Druidic Spells: Weather Spells II

Druidic Spells: Weather Spells II

The College of Weather magic in GURPS is special, in my opinion. Without a doubt, these spells would be incredibly useful from the in-unverse point of view, but for a typical player character, they rarely do much, unless the player is creative and has time to prepare. For example, one could significantly alter the battlefield by causing rain, creating muddy difficult terrain and hampering vision. But creating rain to water the crops sure is nice, but it doesn't provide any mechanical benefits. Plus, if you are using magic-as-powers, these spells cost a lot! Still, I have to say that I love the Weather spells, as they make magic more believable - I think these spells would be ones of the first to be invented in the game world.

If you look at the D&D weather spells, you get... Control Weather, a generic spell that can do everything. Sure, you could add such spells that create fog (which do have mechanical benefits for adventuring combat-focused characters), but you'd still have a very small college. This is one of my gripes with the "modern" D&D (3.X is still modern in my mind) - everything revolves around combat, and it creates a feeling that the highly magical world is only magical when combat occurs. This is why I like GURPS Magic so much - it has spells for everything, including both combat and your normal day-to-day life.

While the older editions of D&D also devoted a lot of attention to dungeon crawling, I believe that they did a much better job at creating a lived-in, believable world. In AD&D 2e, priestly spells (including druidic ones) are divided into spheres. A character may have major or minor access to a sphere. In later editions, this became known as the "domain", and the minor/major thing was dropped (which, in my opinion, was a bad thing - I should think about how to introduce the minor/major domain/sphere division into my divine magic; I think that would make differences between the deities more pronounced and varied). One of the spheres is Weather, so let's take a look at some of the weather spells and see what we can import.

Faerie Fire actually is a spell that I already converted as an arcane spell, but it is listed as a Weather spell in the AD&D 2e Player's Handbook too. I assume that it's based on St. Elmo's fire, so it makes sense there.

Call Lightning and Call Lightning Storm were classified by me as Lightning spells and decoupled from the Weather college. However, I think that these two specific spells still should be in the Weather college, as they call in a lightning from an existing storm cloud, and do not create lightning out of thin air.

Control Temperature, 10' Radius is a combination of the two existing GURPS weather spells - Cool and Warm - both limited to a 10' radius. I prefer to GURPS way - do not limit it to an area, and split into two different spells. Basically, I just adapted the sorcery versions of Cool and Warm to this framework.

Cloudburst could be built with Control, but would be ridiculously expensive. Instead, I went with the  build-from-effect approach and made it via three linked Obscure advantages. Still expensive, but within the limits of affordability.

Cloudscape is an interesting spell. How do you solidify a cloud in GURPS? You could try Control, or maybe Create with Transformation, but I decided to go with an area Affliction that imparts "reversed" Walk on Air with Specific, Cloud. That works well enough.

Continual Faerie Fire is a permanent area version of Faerie Fire that I deicded to build as a reversed Obscure. Should be fine, I think.

That's it for now, but there are other books to look through, including plugging the holes with GURPS spells that do not have a D&D equivalent.

    Call Lightning
    Keywords: Missile, Obvious.
    Full Cost: 10 points/level.
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to hit.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 1 FP.
    Casting Time: 1 second.
    Range: 100 yards.
    Duration: Instantaneous.

    When you have storm clouds above your head, you can cause a lightning to strike your victim, dealing 1d burning surge damage per level. Metallic armor counts as DR 1 against this attack, but nonmetallic armor protects normally. Targets stuck by this attack must make an HT roll, at -1 per 2 points of injury, or be physically stunned. On subsequent turns, they can roll HT to recover. Lightning behaves unpredictably around conductors; see Lightning (GURPS Magic, p. 196) for more details.
    This attack has no 1/2D range, and has Acc 2. This spell bypasses any cover that does not provide overhead protection, and negates attack penalties to hit crouching, kneeling, sitting, or prone targets. (If you are already above or below your target, adjust this appropriately.)
    Statistics: Burning Attack 1d (Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Environmental, Storm, -40%; Inaccurate 1, -5%; Increased 1/2D, +15%; Nature, -20%; Nuisance Effect, Behaves erratically around conductors, -5%; Overhead, +30%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Surge, Arcing, +100%; Side Effect, Stunning, +50%) [10/level].

    Call Lightning Storm
    Keywords: Area (Fixed).
    Full Cost: 17 points.
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 2 FP.
    Casting Time: 2 seconds.
    Range: 100 yards.
    Duration: 30 seconds.

    When you have storm clouds above your head, you can cause lightning bolts to repeatedly strike a 4-yard-radius area. Use Innate Attack (Gaze), at +4, to center the area; see Scatter (p. B414) if you miss. Everyone who spends even part of their turn in the area is attacked with an effective skill of 12, modified only for their SM. This spell bypasses any cover that does not provide overhead protection, and negates attack penalties to hit crouching, kneeling, sitting, or prone targets.
    Each lightning bolt deals 1d burning surge damage. Metallic armor counts as DR 1 against this attack, but nonmetallic armor protects normally. Targets stuck by this attack must make an HT roll, at -1 per 2 points of injury, or be physically stunned. On subsequent turns, they can roll HT to recover. Lightning behaves unpredictably around conductors; see Lightning (GURPS Magic, p. 196) for more details.
    Statistics: Burning Attack 1d (Area Effect, 4 yards, +100%; Bombardment, Skill-12, -10%; Costs Fatigue, 2 FP, -10%; Environmental, Storm, -40%; Extended Duration, 3x, +20%; Nature, -20%; Nuisance Effect, Behaves erratically around conductors, -5%; Overhead, +30%; Persistent, +40%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Surge, Arcing, +100%; Side Effect, Stunning, +50%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%) [17].

    Cloudburst
    Keywords: Area (Fixed).
    Full Cost: 57 points.
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 1 FP.
    Casting Time: 2 seconds.
    Range: 50 yards.
    Duration: 5 seconds.

    This spell precipitates a rush of water out of the air, instantly drenching everything in the area of effect. Normal fires are extinguished. The downpour lasts for 5 seconds, imposing a -6 penalty to Vision and Hearing and tasks based on these senses. Infravision reduces the Vision penalty to -2.
    The area of effect has a radius of 8 yards and height of 16 yards. It’s bottom must be touching the ground.
    Statistics: Obscure 2 (Vision; Area Effect, 8 yards, +100%; Area Effect, Vertical, 16 yards, +50%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Environmental, Air, -5%; Extended, Infravision, +20%; Link, +10%; Nature, -20%; Nuisance Effect, Area must touch ground, -5%; Ranged, +50%; Reduced Duration, 1/2, -5%; Reduced Range, 1/2, -10%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%) [10] + Obscure 4 (Vision; Area Effect, 8 yards, +100%; Area Effect, Vertical, 16 yards, +50%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Environmental, Air, -5%; Link, +10%; Nature, -20%; Nuisance Effect, Area must touch ground, -5%; Ranged, +50%; Reduced Duration, 1/2, -5%; Reduced Range, 1/2, -10%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%) [19] + Obscure 6 (Hearing; Area Effect, 8 yards, +100%; Area Effect, Vertical, 16 yards, +50%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Environmental, Air, -5%; Link, +10%; Nature, -20%; Nuisance Effect, Area must touch ground, -5%; Ranged, +50%; Reduced Duration, 1/2, -5%; Reduced Range, 1/2, -10%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%) [28].

    Cloudscape
    Keywords: Area (Leveled).
    Full Cost: 55 points for level 1 + 5 points/additional level.
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 5 FP.
    Casting Time: 1 minute.
    Range: 100 yards.
    Duration: Truly Permanent.

    A character can cast Cloudscape on a single cloud or pm of a cloud hank, usually from a nearby mountaintop or while flying. On the first level, it causes 25 cubic yards of cloud to become solid enough to support any weight. Each additional level quadruples this volume. This volume can be of any continuous shape. A typical hex has a height of 4 yards and volume of roughly 3.5 cubic yards. The solidified clouds remain airborne and feel like a thick carpet. Most clouds are bumpy enough to count as bad footing (+1 movement point per hex, -2 to attacks, -1 to defenses).
    A creature that falls onto the magically strengthened cloud sustains falling damage as if colliding with a soft object. A creature flying through a cloud at the moment the cloud solidifies is allowed to retreating Dodge if that would let it fly outside of the cloud. Success means the creature escapes: failure means the creature is trapped as the cloud solidifies around it. However, as the cloud is porous, such creatures can continue to breathe and may “dig” itself out.
    The solidified cloud itself continues to drift with the wind as usual. While the caster cannot use this particular spell to propel the cloud, a Control Winds spell can summon a great gust of air to turn the Cloudscape into a unique flying conveyance easily enough.
    Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Cloudscape, +120%; Area Effect, 2 yards, +50%; Costs Fatigue, 5 FP, -25%; Drifting, +20%; Environmental, Clouds, -40%; Extended Duration, Truly Permanent, +300%; Immediate Preparation Required, 1 minute, -30%; Increased 1/2D, 10x, +15%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Nature, -20%; No Signature, +20%; Persistent, +40%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Selective Area, +20%) [50]. Additional levels add Area Effect (+50%) [+5]. Note: “Cloudscape” is Walk on Air (Reversed; Specific, Cloud, -40%) [12].

    Continual Faerie Fire
    Keywords: Area (Leveled).
    Full Cost: 20 points for level 1 + 7 points/additional level.
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 3 FP.
    Casting Time: 1 hour.
    Range: 100 yards.
    Duration: Permanent.

    This spell is most often used to illuminate temples or temporary places of worship. Continual Faerie Fire allows a caster to cover an area with a pale, glowing light (illumination penalty -3). This radiance can be of any color desired by the caster. Amber, green, red, ale-brown, and purple, in that order, seem the most popular. The caster can omit any areas from the effect. Invisible creatures in the area are outlined – their position is revealed, allowing them to be targeted at normal penalties.
    Statistics: Obscure 7 (Vision; Accessibility, Cannot bring the illumination penalty above -3, -50%; Costs Fatigue, 3 FP, -15%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Immediate Preparation Required, 1 hour, -75%; Nature, -20%; Ranged, +50%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Reversed, -0%; Selective Area, +20%) [20]. Further levels add Area Effect (+50%) [+7/level].

    Cool
    Keywords: Area (Leveled).
    Full Cost: 14 points for level 1 + 5 points/additional level (or more).
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 1 FP.
    Casting Time: 1 second.
    Range: 100 yards.
    Duration: 5 minutes.

    This spell lowers the ambient temperature of the area. The basic version can reduce the temperature by up to 40°F. This will never do damage directly, but see Cold (p. B430) for effects.
    More potent versions of Cool exist. Increasing the full cost of the spell increases the degree of potential temperature change by the same factor, as indicated by the table below.

Spell Strength	Full Cost
Cool (40°F)	14 points for level 1 + 5 points/additional level.
Cool (80°F)	28 points for level 1 + 10 points/additional level.
Cool (120°F)	42 points for level 1 + 15 points/additional level.
Cool (160°F)	56 points for level 1 + 20 points/additional level.
Cool (200°F)	70 points for level 1 + 25 points/additional level.

    Statistics: Temperature Control 2 (Cold, -50%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Extended Duration, 30x, +60%; Increased Range, 10x, +30%; Nature, -20%; Persistent, +40%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Variable, Area, +5%) [14]. Additional levels add Area Effect (+50%) [+5]. The expanded versions raise the Temperature Control level.

    Faerie Fire
    Keywords: Resisted (Will).
    Full Cost: 25 points.
    Casting Roll: Will.
    Components: V.
    Cost: 1 FP.
    Casting Time: 1 second.
    Range: Unlimited (standard).
    Duration: 30 seconds.

    A pale glow surrounds and outlines the subject. Outlined subject shed light as a candle. This light makes the subject very obvious – the spell gives +10 to Vision rolls to see him in the dark. The faerie fire can be blue, green, or violet, according to your choice at the time of casting.
    Statistics: Affliction 1 (Will; Advantage, Faerie Fire, +10%; Based on Will, +20%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Nature, -20%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%; Reduced Duration, 1/6, -15%; Requires Magic Words, -10%) [25]. Note: “Faerie Fire” is Illumination (Candle; Magical, -10%) [1].

    Warm
    Keywords: Area (Leveled).
    Full Cost: 14 points for level 1 + 5 points/additional level (or more).
    Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 1 FP.
    Casting Time: 1 second.
    Range: 100 yards.
    Duration: 5 minutes.

    This spell increases the ambient temperature of the area. The basic version can increase the temperature by up to 40°F. This will never do damage directly, but see Heat (p. B434) for effects.
    More potent versions of Warm exist. Increasing the full cost of the spell increases the degree of potential temperature change by the same factor, as indicated by the table below.

Spell Strength	Full Cost
Warm (40°F)	14 points for level 1 + 5 points/additional level.
Warm (80°F)	28 points for level 1 + 10 points/additional level.
Warm (120°F)	42 points for level 1 + 15 points/additional level.
Warm (160°F)	56 points for level 1 + 20 points/additional level.
Warm (200°F)	70 points for level 1 + 25 points/additional level.

    Statistics: Temperature Control 2 (Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Extended Duration, 30x, +60%; Heat, -50%; Increased Range, 10x, +30%; Nature, -20%; Persistent, +40%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Variable, Area, +5%) [14]. Additional levels add Area Effect (+50%) [+5]. The expanded versions raise the Temperature Control level.