How to: Sorcerous Communions

How to: Sorcerous Communions

Have you ever missed casting spells ceremonially with GURPS Magic? Have you ever looked at the three-digit sorcery spell and thought that such a spell would be impossible to cast in an actual game? Have you even played Dominions 5 and wondered how to make communions in GURPS? Apparently, there is a way to accomplish that.

Combining Powers (GURPS Powers, pp. 170-172) provides a great framework for sorcerers to combine their abilities to produce stronger effects. However, instead of combining spells, consider combining their Sorcerous Empowerment for the purpose of improvisation. Let's take a quite extreme example - Create Planar Gate (full cost of 230 points). Being able to use hardcore improvisation requires at least 22 levels of unlimited Sorcerous Empowerment, or more if it is limited in any way.

For example, we have this assortment of sorcerers:

1. Sorcerous Empowerment 5 [60]; Sorcery Talent 2.

2. Sorcerous Empowerment 5 (Limited Colleges, Gate, -40%) [36]; Sorcery Talent 3.

3. Sorcerous Empowerment 5 [60]; Sorcery Talent 1.

4. Sorcerous Empowerment 8 [90]; No Talent.

5. Sorcerous Empowerment 2 (Limited Colleges, Gate, -40%) [18]; Sorcery Talent 4.

6. Sorcerous Empowerment 6 [70]; Sorcery Talent 2.

7. Sorcerous Empowerment 4 [50]; Sorcery Talent 2.

8. Sorcerous Empowerment 6 [70]; Sorcery Talent 2.

9. Sorcerous Empowerment 4 [50]; Sorcery Talent 3.

What is considered here to be "one power" depends on the setting and the GM. For this example, let's assume that limited Sorcerous Empowerment is considered to be the same power as unlimited Sorcerous Empowerment. Because of that, the participants will enjoy the +5 bonus to their link-up roll. That should make the -8 penalty for a 9-mage group more bearable.

Let's assume that they all link up successfully, because they have enough time with no distractions.  Talent applies to link up rolls, so many of the participants will roll against unmodified IQ (or close to that). Mind that in actual play, especially in combat, this is much more difficult - we're assuming perfect conditions here. Then the group chooses the leader. The optimal decision is for the sorcerer with the highest Talent to be the leader (#5), even though he only has Sorcerous Empowerment 2. However, since combining powers combines levels, not point costs, additional levels of limited Sorcerous Empowerment probably will not be enough to cast the spell. The group then chooses sorcerer #9 to be the leader.

Sorcerous Empowerment is a leveled ability, so the leader's effective level equals to the highest level in the group +1/2 (drop fractions) of everyone else, because they all share the same power. Create Planar Gate is a Gate spell, so limited Sorcerous Empowerment of sorcerers #2 and #5 should work fully here, instead of providing only +1/4 levels. This gives us the final Sorcerous Empowerment level of 2+2+2+8+1+3+2+3+2 = 25. Since the leader has no limitations on his Sorcerous Empowerment, his Sorcerous Empowerment 25 costs 260 points - that's enough to improvise Create Planar Gate. Talent combines almost in the same way - full native Talent + 1/2 level of everyone else with the same power. This gives the leader effective Talent of 1+1+0+0+2+1+1+1+3=10. Note that combined Talent can be above the usual maximum Talent level.

Now, the leader uses hardcore improvisation to improvise the spell. Create Planar Gate falls between 75% and 100% of the leader's Sorcerous Empowerment cost, so the improvisation roll takes a -10 penalty that can be easily neutralized by spending FP of the communion members. As a result, the leader will be rolling against Will+10 due to his increased Talent and FP expenditure. Sounds like an easy roll.

Create Planar Gate requires 1 FP to create and also requires an IQ roll that takes 10 seconds. This can be hastened to 1 seconds by spending 10 more FP (the group won't mind losing 10 more FP total). Thus, the leader again rolls against IQ+10 and creates a planar gate in a single second.

Looks great? It does, but remember that we were assuming perfect conditions, the lack of critical failure, and all that. In actual play, this is much more difficult, but nonetheless may make sorcerers much more flexible. If you want to limit this, you may, for example, require linking up take 1 minute instead of 1 second, but let the sorcerers roll against the higher of IQ and Thaumatology to link up (GURPS Powers suggests something similar for clerical powers). Also, you may be more stricts regarding what counts as a single powers. For example, D&D wizards and D&D sorcerers might be considered different powers. Even D&D sorcerers of different bloodlines could count as different powers. Furthermore, you may require sorcerers to take perks to be able to use Combining Powers. For extra flavor, you could do something like this:

Communion Master [1]

This perk allows the character to combine their powers with others as per Combining Powers, but the character may only be the leader of the group (unless he also has Communion Slave, see below). Optionally, this perk may be leveled. If so, every level grants a +1 bonus on rolls made to form a link with other participants (this bonus shouldn't stack with the one granted by Communion Slave).

Communion Slave [1]

This perk allows the character to combine their powers with others as per Combining Powers, but the character may not be the leader of the group (unless he also has Communion Master, see below). Optionally, this perk may be leveled. If so, every level grants a +1 bonus on rolls made to form a link with other participants (this bonus shouldn't stack with the one granted by Communion Master).

Weak Latency (Magic) [1]

See GURPS Psionic Powers, p. 19.