I'm curious what spells in GURPS Magic your players seem to favor excessively, or always put on the "must have" list.
For mine:
Healing spells and Recover Energy are always taken if they are allowed. You simply are much less valuable without the latter, and healing is too valuable to be without in some fashion. In DF, healing spells (normally a wizardly prerogative in GURPS) are off-limits to non-clerics, so we don't see any on mages. But Recover Energy, always.
Great Haste. This is the number one spell I see taken. It's extremely valuable as a force-multiplier on your best fighters, and on the mage himself (who then casts twice as fast for a while.) It's so must-have that players occasionally feel limited in their magic choices - you can't make a mage without it, basically. Sometimes they do, briefly, and then end up leaning it. Few prereqs, extremely effective.
Teleport. If this wasn't allowed in DF, they'd have it there too. Cheap and easy and terribly effective. My last game was largely centered around teleportation and Gate magic.
Seek Earth. It's rare for my gamers to be without this spell. They figured out early on it was good for hunting treasure, and good for hunting bad guys with steel weapons, too.
Seeker. Another one they used so often I had to get very strict about it, and I still get a lot of vague seek requests or oddly phrased targeted requests. Still, it's how my players have determined where a lot of missing items have gotten off too. Great for "bring the widget to the quest-giver" scenarios for the players.
Levitation. Not as much anymore, since I nerfed it from its "cheap and easy win button" application, but for a long time Levitate was the primary combat spell in my games. Non-flying enemies without significant resistance were neutralized, just like that.
Shield. It's a rare fight without someone getting Shield +5 cast on them, or even higher thanks to higher Magery or Power Investiture. The massive jump in defenses allows for standing up to big crowds and holding your own against even offensively superior foes, and if they can't hit you they can't hurt you.
And I won't even start on Create Servant.
How about your guys? If you use or used GURPS Magic, what are the "can't live without" spells of your group? If you're not using GURPS Magic, feel free to comment, but I'm a wee bit less curious about spells I'm not using in my game . . .
Man, those poor, poor Servants.
ReplyDeleteYou've read it, and then seen it in person. I can't even convey they suffer with any degree of accuracy with mere words.
DeletePurify Air, Healing spells, Delay and other Linking spells, Seeker, Identify Spell and Analyze Magic, See Secrets, and Haste and Great Haste almost always show up in the party when I run.
ReplyDeleteLots of overlap here - you mentioned some I see a lot of, too.
DeleteBecause of modern setting scryguard is pretty awesome and a Must (because of social engineering) !
ReplyDeleteHistory is a pretty great gumshoe spell even when it's muddied or with strategies to add noise.
Seeker and tracer! Even despite counter measures.
Create zombie was used in good effect. Steal energy also.
Illusion disguise is pretty used because of its long duration and Basic element of personal security. The college itself is worth specializing even at the expense of schools that creates Basic counter measures and security.
Awaken is pretty powerful in a logistics game where sleep and details matter. Could have helped a game where they were accumulating Fatigue from lost sleep poor eating pain and stress. (how alert is interpreted)
Enchant the spell and scroll is soon useful in the fine print and low mana setting in a magical related economy worth a hundreds of USD in size... I can ramble on lolz.
You should post on it!
DeleteWe see a lot of use of Awaken, too, mostly as large-area spellstones.
Missile shield especially in combo with flight / levitation and a 0-point missile spell
ReplyDeleteEver since my 1st edition GURPS days we've allowed critical hits to bypass Missile Shield, so mages tend to hang back a bit more to reduce the number of them. But the old flying/invisible/ranged attack mage wasn't rare in my games. :)
DeleteMy spies have liked Sense Observation and Wizard Eye. I'll second Justin's nod for Illusion Disguise. I combined that with Create Servant to good effect, so the bad guys never knew which was the PC and which the decoy.
ReplyDeleteOh no, I see even more servant abuse in the future of my games!
DeleteIllusions and Invisibility. A sufficiently creative illusionist has immense flexibility, both in and out of combat. Invisibility is a highly effective buff (and again, has plenty of non-combat application as well), at least until the GM starts stacking every encounter with See Invisible equipped opponents.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I seem to attract players who like wizard snipers, so Hawk Vision gets a fair bit of use as well. Plenty of time to aim when you're invisible, and a long-range arrow to the eye is effective on most things.
Heh. See Invisible isn't uncommon for PC wizards, and quite common for NPC wizards. It's too useful to skip. Monsters in my games usually deal with invisibility with superior Per, Discriminatory Smell, and/or Discriminatory Hearing but the supernatural ones often can just see invisible. Life isn't fair. ;)
DeleteHawk Vision I've seen cast mostly on the party's resident ranged weapon specialist instead of the wizard using a bow directly.
Elf archers. You've got magery anyway, so you may as well use it, and Hawk Vision is the sort of spell that works fine even if you've only got it at 12 or so.
DeleteThe current PC started as an archer with a couple of spells, but has since evolved into a more dedicated caster.
Based on 7 DF mage characters amoung 5 players in my various games ...
ReplyDeleteRecover Energy is a default
Create Fire + Fast Fire see lots of use by one of my players, another is a Flame Jet expert. Many start with Fireball and Explosive Fireball, but they soon wain in popularity. Items that give Resist Fire are very popular among.
Walk on Air + Lighnting is very popular, Stench is gaining in popularity after a couple recent uses. Concussion and Spark Storm are also getting a following.
Continual Light, Continual Mage Light, Blur, and Invisibility is common in the Light college.
For Knowledge, Detect Magic is almost universal, See Secrets, Mage Sight, Seeker, and History are becoming more popular. One PC is exploring the fun of Wizard Eyes.
Apportation, Haste, Great Haste, Flight, and Hawk flighter are the main Movement spells used.
Shield, Armor, and Missile Shield are the main protection spells.
Two of the wizards are big into the Illusion College, and one is starting to have fun with Create Servant.
Mage-Stealth is common with a few.
One player was trying out Link and Delay, but is not too satisfied with the result.
I have yet to see Fast Fire used. I have been asked about it, but since the only way I could see to cost it on a large-area Fire was either to treat it as an Area spell in that case (expensive) or as casting it on a large subject (extremely expensive), it was too damn much to use. One of my players suggested the cost is for "any size fire" but clearly the description of Regular spells contradicts that. So it just never got used.
DeleteFlame jet sounds cool, but for the cost, the skills needed, the short range, and the easy of defending, it never really caught on. You need to be a series "fighter" to pull it off, it seems like, and you don't want to be within melee range of anyone long enough for it to matter. Have your guys found their results differ from that in some way?