The GURPS Spirits thing again
Jun. 19th, 2015 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday with no headache I found the GURPS Spirits book more helpful on the topic of gaining power from worshippers, at least marginally.
GURPS Spirits is 3e, and it is making rules up as it goes along. So instead of setting up a bunch of new advantages, or using modifiers on existing advantages like 4e Powers would, it just says that Spirits are so different from normal assumptions that being a Spirit is a 100 point advantage called Spirit Form. Then it describes the abilities all spirits have. And then it has a section on modifiers to that Spirit template, where the loss of common Spirit abilities is a -% modifier. All those with Spirit Form can gain fatigue from worshippers at about 1 fatigue per worshipper. And being unable to do this is a -10% modifier on a 100 point trait.
So you might think 'great! 10 point ability!'
But nooooo
because Special Limitation: Missing Power happens in -5%, -10% and -20% levels
4 different -5% limitations (or possibly 3 or 5 depending how you read it)
4 different -10% limitations (maybe 5)
3 different -20% limitations
for a total of at least -115% if you have none of the powers at all.
... math is hard?
:eyeroll:
And that's not even all the theoretical advantages you might be missing, it's just a bunch of miscellaneous powers at the end.
It says treat anything above -75% as -75%
so limitations aren't just the bundle minus one part anyway.
Spirits says that all spirits can tap places of occult power as well as worshippers. Don't want that, not the way I want the world to work. but the limitation says it is -10% if they can't "tap fatigue from places of power and worshippers". And. So is that -5% just to take the Places of Power thing off? But places are worth 5-30 fatigue total, whereas worshippers are 1 fatigue each, though Spirits mentions a limit of 20-100 fatigue at roughly one point each. Gods aren't generally known for their upper limits on worshippers. Even that would make worshippers three or four times more effective than a place of power, so maybe it should only be -3% to not tap places of power?
How a rule system can be so fiddly and so clunky at once... :eyeroll:
Well that would be why 4e.
I suspect if I could get the hang of the Powers book, rather than seeing page after page of confusing, I could probably figure this thing out.
It also doesn't say much if anything about what it feels like to the worshippers to have their power tapped, or indeed what constitutes worship. Those would be setting decisions? Important sort of a thing. Spirits presumably can't tap the unwilling without using a spell. Willing donors contribute like in ceremonial magic but spirits don't have the auto fail on 16+ and always crit 17-18, or to multiply casting times by 10, and though they still get a max 100 points from willing supporters there's no mention of them needing to be chanting or suchlike at that precise minute. They can be willing sort of in general, and drawn on as and when needed. And the spirit's concentration doesn't suffer for it, doing things that way is as easy as casting from their own resources.
But I still can't find a way to put worshippers on the character sheet. With or without fatigue lending abilities.
Actually I'm a bit fuzzy on how a regular priest should write up their flock. Or a pope. Popes probably have a lot of followers and so forth willing to help with pretty much anything. Ally Group?
I shall go read the rules some more.
The 100 a spirit can get from worshippers, 100 a mage can get from willing supporters, and 100 a mage can get from mass magic in stadium sized crowds, all max out the same even with quite different numbers of humans involved. Except I think the stadium mages can each contribute a different 100 from their very large crowd. A regular ceremonial mage only needs 100 spectators to get 100 fatigue, but that's their limit, they can't pyramid sell it.
... hmmm, isn't there a lend energy spell that in fact could?
... more rules to look up.
Spirits does say that worshippers contribute once a day. Spirits recover their own fatigue at the usual rates, but they can draw on this extra pool provided by worshippers, and that replenishes only once a day. So that's tidy, but again, has not attached point cost.
not that I end up playing these things, but I like writing things out tidy
GURPS Spirits is 3e, and it is making rules up as it goes along. So instead of setting up a bunch of new advantages, or using modifiers on existing advantages like 4e Powers would, it just says that Spirits are so different from normal assumptions that being a Spirit is a 100 point advantage called Spirit Form. Then it describes the abilities all spirits have. And then it has a section on modifiers to that Spirit template, where the loss of common Spirit abilities is a -% modifier. All those with Spirit Form can gain fatigue from worshippers at about 1 fatigue per worshipper. And being unable to do this is a -10% modifier on a 100 point trait.
So you might think 'great! 10 point ability!'
But nooooo
because Special Limitation: Missing Power happens in -5%, -10% and -20% levels
4 different -5% limitations (or possibly 3 or 5 depending how you read it)
4 different -10% limitations (maybe 5)
3 different -20% limitations
for a total of at least -115% if you have none of the powers at all.
... math is hard?
:eyeroll:
And that's not even all the theoretical advantages you might be missing, it's just a bunch of miscellaneous powers at the end.
It says treat anything above -75% as -75%
so limitations aren't just the bundle minus one part anyway.
Spirits says that all spirits can tap places of occult power as well as worshippers. Don't want that, not the way I want the world to work. but the limitation says it is -10% if they can't "tap fatigue from places of power and worshippers". And. So is that -5% just to take the Places of Power thing off? But places are worth 5-30 fatigue total, whereas worshippers are 1 fatigue each, though Spirits mentions a limit of 20-100 fatigue at roughly one point each. Gods aren't generally known for their upper limits on worshippers. Even that would make worshippers three or four times more effective than a place of power, so maybe it should only be -3% to not tap places of power?
How a rule system can be so fiddly and so clunky at once... :eyeroll:
Well that would be why 4e.
I suspect if I could get the hang of the Powers book, rather than seeing page after page of confusing, I could probably figure this thing out.
It also doesn't say much if anything about what it feels like to the worshippers to have their power tapped, or indeed what constitutes worship. Those would be setting decisions? Important sort of a thing. Spirits presumably can't tap the unwilling without using a spell. Willing donors contribute like in ceremonial magic but spirits don't have the auto fail on 16+ and always crit 17-18, or to multiply casting times by 10, and though they still get a max 100 points from willing supporters there's no mention of them needing to be chanting or suchlike at that precise minute. They can be willing sort of in general, and drawn on as and when needed. And the spirit's concentration doesn't suffer for it, doing things that way is as easy as casting from their own resources.
But I still can't find a way to put worshippers on the character sheet. With or without fatigue lending abilities.
Actually I'm a bit fuzzy on how a regular priest should write up their flock. Or a pope. Popes probably have a lot of followers and so forth willing to help with pretty much anything. Ally Group?
I shall go read the rules some more.
The 100 a spirit can get from worshippers, 100 a mage can get from willing supporters, and 100 a mage can get from mass magic in stadium sized crowds, all max out the same even with quite different numbers of humans involved. Except I think the stadium mages can each contribute a different 100 from their very large crowd. A regular ceremonial mage only needs 100 spectators to get 100 fatigue, but that's their limit, they can't pyramid sell it.
... hmmm, isn't there a lend energy spell that in fact could?
... more rules to look up.
Spirits does say that worshippers contribute once a day. Spirits recover their own fatigue at the usual rates, but they can draw on this extra pool provided by worshippers, and that replenishes only once a day. So that's tidy, but again, has not attached point cost.
not that I end up playing these things, but I like writing things out tidy
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 03:16 pm (UTC)Presumably, deities have a "store fatigue" power that allows worshipers to send them fatigue daily/weekly/during seasonal festivals, and that energy sticks around for the deity to use at other times. Non-deities may not normally have access to that ability.
Popes have religious rank, just like military rank or political rank. It gives them command over lower-ranking people, but only in connection to that sect's religious activities. (Non-military rank abilities cost too much. Hell, military rank costs too much for any campaign that's not focus on the military. There should be a -50% limitation on those costs if they're more flavor than central to the campaign, like the "hobby skill" reduced costs.)
I'm fuzzy on powers. I was fuzzy on 1st ed powers, with the skills-and-power-ranks system, and never looked at them in detail again. (Other than to notice psychics could mop the floor with other supers for a while.) (Even after they got rid of the eidetic memory loophole.)