Karrak Seaborne (Final)

We're winding down here (are we?). We've finally come to Karrak Seaborne. You know what I love about this guy? Nothing. He's dumb and smells funny and isn't even remotely pretty and he's a slow reader. Here's the rough draft. So now that I've discussed a lot of things about improving characters and advantages accrued during play and whatnot I can let it slip that Karrak's advancement will not be delayed by his Gifts, so there's a possibility Karrak will be massively powerful in comparison to the other characters. We'll see what it looks like after all of the gadget related disadvantages occur. So once again 250 character points, up to 75 points from disadvantages not stemming from racial template.

Racial template first:

Fell Human Descendants

-11 points

Secondary Characteristic Ranges: SM -1 - +1 (4’ - 7’)

Disadvantages: Short Lifespan 1 [-5], Unnatural Features 1 [-1], Unusual Biochemistry [-5]

Special: Fell Human Descendants may buy a single advantage possessed by another race template. This advantage cannot come from the Fallen, Fell Soulless, Rankethlek, or Soulless racial template.

So that's Fell Human descendants. They've got Unusual Biochemistry now, which means that there is a chance that chemicals and drugs and such designed for human (Uncout) biology won't work for them or will do weird things to them. The special option allows them to choose a single advantage from another racial template to purchase, and they may only do so at character creation. 

Karrak Seaborne

297 (250) points
19 year old Fell Human Descendant

6' 170 lbs. 

Points From Characteristics: 45

ST: 10 [0]

DX: 12 [40]

IQ: 10 [0]

HT: 12 [20]

HP: 13 [6]

Will: 10 [0]

Per: 9 [-5]

FP: 15 [9]

Basic Speed: 6 [0]

Dodge: 10

Basic Move: 6 [0]

Build: Average [0]

Size Modifier: 0

Appearance: Average [0]

Technology Level: 5 [0]

Cultural Familiarity Haven (Native)

Languages: Malstern (Native), Goebleen (Accented)

Wealth: Dead broke [-25]

Karrak is pretty mild in the stats department. The way I am converting stats is an 11 in Pathfinder equals an 11 in GURPS, 18 - 20+ equals a 13 in GURPS, and anything between 12 and 17 just gets a 12 in GURPS. This doesn't change things at all from the previous version of Karrak.

Points From Advantages: 114
Allies: Redshirts (25% points, Always Around x4, 11 - 20 x8) [32]
Ally: Jeremiah (75% points, Always Around x4) [12]
Ambidexterity [5]
Enhanced Defense (Dodge) [15]
Extra Attack [25]
Gunslinger [25]

This is completely unchanged from what Karrak has in his rough draft version. Ambidexterity lets him avoid the penalty for his off hand. The Enhanced Defense (Dodge) increases his dodge defense from 9 to 10. Extra Attack lets him have an extra attack maneuver each round. Mind you he can't make a double attack with both attack maneuvers, so he's limited to three attacks per round at this time. Gunslinger lets him get the full Accuracy bonus to his skill level when firing single shots with revolvers (half if he uses a longarm or uses rapid fire). 

Points From Perks: 2
Sure-Footed (Naval Training) [1]
Sure-Footed (Slippery) [1]

Those perks are new for Karrak. In GURPS, when you have bad footing due to terrain issues like heaps of corpses or blood and whatnot you have a -2 penalty to your attack skill. Those two Sure-Footed perks prevent that penalty from affecting Karrak when he is on a moving surface like the deck of a ship or a slippery surface like one coated by water (or blood). 

Points From Disadvantages: -45
Alcoholism [-15]
Code of Honor (Pirate's) [-5]
Short Attention Span (SC: 12) [-10]
Weirdness Magnet [-15]

So yeah, there's his old disadvantages plus a new one. Just like with Donovan, I've used the Short Attention Span disadvantage to represent Karrak's difficulties noticing things around him. Realistically, heh, his Alcoholism should be a quirk level disadvantage. It hasn't disrupted him in Pathfinder and he can create his own booze with his Gifts, so yeah. I also decided he should probably have Code of Honor (Pirate's) since he is the pirate of the group. Seems logical.

Points From Quirks: 0

Points From Racial Template: -11
Short Lifespan 1 [-5]
Unusual Biochemistry [-5]
Unnatural Features 1 [-1]

Points From Skills: 127
Acrobatics (DX+2/H) - 14 [12]
Artillery (IQ+1/A, TL 5 Cannon) - 10 [4]
Carousing (HT+2/E) - 14 [4]
Cartography (IQ+1/A, TL 5) - 10 [4]
Climbing (DX+1/A) - 13 [4]
Crewman (IQ+0/E, Airshipman/TL 5) - 10 [1]
Crewman (IQ+3/E, Seamanship/TL 5) - 13 [8]
Diplomacy (IQ-1/H) - 9 [2]
Escape (DX+0/H) - 12 [4]
Fast-Draw (DX+2/E, Pistol) - 14 [4]
Fast-Draw (DX+2/E, Sword) - 14 [4]
Fast-Draw (DX+2/E, TL 5 Ammo) - 14 [4]
Fast Talk (IQ+0/A) - 10 [2]
Gunner (DX+1/E, TL 5 Cannon) - 13 [2]
Guns (DX+3/E, TL 5 Pistol) - 16 [12]
Jumping (DX+0/E) - 12 [1]
Leadership (IQ+2/A) - 12 [8]
Melee Weapon (DX+3/A, Shortsword) - 15 [12]
Navigation (IQ+2/A, TL 5, Sea) - 12 [8]
Piloting (DX-1/A, TL 5 Lighter-Than-Air) - 11 [1]
Shiphandling (IQ-1/H, TL 5 Airship) - 9 [2]
Shiphandling (IQ+1/H, TL 5 Ship) - 11 [8]
Sleight of Hand (DX+0/H) - 12 [4]
Stealth (DX+1/A) - 13 [4]
Swimming (HT+2/E) - 14 [4]
Thrown Weapon (DX+2/Easy, Axe/Mace) - 14 [4]

Karrak has a decent selection of skills, unfortunately most of them are based on IQ, and his is only 10. That makes it slightly expensive. Oh well, it's only like half his character points tied up into skills. I've tried to make his airship handling skills lower than average as he's only theorized drunkenly about piloting one. It matches up fairly well with the capabilities of the group and his Pathfinder version. 

Points From Techniques: 18
Close-Quarters Battle (Default+4/A, Guns: Pistol) - 20 [4]
Close-Quarters Battle (Default+4/A, Melee Weapon: Shortsword) - 19 [4]
Dual-Weapon Attack (Default+4/H, Guns: Pistol) - 15 [5]
Dual-Weapon Attack (Default+4/H, Melee Weapon: Shortsword) - 15 [5]

We've got the Dual-Weapon attacks for when he starts making all out attack maneuvers in combat. The Close-Quarters Battle technique is a technique that lets him buy off the -2 or Bulk penalty of a weapon when he moves and attacks in combat. Karrak is used to boarding actions, so it seems like he'd know what's he's doing and be good at charging around shooting and slashing. Just so we're clear, the CQB doesn't improve his Gun skill or his Melee Weapon skill to 20 and 19 when he moves and attacks, it just means that whatever penalty is applied from his weapon's Bulk will be subtracted from those, rather than his base skill level. If the result ends up above his base skill level, it drops down to the base skill level. Then you apply whatever other fucking modifiers there are.

Points From Special Crap Accrued During Play: 7

Ally: Gob (100% points, around fairly often: 9 or less x1) [1]

Andorian's Boon: Buy Off Short Lifespan 1 [5]
Andorian's Boon: Doesn't Breathe (Can Be Stolen With a Quick Contest -30%, Gifts -10%) [12]
Andorian's Boon: Doesn't Eat or Drink (Can Be Stolen With a Quick Contest -30%, Gifts -10%) [6]
Andorian's Boon: Unaging (Can Be Stolen With a Quick Contest -30%, Gifts -10%) [5]
Andorian's Boon: Weakness: REDACTED (1d per 5 minutes, Rare) [-5]
Andorian's Boon Side Effect: Rapid Healing (Rapid; Can Be Stolen With a Quick Contest, -30%; Gifts, -10%) [3]
Andorian's Boon Side Effect: Temperature Tolerance 2 (Cold/Hot; Can Be Stolen With a Quick Contest, -30%; Gifts, -10%) [2]
Independent Income 5 [5]

Reputation: Defended the Warrens From the Warren Hunters (+3 reaction modifier, affects large class of people: Goebleen x1/2, recognized all the time x1) [8]

Duty: Assist Keroen Skathos (almost all the time, moderately hazardous) [-15]
Vow (Do No Harm to the Feronel or Sokarnel) [-10]

We see Andorian's boon covering Karrak's immortality with caveats, along with all the other special crap that has been previously discussed. He also has some Temperature Tolerance modifying how comfortable he is due to the influence of Gifts, so now Karrak is fine in temperatures between 23 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit. He also has Rapid Healing because of his Gifts investment. It's not the regeneration of Nel, but it does let him improve his recovery time from natural healing and make him more resistant to crippling injuries.

As far as gear, Karrak has a revolver comparable to Karl's, just without the modifications for fine quality, it has enchantments for +1 to attack skill and +1 to damage, along with the loyal sword enchantment that will call it to his hand. He also has a ring that will increase his dodge defense by +1 (just like everybody else that has a Ring of Deflection in Pathfinder). He has Bracers of Armor in Pathfinder, but that sort of thing would only protect his arms in GURPS, so the only equivalent would be an entire suit of leather armor with the fortify enchantment on it to increase each piece's DR by 1. I'm not doing that because Karrak doesn't wear armor. Everything else Karrak has on Bob is fairly mundane in nature.

Ok, so right here was a bunch of stuff about how I'll represent Gifts in GURPS. I thought I had it settled and squared away, but I think I need to dick around with it just a wee bit more before I start typing about it. There are two ways I think I can go: Gifts as advantages or Gifts as reflavored magic. Reflavoring magic works extremely well, but it feels very structured, which is not what Gifts should be. Basing them on advantages works extremely well and feels very free form, which is appropriate. It just requires a shit ton of tweaking and whatnot. Either way I go, I can accurately represent all the crap Karrak can do with his Gifts. I just need to settle on which form I want to use is all.

Karrak Seaborne (except for Gifts) everybody. Wee.

Karl Anglesmith (Final)

Once more into the breach and all that nonsense. We're here today to build Karl Anglesmith. Here's the draft version of Karl. As always, we'll establish that we're building him at 250 points and up to 75 points worth of disadvantages. We'll also start with his racial template. 

Elduman Descended Uncout

1 point

Secondary Characteristic Ranges: SM 0 (4’ 6” - 6’ 6”’)

Advantages: Extended Lifespan 1 [1]

Special: Elduman Descended Uncout may buy abilities designated as exotic and supernatural, as long as they apply psionic modifiers to them. The GM has final say in determining what may be bought as a psionic ability.

So there we go. Nice and easy. Karl just lives longer than a regular Uncout. Since he's part Elduman, we can see from the special option there that he can take some advantages as psionic abilities if he likes. 

Karl Anglesmith

274 (254) points

Owes 4 character points on Signature Gear (Father's Gun is Permanent)

23 year old Elduman Descended Uncout

6' 6" 190 lbs. 

Points From Characteristics: 99

ST: 10 [0]

DX: 11 [20]

IQ: 12 [40]

HT: 11 [10]

HP: 13 [6]

Will: 12 [0]

Per: 13 [0]

FP: 11 [0]

Basic Speed: 5.5 [0]

Dodge: 8

Basic Move: 5 [0]

Build: Average [0]

Size Modifier: 0

Appearance: Average [0]

Technology Level: 5 [20]

Cultural Familiarity The Beast Lands (native), Haven [2]

Languages: Uncout (native), Asosan (accented) [4], Blacktongue (accented) [4], Goebleen (accented) [4], Malstern (accented) [4], Mork (accented) [4], Serevish (accented) [4], Vyanvish (accented) [0], Wretchtongue (accented) [2]

Wealth: Dead broke [-25]

So that's pretty much how it looks. Karl is from The Beast Lands, so his TL starts at 1 and he had to buy that up to 5 for a chunk of change, and he knows like a billion languages too, so that's kind of expensive. He's dead broke because like the other three fuckheads, he refuses to grow up and get a job. He also pays 2 points for his cultural familiarity with Haven, rather than 1 point, because a Bronze Age hunter gatherer society is way different from an Industrial Revolution era pirate nation. 

Points From Advantages: 75

Allies: Redshirts (25% points, Always Around x4, 6 - 10 x4) [24]

Ally: Santos (75% points, Always Around x4) [12]

Magery 0 [5]

Magery 2 (Radically Unstable: Stabilization Roll -10%, Can't Use FP -10%, Extravagant Rituals 1 -10%) [14]

Reliable Sorcery [20]

So we have Redshirts and Santos as we did last time. Looking at it this time, you'll see that I didn't include the Signature Gear like I did last time. This is because Karl right started out with what he thought was his fathers gun, a .36 revolver. Then during play he recovered the real version of the gun and the pocket watch. He wouldn't have paid points to gain them during character creation or play time. I've also separated Magery 0 from higher levels of Magery because the cost is different and you can't modify it. I've also gone with the idea that Karl has enchanted his firearm so he can channel spells with it instead of saying he can't cast spells without it. I've also factored in the new mandatory modifiers for sorcerers and included the Uncout specific one. You'll also note that I've included Reliable Sorcery on there to indicate Karl has worked to stabilize his spells. So when Karl casts a spell, his base misfire in The Known World is 14, but in Orcunraytrel it just remains at 16, rather than increasing to 17. Currently we will need 4 points worth of physical disadvantages to cover Karl's sorcerous crap. 

Points From Perks: 1

Weapon Bond (His Father's Gun) [1]

Just like Eran has a bond with his master debating optimized Sereth long rifle, Karl has a bond with his father's gun. Good for him. 

Points From Disadvantages: -34

Chummy (Chummy) [-5]

Code of Honor (Pirate's) [-5]

Missing Digit x2 (Finger) [-4]

Social Stigma (Second Class Citizen) [-5]

Weirdness Magnet [-15]

So Karl still likes people and still reacts well to them and doesn't like being alone off on his own, he still has a pirate's code of honor. I've added in Missing Digit (Finger) once for each hand to act as 4 points of fleshwarped disadvantages for Karl because of his webbed fingers. This means that he operates at -1 DX with his hands. I've also added in the Social Stigma (Second Class Citizen) from the sorcerer template. This means that every NPC he meets that realizes he's a sorcerer (not hard with the webbed fingers) reacts at a -1. I should also mention that even though he has Second Class Citizen and not the Monster version of the Social Stigma disadvantage, people will still react to him as if he had Social Stigma (Monster) if it is appropriate (The New Empire). 

Points From Quirks: -3

Dreamer [-1]

Nosy [-1]

Responsive [-1]

I've got three quirks here that weren't here before. Dreamer means that sometimes when Karl wants to work on a project like building a bunch of special ammo in preparation for going and doing a thing or doing some specialized research, he ends up getting distracted thinking about how he'll go do that thing instead of actually doing it. He's also a little nosy, he likes to know things and ask people questions about things, and sometimes people don't like that. He also has Responsive, which just means that he's generally inclined to go help people if they ask him. 

Points From Racial Template: 1

Extended Lifespan 1 [1]

Yup. Karl's racial template is super boring. Everyone else has all these cool advantages and disadvantages and stuff. Karl is fucking white bread. 

Points From Skills: 50

Armoury (IQ+2/A, TL 5 Small Arms) - 15 [8]

Crewman (IQ+0/E, TL 5 Seamanship) - 13 [1]

Diplomacy (IQ-1/H) - 12 [2]

Fast-Draw (DX+0/E, Ammo) - 11 [1]

Fast-Draw (DX+0/E, Pistol) - 11 [1]

First Aid (IQ+0/E, TL 5) - 13 [1]

Guns (DX+1/E, TL 5 Pistols) - 12 [2]

Innate Attack (DX+3/E, Projectile) - 14 [8]

Lockpicking (IQ+0/A, TL 5) - 13 [2]

Machinist (IQ+1/A, TL 5) - 14 [4]

Naturalist (IQ-1/H) - 12 [2]

Occultism (IQ+1/A) - 13 [4]

Stealth (DX+0/A) - 11 [2]

Thaumatology (IQ+1/VH) [12]

Blah blah, skills and stuff. Pretty similar to what has come before. I've added in First Aid because Pathfinder Karl has some ranks in Heal and I've replaced Survival with Naturalist, which represents practical knowledge of the wilderness and I figure that he might have some of that since he grew up in The Beast Lands and stuff. Innate Attack is the attack skill for spells. In GURPS you have to target your...er...target when you throw lightning bolts at them, and to do that you use the Innate Attack skill. 

Points From Techniques: 2

Careful Caster: Healing College (Default+1/H) [2]

This is a technique from one of the recent blog posts. This means that when Karl incurs a penalty to his reliability check due to the amount of energy he pours into a spell, he automatically reduces that penalty by 1. Adding the two points for this technique into the tally of his sorcerous crap doesn't move us into needing another point of disadvantage for his warped body. 

Points From Spells: 62

Air: Purify Air (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Air: Create Air (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Air: Shape Air (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Air: No Smell (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Air: Air Vision (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Air: Walk on Air (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Air: Lightning (Will+Magery+0/H) - 16 [4]

Earth: Seek Earth (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Earth: Shape Earth (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Earth: Earth to Stone (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Enchantment: Enchant (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Enchantment: Golem (Will+Magery-2/VH) - 14 [1]

Enchantment: Staff (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Enchantment: Powerstone (Will+Magery-1) - 15 [2]

Fire: Ignite Fire (Will+Magery-2) - 14 [1]

Fire: Create Fire (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Fire: Shape Fire (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Fire: Fireball (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Fire: Explosive Fireball (Will+Magery+0/H) - 16 [4]

Healing: Lend Energy (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Healing: Lend Vitality (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Healing: Minor Healing (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Healing: Major Healing (Will+Magery+0/VH) - 16 [8]

Illusion and Creation: Simple Illusion (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Illusion and Creation: Illusion Disguise (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Light: Light (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Light: Continual Light (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Light: Night Vision (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Light: Dark Vision (Will+Magery-2 /H) -14 [1]

Making and Breaking: Inspired Creation (Will+Magery-1/VH) - 15 [4]

Mind Control: Keen Vision (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Protection and Warning: Armor (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Protection and Warning: Block (Will+Magery-1/H) - 15 [2]

Protection and Warning: Shield (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

Sound: Sound (Will+Magery-2/H) - 14 [1]

This version of Karl has a lot more spells. He can heal and protect and golem and throw fireballs and lightning. We're now up to 103 points of sorcerous stuff though, and we've only spent 4 points on disadvantages, so now we need six more points of disadvantages. 

Further Fleshwarped Disadvantages: -6

Cannot Float [-1]

Skinny [-5]

Boom. Karl is kept sorcerously skinny and he can't float. This puts us at like 244 character points. I don't particularly feel like weeding through spells again and adding more of them and whatnot, so I'm just going to leave it as is. 

Points From Special Crap Accrued During Play: 24

Ally: Gob (100% points, around fairly often: 9 or less x1) [1]

Andorian's Boon: +1 IQ [20]
Andorian's Boon: +1 Will [5]
Independent Income 5 [5]

Reputation: Defended the Warrens From the Warren Hunters (+3 reaction modifier, affects large class of people: Goebleen x1/2, recognized all the time x1) [8]

Duty: Assist Keroen Skathos (almost all the time, moderately hazardous) [-15]

Most of this is pretty familiar at this point. Karl's Reputation bonus with the Goebleen is one point higher than everyone else's because he's closer to Gob and the Goebleen than Donovan and Eran. His boon from Andorian is also there, just some IQ and Will bumps. So that's what Karl looks like. Let's move onto his gear.

Karl's Father's Gun (Fine Quality .36 Revolver)

TL: 5 

Damage: 2d+1 p

Accuracy: 3

Range: 120/1300

Weight: 2.5/.24

RoF: 1 

Shots: 6(3i) 

ST: 10* 

Bulk: -2 

Recoil: 3

Cost:  (Base $275

LC: 3
Enchantments: Accuracy +1 (250 energy), Puissance +1 (250 energy), Staff (30 Energy)

Karl's dad's gun, yeah. Assuming it's made out of steel and factoring in The Known World's misfire chance and the fact that this gun has been around for over two decades and was used by a crazy pirate fuck. Those are some super seriously long odds when you're checking to see if the unreliability level is going down every month. So here's what I'm willing to do, and this is purely 100% concession to players liking their shit. There is no in world mechanic for this. It is again 100% rules and is never to be mentioned in character or referenced. I will allow the purchase of the Signature Gear advantage to make an enchanted item permanent. It will be purchased based on the cost of the item. The price of enchanted items is listed as $33 per point of energy, meaning Karl's dad's gun would cost $17,490. So with the campaign's overall TL being 5 and starting wealth being 5,000 (assuming you're not dead broke), Signature Gear costs 1 point per $2,500, so to completely prevent Karl's dad's gun from being unstable it would cost 7 character points. Again, this is an option that exists outside of the background material. Mention it once in character, imply, allude, sarcastically comment, and it's gone. So we'll add Signature Gear 7 (Father's Gun is Permanent) [7] to Karl, even though he only has 3 character points left. We'll just say he owes 4 and has to pay them off before he buys anything else. This variant of Signature Gear does not protect gear the way the normal version does, it only protects against enchanted item unreliability. If you lose it or it gets broken, sorry about your luck. Unless of course you bought it with Signature Gear in the first place.

Karl also has a ring with a Deflect +2 enchantment on it, add +2 to all his defenses. He also has a ring enchanted with Monk's Banquet so as long as it can eat up 6 energy per day from the environment, he doesn't need to eat or drink. Both of these items are from Orcunraytrel so they're ok as far as exploding when used.

Karl Anglesmith everybody.

Edit After The Fact: Eric had a few thoughts about Karl that were fairly smart, considering he actually plays the character. So we're going to modify Karl slightly. The first thing he wanted to do was add Language Talent for 10 points, which brings his total up to 284/264. Language Talent reduces the cost of languages though, so we end up saving 12 character points on languages with a net reduction of 2 points (272/252). He also thought Code of Honor (Soldier's) [-10] fit Karl better than a pirate code, and I agree (267/247). He also felt it appropriate for Karl to have Overconfident, and I agree to a certain extent. Overconfident means that any time I feel Karl is being too cautious, I can make him roll a self-control check and force him to go ahead as if he is fully confident he can handle things. However, Karl is generally concerned about the well being of his allies and friends, so I'm going to make the self-control roll a 12 or less, meaning the disadvantage is only worth -5 (262/242). Karl also learned Nel (Accented) when Eric decoded my little letter substitution code in the RPs (264/242). Eric also decided he wanted Karl to have the Selfless disadvantage. This means that any time anyone asked for help or needed help or money or whatever, Karl would make a self-control roll to put his own needs (including survival) above those of others. I used the Responsive quirk to represent Karl's general nature as a good guy, so we remove that first (265/243). Now Karl is a nice guy, but he isn't stupid or suicidal, so we again only make the self-control roll a 12, meaning the disadvantage is only worth another -5 points (260/238). This means we now have 12 points of stuff to buy for Karl. I'm not going to muck about with it, but buying more spells seems reasonable to me, which would require another physical mutation quirk or whatever, so it would really be 13 more points of stuff. Regardless, Karl would end up being built with 250 points and be something like a 277 point character. 

Sorcery (Final...?), Part 3

So enchanting items works differently than other magic in Hekinoe. Even in Pathfinder, you don't roll for misfire when you create an enchanted item, you do when the item is used. There is an entire college of enchantment spells, spells that modify and add magic to items. Some spells from the other colleges also have an option to place them on items as well, but that's more of a one use thing. I think. I need to research it. The rules I'll discuss here apply to those items as well.

I've shown that magic loot is more reliable than spells a sorcerer casts on the fly. This makes sense as the chaotic energy of sorcery is bound into a box of sorts, making it much more limited in scope and ability to overpower the structure of a spell. It's contained and safely bound and cut off from the endless supply of sorcerous energy that exists in Hekinoe. Magic items also just tend to explode instead of doing weird mostly dangerous things. The base misfire chance of a magic item is a 16. What constitutes as using the magic of an enchanted item is generally defined (but ultimately the GM's call) as any time its magic would be used. An enchanted sword is used to attack, an enchanted suit of armor absorbs damage for you, and so on. For enchanted items with constant effects, like something that protects you from fire while you are swimming through a lake of lava or something that purifies air while you are in toxic air, checking to see if the item misfires will be done once per minute.

Fun fact, if an item is enchanted to deal damage, it deals that damage before it explodes and the damage from the explosion is dealt to you and the target (assuming it's a melee weapon). The more you know!

Several factors can affect this reliability. The base unreliability of an enchanted item is 16, so you roll against 16 with 3d to see if it explodes and even with modifiers and factors and such you can never get it above 16. The first factor is the sorcerous unreliability of the region. The Known World's sorcerous unreliability of 13 reduces the item's reliability by -2. In Orcunraytrel there is no misfire chance when an enchanted item is used. So in The Known World, when you attack with a sword enchanted to hit better you roll 3d against 14. On a 15 or higher, the sword explodes in your hand. Bear in mind that the region an enchanted item was made is what determines this, not where it currently is. So enchanted items made in Orcunraytrel and brought to The Known World function just fine.

There is a factor of time to consider in enchanted items. The longer a magic item persists, the more unreliable its enchantments become. Which is why you don't find a lot of loot and ancient artifacts lying around in caves. It sits in a hole for three hundred years and an ant walks over it and activates the magic and the thing explodes. The sorcerous unreliability of a region also determines how often you check to see if the magic has degraded, in The Known World you check once a month. So you have a freshly created enchanted item with a base misfire of 16. It was made in The Known World, this reduces it to 14. When using its magic you roll against 14 to see if it explodes and once a month your roll against 14 to see if its enchantments degrade. If you fail that check, you reduce the 14 down to 13 and make all future checks against that. 

How much magic you cram into an item affects its reliability as well.

Sorcerous Energy Use Unreliability Penalties (Enchantment College)

• 1 - 250: 0 (1 burn)
• 251 - 3348: -1 (1d burn)
• 3349 - 6441: -2 (1d burn 1d cr ex)
• 6442 - 9534: -3 (1d+2 burn 1d+2 cr ex)
• 9535 - 12627: -4 (1d+4 burn 1d+4 cr ex)
• 12628 - 15720: -5 (2d burn, 2d cr ex)
• 15721 - 18813: -6 (2d+2 burn 2d+2 cr ex)
• 18814 - 21906: -7 (2d+4 burn 2d+4 cr ex)
• 21907 - 24999: -8 (3d burn, 3d cr ex)
• 25000+: -9 (8d cor ex)

You can see that a lot more energy goes into enchanting an item than into casting regular spells. In an area of normal sorcerous energies in The Known World you can pull 25,000 energy to you in like 42 minutes or so (assuming you only spend one concentrate maneuver a round) and then get on with casting the enchantment. Mind you, there are sixty rounds per minute, so enchanting isn't something you should do in the midst of combat. 

So what does all that crap on the list mean? 

If you put 250 energy or less into an enchanted item, it doesn't modify the unreliability at all. So in The Known World you enchant an item with a base unreliability of 14. If you go over 250 energy with an enchantment, you reduce that by the listed amount. If you do manage to pour 25,000 energy into an item, you're looking at rolling against 5 when you use it. The numbers and crap in the parentheses are damage notations. So when an enchanted item with 250 energy in it explodes, it just does 1 point of burning damage. Burn damage is fire, cr is crushing which is blunt force, and ex is explosion. So when you are figuring out all the damage on the notations with an ex on them everything nearby takes damage as well equal to the damage dealt to whoever is holding or wearing the item divided by 3 times the number of yards they are from the explosion site. So let's say you are holding an item and it has 251 energy in it and it goes off. You take 1d burn and 1d crushing. We'll go with 3 and 3 so it's simple. Everything within a yard of you takes 1 burning and 1 crushing damage, and anyone beyond that takes nothing. At the 25,000 level of energy you see the damage as 8d cor ex, which is corrosion and explosion. So when an item of that level goes off, it deals 8 - 48 corrosion damage, which is like disintegration. There's so much sorcerous energy bound into the object that when it goes off it just disintegrates stuff. It also degrades the damage resistance of targets as well. With an average roll for 28 damage, everyone within a yard of you takes 9 corrosion, two yards takes 4, three yards takes 3, four yards takes 2, and five to nine yards takes 1 corrosion damage. Enchanted items are dangerous, mkay.

One more thing has an impact on the reliability of enchanted items, the materials they are made out of. This is based on the general toughness and durability of the object's material.

Enchanted Item Material Reliability Modifier

• -2: Paper
• -1: Bone, glass, gold, Meroteth obsidian, obsidian, silver, tin.
• 0: Leather, Necropolis obsidian, wood.
• +1: Beast hide, brass, brick, bronze, concrete, greatwood, iron, steel, stone.
• +2: Dragonhide, shipbronze, springsteel.
• +3: Wolf-iron.

This is not a comprehensive list. Generally speaking, 0 and +1 modifier materials are normal relatively durable materials commonly used to create things. As we move up and below those two, I try to place materials based on their relation to items in the 0 and +1 category. So beast hide (super tough hide from the great beasts of The Beast Lands) is tougher than regular leather, and dragon scales and hide is tougher than beast hide. Iron and steel are different, but close enough in nature that they get lumped into the +1 category. Bronze and iron are close enough in durability (aside from bronze having a lower melting point) that I'm comfortable with them on the same level). Moving up, shipbronze and springsteel are tougher than bronze and steel. At the +3 level we have wolf-iron and its legendary durability. Like I said, not comprehensive and not necessarily finalized. I also plan on adding in some modifiers for quality of the weapon, but I have to research those in GURPS and figure them out before I do that. GURPS already has a system of modifying weapons and armor based on quality and materials, but I need to make it a little more comprehensive to account for special materials and such. 

So what does all this mean? So lets say we have a sword with the puissance enchantment on it. This provides a +1 to damage with the sword and requires 250 energy. We're in The Known World so we are starting with an unreliability of 14, and 250 energy doesn't decrease that. We're making the sword out of steel, so we jump up to 15. Every time you deal damage with the sword, you roll 3d against 15 to see if it explodes and deals 1 burning damage to the hand you are holding it in and whoever you just hit in the face with it. Wear a leather glove and you'll be fine.

So that's the gist of enchanting objects and their unreliability. 

I have some words on sorcery in general that I would like to share. After all of that crazy nonsense and tables and modifiers and whatnot from these three posts, you might have realized that sorcery is overly complicated and adds a lot of notations and record keeping to the game. This is deliberate. I have never made any secret of my dislike of magic in my Hekinoe campaign, nor have I made it a secret that there are specific background reasons it is the way it is. I have been known to rage about Eric calling magic broken, because it isn't. At least not to Karl Anglesmith. It works just like it always has. You will never find a sorcerous artifact or secret spell that doesn't follow these rules or a secret history record that says sorcery worked just fine once.

The reason the rules are overly complicated and clunky is because I want them to be. If I come up with an idea related to magic and immediately come up with a more refined and intuitive way of resolving it, I always opt for the more complicated and clunky and less intuitive option. This is because I am trying to use rules to convey the frustration and difficulty of becoming a sorcerer and commanding sorcery to do your bidding. I also have a tendency to just reshape the way misfires are done, or at least what the rolls mean in terms of the effect of a misfire. I do this because I am trying to convey the random chaos of a completely unpredictable force that mortals literally cannot hope to control. 

It's ultimately all about flavor. Yeah, there are less frustrating ways to make sorcery function that reduce the amount of extra rolls you make, but fuck that. Sorcery is fucked up and complicated and a pain in the dick to deal with. That's the choice you make when you decide you want to become a sorcerer.

Final note, if anyone has any questions or thoughts or feels like I didn't talk about something I should have, please ask me. 

Sorcery (Final...?), Part 2

Misfires are my favorite part of sorcery in Hekinoe. Weeeeeeee. Checking for unreliability is going to be an additional 3d check as part of casting a spell in Hekinoe, along with some modifiers and whanot. The main concept of sorcery and its use is that the more powerful the spell, the more unreliable and prone to misfire it becomes. So the more energy you try to power a spell with, the harder the spell is to control. The one nice thing about Pathfinder was the organization of spells into levels. I could just say X% per level and call it good. GURPS deals with percentages and success differently, so I have to create a different system to do it. The previous GURPS system I came up with was ok, but a one energy 1d fireball and a 2000 energy great wish carried the same chance of failure in that system, which is fucked up. So how do we work this out but make sorcery still feasible? A 3 or 4 is always a success in GURPS and a 17 or 18 is always a failure. So we're dealing with a range of 5 - 16. According to GURPS math people, a skill level of 5 has a 4.6% chance of success and a skill level of 16 has a 98.1% chance of success. In Pathfinder, wish had a 90% chance of failure when unmodified by the various hand holding wipe your butt and tell you that you're special things I created so they didn't cry.

Eric is they. The one that would have cried, if that wasn't clear. Hehe, I kid. Mostly. Probably. 37% sure I'm kidding. Definitely 100% sure that I am 37% sure I'm kidding. That sounds right. 

Let's get this out of the way first. 

Regional Sorcerous Unreliability

• The Known World: 13
• Orcunraytrel: 16

Orcunraytrel is about as safe as you can get in terms of sorcery. So we'll have it sit at 16. A spell or supernatural thing might misfire, but more than likely it'll be fine. At the other end of the spectrum we have The Known World, where sorcery is fucked all to Hell and sits at 13 (if I remember my notes correctly there is one continent where it is more fucked up). I want this system based on the amount of sorcerous energy used, not the amount of extra energy used. I want that 2000 energy great wish to be almost impossible to turn into a spell in The Known World and I want that one energy fireball to be pretty easy to turn into a spell, thought calling it safe would be ridiculous.

There's a problem though. GURPS magic is divided into two sort of unofficial styles: enchantment college spells (which are used to enchant items and perform semi-permanent magic) which take a lot of energy and time (seriously, that 2000 energy great wish takes 20 hours to cast, I think you can halve it to 10 though), and all the other colleges of magic which typically has a much low energy cost (except for resurrection, which costs 300 energy) and takes only a few seconds to cast. I think the longest casting time I've seen was four hours. The way I've previously established magic items working is that there's a chance of misfire whenever they are used, but up until then they're fine just sitting around slowly getting more unreliable). I think what I want to do is establish separate charts of energy use, one for enchanting purposes and one for regular spell casting. 

Sorcerous Energy Use Unreliability Penalties (Non-Enchantment College)

• 1: 0
• 2 - 6: -1 
• 7 - 11: -2 
• 12 - 16: -3 
• 17 - 21: -4 
• 22 - 26: -5 
• 27 - 31: -6 
• 32 - 36: -7 
• 37 - 41: -8
• 42 - 47: -9
• 48 - 52+: -10

One thing to keep in mind is that as you increase your skill level with a spell, you reduce the energy cost. This starts at a skill level of 15 reducing it by 1 energy, 20 reducing it by 2, 25 by 3, and so on. If I use this chart, most daily adventuring spells are going to fall into the -1 to -4 penalty range, which leaves spellcasters functional but still presents some risks. These penalties may look yucky when you consider the misfire check works by rolling 3d and getting below 13, however, I'm going to add in the following technique: 

Careful Caster

Hard Technique

Default: regional misfire-1 to -10

Your knowledge of sorcererous theory and your experience with a variety of practices and traditions has granted you increased control over the unreliable energies of sorcery that you wield. This technique allows you to buy off the penalties to your misfire checks. Unlike most techniques, this is not purchased on a per skill (spell) basis, instead it is purchased on a per college basis. Characters may purchase this skill up to +4 on their own. Further increases must be taught or earned via down time practice and experimentation.

So let's explain what this means. Karl really likes the great healing spell, which restores all of a subject's hit points and costs 20 energy to cast. Twenty energy puts Karl at a -4 to his misfire check in The Known World, reducing it from 13 to 9. In preparation, because he is a conscientious and not self involved douchenozzle of a sorcerer, Karl purchases the Experienced Caster: Healing College technique at default+4 for 5 points. So basically any time Karl casts a healing college spell, he reduces any penalties to misfire checks by up to 4 (but never to better than the region's normal misfire chance). So Karl can use his 20 energy great healing and roll against a misfire chance of 13. Yay! Just to be on the safe side, Karl decides he wants to learn Careful Caster: Healing College at default +5. Looking at the technique cost table we see a hard technique at default+4 costs 5 character points and default+5 costs 6. So Karl needs to practice long enough to get one character point because that's the different between the two levels. Improving skills and such through training requires 200 hours per character point. Since Karl is basically teaching himself through practice, every two hours he practices counts as a single hour. So he needs 400 hours to get that character point. He can't practice during adventures and he can't practice for the seven days he needs to administrate to Freebooter's crossing. Since he's one of the leaders of the settlement and the fort, I'm going to say he really only has 8 hours of free time on a non-adventuring, non-administrating day. So it would take around two months to gain that character point (50 8 hour sessions of practice and whatnot). The hourly total could be modified due to hiring a teacher that had Careful Caster at default+5. 

Moving on, I was considering adding in an additional penalty to the misfire check for time spent casting. I guess I still am, but I'm not sure. Regardless of how many techniques you purchase and how little energy you spend on a spell, you'll still only have a maximum of an 83.3% chance of pulling a spell off without complication in The Known World. Don't get me wrong, 83% is good, but it isn't 100%, and it is basically a flat 20% chance of misfire for all spells (1.9% if we're talking about Orcunraytrel). A fireball carries a base chance of 15% to misfire in The Known World in Pathfinder, and you can reduce that down to 10 - 12% pretty much right off the bat at character creation. I'm debating on whether or not I want to add an advantage and disadvantage for moving around your misfire chance. I feel like it would need to be in the 20 - 50 points range. We'll see I guess.

An additional concern related to sorcerous misfires is the unreliability of supernatural abilities like Gob's ability to summon, manipulate, and move through shadows. These sorts of supernatural abilities will first of all have the magic limitation for -10% to their cost. They will then be used as normal, except you'll make a misfire check against the sorcerous unreliability of the region (16 in Orcunraytrel). There will also be an enhancement/limitation pair:

Reliable Supernatural Ability
+10%/level
You may add this enhancement to any advantage with the magic modifier. When rolling against the sorcerous unreliability of your region to see if the ability misfires, you add a +1 to the region's unreliability level when using this ability.

Unreliable Supernatural Ability
-10%/level
You may add this limitation to any advantage with the magic modifier. When rolling against the sorcerous unreliability of your region to see if the ability misfires, you reduce the region's unreliability level when using this ability by -1.

If I'm doing it for supernatural magic crap, I should probably do it for regular old magic.

Reliable Sorcery
25 points
Through practice, you have been able to eke out a little bit more reliability from your spells. When you cast a spell, increase the regional sorcerous unreliability you roll against by 1.

There should probably be a disadvantage as well.

Unreliable Sorcery
-25 points
You were never able to truly exert your will to control the chaos of sorcery. When you cast a spell, decrease the regional sorcerous unreliability you roll against by 1.

I suppose it goes without saying, but don't try and take this as a disadvantage if you aren't planning on casting spells a lot. That would be real real dumb.

Alright, so there is a bit more about sorcery. The third part will delve into enchantment college spells  and the item based forms of spells you find in the other colleges. 

Sorcery (Final...?), Part 1 (So That's a No)

I'm posting this here rather than Karl because we need to understand how sorcery will function before we understand the meat and potatoes of Karl's character. 

There are several posts floating around here where I outline my thoughts on how sorcery works in GURPS. Some of them actually contradict each other. Fuck. Some of the background material is just violently contradictory in nature. That's because the blog is my workshop. It's where I vomit out words instead of patiently and quietly thinking thoughts about things and then writing them down. Sorcery comes up a lot  on the blog because it is important. I designed this campaign around "Fuck magic!" while retaining it as a functioning aspect of the campaign setting and with background material explaining that. The background reasons for sorcery being the way it is are important, so it is important that sorcery rules fit with the background material and whatnot. 

So we're going to start with what sorcery is. Sorcery is an external force that sorcerers learn to manipulate through training and experience. It surrounds everyone in Hekinoe (presumably) and only becomes dangerous and deadly when sorcerers call upon it to force their will out upon the world. It is not living or sentient, nor is it good or evil. It is energy that exists that can be called upon by sorcerers to do stuff. It also has a tendency to break out of the control of sorcerers to unleash energy and potential on the surroundings of the sorcerer, and prolonged use of these energies warps the flesh of its practitioners. 

So what does it take to be a sorcerer? 

I Can Use Sorcery! Template

• Background story indicating how, where, etc you learned sorcery. 
• 1 point of physical disadvantages or quirks stemming from the fleshwarping nature of sorcery per 10 points of sorcerous traits purchased by the player (see below). If the character has a HT of 15 or higher, this ratio becomes 1 point of physical disadvantages per 15 points of sorcerous traits. These disadvantages do not count for your cap on disadvantages. This aspect of sorcery does not apply to Fallen or Soulless (or a Rankethlek if they should somehow gain the ability to wield sorcery).
• Magery 1 with the Radically Unstable Magery: Stabilization Roll Allowed limitation for -10% limitation and the Can't Use FP limitation for -10% (this means Magery above level 0 has a base cost of 8 character points per level, rather than 10). These modifications mean that when you roll against your skill level and fail, your spell misfires due to your inept casting. You get a chance to reroll the check again and that keeps it from misfiring even though you botched the casting. The second limitation just means you can't use your own FP or the FP of others as energy for a spell. Normally, it's a -60% limitation, but sorcerous energy is readily available from the environment in Hekinoe, so it's not exactly a crippling limitation.
• The Social Stigma (Second Class Citizen) or (Monster) disadvantage. The version taken depends on where the campaign takes place. Social Stigma (Monster) is used if the campaign will occur primarily in The Plains of Dust or The New Empire, while Social Stigma (Second Class Citizen) is used if the campaign will occur primarily in other nations. These disadvantages provide the normal amount of points and count towards your disadvantage limit. It should be noted that the penalties associated with these disadvantages do not apply to interactions with Fallen, most Fell Humans, most Sereth, most Soulless, and Vyanth. If the campaign will take place primarily in The Fallen Empire of Man, The Fell Peaks, Serethnem, or Vyanthnem, these social disadvantages aren't relevant or mandatory. 

Character points spent on the Magery advantage are considered to be character points spent on sorcerous traits. There will possibly be a list of other advantages considered sorcerous traits. I need to read through all the advantages a few times and determine what can be taken and how and whether or not it is magic. Additionally, all character points spent on spells themselves are considered sorcerous traits, as are techniques to modify the casting of spells. 

Typically, spellcasters mutter incantations, wield weird components like bat shit, and make gestures while casting spells. They also have spellbooks. Sorcerers in Hekinoe do that all as well, but it isn't always mandatory. Making gestures and speaking incantations helps to assist the sorcerer's concentration and willpower in binding the sorcerous energy to do as he wishes. If you cannot speak or gesture while casting a spell, you can't cast it. Period. However, as you advance in skill level with a spell, you don't need to gesture or speak so much (in addition to reducing the casting time and energy cost of the spell). When you reach a base skill level of 20 with a spell you can just stare off into space while casting it. You also halve the time needed to cast the spell and reduce the net energy cost by 2. These are GURPS rules, not my specific rules, and some spells are unaffected by advanced skill level reducing the time and cost of casting them. 

Moving to spellbooks, spells don't fly out of a sorcerer's head when he casts a spell. That's stupid. If you can't recall how a spell is cast how would you identify other spells as they are being cast or in the world around you? Spellbooks are a good reference material though. Spells are complicated, so a sorcerer that has not reviewed his spellbook in the past 24 hours (it takes 5 minutes per spell) gains a -1 to his skill level with his unreviewed spells. Every full 24 hours a sorcerer goes without reviewing his spell book confers another -1 to his skill level. If you know a spell at a base skill level of 15, these values change to a week per -1, and at a base skill level of 16, it changes to a month. 

Learning spells isn't particularly complicated. You don't really need to go out and buy scrolls and such and write them down. Actual sorcery in Hekinoe is almost like being a multi-classed Wizard/Sorcerer in Pathfinder. Once you've learned the basics of manipulating sorcerous energy (Magery 1) it basically becomes about focused intent and the willpower to control the energies while managing to dissipate excess energy without blowing everything up. Having someone else's process written down or having them explain it to you (via teaching and whatnot) would certainly assist in your own process, but you'll figure it out eventually. Basically learning new spells amount to this: meet all the prerequisites and have sufficient character points (through rewards for scenarios or down time learning) to buy the spell. How neat is that? You don't even need special inks that cost 500 marks to write them down in your grimoire/spellbook. I like grimoire. It sounds cool. 

Just a note, I've said it before, but spells are based on your Magery and Will, not Magery and IQ. This is because you are attempting to force chaotic energy into a certain form to achieve a certain effect. You are binding primal chaotic energies with your willpower. This does cheapen sorcery slightly, with Will being 5 character points per increase and IQ being 20. While I'm talking about Magery, I will also mention that your level of Magery improves how quickly you learn a spell when you are researching or practicing during your down time to gain character points to spend on purchasing a spell or increasing your skill level with one.

Normally in GURPS you pay energy to power spells, which can be taken from multiple sources (FP, HP, the Energy Reserve advantage, powerstones, manastones, etc). It doesn't work like that in Hekinoe though. Sorcery is a completely external source that only some races can access (it can be stored in powerstones though). There's a previous post around here where I talked about that, and I'm basically copy and pasting from it, but here goes. When a sorcerer begins casting a spell, he automatically draws sorcerous energy to him and the amount of energy he draws is dependent on the sorcerous energy level of the area. He can draw more than the initial burst of energy, but it takes additional concentrate maneuvers to do so, which will delay casting the spell. So you initiate the casting with your first round and concentrate maneuver, get X amount of energy, decide you need more energy so you take a concentrate maneuver on your next round to draw more, then continue casting the spell, but with an extra round added to the casting time. This makes Compartmentalized Mind super useful for sorcerers in Hekinoe, as you can perform multiple concentrate maneuvers per round so one can be used for casting and a second in the same round could be used for drawing more energy to you. This sorcerous energy persists around you until such a time as you dismiss it, so it sort of lingers around you (as long as you don't move around a bunch) and is accessible for maintaining spells that require energy to be maintained. If you are not actively casting a spell though, the energy nearby dissipates with a sort of half-life. So you cast a spell and end up with 20 energy lingering around you, then don't cast anything during a round, and it drops to 10, a second round of not casting or maintaining anything drops it to 5, then 2, then 0. 

Ambient Sorcerous Energy Levels

• Extremely High: 20 energy on 1st round of casting, 20 per each additional concentrate maneuver. At this level of ambient sorcery, all failures to successfully cast a spell are misfires and actual msfires are truly spectacular. 
• High: 15 energy on 1st round of casting, 15 per each additional concentrate maneuver.
• Normal: 10 energy on 1st round of casting, 10 per each additional concentrate maneuver.
• Low: 5 energy on 1st round of casting, 5 per each additional concentrate maneuver. All spells, including enchanted items, perform at -5 skill level. When rolling to determine misfire, improve the regional misfire level by 1.
• Extremely Low: 1 energy on 1st round of casting, 1 per each additional concentrate maneuver. All spells, including enchanted items, perform at -10 skill level. When rolling to determine misfire, improve the regional misfire level by 2.
• Absent: None.

One thing I didn't mention in the previous post was what areas are what in The Known World. This knowledge would be well known at this point. Sorcerers have been around for 10003 plus years, and pretty much every nook and cranny in The Known World has been explored to a reasonable degree. 

• Extremely High: AB4 (animal, healing, and plant colleges only) AB32 (body control, fire, and illusion and creation colleges only), N4 (enchantment, making and breaking, and meta-spell colleges only), N32 (making and breaking, necromancy, and protection and warning colleges only).
• High: AA3, AA4, AA5, AA31, AA32, AA33, AB3, AB4, AB5, AB31, AB32, AB33, AC3, AC4, AC5, AC31, AC32, AC33, AL18 (making and breaking, necromancy, and protection warning colleges only) D18 (body control, fire, and illusion and creation colleges only), M3, M4, M5, M31, M32, M33, N3, N4, N5, N9, N31, N32, N33, O3, O4, O5, O31, O32, O33, T-3, T-4, T-5, T39, T40, T41, U-3, U-4, U-5, U39, U40, U41, V-3, V-4, V-5, V39, V40, V41
• Normal: Everywhere not listed above or below.  
• Low: A band of low sorcerous energy is known to begin approximately 333 miles north of Haven. 
• Extremely Low: A band of extremely low sorcerous energy is known to beging approximately 666 miles north of Haven.
• Absent: Approximately 999 miles north of Haven the ocean is absent of sorcerous energy. Reports indicate this area lasts for approximately 16 miles before entering into an area of extremely low sorcerous energy. 

Sorcerers in Hekinoe don't automatically know what level of sorcerous energy exists in a particular area (unless it is well documented like The Known World), but they may sense when they move to an area of stronger or weaker sorcerous energies (Perception + Magery -3, +3 bonus if they are actively searching for the boundary). This information immediately shows you that sorcerous energies are concentrated in certain areas of The Known World. How neat is that?

Given that drawing sorcerous energy to you is a thing, there are probably people who are better at it than others. Thus the following advantage:

Efficient Drawer (Supernatural)

10 points/level

This advantage allows sorcerers to increase the amount of ambient sorcerous energy they call to themselves when they begin casting a spell. Each level of the advantage increases the amount of energy you automatically draw to have at your disposal when you begin casting a spell by 20%. So in an area of normal sorcerous energies, you would draw 12 energy for casting your spell, then 10 with any additional concentrate maneuvers. A low level area would draw 6 and 5 and an extremely high area would draw 24 and 20, etc. Characters may posses no more than two levels of this advantage unless they receive training from someone with higher levels of it.

So that's kind of the first heap of words to be vomited at you about sorcery before we get to the final version of Karl. But before I end this already lengthy post, I want to talk about some other appropriate limitations on the Magery advantage. The ones listed above are mandatory. Regardless of age, race, competence and so on, everybody has those two limitations listed above. But The Known World is a large place full of lots of people doing lots of things and lots of traditions and styles develop.

Karl is an Uncout who was trained by his uncle, the clan shaman. The Uncout tribes of The Beast Lands have developed a system of complex rituals that allow them to better control the energies of sorcery. So Uncout spellcasters might have the Extravagant Rituals 1 limitation for -10% (bringing the cost of Magery 1 down to 7 character points). Each level of this limitation moves the gestures and vocalizations for a spell down one step. So instead of being able to stare off into space silently at a base skill level of 20 while casting a spell, you'd need to get it up to 25. This limitation has no effect on the cost reduction and time reduction of higher skill levels of spells.

Karl is also a gunslinger sorcerer. He channels his spells through his firearm. This could just be that he's enchanted his firearm via the magic staff spell so it amplifies and assists his casting. It could also be that he can't use sorcery without it and he applies gadget limitations to levels of Magery above 0 (you can't limit Magery 0, and it costs 5 points, not 10 like higher levels). So Karl could have Magery 1 (Breakable: DR 4 -15%, Can Be Stolen: Quick Contest -30%) plus the Extravagant Rituals 1 -10%, Can't Use FP -10%, and Radically Unstable: Stabilization Allowed -10% for a whopping -75% to his the cost of Magery 1. This means Magery 2 would cost him 5 character points (Magery 1 would cost 3, as you always round up when applying modifiers to advantages), less than Magery 0 cost him. With that style of dependence on his guns he wouldn't be able to add his Magery level to his Will to determine his skill level and he couldn't cast any spells that required a Magery level higher than 0 if the gun(s) weren't in his hands.

The Vyanth are very bold practitioners of sorcery. They understand it is wild and uncontrollable, so a lot of their teaching techniques involve pitting your belligerence and adrenaline and ego against the chaotic power of sorcery, so they tend to purchase Radically Unstable: No Stabilization Roll -30%, unlike the milder -10% version.

The Fallen are considered the most powerful sorcerers in The Known World, they understand the risks of sorcery and respect its many dangers and they have taken a more sober route to practicing it than the Vyanth, so many of their teaching focus on meditation and mental preparations. So some of them buy Magery after modifying it with the Preparation Required: 1 minute, Weakened Without Preparation limitation for -10%. The way this would work is that before casting spells, a Fallen would center himself with meditation or chanting or whatever (a solid minute of concentrate maneuvers), then go ahead and cast spells for a few minutes (an encounter) and then need to center his mind and steel his will again afterwards. He could still cast spells without centering himself, but it would halve their duration, range, and effect.

There are some sorcerers who just never paid attention during schooling, or they stumbled into sorcery and spells with no real formal education and it would be appropriate to give them the Unreliable limitation on their Magery. This means any time you wanted to cast a spell, you would roll against your activation number (4 - 14, with a cost modifier of -80% to -10%) and if you fail, you don't add your Magery to your Will to determine your skill level with a spell and you can't cast a spell if it requires a Magery level above 0.

There are lots of applicable limitations to Magery (one college only, a small selection of colleges, day, night, song, etc) and most of them can reasonably be applied to Magery in The Known World.

Alright, so that's a shit ton of sorcery basics. This will be the first of at least three posts with the second hopefully appearing Wednesday and the third on Friday. We'll see though. 

Alternate Rules: Speeding Up Combat

One of the common complaints about Pathfinder and DnD and such is how long combat takes (more so from 4e, but what do you expect when you give a 3rd level boss monster 300 hit points and give every player 20+ hit points at 1st level?). A combat may take less than 30 seconds in the game world (like fighting the Hound) and take up an hour or more in the real world (like fighting the Hound, and everything else). Lots of people have suggestions for this. Productive ones tend to be along the lines of pre-rolling dice or no electronic devices at the table (which is impractical in this age of Future Tech Cross Country Gaming). My 4th Edition group has a rule that says if you are immediately prepared when your turn comes up, you automatically get a +2 to your attack roll. It's pretty handy. There is a flaw with pre-rolling dice and being prepared and such. Sometimes you end up paying so much attention to what you are going to do that you miss what everyone else is doing and the situation you thought you were rolling against has drastically changed. I've had that happen several times in my 4e games. I've got this combo chain of powers set up and I'm working on rolling everything to be prepared and only half listening and by the time I look back up I realize it's time to go back to the drawing board and now it is my turn and I'm unprepared. Slow combats are mostly my fault in my Pathfinder campaign. The guys are generally very good about knowing what they are going to do and adapting to what's going on, and then we get to my turn and I have to figure out what eight guys are doing because I was too busy paying attention to everyone else and their bullshit. 

I had a thought recently about speeding up combat. I have mixed feeling about it, but I'll throw it out there anyway. 

Rolling damage can be a somewhat time consuming task. With Vital Strike Eran can do 6d6 damage plus modifiers each round, or Rapid Strike against separate enemies for four 2d6 plus modifier attacks. Any of which can be a critical for 12d6 with Vital Strike and four possibly 8d6 hits with Rapid Shot. Karl can leverage a 10d6 lightning bolt or fireball or multiple 4d6 scorching rays, and who the fuck knows what Donovan can do with his energy whatsitwhosits, sonic does like 5d4-5 and cold does like 5d6+5 and a ice cream headache, whatever. Then I have to roll damage and we're at the point where I can reasonably pit them against enemies with multiple attacks and wide area spells. With dice rollers and primarily being online, it isn't quite as time consuming than if we gamed in person. You don't generally have to track down the pesky d8 from wherever the cat chased it off to. But, you know, if we're thinking rolling dice takes 1-5 second per attack and we have 4 players, their 4 cohorts and my 6 - 10 dudes, that's a chunk of change. Even at like two seconds each and seven enemies we're looking at least half a minute spent rolling things per round of combat. Multiply that by 3 rounds of combat for an average combat and then by roughly 4 combats per scenario and we're at 6 minutes per scenario. Which doesn't seem like a lot until you factor in stuff like opportunity attacks, saving throws, additional effects, Karrak being able to fire off four shots a round, Eran being able to do the same, and other stupid crap. 

Rolling dice, regardless of method, takes some time. 

I'm not suggesting you not roll dice anymore, but what if you didn't roll for damage? What if you just assumed the average with damage? It cuts down time and speeds things up. Even if you aren't prepared for your turn to come around you have that going for you. Maybe it's not worth it, probably not, but combat takes time and getting it to proceed relatively quickly and smoothly isn't going to be caused by one single miracle house rule, it's going to be done by a combination of factors. 

Now how would this work? Simple, all dice are even in Pathfinder and DnD, so you just halve it. A d4 does 2 damage, d6 does 3, and so on. Same way I do hit points after first level. So your greatsword does 6 damage, as does your greataxe. What about d3s? Fuck d3s. They do 1 damage. If I were to use this system, I would also say that when your base attack bonus hits +5, you do 1/2 die + 1 per die of damage, so short swords would do 4 damage plus modifiers and greatswords would do 8 and greataxes would do 7. I would say the same for spells and caster level. This plus one would increase at every 5th base attack bonus increment (Fighters would have +5 at 20th level) or caster level increment (Wizards would get +5 while Paladins would get +3 at 20th level). So a 5th level Wizard casting fireball would do 20 damage with it (5d6 damage = 15, +1 per die = 20). Since critical hits in Pathfinder just multiply the amount of damage dice and their modifiers, it slides into this nicely. So Eran's critical hits for 8d6 + 4d6 from Vital Strike becomes 60 damage plus damage modifiers (12d6 = 36 +2 per die for BAB of +10 = 60). 

There are some flaws with this system. First and foremost is that it isn't exciting. There isn't a chance of rolling max damage and cackling madly as you deal large amounts of damage to whatever faceless fuckhead the GM has placed in front of you. There also isn't that chance of dealing minimum damage, but that's never exactly a huge problem with the heavy modifiers from feats like Deadly Aim/Power Attack or enhancement bonuses to weapons and such. It also grants the players the ability to actively or subconsciously start mathing things out and figuring out just how much an enemy has in terms of bonuses. It also lets you decide whether you need a heal from Karl or Santos or a lightning bolt and a bomb, because now the damage results are static and you as a player already know how much you have for hit points and whether you can survive another hit from an enemy. 

Like I said, it only shaves a few seconds off of combats, and it does have some flaws, but it is a thought I had. I mean realistically you could go with the average result for everything in Pathfinder and just end up comparing sets of numbers, no rolling needed whatsoever. But the rolls of the dice are supposed to represent luck and chance and randomness. Which is weird because most editions add in some mechanic or subsystem related to luck and chance on top of dice rolls (usually by allowing you rerolls). Weren't there lucky feats or something in one of the Complete Let's Re-Skin Everything!!1! books? I think so.