Creating a Spellcasting Character in GURPS (with Magic-as-Powers)

Creating a Spellcasting Character in GURPS (with Magic-as-Powers)

 
In many of my earlier blog posts, I told you how you can adjust Sorcery to represent different spellcasting traditions, and why I prefer magic-as-powers, but I have not really talked about how to create a spellcasting character. With so many options available, it might be difficult to get started. So, in this post, I would like to show off my approach to making a spellcasting character.

First, if your setting has multiple spellcasting traditions, you should choose which one you want and come up with a character concept. You can make your choice based on the mechanics, flavor, rule of cool, and appropriateness for the game in question – remember that characters are not built in a vacuum. Want to play a damage-dealing blaster sorcerer because this is an untaken niche in the party composition? That’s fine. Want to play a green dragon bloodline sorcerer because you think that green dragons are cool? That’s also fine.

 

You should also understand that “spellcaster” is a very loose term in GURPS. The first thing that comes to mind is a wizard or a cleric, but even someone with one or two supernatural abilities that are not central to the character concept can be considered a spellcaster. Let’s use two concepts as examples – “a generalist sorcerer” and “someone who buffs weapons.”

 

What next? I suggest choosing the most powerful spell that you would like to be able to cast often. This can be either a signature spell that is crucial to your character concept or just something that is useful in emergencies, such as combat. Once you’ve chosen this spell, you will know how many levels of Sorcerous Empowerment or similar base advantage you will need to get, and then you will be able to build the rest of the character. For example, for our generalist sorcerer, let’s take Mind-Reading [26] – this is a very useful spell indeed. Don’t forget that we will take it as a learned spell, i.e. an alternative ability to our Sorcerous Empowerment, so it will only cost 6 points. Now, we know that we will need at least 26 points in Sorcerous Empowerment. That’s only two levels – Sorcerous Empowerment 2 [30], if we are not using any limitations. Now we know our limits and can take some other learned spells – for example, Shape Earth 1 [25], Stone Missile 3 [12], Detect Magic [7], and Stun [26]. All these spells are either useful in many situations, such as Shape Earth and Detect Magic, or useful in combat, such as Stone Missile and Stun. Is that it? The rest of our spell repertoire will be available thanks to improvisation. Our normal improvisation limit is equal to the Sorcerous Empowerment level, which is 2 in this example. Since the character in question does not have any scope limitations, he can cast any 1 or 2-point spell from any college – and that’s a lot! If you have at least 4 levels, then you probably can improvise a basic attack spell. As for the more expensive spells, you should look through the spell list and choose situational spells that you’re likely to use outside of combat and write them down, including the penalty for the hardcore improvisation roll. For example, such spells as Shrink 1 or 2 [9 or 18], Flexibility [13-25], Climbing [15+] all could be useful in certain situations, but they are not something that you will need right here, right now, all the time. I guess, you could base your entire concept on Shrink, but I cannot imagine anyone ever taking Flexibility or Climbing as learned spells. I would say the majority of the spell list is mostly there for the purpose of improvisation. That’s the beauty of this magic system.

Now, what about Talent? You have learned Shape Earth, Stone Missile, Detect Magic, Stun, and Mind-Reading, and all these call for IQ, Will, Per, Innate Attack (Projectile) rolls, and your improvised spells might require some other skills to roll against. This variety makes Talent very cost-efficient here, so take a few levels in it. And since you have Innate Attack (Projectile) as one of the skills for your learned spells, put a point or two into it. And now you’re done with the spellcasting part of the character, and can do the rest.

Let’s consider the second example – “somebody who buffs weapons.” This can be an interesting concept that takes parts of the D&D duskblade and artificer. Let’s find a good combat spell – Penetrating Weapon 1 [44]. This spell will greatly increase the combat effectiveness of the entire party. But let’s find some more spells, such as Icy Weapon [14], Flaming Weapon [15], and Lightning Weapon [21] – these will be helpful against enemies with elemental weaknesses, and Lightning Weapon is another very good weapon buff that can stun victims. To be able to learn Penetrating Weapon 1, we need at least 44 points in Sorcerous Empowerment, and that’s Sorcerous Empowerment 4 [50], or a higher level if I were to apply some limitations. But… do we actually need Sorcerous Empowerment here? We are very unlikely to improvise anything useful for our concept, unless we take a very high level, and we probably do not really need improvisation at all! Let’s cross Sorcerous Empowerment off the character sheet and just take our four weapon buff spells as an alternative abilities array. This will save us a lot of points and will not damage the character concept.

What about Talent? All our spells require Innate Attack (Gaze), so it’s better to just ditch Talent – it’s not necessary at all here.

 

So, as you can see, we have created the spellcasting “core” of two very different character concepts. The most important takeaway, in my opinion, is that you have to understand what spells should be taken as learned spells and what spells should be left for improvisation. You should also keep in mind that improvisation is not necessary, you can do well without it. Some more complex character concepts might require multiple spell slots, but that’s too complicated of a topic for this post. But anyway, I have shown my way of building spellcasting capabilities of characters, but this is definitely not the only way.