My group has recently switched from Pathfinder to GURPS.
>In Pathfinder, Sleep is a 1st level spell with an AoE that can hit up to 4 targets from 25 feet away and takes 2 turns to cast
>In GURPS, Mass Sleep has several prerequisites, hits 2 targets 1 meter away for a large amount of Fatigue, and takes 5+ turns to cast if you increase the AoE and cost
Quite the difference, that. Perhaps I'm spoiled by the ridiculously easy nature of D&D magic.
Anyway, I like spellcasters, so I made one for our next campaign and the mechanics for magic are pretty different. I'm not quite as familiar with the rules as I'd like to be yet, so can you guys give me some general tips on how to be better with magic? I think my biggest problem here is the long casting times, as even basic Missile spells are 2 turn affairs. What are some ways I can work with this?
>>47813095
Magic in GURPS is more about staying in the back and being a "support" character than being a glass canon who's untouchable anyway because of blind/sleep/daze spam.
Hide behind allies, deal with long casting times.
>>47813151
Depends how it's fluffed and designed as an ability, really.
There is nothing stopping you from having "basic missile spells" as innate attacks that you can spam like a motherfucker. The price will be expensive if they are very good, but that's fair.
(All the moreso if you can just use it as much as you want basically all day long. Even with energy reserve or fatigue cost it can still be pretty good to just be able to make BANG BANG gestures with your fingers or shoot friggin lazer beams out of your eyes at will.)
If it's done via the typical magic system with the rolls and stuff, you can still make a "blaster mage" or spell slinger, but IIRC the template is very specialized, obviously. Your job is being a magical gun slinger/smoking bitches in duels. You are very good at this.
Your utility in other areas will however, be poor. You take shortcuts and alternate paths in learning magic, but in return, you are good at zapping people.
>>47813151
A lot of regular/area spells require you to be basically in melee range or you start taking nontrivial penalties, though.
Should I just be buffing allies, then?
You reduce FP cost and casting time for high skill levels, so you should still be able to take a few spells as your main ones with short casting times and no/low FP costs.
Pick up a magic staff; it should make casting Regular/Area spells a tad safer. Also note that you take a penalty for Area spells based on the *edge* of the spell and not the center.
Lastly, GURPS has one-second rounds, meaning you, your allies, and your enemies do less per turn than in D&D, especially in terms of movement; Move & Attack is awful, so to hit you, an enemy would have to spend one turn using Move to get close enough, wait for all your buddies to take their turns, and then Attack you. If your buddies aren't bringing the pain in that round he's standing there threatening you, then something is seriously wrong. Plus, if he's that close, someone should be able to easily attack from behind for an easy hit.
>>47813095
>Mass Sleep
>Area; Resisted by HT
>As Sleep, but can be cast over an
>area.
>Base cost: 3. Minimum radius 2
>yards.
>Time to cast: 1 second for each
>energy point spent.
>Prerequisites: Sleep and IQ 13 or
>higher.
Say Magery 3, and you need an IQ of 13. So that's a skill 14 right there, easy.
Skill level 15 means -1 energy cost.
So, base cost is 2, with 1/second. 4 turns minimum. with AoE increasing every 2 turns.
>>47813095
>hits 2 targets
Pic related, hits up to 7 people
Anyways, 15. At 12 you have a 75% chance of the spell going through, so you can cast 3 yards away easy. 5 yards if you have a staff
>>47813095
5 seconds to cast in GURPS is one less second than a DnD turn.
>>47813095
One important thing to consider is that GURPS rounds are really quite fast.
Otherwise, missile spells can be very effective, but dropping Great Haste on the beatstick is a fucking amazing move every time you do it, and is pretty great for making the beatstick your character's best friend ever.
Illusions can create decent-duration warriors and attack animals quite cheaply - creating an illusory swarm of bees is an effective and nasty strategy. They're also great for trapspringing.
OP, as a veteran GURPS player know that the normal magic system is one of the most controversial subjects in the system. It's not all together very well put together, and has a lot of valid criticisms. It's still all right, but just know the system shines more in other areas.
You can also use other magic types, like using modified advantages (effectively GURPS: Powers) and stuff like that.
>>47815976
I've always been a fan of Symbol/Syntactic. It's fairly intuitive, and really flavorful if your GM works with it a bit
>>47813095
>how to be better with magic
Do not use standard GURPS magic. Use RPM, which is much closer to Vanacian magic, or Sorcery, which is easier on players and GM.
>>47816054
>>47816390
For all its flaws, basic magic is very straightforward: cast spell X for effect X. It's also great for D&D players due to the spell-list approach both share. I wouldn't throw in a more complex magic system right off the bat.
>RPM
>Anywhere near Vancian in mechanics, tone or anything else
Nigga the fuck are you smoking?
>>47813673
>>47814641
Why are GURPS rules always such a fucking esoteric mess?
>>47817026
They aren't always. Magic is a huge mess because they decided to re-use the same magic system they had in the last edition and that was a huge compilation of spells that had built up over years. The alternative magic systems are significantly smoother, although they suffer from being scattered across several books, in one case lacking a proper spell list and various other glitches. RPM is a complete, elegant, flavourful, flexible magic system though.
The martial arts rules kind of suffer a similar problem. They decided to bring techniques from Third Edition, but also added Perks, so there's two different systems for being slightly better at specific things.
Lots of their rules are really straighforward and well-written though... the only issue is they are often scattered throughout lots of books, but that's an inherent problem for any large system with a lot of books. They tried to streamline it all last time they changed edition, but inevitably more rules keep getting added.
>>47816913
He means heavy use of charms. And while I never thought about it that way, he's right
>>47817184
And actually the stacked bonuses in the post he's complaining about are pretty tame vs the long list you use in Pathfinder.
>>47817026
It's a bit less point and shoot, yes, and I honestly do wish they had the benefits for high skill levels basically being on a chart 1/4th of a page in size. But it's not too esoteric:
Starting at rank ten, every five skill ranks gives you a benefit:
<10: You must speak and dance to raise the magic
10-14: Jedi mindtrick level, speak a few words and make a gesture with your hand
15-19: Speak a word or two, or make a mystic gesture with a few fingers. Aka, Power Word: Daze, or snap and people fall down. -1 to cost
20-24: Pure Will Power. And casting time is halved. Cost -2
25 and up: Every five levels halve casting time and reduce energy cost by 1 point. Minimum cost is always 1 and minimum time is always 1
I use house rule that you can do bigger gestures and stuff than needed. If you're at Power Word level, you can instead do a big song and dance for +2 to skill
>>47817407
This too. And it's not spread out to feats, it's all on one page
>>47821174
Casting spells are normally one second minimum regardless of skill, true, but high skill level does allow you to cast spells for 0 FP or, more often, maintain them for 0 FP.
Page 236 of GURPS: Characters, under "Energy Cost":
>Each spell has an energy cost. When you cast the spell, you must pay this cost in either FP or HP. The better you know the spell, the less energy you need to cast it. If you know it well enough, you can cast it at no cost.
Later in the paragraph:
>Apply the same reduction to the cost to maintain a spell.
And you don't need to be a combat/support mage to be useful.
Take one college Magery: Mind Control. Grab basically 90% of the damn Mind Control spells and the prereqs (which you cannot cast).
Up your dex
Be a thief, cast with touch as you stumble into guards. Etc.
>>47821594
Point, I forgot about that. Eye skim, you know how it is.
Anyways, OP. Since you mentioned Dungeon Fantasy, I'm assuming you're probably using Dungeon Fantasy?
That's Magery 3 and IQ 15. So every spell will be at at least 15.
>>47817026
>Boo hoo hoo, why are the rules for warping reality to my will not more cut and dried? I want to be a god out of the box just like in DnD T_T
