Revised GURPS Magic: Great Haste (take 2)

Great Haste is a source of a lot of talk in my games. It's very, very effective for its cost. You can use it to multiply the effects of your own spellcasting, too. Wizards usually cast it on themselves first, then use the sped-up casting to speed up fighter-types.

It's such an effective spell that it's basically impossible to make a wizard without it. You can try, but it's expected that you have it - players used to getting Great Haste in support of their own characters won't have high regard for a wizard who shows up unable to do it. It's also very easy to get (especially if you want Missile Shield and/or Phase and already have a bunch of Movement College spells.)

So it's a game-changer that is easy to get and is therefore part and parcel of almost all fights in my DF game. A few of my players and I have tried to figure out a less-powerful but still thematically appropriate approach to the spell. Here is Part 2 - here is Part 1 and a related post.

Here is another attempt to revise Great Haste so it's less of a game-breaker.


Great Haste

Speeds up the subject - a lot. This has the following effects:

- Your Move is doubled - or if you choose a Maneuver that allows a Step, you gain one additional Step over your normal amount.
- You gain Extra Attack 1 - or if you choose Concentrate, you gain an extra Concentrate's worth of actions.
- You gain +2 to all of your Active Defenses.

Spell is otherwise as written.


Notes:

- Basic Move effects and Step are not cumulative. It's either/or - if you have Move 7 and you take a Move and Attack, you have a 14. If you choose Step and Attack, you have 2 steps. You could Committed Attack (Step) and get 3 Steps, or choose All-Out Attack and run 7 yards up and attack . . . but you most specifically do not get 14+ move for a basic 2 steps, thus 3 with Great Haste, 4 with Committed Attack . . .

- The Haste spell adds to the final numbers - if you have Move 4 and Haste 3, your move becomes 4 x 2, +3 = 11, not (4+3) x 2 = 14.

- The wording should allow casters to cast 2 spells or cast one twice as fast, but not cast-and-throw Missile spells or cast-and-attack. I'm open to changing the wording to allow for cast-and-throw but you have to consider that it's shorting physical combatants (who lose out on Altered Time Rate) for wizards (who, effectively, don't.)

- The wording doesn't allow for ready-and-attack, either, which doesn't please me. I'd like to allow for Step & Ready & normal attacks, for example, or pulling and drinking a potion in one turn. That's hard to do without essentially sneaking in a full extra Maneuver in through the back door.

- the overall effect is to be quite an effective buff for fighter-types. It's +1 attack every turn, +2 to defenses, doubled steps. You can use this for very fast maneuvering around the battlefield or to pile on attacks on a foe. But it's significantly nerfed.

- Why is cost the same? I think 3s/5 energy is actually a good price for the above and very cheap for 10 seconds of Altered Time Rate. You could always reduce (or even eliminate) the cost in FP to the subject. That's probably fair; this isn't all that much more of a buff than other spells which carry no cost to the subject. I'd suggest dropping it to 2 FP.