trash@oliveb.UUCP (Tom Repa) (11/25/86)
> = Neal Feldman aka Krelos, the Dark Lord of Sorcery > I do not understand what the person who wrote against the GURPS magic > system (the official one) has problems with... > The main problems I found with Fantasy Hero as a whole are as follows: > (Mind you it WAS my preferred system anyway until I picked up GURPS) > 1) The system is unbalanced to overfavor fighters. Any dex based character and > especially mages are inept compared to a well designed fighter of equal > points! Their point costs seem to show that they believe weapon skills, STR > , defenses, etc are of little or no use and that DEX is all-powerful. This > is what makes fighters rule the universe that is run by FH rules. So use high DEX mages! But seriously, DEX helps mages just as much as fighters. STR and skill are used to increase the damage done by an attack, and skill can also be used to increase to hit probabilities. So I don't agree that STR and skill are of little or no use. "Point cost"?? Increasing DEX beyond 20 is about as expensive an option as you can buy, how are skill levels, defenses, and STR more expensive?? > 2) The magic system is unable to work many actions that I would have wanted > to have spells for... for ec > for example: Aging, Creation of matter, Destruction of matter, etc.. > Either the spell was not possible given the effects presented, or there was > no effective way to create a new effect to do it, or the spell was so > prohibitively expensive that it was impossibel for anyone (save the master > mage of the world) to have it! Aging could be the special effect of a DEX, CON and STR drain, with a permanent advantage. I have added "permanance" as an advantage, but I don't usually allow it in offensive spells, only as a side effect or in combination with certain spells where the recipients _must_be_willing_. Creation of matter can be a variation of TRANSFORM, say transform air to yogurt, or whatever you want to create. For non-living matter, just use another transform to create the destroy spell. Living matter would need other spells to destroy all their BODY. As for expense, I added a limitation called "cheapness", whose only purpose is to make magic a little cheaper. > 3) The system allowed for END reduction to ANY POINT REGARDLESS OF THE POWER > OF THE SPELL. This is WRONG! Why do you think this is wrong? I find it real handy for making independent magic items. But for the most part it is cheaper to link all your spells to an END reserve. Reducing the cost of a powerfull spell can get REAL expensive, so what you don't pay in END you pay in character points. Since these are a lot harder to get then END, I think it's appropriate. [about GURPS] > It even is stated in the book that if you do not want people to HAVE to have > magery to cast spells, make your world a high mana area! There are also the r > rules for ceremonial and group magic... the system has many of the grosser > spells castable only by gods, demons, or this form.. the spells are too gross > to be cast hither and yon by single mages. > The system also takes away the contrived add this, balance that, limit that, > etc that pervades FH(and all Hero stuff). It takes (sometimes) HOURS to > create ONE SPELL, and the Gm is forever inundated by unbalancing s > spells. The answer to this is to create more spells! Once you get good at it, most spells take about 15 minutes. Really expesive (powerful) ones take 1/2 hour, since then usually take more tweaking to keep the cost affordable. I have yet to see a really superpowerful spell that is out of control. The "add this,balance that" part about FH is fun since I can shovel spell- making onto the players (not that they will get to USE the spells anytime soon, ha ha ha) and not worry about Phase Plasma Rifles and Delayed Blast Neutron Bomb, etc., since they players will try to make it affordable. Of course the ultimite limiting factor is the GM saying:"What Spell? I never heard of that spell." > This system allows the Gm (or player) to design a spell, set limits to it, > set a cast cost and a maintain cost (if applicable) and set any prerequisites > that fit... takes a few minutes, and you do not have to spend hours balancing > it and all that crap. > Flames , I await thee with fervor! > krelos > Neal Feldman aka Krelos, the Dark Lord of Sorcery > UUCP: seismo!lll-crg!ptsfa!harlie!krelos Hope this didn't sound like a flame, it wasn't meant to be. I haven't seen GURPS, so I'd like to hear more specifics. Tom Repa(trash@oliven)
lkeber@hawk ( LAK) (11/25/86)
Does anyone know how the old Advanced Wizard rules for magic compare to the GURPS magic rules? Or, in general, how GURPS compares to The Fantasy Trip? This is an excellent system no longer in print, also made by Steve Jackson. I like the Adv. Wizard system of creating magic items much more then the system of Fantasy Hero. However, the system of creating new spells was the guesswork and approximation seen in games like AD&D. Lord of Chaos