Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells I

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells I

I've just finished selectively adapting spells from Complete Arcane, but there is another major book - Complete Divine. While this one does have some spells for wizard, it has many more spells for clerics and druids that just won't work as arcane spells in terms of flavor. Thus, it's time to give divine spellcasters some love.

Anger of the Noonday Sun creates a blinding flash centered on you that also damages undead and oozes. In Complete Divine, this is an exlusive druidic spell, but I feel that it's a perfect Sun domain cleric spell.

Beast Claws gives you claws.

Beget Bogun is a highly specific spell to animate a bogun - something like a druidic homunculus.

Blast of Force is an invisible force beam attack.

Bolt of Bedevilment (singular) is a beam spell that may daze the target.

Bolt of Glory is a beam spell that damages undead, evil outsiders, and Negative Energy Plane natives.

Briar Web is a version of Entangle that doesn't work underwater but also deals minor impaling damage if the grappled victim moves or struggles. It's also one point cheaper, so it's an objectively better choice unless you want to venture underwater.

Castigate is a verbal rebuke that causes pain to creatures not of your alignment or deafens those of your alignment. Mostly useful against outsiders and divine spellcasters.

Chain of Eyes is a pretty cool spell. I felt lazy, so I just slapped Cosmic on the advantage and called it a day.

Druidic Spellcasting Revised

Druidic Spellcasting Revised

It's time to solve the druid question. I have a problem with druids in GURPS - I love druids conceptually, but mechanically... let's say that they are subpar in most situations. For the most part, this is due to their power modifier. In this post, I'd like to talk about the power modifiers, about druids in general, and try to rework my druidic spellcasting framework into something more functional.

Wizardry: Food Spells II

Wizardry: Food Spells II

I've been neglecting one of my favorite GURPS Magic colleges, and that is the College of Food. It may seem silly to many, but in my opinion, this is an extremely welcome addition and the most unD&D things that Magic has. It does provide genuine utility both in downtime and in adventuring situations, and I definitely can see why some wizards would like to learn some of these spells from the in-universe standpoint. From a point of view of an actual player, I will try to make these spells cheap enough to be used with normal improvisation.

I do not recall any such spells in D&D books, but if I'm mistaken, feel free to call me a midwit in the comments.

Cook is a spell that lets you save time and effort with cooking. I'd love to know this spell.

Decay is a spell for jerks.

Distill concentrates a liquid, just in case you want a stronger alcoholic beverage.

Far-Smelling was decoupled from Far-Tasting. *snifffffffffffffffffff* Quite pungent indeed! Technically speaking, this should have been an Indefinite spell, but I made it instantaneous because I can. The most important thing here is to spell this spell's name correctly.

Far-Tasting can be used to identify potions and poisons without actually drinking the liquid in question or even without opening the container.

Hunger is a fatigue attack spell. Its Thirst counterpart is not present as it's covered by Horrid Wilting.

Know Recipe can be a useful spell not only for chefs, but also for alchemists.

Mature gave me a lot of food for thought, pun unindended. Back in the day, I made this spell as an expensive Affliction that afflicts Unaging with Age Control. Now, at first I thought I'd do it via Control as per GURPS Powers: The Weird, but that would be way too expensive. Instead, I went with the simplest option available - Create. Now, you simply transform food/drink into matured food/drink. Simple, cheap, and exactly what the original spell in GURPS Magic does.

Monk's Banquet lets you circumvent the need for sustenance entirely.

Poison Food is a rather expensive delayed damage spell.

Prepare Game can be quite useful, carefully separating a slain animal into meat, bones, skin, etc. for cooking and crafting. In addition, the spell does it 60 times faster than you'd be able to do it manually.

Preserve Food has shorter duration than its GURPS Magic counterpart. Since I'm making these spells for my games, this one incorporates a houserule that makes Unaging cost 5 points instead of 15. If you're not using this rule, increase the cost by 9 points, or pretend that this is Immunity to Rot [5].

Season can enhance (or worsen) an existing meal's flavor.

Seek Food is much more expensive, but it can be very useful even in adventuring situations. Even more useful to predatory casters.

Test Food is a crucial spell for court wizards.

Water to Wine does exactly that - turns water to wine.

Druidic Spells: Complete Arcane Spells

Druidic Spells: Complete Arcane Spells

And here we have a bunch of spells from Complete Arcane adapted for druids.

Wood Rot is the only druid-exclusive new spell that is a simple corrosion touch attack that only works against wooden objects and plant creatures.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells IX

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells IX

It's time to finish this book.

Transmute Rock to Lava transforms merely one hex of rock to lava. This still has a potential to deal a lot of damage, but the dissipation rate from the center is fast, and the duration is very long.

Unluck doesn't afflict the target with Unluckiness, but prevents it from using Luck and gives a -1 penalty to most rolls. Temporary attribute penalties in GURPS always felt off to me. You can afflict the target with -4 to DX, but it will not affect parries. And I think that the rules concerning this are inconsistent with other rules that impose penalties. Usually, I ignore the active defense part. Here, I decided to add Task Modifier, Broad Range, -1 to Active Defenses, +20% from GURPS Meta-Tech (it did appear in a very late Pyramid issue before that too). Why is it only +20%? Seems that it should be at least +30% because Defense Bonus costs 30 points, but this doesn't take into account power defenses. Ah well, who cares.

Vitriolic Sphere is an acid variant of Fireball (it actually works a little bit differently in the original source).

Wall of Bones conjures a semi-permeable barrier of sharp bones.

Wall of Gloom is Deeper Darkness in a wall form.

Withering Palm is a necromantic spell that weakens the victim.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VIII

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VIII

Resonating Bolt is a sonic line attack spell.

Ring of Blades surrounds you with a ring of orbiting blades.

Secret Signs is actually a pretty cool spell. It allows you to transmit a message non-verbally, but is more limited than proper telepathy.

Sign of Sealing creates a magical explosive lock on a door or object.

Sphere of Ultimate Destruction creates a mini black hole that disintegrates anything it touches.

Spirit Binding is a more limited variant of Planar Binding. More likely to be used by shamans than wizards.

Spirit Needle is a bit convoluted, but I think it's very cool, even if expensive. I feel that this spell is based on some Oriental myth, but I cannot confirm that. Anyway, this is a metal spell that can hinder incorporeal creatures, which is nice.

Spirit Self lets you project your spirit out of your body.

Steam Breath is a simple steam cone attack.

Stony Grasp is a stronger variant of Earthen Grasp that can be cast in rocky areas instead of earthy areas. Only 1 point more expensive.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VII

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VII

Otiluke's Dispelling Screen creates a barrier that dispels any magical effect that crosses it.

Pain is a weak and relatively cheap debuff.

Poison Needles is a high RoF spell that deals minor piercing damage and follow-up toxic damage.

Prismatic Ray is a beam attack with a random damage type.

Programmed Amnesia is basically identical to Mental Surgery from GURPS Psionic Powers. In D&D, this is a 9th-level spell, but here it costs only 20 points. Interesting.

Protection from Charm is a buff that protects from compulsion effects.

Rain of Needles is a quite weak area attack spell.

Reciprocal Gyre is an interesting spell that deals damage based on the number of buffs or debuffs affecting the target. In GURPS, you are unlikely to have more than a couple of them, so it shouldn't get out of hand. I had to borrow the Margin-Based enhancement from Affliction and apply it to the entire advantage.

Refusal is a spell that wards an area against spellcasters. No mages allowed!

Repair is a single spell instead of all the Repain Minor/Light/Serious/etc. Damage spells. Healing by RAW cannot work on inanimate objects. I found a forum post that introduces new modifiers to be able to do that, but that leaves out constructs that count as animate beings. Thus, I decided to go for a +50% modifier to cover both of them, I think that works fine.