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The cover of GURPS Magic

GURPS Magic is a 240 page rulebook for GURPS 4th Edition with content by Steve Jackson, S. John Ross and Daniel U. Thibault. Most of the spells are slightly reworked versions of Classic Edition spells from GURPS Classic Magic, GURPS Grimoire, and a few other places. Additional information for magic appears in GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Thaumatology.

Principles of Magic[]

This chapter covers the core rules involved in the standard magic system. Included are the base rules spell classes, such as Area, Blocking, Information, Melee, Missile, Regular, and Resisted spells.

Magic Items[]

Covers the key concepts of Magical items under the standard system, including Quick and Dirty and Slow and Sure enchantment methods.

Spells[]

Spell under the standard system are divided into Colleges, some spells count as belonging to more than one college. Some spells, and even some Colleges, can't be learned without knowing enough spells from one or more other colleges. In some cases, a single spell entry may represent multiple variations that need to be learned separately.

  • Air Spells: Contains 44 spell entries, 22 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Animal Spells: Contains 22 spell entries.
  • Body Control Spells: Contain 62 spell entries, 1 of which is detailed in another college.
  • Communication and Empathy Spells: Contains 35 spell entries, 3 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Earth Spells: Contains: 32 spells entries, 6 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Enchantment Spells: Contains 24 spell entries in the base Enchantment college plus more the follow sub-colleges:
    • Weapon Enchantments: Contains 16 spell entries in this sub-college.
    • Armor Enchantments: Contains 5 spell entries in this sub-college.
    • Limiting Enchantments: Contains 5 spell entries in this sub-college, 1 of which is detailed in another college.
    • Wizardly Tools: Contains 10 spell entries in this sub-college, 2 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Fire Spells: Contains 33 spell entries, 4 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Food Spells: Contains 24 spell entries, 6 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Gate Spells: Contains 39 spell entries, 5 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Healing Spells: Contains 40 spell entries, 3 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Illusion and Creation Spells: Contains 21 spell entries, 1 of which is detailed in another college.
  • Knowledge Spells: Contains 51 spell entries in the base Knowledge college , 11 of which are detailed in other colleges. Plus more from the following sub-colleges:
    • Divination: Contains 1 spell entry with 15 variations.
  • Light and Darkness Spells: Contains 33 spell entries, 1 of which is detailed in another college
  • Making and Breaking Spells: Contains 35 spell entries, 2 of which are detailed in other colleges
  • Meta-Spells: Contains 38 spell entries in the base Meta-Spells college , 1 of which is detailed in another college. Plus more the follow sub-college:
    • Linking Spells: Contains 3 spell entries.
  • Mind Control Spells: Contains 58 spell entries, 6 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Movement Spells: Contains 47 spell entries, 6 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Necromantic Spells: Contains 44 spell entries, 6 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Plant Spells: Contains 32 spell entries, 1 of which is detailed in another college.
  • Protection and Warning Spells: Contains 40 spell entries, 13 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Sound Spells: Contains 28 spell entries, 5 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Technological Spells
    This college contains no spell in it's base college; they are all in the following sub-colleges:
    • Energy Spells
      For a table detailing the energy to fatigue conversion see Classic: Technomancer
    • Machine Spells: Contains 13 spell entries.
    • Metal and Plastic Spells: Contains 9 spell entries.
    • Radiation Spells: Contains 8 spell entries
  • Water Spells: Contains 67 spell entries,17 of which are detailed in other colleges.
  • Weather Spells: Contains 31 spells entries, 3 of which are detailed in other colleges.

Variations[]

This chapter discusses Clerical magic (with Sanctity and Power Investiture), Ritual Magic, Improvised Magic, Syntactic Magic, and Symbol Magic (including Runic Magic). All of these variations are explored in greater detail in GURPS Thaumatology.

Alchemy[]

This chapter covers the rules for Alchemy: Elixirs, Charms, Alkahest, Homunculus, Philosophers' Stone, and Magically Potent Materials.

Expansions[]

Classic Edition[]

4th Edition[]

The concepts in this rule book were expanded with GURPS Fantasy and then GURPS Thaumatology. While GURPS Fantasy touches on a few mechanics in this work it is GURPS Thaumatology that is the main tool kit expansion to GURPS Magic.

Comment[]

GURPS Magic was clearly rushed to print as it makes references to spell names that only existed in the Classic GURPS Magic and Grimoire (Steal Health rather then Steal Vitality in the Wraith write up, for example). It also needlessly duplicates the description of what is effectively the same spell (Planar Summons[1] and Summon Demon[2]) The Renegade Mage's Unofficial GURPS Magic Spell Errata (scribd) is a well-received fan publication which highlights spells likely to cause problems and improves the conversion to GURPS fourth edition.

GURPS Magic collects spells written for many different settings, such as Technomancer and Conan. It is the GM's responsibility to decide whether a spell is balanced and thematically appropriate for a particular setting. The Dungeon Fantasy books do this work for dungeon-crawling fantasy.

External Links[]

References[]

  1. GURPS Magic pg 82
  2. GURPS Magic pg 155
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