Magical study
Jun. 15th, 2018 08:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethGURPS Worminghall offers a set of rules for studying magic that would make it considerably less frustrating than my initial impressions from the Basic rules. Worminghall is a magic medieval university, so students start at about 14 and can keep studying through their doctorate. It's an interesting setting.
Class at Worminghall happens between Prime and Sext, with magical Practicum starting at Tierce.
... magic practice is about 9 to 12, if I translate that correctly, though lecture start times seem to be related to sunrise, which would move everso. "A student who attends to his studies gains an average of 100 hours of training a month"
Familiarity requires 8 hours but it's variable depending on skill. So I'm puzzled where they get two weeks from, but it looks like it would be 50 hours training? Which is a tiny bit more than familiarity usually requires? As is 25, for the super studious. But I double checked and students are also studying, at a minimum, Latin and Symbol Drawing, so study hours are /3. Managing familiarity in 25/3 is about right.
Study of Thaumatology is for Higher students? But studying magic at all involves the theory as well as the practice. They're not just practicing a couple of seconds of movement and some sounds, they're learning the ideas behind it all and a whole bunch of associations and so forth. So that's slightly broader than it sounds.
And if you can start doing magic after 8 hours of such varied fare - real, working, magic, albeit potentially unimpressive stuff with low level spells - then that is far less frustrating than having to put 200 hours in to even start seeing results.
I don't know what easy tasks and favourable conditions would be for spellcasting, but then I remember that standard rolls are probably for casting in combat, and just about anything seems more favourable than that...
This kind of gradual easing in to minimal competence makes magic school seem more plausible. If you can't make the magic spark until two months of study, and it takes another two months to do a second spell, that's... a lot of dedication.
Worminghall is an adventure setting though, so it's also set up that way so you can earn points from using spells in adventure contexts. Like Harry Potter getting really good at Defense.
Their use of Symbol Drawing isn't quite how standard magic works, but it does add interesting flavour.
The Back to School rules for rolling hours studied a month do interesting things to IQ, Will, and how fast you can learn things. A critical success can get you 400 study hours. Stronger willed people, whether that is by higher IQ or by buying up will alone, can hit the books that hard more often. But a critical failure can wipe you out for ages. So you can learn fast, but also stall yourself. Is more interesting than ordinary accounting.
400 hours in 30 days is more than 13 hours a day though, so is a teensy bit difficult to justify if it's representing actual hours, but I think it's more of a roll for sudden insight breakthroughs.
I just continue to find it interesting to imagine what kind of characters could sit still for long enough to learn magic.
If they only need to sit still for 8 hours per spell and can then, if they're that kind of idiot, go out and try and use the things, that changes things immensely.
Once a student has put in enough study for familiarity (p. B169) – two weeks of practice in class, or one week of intense effort, with a Will roll – he can cast the spell at IQ-6 (IQ-7 for Very Hard spells). Initially his teacher will provide easy tasks and favorable conditions, worth +4 to +6 to skill, plus any bonuses from Symbol Drawing. Under typical conditions, his skill is much lower, and his chance of critical failure much higher. After 200 hours, he is fully trained (1 point in the spell).
Class at Worminghall happens between Prime and Sext, with magical Practicum starting at Tierce.
... magic practice is about 9 to 12, if I translate that correctly, though lecture start times seem to be related to sunrise, which would move everso. "A student who attends to his studies gains an average of 100 hours of training a month"
Familiarity requires 8 hours but it's variable depending on skill. So I'm puzzled where they get two weeks from, but it looks like it would be 50 hours training? Which is a tiny bit more than familiarity usually requires? As is 25, for the super studious. But I double checked and students are also studying, at a minimum, Latin and Symbol Drawing, so study hours are /3. Managing familiarity in 25/3 is about right.
Study of Thaumatology is for Higher students? But studying magic at all involves the theory as well as the practice. They're not just practicing a couple of seconds of movement and some sounds, they're learning the ideas behind it all and a whole bunch of associations and so forth. So that's slightly broader than it sounds.
And if you can start doing magic after 8 hours of such varied fare - real, working, magic, albeit potentially unimpressive stuff with low level spells - then that is far less frustrating than having to put 200 hours in to even start seeing results.
I don't know what easy tasks and favourable conditions would be for spellcasting, but then I remember that standard rolls are probably for casting in combat, and just about anything seems more favourable than that...
This kind of gradual easing in to minimal competence makes magic school seem more plausible. If you can't make the magic spark until two months of study, and it takes another two months to do a second spell, that's... a lot of dedication.
Worminghall is an adventure setting though, so it's also set up that way so you can earn points from using spells in adventure contexts. Like Harry Potter getting really good at Defense.
Their use of Symbol Drawing isn't quite how standard magic works, but it does add interesting flavour.
The Back to School rules for rolling hours studied a month do interesting things to IQ, Will, and how fast you can learn things. A critical success can get you 400 study hours. Stronger willed people, whether that is by higher IQ or by buying up will alone, can hit the books that hard more often. But a critical failure can wipe you out for ages. So you can learn fast, but also stall yourself. Is more interesting than ordinary accounting.
400 hours in 30 days is more than 13 hours a day though, so is a teensy bit difficult to justify if it's representing actual hours, but I think it's more of a roll for sudden insight breakthroughs.
I just continue to find it interesting to imagine what kind of characters could sit still for long enough to learn magic.
If they only need to sit still for 8 hours per spell and can then, if they're that kind of idiot, go out and try and use the things, that changes things immensely.