Sorcery

Easier, instinctive, small selection, technically powers/advantages. See Thaumatology Sorcery for Spell List.

Sorcerous Empowerment (Sorcery) - Raw Power
Built off Advantages first you need Sorcerous Empowerment (also known as Sorcery) costing 20 points for level 1, and 10 points per level afterwards. (Limitations for specific colleges or scope can, as usual, allow for cheaper cost).

Sorcery Talent (Talent) - Refined Skill
Costing 10 points per level (unless Sorcery has been bought with any kind of limited Colleges or Scope). This fills the roll that Magery takes in other magic systems.
This adds to rolls for casting spells, or to use spells well, adds to Thaumatology rolls to know stuff, and can be used when your spells must resist countermagic.
4 levels is usually the max for most campaigns.

Sorcerous Spells
Each spell is an advantage.

• The full cost of a spell cannot exceed the cost of the caster's Sorcerous Empowerment (meaning it costs them to improve their power)
• The caster only pays 1/5th of the full cost, rounded up.
• The caster can only use one spell at a time. No casting a spell while maintaining another one. However Simultaneous Spells (Sorcery p. 8) can get around that.

Casting Spells
A few differences from the standard magic system:

• Unless otherwise stated, all spells cost 1 FP and require no specific ritual (just quiet concentration).
• Other than Obvious spells, there is no easy way to tell that a spell has been cast. (Unless using Alternative Rituals, Sorcery p. 7).
• Many spells do not require a roll at all to cast (the biggest change from other magic systems), though may require a secondary roll for effectiveness.
• The target's Size Modifier cannot exceed the caster's Size Modifier + Talent.
• You must be able to perceive the target through some sense.
• Every spell requires a minimum of 1 second to cast, there are no Blocking spells (counters and such) in sorcery.

Known Spells

• Casting a learned spell requires 2 Concentrate Maneuvers, or just 1 if the caster is repeating the same spell that was cast last.
• If the spell requires an attack roll the second Concentrate Maneuver (or first if repeated) is changed to one that allows attacks (Attack, Attack and Move, All-Out Attack, etc.).
• If the spell requires a casting roll, this must now succeed in order for the spell to work.
• A crit success waives FP spent
• A crit fail shuts down sorcery for 1d seconds, as well as costing 1d FP.

Extra Effort

• The caster may attempt to cast the spell at a higher level (this only works for leveled spells).
• This adds no additional time, but the caster must roll against Will + Talent, at -4 per added level. Will-based Thaumatology may be substituted for Will if better.
• Success raises the effective level of the spell for this casting, if the spell requires a casting roll it is still required.
• Due to the extra effort the spell costs +1 FP (usually a total of 2 FP then). A crit success waives the +1 FP and gives +(Talent) on all rolls to cast or use this spell.
• Failure just means the extra effort failed, immediately losing 1 FP from the strain, but may continue to cast the spell at normal strength.
• A crit fail is too straining and shuts down sorcery for 1d seconds, as well as costing 1d FP.
  Improvised Magic
  Often the last resort, improvised is significantly weaker than their normal grimoire. A beginning sorcerer can't improvise more than a perk-level spell! It does however provide much-needed flexibility.
• A sorcerer may improvise any spell with a full cost no greater than their Sorcerous Empowerment level.

Hardcore Improvisation

• Attempting to cast an improvised spell based off of the cost of their Sorcerous Empowerment instead of it's level.
• Requiring no extra time, after the first Concentrate Maneuver, pay 3 FP and roll against Will + Talent (Will-based Thaumatology can be substituted for Will if better).
• Modifiers:
  • -4 if the full cost of the spell is equal to or below 25% of the cost of Sorcerous Empowerment
  • -6 if equal to or below 50%
  • -8 if equal to or below 75%
  • -10 if equal to or below 100%
  • +1 for every additional FP you spend above and beyond the 3 FP required. This does not allow for net bonus.
• If this succeeds you improvise for a single casting
• On a crit success you recover all FP spent on this improvisation and get +1 on rolls to cast or use this spell.
• Repeat casting does not give any benefits with Hardcore Improvisation
• On a fail the FP and 1 second of Concentration are wasted.
• On crit fail your sorcery shuts down for 1d minutes (or use Crippled Abilities from GURPS Powers, p. 156).

Maintaining Spells
Any spell with the duration "indefinite" can be maintained, spending 1 FP per minute, without requiring concentration (or other specific actions) unless specified. However the sorcerer cannot cast more spells while maintaining one.
"fixed" or "permanent" duration spells do not require maintenance, but the sorcerer cannot end them early unless using Cancel Spells (often one of the first few spells that most sorcerers learn).

If you choose magic you will never be able to return to the life you once lived. Your world may be more . . . exciting . . . but it will also be more dangerous. Less reliable. And once you begin to walk the path of magic, you can never step off of it.
– Neil Gaiman, The Books of Magic: The Road to Nowhere

Inventing New Spells
This chapter gives a taste of what spells a sorcerer can cast, but gamers will obviously need to come up with more! The only hard-and-fast rule is that every spell needs one of two limitations. If the advantage on which the spell is based does not cost FP to use (which describes most advantages!), add the following limitation:

Sorcery: This power modifier adds three drawbacks and one benefit.

• First, the spell now costs 1 FP to cast – unless the GM is using Alternative Rituals (p. 7), in which case it follows those rules.
• Second, the spell requires mana (p. 23).
• And third, because it is a spell, it is vulnerable to any meta-magic, regardless of the system in question; e.g., a sorcery spell can be removed via Dispel Magic from GURPS Magic, a Lesser Destroy Magic effect from GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic, or Neutralize (Magic) from GURPS Powers. As a benefit, Sorcery Talent (p. 5) benefits any roll to cast or use the spell. -15%.

If the trait does cost FP – such as Healing, Jumper, or Create (from Powers) – add the limitation below. In addition, if it costs more than 1 FP, add enough levels of Reduced Fatigue Cost (p. B108) to bring it down to the standard 1 FP. (For Healing, this also requires the Capped limitation to convert the variable FP cost to a fixed one.)

Magical: This limitation is identical to the Sorcery modifier, above, but without adding the 1 FP surcharge to cast. -10%.

In addition, if the base ability is one of the rare ones that works at range without taking standard range penalties, either fix this with appropriate modifiers or make a point of calling this out in the spell description.

Multiple-Advantage Spells
A few spells are built as multiple (usually linked) advantages; see Turn Zombie (pp. 22-23) for a good example. Assuming that all cost no FP to use, apply the Sorcery limitation to the most expensive advantage only; all of the others should take Magical. The goal is for the sorcerer to pay 1 FP per spell, not per advantage.

Perks as Spells
Some minor spells are built as perks. These perks cannot take either of the limitations above, because perks don’t take modifiers! However, by making the perk into a sorcery spell, it is automatically bound by the Sorcery limitation. To balance this, the GM or author should give the perk a little more power or versatility than it would normally have.

Disadvantages, Skills, and Techniques
As a rule, spells should comprise only advantages and perks. Disadvantages should be bundled into a spell only via Temporary Disadvantage (p. B115). Giving full value for a disadvantage would be unfair, since it comes into play only while the spell is active. Skills are not intended to be available as alternative abilities; instead, a spell to make someone better at a task might add a Talent, a limited attribute, or (if points in a skill are absolutely necessary here) a limited Modular Ability. The same goes for mundane techniques – though in certain situations, a “power technique” (that is, a technique that improves your ability to use a magical advantage

A Natural Affinity for Power
Sorcery seems to be a good ability for Deities - can use any spell they need if they try hard enough.

Improving Spells
The GM should be open to sorcerers tweaking and upgrading these spells, particularly as they add further levels of Sorcerous Empowerment. The only requirements are that the sorcerer has the earned character points to pay for the upgrade, the spell’s new full cost doesn’t exceed that of his Sorcerous Empowerment, and the changes won’t violate campaign limits on area (p. 9), damage (p. 10), etc. Any changes should be done during downtime; assume that the spell research takes a minimum of one day per character point being added to the full cost – or twice that “in the field,” away from books and testing facilities.

Example: Cindy knows Predict Weather (Improved) from p. 26. She wants to cut down on that 10-minute casting time by adding Reduced Time 5 (+100%) – raising its Full Cost to 50 but letting it be cast in just 19 or 20 seconds. The GM approves the upgrade. She had already paid 25/5 = 5 points for the improved spell, and the new cost is 50/5 = 10 points, so she’ll have to pay the 5-point difference using earned character points. Her player erases “Predict Weather (Improved) [5]” from her character sheet and writes “Predict Weather (Improved and Fast) [10]” in its place. ''

Deprecating Spells
Starting sorcerers can rarely improvise (pp. 6-8) more than a perk, which makes even minor spells like Ignite Fire (Improved) (p. 16) worth learning. However, once the caster’s Sorcerous Empowerment is strong enough to improvise such spells, there’s no real advantage to “knowing” them – an improvised Ignite Fire is just as potent as a “studied” Ignite Fire. The GM is free to say that this is the cost of gradual learning . . . but it’s more fair to allow the sorcerer to re-invest the points spent on such a spell into a higher level of Sorcerous Empowerment. This reflects specific magical knowledge being broadened into more general ability.

Example: Cindy has Sorcerous Empowerment 6 [70] and knows many spells, including Detect Magic (p. 19), which has a Full Cost of 7 and thus cost her 7/5 = 2 points to learn. She’s been saving up character points to raise her Sorcerous Empowerment. Once she raises it to 7, she can improvise Detect Magic, and thus no longer needs to “know” it. The GM allows her to re-invest the 2 points from that spell, along with 8 earned character points.

Alternative Rituals
As a rule, sorcery spells cost 1 FP to cast. This keeps just enough resource management in sorcery to prevent its spells from turning into superpowers. As an optional rule, the GM may instead give sorcerers more flexibility by requiring them to meet any two of the following three requirements when casting a spell:

1. Pay 1 FP upon casting the spell.
2. Perform obvious physical gestures, requiring some torso and leg movement and exaggerated arm movement, for the duration of the casting. The sorcerer can meet this requirement if he is sitting (unbound) or if his legs are chained, but not if his legs are clamped in place, he is tied to a chair, or his arms are restrained in any way.
3. Speak an obvious ritual chant, at normal conversation levels, for the duration of the casting. The sorcerer cannot be gagged and this makes Stealth (to be silent) impossible.

These requirements may be shifted on the fly. A sorcerer could cast the same Ignite Fire spell using gestures and chanting (to save FP) when helping a friend, then with FP and gestures (to be quiet) when later sneaking into a castle, and then again with FP and chanting (no movement) after the guards catch him and tie him up. One major benefit is that sorcerers can ignore FP costs when they don’t mind being flashy, but as a downside, they lose the ability to cast spells if fully restrained and gagged.

The gestures and/or chanting make it clear to anyone with any awareness of how magic works that the sorcerer is casting a spell. Someone with actual magical training (even if only theoretical, such as Occultism or Thaumatology) may roll vs. an applicable skill (or IQ) as a free action to estimate what the spell will do. This roll is at ‑4 if the sorcerer is only gesturing or only chanting, or at no penalty if he’s doing both.

If this rule is in play when a high-fatigue spell (p. 17) is cast, replace 1 FP of that cost with the requirements above.
Example: The GM has invented a powerful spell that costs 5 FP, but alternative rituals are in play. Thus, the spell’s actual cost becomes “4 FP plus two ritual requirements.” A sorcerer could pay 5 FP and gesture, pay 5 FP and chant, or pay 4 FP and gesture and chant.