Wizardry: Frostburn Spells II

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells II

    Oh boy, here we go. This is going to be a long one.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells I

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells I

Frostburn was one of the early D&D 3.5 supplements that caused a little bit of online controversy, apparently. I'm actually very fond of this book, and I believe that it's full of good inspirational material for any arctic-themed fantasy GURPS game. Sure, there are some odd bits here or there, but it's okay overall. The book has a surprisingly large spell section, so let's GURPSify it.

    Anticold Sphere conjures a protective spherical field that grants DR against cold damage. It's a bit too expensive, but I'm not sure how to bring the cost down without character point expenditure. This spell fits more as a hardcore improvisation spell.

    Arctic Haze is a variant of Fog Cloud that affects Infravision but takes longer to cast. I decided to remove the damage component of this spell.

    Aura of Cold is something like Fire Shield, but with a larger area and no incendiary effect.

    Binding Snow is a frostfell variant of Entangle.

    Blood Snow is a relatively weak area effect spell for frostfell environments.

    Boreal Wind is a variant of Gust of Wind that also deals cold damage.

    Brumal Stiffening reduces DR of an object.

Random Encounters in GURPS

Random Encounters in GURPS

You all certainly are familiar with the random encounter tables. These could be wandering monsters in the dungeon, or random wilderness encounters. Do we have such tables and rules in GURPS? We actually do, but they are pretty well hidden.

Druidic Spells: Stormwrack Spells

Druidic Spells: Stormwrack Spells

The previous four posts had quite a few spells that would make sense as druidic spells, so let's rework them with the Divine power modifier. For some of them, this will affect the cost quite a bit.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells IV

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells IV

    I'm not done yet.

    Stormrunner's Ward makes a ship more stable during storms.

    Stormwalk is a very flashy way to teleport.

    Swim is a simple buff that grants Amphibious.

    Thalassemia thins the subject's blood, dealing toxic damage.

    Turbidity is something akin to Obscuring Mist but for underwater use.

    Urchin's Spines is a fun buff that covers the subject in poisonous spines.

    Water to Acid is self-explanatory.

    Waterspout is something like a reverse Maelstrom and uses a very similar build.

    Wave Blessing is a naval variant of Feather Fall that can be cast reflexively. At first, I wanted to do this ability as Walk on Liquid with a made up Passive limitation, but then decided to make things simple. After all, Fat and Very Fat increase buoyancy and give bonuses to Swimming, so why not do it this way?

    And now I'm done. I didn't convert all the spells from Stormwrack - I only did it with those that I would allow in my games.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells III

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells III

    Stormwrack sure is a book that makes your noggin' going.

    Part the Waters is an epic spell that ended up being less expensive than I thought it would. The build was borrowed from GURPS Powers: Divine Favor and changed up a bit.

    Planar Navigation is a plane shift spell that transports an entire ship to a different plane. I decided to apply some of the limitations to Jumper instead of Affliction because... because I just did, okay? Also, two rolls were combined into one, yet again because I said so.

    Pressure Sphere is an underwater pressure-based area damaging spell.

    Quickswim makes the caster swim faster.

    Red Tide creates a circular surging wave that may wash others away and also poison them.

    Sink makes the subject lose buoyancy.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells II

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells II

    Let's have some more spells from Stormwrack.

    Detect Ship is an interesting sensory spell with a complex build.

    Disguise Ship cloaks a ship in illusion.

    Favorable Wind... man, this is one of those complicated spells. GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Low-Tech say that a craft's speed depends on the wind, but doesn't provide any details. How strong should the wind be? How strong of a wind risks tearing the sails? Fortunately, GURPS Vehicles 3e answers this question by providing a motive force formula that depends on the craft's weight, sail area, and wind force on the Beaufort scale. It also says that typical water move of a vessel is calculated as for a light breeze (Beaufort Degree 2), and sail breakage may occur on Beaufort Scale 6 (strong breeze). GURPS Magic has the Beaufort Scale table on page 194, and we can see that Beaufort Degree 2 (light breeze) equals to wind speed of 4-7 mph and Beaufort Degree 6 (strong breeze) equals to wind speed 25-31 mph. Multiply those speeds by 2 to get wind Move in yards per second. The spell as it is written in Stormwrack produces a 30 mph wind, whic is definitely not favorable wind, as it would tear sails. I will decrease it to a light breeze of 4 mph. The spell produces a line of 20 hexes, and Control 3 lets you affect 19 hexes. As a kind GM, I will round it up to 20. To get the speed of 4 mph (Move 8), I'll have to add five more levels of Control that do not increase the area of effect.

    Fins to Feet is a spell from the Little Mermaid.

    Kuo-Toa Skin would've been a boring buff if it simply granted Slippery, but the granted immunity to webs makes it more interesting.

    Maelstrom is a spell based on Whirlpool from Sorcery.

    Mordenkainen's Capable Caravel creates an entire caravel with a spectral crew. I tried hard to make it not character point-powered, but I just couldn't do it without discarding the spectral crew.