Now available in softcover (at a lower price, and updated with the latest errata fixes), this GURPS Fourth Edition book combines the spells from the Third Edition GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire, plus dozens of all-new spells, for the ultimate tome of magic!
GURPS Magic 4th Ed Download
Download: https://byltly.com/2vKoJN
Completely revised and updated for GURPS Fourth Edition, this full-color PDF combines the spells from the Third Edition GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire, plus dozens of all-new spells, for the ultimate tome of magic!
Very recently, Steve Jackson Games began offering their GURPS Fourth Edition books as PDF downloads via e23, SJ Games' virtual warehouse. I will be reviewing the electronic version of GURPS Magic here. I have borrowed the hardcopy (physical book) from a friend as well, to compare any differences between the two.
For those unfamiliar with the "standard" GURPS magic system, in a nutshell, Magery is an advantage that allows you to buy spells. Each spell is bought as a skill and has a casting cost in Fatigue Points, which are recovered normally by resting. The terms "mage", "wizard", "spellcaster", etc., are all interchangeable; they do not denote different types of mages.
The GURPS Magic PDF (hereafter referred to as just Magic) is $10 cheaper than the hardcopy. It was very easy to download and featured no watermarks or DRM code, which was a huge relief; I have given up on many sites that use DRM simply because it makes even personal, legal use of the file incredibly difficult. Magic is a little over 8 MB and has been fully compatible with various PDF readers under both Windows and Linux. Searches work fine, the text is clear, and the images are stable. Printing went smoothly and without loss of detail or proportion.
Chapter One, "Principles of Magic", expands on the magic rules presented in Chapter Five of the Basic Set. Details are presented for what magic and mana are, how one learns spells, how one casts spells, and so on. The details, such as what a "subject" is (and can be), how casting time and energy cost works, and what rituals and magical ingredients are involves, are all covered in detail, answering most general questions that anyone using the system will have. Ceremonial magic is presented, allowing circles of mages and willing spectators to share energy for powerful spells. A sizeable amount of text is given to spell interaction: maintaining spells, cancelling your own spells, recasting spells, etc.
Guidance is also given for inventing new spells, with recommendations on what a fair casting cost, casting time, etc., are for GMs who feel the need to add more spells to their campaign. There is also ample advice for player-created spells, with rules for PC mages to use the existing New Inventions rules (from the Basic Set) to come up with new magicks. Some quick advice, on useful traits to keep in mind when building a wizard character, rounds out the chapter.
Chapter Two is the "Magic Items" section. It is not a catalog of available items; it contains the rules for mages to craft enchanted items. (The "catalog" is the book itself - each spell has a description of what sort of magic items it can be enchanted into. If you want a wand of fireballs, you can look under the Fireball spell for the details on making one.) Magic offers two types of enchanting, unchanged from Third Edition rules: "Quick and Dirty" or "Slow and Sure". The former is only useful for low-powered items but is fast and easy, while the latter takes weeks, months, or possibly years, but can craft items of amazing potency and is slightly more reliable. Specific sections cover confusing situations (such as casting permanent enchantments on an area, instead of an item). There are also details on how magic items are used, along with advice for the GM on controlling magical items and PC enchantment to prevent it from getting out of hand.
For those familiar with Third Edition, yes, Powerstones are still a key part of the magic system. For the rest of you, Powerstones are simply gems enchanted to hold magical energy, so you can use the points of energy within instead of tapping into your own Fatigue Points. A good-sized Powerstone is incredibly expensive (the text explains why, sensibly - the spell must be cast incrementally and has the potential to destroy the gem each time) but will give a mage a huge edge.
The last part of the chapter goes into a surprising amount of detail on the economy of magical items. It looks at the amount that enchanters need to make each month to live comfortably, how much enchantement they can do in that time, and extrapolates that into a reasonable cost for magic items (essentially, $33 per energy point for a newly commissioned items). The information on "magic shops" and the hoops involved in buying and selling enchanted items is solid, though it does assume that such things are very common - that may apply to some fantasy worlds, but certainly not all, and there isn't a lot of advice for how enchantement should work and how much to charge for magic items in, say, a Lord of the Rings inspired setting, in which such things are incredibly rare.
Since the first printing of the hardcopy, there have been several errata brought to light, and I'm pleased to say that they've all been corrected in Magic. Most of the errata stemmed from the fact that the bulk of this book was primarily a "cut and paste" job from the Third Edition GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire, and thus a few (now depricated) Third Edition concepts had leaked in. As the errata are somewhat extensive, I prefer this corrected, up-to-date PDF version. SJ Games also guarantees that when new errata are found and corrected in the PDF, customers can come back and download the updated version for free, every time, which makes the electronic version fairly attractive in my eyes as well. (Obviously this doesn't apply if you download anonymously and don't give them any way to verify who you are.)
If you own the Third Edition books from which Magic is derived, you're probably wondering about changes. Many "munchkin loopholes" have been closed. Draw Power now requires an actual mechanical device to convert the energy (you can't just stand by a waterfall and use the kinetic energy therein to destroy the nearest town), you explicitly can't mind control people into participating in your ceremonial magic, and so on. A few things are still twink bait: Death Vision lets you stun anyone with no resistance roll, Concussion at high levels will dominate any battlefield, etc. And a few spells that used to be more balanced are now a little bit scary; e.g., now that Enlarge increases your SM, it's logarithmic instead of linear, making it possible for casters with a decent Powerstone to grow to hundreds of feet high, with a corresponding ST gain. That fits mythic games just fine, but seems out of line with the power levels of most of the spells in Magic.
Chapter Twenty-Seven, "Variations", is full of tweaks and changes to the magic system to fit different concepts. Note that all of the variations revolve around the standard GURPS magic system presented here - the spirit ritual paths from Third Edition and such are slated for a possible upcoming book (the unofficial title GURPS Thaumatology has been mentioned a few times).
Clerical Magic and Ritual Magic expand slightly on the information in the Basic Set. For the former, a discussion of Sanctity level and a list of "Holy" spells is useful, while for the latter, there's a box of alternate core skills that could replace Ritual Magic or Thaumatology (Computer Hacking, for example, for a magical Matrix game). Some suggestions for changing prerequisites and renaming spells then offer extra "flavor" for some games.
The section on improvisational magic is a bit uneven. It first notes that one can use Wild Talent for an improvisational mage, which sort of goes without saying. Rules for treating magic as a Wildcard! skill are more interesting, if not particularly balanced (of the two options given, one is seriously overpowered and one is seriously underpowered), but the suggestion for "spell defaults" (e.g., if you know a lot of fire spells but don't know Extinguish Fire, you could try a "default roll" for it) is well thought out and seems rather balanced, though I haven't playtested it yet.
Syntactic magic makes up the meat of the chapter, departing from the spells of the former chapters in favor of Noun and Verb skills. The idea is that you learn each noun (e.g., Air, Animal, Body, Death) and verb (e.g., Move, Protect, Create, Control) as seperate skills, and then roll against those skills to work magic. For example, if the bridge is out and you want to walk on air across it, that could be done as Move Body to levitate or Strengthen Air to make an air bridge. (This concept will be familiar to Third Edition gamers, but note the difference - these are now actual IQ/VH skills, not pseudo-skills derived from formulas - a change for the better, in my opinion.) Magic presents fairly detailed rules to determine casting time, cost, effects, etc., of the spells, though it's noted that many applications will require GM rulings, of course.
The syntactic rules are then worked into a "symbol magic" ruleset, in which each verb/noun has its own rune, the inscription of which holds the magical power of the word. (In other words, the caster has to draw or trace the rune to cast the spell.) This has the advantage of making it far easier to enchant items, and the disadvantage of making spells take longer to cast unless you have prepared "rune stones" ready to use. The runes of the Futhark and Ogham languages are both used as samples, with guidelines for adapting others.
Interestingly, one of the neatest variations, Black Magic, isn't in this chapter, hiding instead in the Necromantic Spells chapter. I suppose it makes sense, putting it near the Summon Demon spell, but I didn't find that intuitive. This variant of casting spells involves forming a contract with a demon and allowing it to partially "power" your spells, giving a merely human caster access to a great reservoir of power. Of course, the more you use it, the harder it gets to cast spells without the demon's help, and eventually you're beholden to them for everything magical. I like the fact that a careful caster can avoid the bad stuff for a very long time - it gives them an incentive to take advantage of it, which is always a bad idea in the long run. 2ff7e9595c