100 pages Weight (Lbs)/ 100 pges Cheap 10 2 Good 80 1 Fine 200 0.1

Grimoires can also be Dwarven, as per manuals from Sages: immune to fire and water damage, double weight, +4 CF.

Spells per Grimoire

Each spell in a grimoire has a separate bonus, a cost to purchase the spell for the grimoire, and a number of pages that the spell requires. Delvers who want to scribe their own spells can instead pay $0.5/page for the calligraphy and an additional material cost for diagrams and rare inks if they have the required minimum skills in Writing, Teaching, Thaumatology, and effectively in the college including the prerequisite penalty for the spell.

Bonus	Cost ($)	Pages	Material ($)	Min Skill
+1	10	15	210	14
+2	15	20	410	15
+3	30	30	12	16
+4	75	40	50	17
+5	200	60	160	18
+6	500	80	440	19
+7	1000	120	900	20
+8	2500	160	2300	21
+9	5000	240	4500	22
+10	10000	320	9000	23

Sample Grimoires

Little Wizard's School of Evocation Apprentice Primer: This cheap, 500 page tome contains all the spells required for an Apprentice of the Little Wizard's School of Evocation to prepare for the Journeyman exam, to the limit of the apprentice's skill in the College or Thaumatology. Contains Create Fire +1, Fireball +3, Shape Fire +1, Stench +1, Air Jet +3, Cold +4, Create Air +1, Create Water +2, Deflect Energy +2, Extinguish Fire +1, Fireproof +2, Flame Jet +3, Heat +3, Purify Water +1, Shape Air +2, Shape Earth +1, Smoke +3, and Thunderclap +1. There are 110 blank pages for further expansion. A Little Wizard Stylist would get a +1 bonus on all the spells including (up to the maximum of Thaumatology) and could use the Apprentice Primer to get a +1 bonus on any Little Wizard Journeyman spells included in another Little Wizard grimoire. $415, 10 lbs. A good quality travel version of the grimoire is $765, 5 lbs.


Vance's Ultimate Terminus on the Onyx Path: This fine, dwarven, 600 page tome is worth nearly its weight in gold, especially to wizards of the Onyx Path. Contains Ancient History +6, Animate Shadow +7, Lich +9, and Golem +6. There are 80 blank pages for further work. $13000, 1.2 lbs.

Further Work

I really need to figure out how to make this work for GCA.

Magic Economics: How much should spellcasting cost?

GURPS Magic has a section on the economics of creating magic items, which is fairly reasonable: it starts by assuming the monthly wages of wizards capable of enchantment, and works from there to determine how much enchantments would need to cost for them to be able to earn those enchantments. Which is fine, but it's something of a static analysis: if a wizard earns an Average wage (as defined by the GURPS rules), then magic items cost so much. But it doesn't really address what a wizard should earn, assuming that should be a setting detail.

The thing is that a wizard's earnings should be based on the opportunity cost of not paying a wizard to cast some particular spell. If a wizard can produce some service that people would want to buy for less than other providers, then people seeking that service are going to bid up the wizard's payments until the cost matches the other providers. Since many things that a wizard can theoretically provide have no easy to price equivalent service (what's the value of a Teleport Other spell?), this exercise can't necessarily determine how much a wizard should get paid, but it can put a lower bound on a wizard's wages. If a wizard can maintain a Wealthy lifestyle by casting Create Food, there's little reason to think that he's going to work for Average wages by enchanting objects.

The Opportunity Costs of Candles and Continual Light

As mentioned, a lot of spells provide services that don't have an easy to price equivalent. But some spells do. For example, Continual Light provides enough light to eliminate darkness penalties in a 1, 2, or 3 yard radius for an average of 7 days. $7 of tallow candles provides 1 yard of light for 7 days; a $20 lantern and $14 of lantern oil provides 2 yards of light for 7 days. A wizard who can make an acceptable living by casting Continual Light for $7 or less can undercut candlemakers and oil salesman; a wizard who needs more money than that might have a niche market (underwater lighting, for instance) or need to find other spells to earn money.

Continual Light is an interesting spell for this example because it is easy to learn: it requires Magery 0 and a single prerequisite within the same college. Even an IQ11, Magery 0 spellcaster can learn with not much effort: learning two hard skills, one to a professional level, is equivalent to getting a BS with a major and a minor. It has a linear energy cost of 2 per yard of light produced, so 2 energy for a 1 yard light and a 4 energy for a 2 yard light, nicely matching the doubled cost of moving from candles to lantern oil.

Using the standard magic system, a hypothetical IQ11, Magery 0 spellcaster with Light-9 and Continual Light-13 can recover 6 FP per hour, succeeds in casting Continual Light 86% of time, and can expect to produce 20 castings of a 1 yard Continual Light per 8 hour working day. Selling these spells for a mere $6 each and leaving some leeway for disastrous critical failures (roughly twice a year, our wizard forgets how to cast Continual Light for an average of 2 weeks and every other year he summons a demon) gives an income that is high end Comfortable, if not Wealthy, in GURPS terms. A delving or enchanter grade wizard, with IQ15, Magery 3+, and Recover Energy-15 puts out 95 castings a day and is Very Wealthy if not Filthy Rich.

In a Threshold system, a wizard's spellcasting frequency is limited by the lower of his Threshold or his Recovery Rate. Thaumatology suggests a Recovery Rate of 8, which puts the sample minimal spellcaster at a low Average wage, and a delving grade wizard (without an increased Recovery Rate) at Average or possibly Comfortable. My College Ritual Book system suggests that Recovery Rate should be purchased as an advantage. A low end spellworker with Recovery Rate 10 makes at least Average wage, and a delving wizard can earn Comfortable to Wealth wages, depending on his exact Recovery Rate.

So what does this mean?

This is a pretty simple thought experiment, but it strongly suggests that most lighting in a world of magic should either be Continual Light spells, or that wizards should be paid more than the standard GURPS model. The standard model assumes that wizards get paid Average wages and that spells cost about $1/FP to cast. More realistically, wizards should get paid Wealthy to Filthy Rich wages and spells should cost $5/FP to cast (or probably more, since this analysis doesn't begin to factor in the rarity costs of being the only IQ16 wizard in 200 miles who knows how to cast Teleport Other).

Which isn't to say that all PC wizards should be rich and well-employed, casting Continual Light all day. PC wizards tend to have all kinds of issues that make them unsuitable for employment, such as Obsessions with becoming liches or an Elder Thing ancestry. It just means that NPC wizards who lack those issues should be well paid, and willing to charge people a pretty penny for spell-casting services.

Aside: What About Enchantment?

At the start of this discussion, I noted that the GURPS Magic treatment of the enchantment of magic items assumes certain wages and works out the cost of magical items from there. It does have a brief section on changing those assumptions. The cost of Quick and Dirty enchantment goes from $1/point to $25/point (Filthy Rich enchanters with Enchantment-20 could easily have Continual Light-20 and be raking it in on the lighting market, so they don't come cheap) while Slow and Sure enchantment goes from $33/point to $666/point.

Alternately, people can ditch the GURPS Magic enchantment rules, which don't produce very fun or interesting results anyway. In Dungeon Fantasy, PCs can't become enchanters, and the exact details of the enchanting process are unknown. It's entirely possible that Q&D items are still $1/point because it doesn't take a master enchanter and a circle of five enchanter-grade wizards costing $6600/day to produce 4 Q&D items/day. Maybe a single enchanter can pump out 6 of them a day.

Rationalizing Damage Spells in GURPS

GURPS Magic presents a variety of combat spells that do direct damage: Stone Missile, Fireball, Sunbolt, Deathtouch, Lightning Bolt, Explosive Fireball, and many others. They're scattered across the colleges, and while there's something of a theme of a touch spell, a jet spell, a basic missile spell, an explosive missile spell, a rain spell, and a breath spell, not every college has all of those spells and the damage and side effects of the various spells vary tremendously, even within the same college. A lightning bolt has different side effects than a shocking touch, even though they're both supposed to represent hitting someone with a huge jolt of electricity.

Arguably, magic should be mysterious, organic, and off-beat. Not every college should have every type of spell, and maybe the effects of lightning should differ depending on how it is used. I don't hold to that view. Magic in GURPS is consistent and organized.

This is an attempt to rationalize the spells, so that there is a common list of elemental effects and common list of spell forms. It also makes most direct damage spells a bit cheaper, so as to encourage blaster style casters over utility casters.

Revamping Missile Spells

Currently, missile spells in GURPS have their own set of rules. A missile spell creates some object that can be thrown, with a base damage related to the caster's Magery. If the caster has time, she can concentrate on it more, building up the damage for up to 3 seconds - if she has the energy to do so.

In practice, this model is not particularly satisfactory in play. Spellcasters normally only build up spells in ambush situations, when they know they have time to do so safely and recover the energy before starting the fight. In those circumstances, a caster creates a 9d missile spell, and then potentially does a huge amount of damage to a single target - more than anyone else in the game with a single strike. The rest of the time, the caster only builds the missile spell for a second, and does somewhere between 1d and 6d damage, depending on Magery and available FP. Sometimes a caster will use an explosive spell to damage multiple targets, but the poor damage propagation makes this futile, as even an explosive spell that does 18d to the target at the center of the blast does only 3d to people 2 hexes away, and the more reasonable 6d explosive spell rarely penetrates the armor of targets more than a yard away.

I want a system where wizards can contribute reasonably to fighting a single big monster, without having to burn all their fatigue on a single all-or-nothing attack, and can also do reasonable amounts of damage to clustered targets. So I'm changing the rules for Melee, Missile, and other damaging spells.

Fast progression damaging spells (such as Lightning Bolt or Flame Jet) can do a base damage of Sw damage based on the caster's IQ+relevant magical talent by Concentrating on it for one turn (this may be modified by the spell's element, just as swung shortsword and a swung halberd do different damage). By enlarging it, the caster can increase the damage by +2 or +1/die, whichever is better.

Slow progression damaging spells (such as Rain of Fire or Explosive Lightning Bolt) can do a base damage of Thr damage based on the caster's IQ+relevant magical talent by Concentrating on it for one turn. The caster can spend additional turns concentrating to either increase the area of the spell's effect or increasing the damage by +4 or +2/die, whichever is better.

The Elements

Any damaging spell is built out of two components: the element that determines the college, damage type, special effects, and bonus damage of the spell, and the form that determines the range, area, and cost of the spell.


Lightning (Air): -1 damage per die. Treat as a Tight Beam Burning Innate Attack with Double Knockback, Arcing Surge, and Side Effect (Stun). Ranged Attacks are Acc 4, Range 50/100. Double knockback, in this case, lets it do knockback damage as though it were a crushing attack.
Thunder (Air, Sound): +3 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Armor Multiplier 5, Double Knockback, and Hearing Based Side Effect (Stun). Treat attacks against swarms or vaporous creatures as area effect attacks, even if the spell form is normally a single target spell. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 30/60.
Blight (Body): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only living or previously animals and humanoids; cannot target locations). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.  Deathtouch should affect zombies, but not stone golems or trees.
Deprivation (Body, Food): -2 damage per die. Treat as a Fatigue Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Hazard (Starvation or Thirst, chosen when the spell is learned), and Resistable (HT -4). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Enervation (Body): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Fatigue Innate Attack with Armor Divisor 2. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Stone (Earth): +2 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Double Knockback linked to another Crushing Innate Attack with Double Knockback and No Wounding. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. Essentially, calculate knockback based on quadruple the rolled damage.Fire (Fire): +1 damage per die. Treat as a Burning Innate Attack with Incendiary and Armor Divisor 2. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 50/100.
Poison (Food): +3 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Blood Agent, Cyclic (3x10 seconds), Resistable by HT-5. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50.
Sun (Light): +1 damage per die. Treat as a Tight Beam Burning Innate Attack. Ranged Attacks are Acc 8, Range 100/200, and get +1 to hit. Sun attacks are laser beams, and should benefit from having a built-in laser sight.
Ruin (Making and Breaking): +0 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only never living inanimate objects; cannot target locations). Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. Making and Breaking spells can't affect golems, zombies, or housecats, but they can destroy cars and furniture.
Force (Movement): -1 damage per die. Treat as a Cutting Innate Attack with Affects Insubstantial and Double Knockback. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 50/100.
Cessation (Necromantic): +3 damage per die. Treat as Toxic Innate Attack with Cosmic (Ignores DR), Cosmic (Affects things with Immune to Metabolic Hazards), Accessibility (Only zombies; cannot target locations). Targets that take damage have a 1 in 6 chance of being forced to flee out of sight of the caster for one day. Ranged Attacks are Acc 2, Range 25/50. 
Sound (Sound): +2 damage per die. Treat as a Crushing Innate Attack with Side Effect (Stun). Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 25/50.
Ice (Water): +0 damage per die. Treat as a Burning Innate Attack with No Incendiary and Armor Divisor 5. Ranged Attacks are Acc 3, Range 50/100.
Acid (Water): -1 damage per die. Treat as a Corrosive Innate Attack. Ranged Attacks are Acc 1, Range 25/50.

Obviously, a specific spell might use a variant of the elemental or form name, or even both. Lightning Storm sounds better than Explosive Lightning Ball; Sunbolt is better known than Sunball, and so on.

The Forms

Each form determines the physical description of the spell, including its range, area of effect if any, and energy cost.

(Element) Ball: Creates a single target Missile that does fast progression damage at the cost of 1 FP per 2d of base damage. Double the cost to enlarge the spell. Prerequisites are Magery 1 and Shape (Element) and Create (Element) or 6 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
Explosive (Element) Ball: Creates an area effect Missile that does full slow progression damage in up to Magery yards radius, at 1 FP per yard of radius. Enlarging the spell can either increase damage, at double cost, or increase the radius of effect by Magery yards, again at 1 FP yard of radius. At the caster's option, the attack is also explosive for 1 FP, with double cost if the spell damage was enlarged. Prerequisite is (Element) Ball.
(Element) Jet: Creates an elemental jet extending from the caster's fist. It can be used to attack using DX or Innate Attack with any normal Attack maneuver, and cannot be parried, nor can it parry. The jet does fast progression damage, cannot be enlarged, and costs 1 FP per 2 yards of reach (up to a maximum of 4). The jet has a duration of 1 second, but the duration doesn't begin until the caster has an opportunity to make the attack maneuver. Prerequisites are Magery 1 and Shape (Element) and Create (Element) or 6 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Breath (VH): Allows the caster to breath out a cone of the element by taking an attack maneuver and rolling against DX or Innate Attack (Breath). The cone does slow progression damage and cannot be blocked or parried. The cone has a combined length and width in yards equal to the caster's magery, and the caster may enlarge the spell for more damage or for more length or width normally. The base cost of the spell is 1 FP per 2 yards of length or 4 yards of width, doubled if the damage is enlarged. Prerequisite is (Elemental) Jet.
(Element) Touch: Imbues the caster's hand with elemental energy, allowing him to transfer that energy to a foe with a touch. This is a Melee spell that does fast progression damage at the cost of 1 FP per 2d of base damage. Prerequisites are Magery 1 and Shape (Element) and Create (Element) or 6 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Weapon: Imbues a melee weapon with elemental energy that does slow progression damage as a follow-up attack on any successful attack with the weapon. This spell takes 2 seconds and 4 FP to cast and has a duration of 60 seconds, with a maintenance cost of 2 FP. The weapon is not harmed by the elemental energy. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and Shape (Element), Resist (Element), Create (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Missiles: Imbues a missile weapon with elemental energy that does slow progression damage as a follow-up attack on any successful attack with the weapon. This spell takes 2 seconds and 4 FP to cast and has a duration of 60 seconds, with a maintenance cost of 2 FP. The weapon is not harmed by the elemental energy. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and Shape (Element), Resist (Element), Create (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Armor: Surrounds the subject with a sheathe of elemental energy. Anyone who attacks the subject with a melee weapon takes slow progression damage on a successful hit. Anyone who grapples the subject take fast progrssion damage upon securing the grapple and cancels the spell in the process. Elemental Armor takes 4 FP to cast, 2 FP to maintain, and has a duration of 1 minute. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and (Element) Jet, Resist (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
Rain of (Element): This spell can only be cast outdoors, and creates a rain of elemental energy inside the target area. Anyone inside the target area at the end of his turn takes full damage; anyone who enters or starts in the area but moves out during his turn takes half damage. This spell does slow progression damage and is an Area spell with a base cost of 1 FP, the same maintenance cost, and a duration of 1 minute. Prerequisites are Magery 2 and Shape (Element), Create (Element) or 9 spells from the college, whichever spell count is easier to achieve.
(Element) Volley: Creates a missile that does fast progression damage to a single target with RoF 4 and Rcl 3. It can still be used for suppressive fire, walking fire, or to otherwise engage multiple targets using the normal RoF attack rules. It has a base cost of 4 FP per die of damage. Enlarging the spell can increase the damage at double FP cost, increase the RoF to 10 at double the FP cost, or both at triple FP cost. Prerequisites are Rain of (Element), Element (Ball), and Element (Breath).

Examples

Lenia is a typical DF wizard with IQ15, Magery 4, and a collection of combat spells, including Stone Jet, Sunbolt, Lightning Storm, Force Touch, and Acid Armor (all at skill 17). Her single target spells do a base of 3d+1 and her area effect spells do a base of 2d-1.

Confronted by an orc on a high stone wall, Lenia Concentrates for a second and casts Stone Jet for 2 FP, giving her a Reach 4 jet attack on her next turn. She strikes the orc who fails to dodge, and does 3d+7 damage, rolling high for 19 cr. The orc's mail armor has DR3, so he takes 16 injury, and suffers 68 knockback. Since he has only 13 HP for knockback purposes, the orc is knocked back 6 yards and sent flying over the wall.

After climbing the wall, Lenia is attacked by a manticore. She Concentrates and casts Sunbolt, but decides to enlarge it for a round for extra damage. Normally her Sunbolt would do 3d+4 damage for 2 FP, but she has to spend another 2 FP to enlarge it to 3d+7 damage. Aiming carefully, she gets a net +9 to hit, enough to easily nail the manticore in the vitals for 17 burning damage. Since manticore flesh is only DR4, it takes 39 injury and falls to the ground.

Continuing on her way, Lenia is confronted by three knights in a line abreast, each separated by two yards. They all have crossbows and are aiming meteoric bolts at her. She quickly casts a Lightning Storm (Explosive Lightning Ball) and throws it. The Lightning Storm has a radius of 4 yards, just enough to catch everyone in the blast, so she doesn't make it explosive or try to enlarge it, and it costs her 4 FP. She targets the attack at the central knight's feet, and each of them takes 2d-3 damage, mostly unprotected by their metal armor thanks to the Arcing Surge, and possibly stunned from the Side Effect.

Past the knights, Lenia enters a haunted tower and is accosted by a ghost. Diplomacy fails, and Lenia casts Force Touch for 2 FP before punching the ghost. The ghost fails to dodge and takes 2d-3 cu damage, which normally wouldn't affect the insubstantial threat, but the spell's effects include Affects Insubstantial.

In the tower's dungeon, she sees the treasure she seeks, down a hallway filled with wasp swarms. She casts Acid Armor on herself for 4 FP and runs down the hallway, driving off the wasp swarms by doing 2 corrosive damage to them every time they touch her (she'd normally do 2d-3 damage, but they're diffuse and can't take more than than 2 points from a non-area attack). Finally clearing the wasp hall, she reaches for the Grimoire of Improbable Spells when she's ambushed by a throttler. The throttler grapples her from behind and immediately takes 3d-2 corrosive damage. Lenia rolls a 12 for the damage, which is enough to send the throttler staggering back without any DR. Still, Lenia recognizes this is going to be a challenging fight.