Innate Magic

There are two main ways to do Innate Magic (sometimes called Racial Magic, Racial Innate Magic, or Inherent Magic) in 4e GURPS: as an advantage or as some form of mage.

Advantage: Basic Set
Mage: Basic Set (Racial Magic), Fantasy (Fixed Magic), GURPS Thaumatology pg 20-22 (Limited Magery) and GURPS Thaumatology pg 96-99 (Inherent Magic)

Advantages[]

Spells are built as advantages. If these abilities are magical in nature Magical Limitation for an additional -10% can be added but it don't need to be.

Pros[]

Prevents every member of a race with innate spells from being a mage
Allows greater flexibility in the abilities
Decouples the abilities from Mana or Sanctity levels.

Cons[]

Abilities are more expensive
All the components of the ability have to be factored in
- For example, the spells Projection and Shapeshifting are cheaper and easier use then the Alternate Form equivalents.
Some spells are not easily expressed as advantages taking up a lot of the GM's time to set up.

See Sample Afflictions for some examples of this method.

Classic[]

Inherent Magic (Knacks) are 2% of energy cost of a magic item. So an item that takes 500 energy to make costs [10] (500* 0.02)

Pros[]

Relatively easy to calculate

Cons[]

Knack has same limits as magic item: no fatigue or time bonuses for high skill; unusable if mana adjusted Skill Power less then 15 and is totally unusable in no mana areas.
Cost is inconstant regarding overall power of spell: magic item of Skill Power 20 has the same energy cost as Skill Power 15 item
Point cost is either too cheap or too expensive when compared to an advantage.
- For example, Knack (Dark Vision] is [8] (400*0.02) but takes energy to activate and maintain and doesn't work in no mana areas. Power (to reduce fatigue) is 500*2^(level-1); eliminating the maintain energy cost (2) adds [20] but eliminating the activating cost (5) adds [160] (500*2^(5-1)*.02). The advantage Dark Vision is [25] and does work in no mana areas

Racially Innate Spells[]

Basic Set[]

Prerequisites are ignored and spells are bought as if they were racial skills with Magery used to allow them to cast these spells in areas below high Mana.

The "A race that can only cast racially innate spells pays the usual 5 points for Magery 0, but may buy Magery 1+ with a -40% Accessibility limitation: “Racially innate spells only.” (sic).^[1] was effectively thrown out by GURPS Thaumatology under its Partially Limited Magery rule.

As written the Basic set option under Thaumatology's revisions results in a race of Mages able to learn and cast every spell in the campaign world that doesn't require Magery. To fix this the -40% must be applied Magery 0 as well making it cost [3].

Based on the description in the Basic Set, Innate Magic has. at lease. the following: No Spell Prerequisites (+30%), Inspired Learning (+20%), No Magic Item Sensitivity (-20%), and Can't Use External Energy (-15%) for (+15%). This would seem to eliminate Limited Spell List (-30%) leaving One-Spell Magery (4 spells, -55%) as the easiest remaining component.

Pros[]

It is the cheapest way to give a race spells.
It is easy; apply the -40% on all the magery and price the spell to the proper level based on the race's IQ.
Emulating Classic Knacks is easy; just add in Costs fatigue, 1 FP, -5% for skill 15 and Costs fatigue, 2 FP, -10% for skill 20.
Members of the race with higher then "normal" IQ will have the spell at a higher level then the rest of the race.

Cons[]

At (-65%) for the assumed enhancements and limitations, Racial Magery "breaks-even" (-40%) at 4 spells (+5%*3), making it over priced for 1-3 spells and under priced for 5 or more spells.
Barring the race having Mana Enhancer, in no Mana areas/world these abilities do not work.

GURPS Fantasy[]

Fixed Magic is similar to the basic set but it uses a different method.

Pros[]

Similar to the Basic Set method

Cons[]

Makes all members of the race a Magery 0 magic
Unclear on how Above "Average" Members are handled
Overly Complicated: could have been far simplified with the (No Spell Prerequisites, +30%) enhancement on Magery
Barring the race having Mana Enhancer, in no Mana areas/world these abilities do not work.

GURPS Thaumatology option[]

GURPS Thaumatology provided a variant of the mage option: Limited Magery 0 + relevant version of One-Spell Magery

Pros[]

It, in theory, is even cheaper then the Basic Set Racial Skill version.
It prevents every race with this form of Magery from being able to learn and cast every spell in the campaign world that doesn't require Magery.
If the Limited Magery detect magic item is limited to only the spells the race has then the math is easy; add the magery as normal and then adjust accordingly. So a race able to cast and detect only four spells (-60%) and had Magery 2 [25] would only have a cost [10] to do so.

Cons[]

If the race can detect all magic items (not just those with the spells they know) the math becomes more difficult: Limited Magery only uses half of the percentage so in the example above it would be Limited Magery (4 spells, able to detect all magic items, -30%) + 2 levels of One-Spell Magery (4 spells, -60%) or [3.5]+[8] which rounds up to [12].
In no Mana areas/worlds these abilities do not work.
One-Spell Magery as written doesn't seem include the No Spell Prerequisites +30% limitation.

Classic: Blood Types (advantage method)[]

The vampires of GURPS Blood Types were, unless it was implied otherwise, converted with a variant of As Racially Innate Spells with the -40% being applied to Magery 0 as well as to Magery 1 resulting in [9] rather then the [15] most of them had. For those who want to use the advantage method the following chart is provided.

Classic Innate Spell	4e advantage equivalent	Base Cost	Note
Astral Projection	Alternate Form (Astral Entity) [171 base]	15 points + 90% of difference in cost between native racial template and [171] [15] when native racial template is above [171]	Generally used by mortal sorcerers
Beast Control Beast Summoning	Speak With Animals	[25]	Based on Nosferatu in GURPS Horror
Body of Air	Alternate Form [15] + (Body of Air) [36]	15 points + 90% of difference in cost between native racial template and [36]; [15] when native racial template is above [36]
Charm	Dominance	[20]
Darkness	Obscure (Vision, Ranged (+50%), -10) [30]	[30]	Cost assumes 2 yard coverage and -5 to vision sense The spell effected the caster as well
Enslave	Dominance	[20]
Fog	Obscure 7 (Vision; Area Effect, 16 yards, +150%; Drifting, +20%; Extended, Ladar, +20%; Ranged, +50%)	[48]
Materialization	Insubstantiality (Always On; -50%) replaced with Insubstantiality (Usually On; -40%)	[8]	Cost assumes Astral Entity
Nightmare	Affliction (Nightmare)	[18]	From Sample Afflictions in GURPS Horror
Pestilence (spell)	Innate Attack (Pestilence)	[50]	From examples in GURPS Horror
Possession (spell)	Possession (advantage) (Telecontrol, +50%)	[150]
Projection	Insubstantiality (Projection, -50%)	[40]
Seek Life	Detect (life)	[35]
Steal HT	Leech	[30]	May be redundant with Vampire (Meta-Trait)
Sleep	Affliction (Sleep)	[47]	From the sample afflictions in GURPS Horror