Powers: Ritual Casting

Powers: Ritual Casting

All right, I have been meaning to write something like this for a long time, but have never gotten around to it. And this is a requested topic as well! So I should stop being lazy, and do it. You probably know that I am an advocate of magic-as-powers, but one of the things magic-as-powers struggles with is powerful rituals that require a lot of preparations. Sure, it is possible to stat up most of them, but they will probably be prohibitively expensive for purchase (or even hardcore improvisation, if you are using Sorcery). GUPRS Supers has rules for one-use powers spread out across the supplement. Those require the Ultrapower advantage that is something akin to Quick Gadgeteer, but for abilities. That is close to what I am looking for – one-use rituals, every one of which must be invented from scratch. However, Ultrapower and GURPS Supers assume an adaptation of the Quick Gadgeteering rules. Let us try to downgrade them to non-Gadgeteering one-use powers and see if the result is satisfactory. The aim is to emulate things like ritual magic from Dominions or elven high magic from Forgotten Realms.

We are going to use the New Invention rules as the base (p. B472). If you do not want everyone to be able to use these, consider the Extra Option (Ritual Casting) perk or something like Unusual Background (Elven High Mage) [10].

 

Required Skills

For most arcane spells, this is Thaumatology. For divine spells, this is Religious Ritual. For blood spells, this is Ritual Magic (Blood Magic), and so on.

 

Complexity

This is difficult. My suggestion would be to stat up the ritual as an ability, then look at its point cost and compare it to the cost of your Sorcerous Empowerment (or your most expensive ability of that power, if you are not using Sorcery). The ritual must fit thematically (and be within the scope limitations of Sorcerous Empowerment, if there are any).

Simple – up to 100% of the most expensive ability’s full cost.

Average – up to 200% of the most expensive ability’s full cost.

Complex – up to 300% of the most expensive ability’s full cost.

Amazing – up to 400% of the most expensive ability’s full cost.

This is all a guesstimate, but I can see spellcasters combining their powers to produce more powerful effects.

 

Concept

No changes at all.

 

Prototype

Since this is a one-use power, the prototype is the end result, there is no testing, debugging, and production. This requires another roll against the Required Skill with all the listed modifiers. The roll requires 1d-2 days if the ritual is Simple, 2d days if Average, 1d months if Complex, or 3d months if Amazing. Divide time required by the number of skilled people (20+ in one of the required skills) working on the ritual. Minimum time is always one day.

        The facilities required to perform the ritual cost $50,000 if the ritual is Simple, $100,000 if Average, $250,000 if Complex, or $500,000 if Amazing. Usually this is a laboratory or a specially attuned place of power. Collecting material components that might be used up in the ritual often calls for a quest! Divide costs by 10 if the caster has appropriate facilities left over from a related ritual of equal or higher complexity.

Ordinary success means that the feat is accomplished, but costs additional Fatigue Points equal to the character’s FP score, leaving him at 0 FP or less. Success by two or less means that the character’s power may be crippled, as discussed on p. 156 of GURPS Powers. On a critical success, the attempt costs an additional 1 FP for a Simple ritual, 2 for an Average ritual, 4 for a Complex ritual, or 8 for an Amazing ritual. On a failure, the ritual falls short of the desired effect. On a critical failure, it has disruptive side effects. Use the appropriate critical failure table, either rolling or picking an effect that fits the situation.

Most rituals will have flaws. Critical success on the roll means there are no flaws; success by three or more gives 1d/2 minor flaws; and any other success gives 1d/2 major flaws and 1d minor flaws. Minor flaws are annoying, but not critical. Major flaws are catastrophic to the function of the ritual – and sometimes to the user as well! Quite often the flaws can be exploited to reverse or dispel the ritual.