From: [email-masked] (Curtis Shenton)
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 01:39:28 GMT

I've been working on some ideas for psychic magic. What follows is a
real rough first draft. You'll probably need a copy of Voodoo and
Psionics to understand this.

Psychic Magic
Copyright 1996 by Curtis Shenton

        The following rules for magic based on psychic powers are an 
attempt to create a magic system for GURPS that both better emulates 
certain fictional magic systems better than the default magic system and 
also encourages players to develop unique spells for their characters. 
Several authors have created worlds with magic systems that both feel 
more like psychic powers and depend more on inspiration and 
improvisation than a traditional list of spells. The art of witchcraft in 
Stephen Brust's Jhereg series, Kurtz's Deryni magic, and many of the 
novels by Barbara Hambley all have magic which isn't represented by 
the GURPS system very well. I've tried to create a system that combines 
elements from GURPS Voodoo as well as the psionics rules to better 
simulate these fantasy worlds.
        
        A psychic magician has both a Power score which is measured 
in levels and Disciplines which are the skills used in creating magical 
effects. If a psychic magician also has the psionic power that 
corresponds with a Discipline they wish to use they can add their levels 
in the psionic power to their Power score for purposes of determining 
the effects of that spell.

        Power costs 10 points per level. The GM can impose limits on 
how many levels can be purchased and/or combine Power with other 
advantages and disadvantages to create a system like the levels of 
Initiation in GURPS Voodoo. For example a GM can say that in her world 
all psychic magicians become sensitive to cosmic forces when they gain 
levels of Power. In her world the first level of Power costs 25 points and 
includes the 15 point Awareness advantage, second level of power 
costs 25 points as well and includes bring up the Awareness advantage 
to the 35 point version and a Dread of psibegone a substance that 
nullifies psychic power and magic but is Rare (which makes Dread a 5 
point disadvantage). After that it’s 9 points a level, each level extending 
the Dread of psibegone by 2 hexes.
        
        Disciplines are Mental/Very Hard skills.  The primary skill is 
Psychic Magic which the actual Disciplines default from at -6. There is a 
Disciplines for each psionic power in GURPS and sub Disciplines for 
each of the associated skills of the Psionic power. Sub Disciplines 
normally default to the main Discipline at -2 but if the psionic skill has 
prerequisite skills or powers different from the power the skill is based 
on there is an additional -2 per perquisite. For example the skill 
Lightning has the prerequisite Surge at 12+, so the sub Discipline 
Lightning  would default from the Electrokinesis Discipline at -4 and 
would require the sub Discipline Surge to be known at 12+.

        Most spells will have the same duration as the equivalent 
psionic effect. Usually that means the magician must make a skill roll 
against their effective skill in the spell once per minute to maintain the 
effect. But spells can be built that will last without any need for the 
magician to maintain the effect.

        Building Spells:

A magician builds a spell using the following system of modifiers. Once 
the spell has been used successfully several times they can spend 
points to increase their chance to cast the spell as if it were a martial arts 
maneuver. A spell if treated as Hard if it only involves a single sub 
Discipline and Very Hard if it involves multiple sub Disciplines.
                Hard            Very Hard
Default         0 points                0 points
Default+1       ½ point         1 point
Default+2       1 point         2 points
Default+3       2 points                4 points
Default+4       4 points                6 points
Further increases cost 2 points a level.

Psychic Magic Modifiers Table

Time
Reducing time to 10 minutes             -3 to ritual roll
Reducing time to 1 second                       -6 to ritual roll
Taking normal time(normally 1 hour)     0
Extending Ritual                                +2 per doubling of base 
time

Consecrated Ground
No consecrated Ground                   -4
Makeshift consecration                  -1
Consecrated Ground                      0
Place of Power                          +1 to +4

Material Components
Material Focus                          +1
Focus is very symbolically appropriate  +1
Focus is very symbolically inappropriate        -1
No material focus                               0
Relevant symbols                        +1 to +4

Power                                   
Spell is uses less than casters full Power      +1 per two levels less
Spell uses more than casters full Power -1 per level
(Note a spell can only boost Power to 100% above the casters power)

>Subject.
>Subject knows spell is being cast and  +1
>believes caster can succeed            
>Subject has no idea spell is being cast        -1
>nor believes in magic

Scope
Spell is very versatile                 0
Spell is somewhat limited                       +1
Spell has a narrow scope                        +2

Examples:

        Jonathan the Psychic Wizard wants to make sure his 
henchmen stay loyal. So he devises a spell that will splatter the psyche 
of anyone who betrays him all over the astral plane.  To do this he 
decides to use the sub Discipline of Telerecieve to key the spell to any 
thoughts of disloyalty in the target’s mind and Mental Blow targeted at 
Will to render the target helpless if they set the spell off. The ritual he 
devises takes 4 hours(+4 for two doublings), has the subject 
present(+4) and aware of the spell(+1), uses symbols for loyalty and 
death(+1), lasts for one month(-4), and because Jonathan only has a 
power of 10 and wants to have a good chance of dropping the target’s 
will to 0 with this spell it has a Power +10 above the casters(-10). The 
scope of the telepathic effect is very narrow and so there is a +2 both 
skills since he can’t use the Telereceive function to read a person’s 
mind with this spell or to attack anything but the target’s will with 
Mental Blow. This gives the spell a total penalty of -2 and Jonathan will 
have to make a roll against both his Telereceive and Mental Blow sub 
Discipline skills. If both rolls are made then the spell will drain the 
target’s will by 2d6.   

        Once he's found a traitor Jonathan wants to be able to deal 
with them quickly. So he decides he needs an attack spell. Basing the 
spell on the Telekinesis sub Discipline he develops a spell to target a 
person’s heart. It will take only a second to cast(-6), won’t require 
consecrated ground(-4), will have the target present(+4), has a narrow 
scope(+2) and will involve shouting out a magical word for death 
followed by the victim’s name(+1 for naming target). This results in a 
total penalty of -4. Jonathan will probably put a couple of points into 
this spell once he’s practiced it to give himself a decent chance of 
getting it off in combat. If it succeeds, which requires both a roll against 
the spell and the normal IQ or Physician+3 roll to target Telekinesis on 
someone’s organs, the target will take 1d6 damage a turn as long as 
Jonathan concentrates.