GURPS Magic obeys the philosophy:
Why build a complicated unified mechanic when we can have a really simple one, then a new mechanic for each spell?
Every Boston magician has some Facets we need to mechanic: Astral Perception, Astral Projection, Sorcery (possibly aspected), Conjury (loa/nature spirit/elemental), Conjury (watcher). So here's the proposal: Magic Rating bought as Magery 6 with some enhancements and limitations to be discussed below. Astral Perception it's an Advantage. It's worth about 10 points, I think. It's not terribly useful without skills in Psychometry or Aura Reading or something. Without those, you see "dark patches" and "blue patches" and that's about it. When perceiving, you're a DualBeing. You can chose whether to use your ST or CH for hitting astrally active things. You can choose to use HT or WL for soaking astral damage (that is, which Tuffness and innate armor values to use). You use the lower of your DX and IQ for dodging and to-hit rolls vs. astral targets. Yes, this makes you terribly vulnerable. Also, you're astrally active ---so magic stuff can touch you, and spells can be grounded through you. A traditional way for a corp to defend against shadowrunners is to send out a projecting mage, who waits for a runner mage to perceive, then grounds a fireball through him. Astral Projection An Advantage worth about 25 points, which includes Astral Perception. You have CH, IQ, WL as usual. Your astral ST is your CH. Your astral HT is your WL. Your astral DX is your IQ. Your Astral Speed is twice your IQ. Yes, that means a minimum of 20, possibly higher. You can also move at "Insanely Great" speeds, covering hundreds of miles per hour, at a speed proportional to your Magery. Note that you get one free action per full 6 points of Speed, so astrally projecting magicians can keep pace with even heavily cybered StreetSamurai. Astral mages can manifest or materialize as per ghosts: it's fatiguing but possible, and I'll post rules about it shortly under AstralManifestation. Drain you take from casting while projected is always physical. In addition, you lose a point out of your magic pool for each hour you're projected... but they come back in a few minutes once you're in your body. Sorcery Works much as per GURPS Magic. The changes are as follows: * Prerequisites don't exist. * Range penalties mostly don't exist. Detection spells still use the "long range" table up near the beginning (with fields like "Within 50 Miles: -5"). Some spells still require touch, including Deathtouch and all healing spells. Missile spells are still missile spells, but there's little reason to use Fireball instead of Manabolt. Some oddball spells have been designed with "Requires Eye Contact." * Instead of just losing some fatigue, you get a separate Will roll to resist it. Each two points of success on this roll reduces the fatigue cost by one. Some spells may be designed to give bonuses or penalties to this roll (e.g. Stun spells give a +2). * You can shift your Magery around -- it helps you either on your success roll (And thus with beating past another's resistance) or on your drain-resistance roll. * You can also use your Magery for spell defense. Default is that you're defending yourself only. It acts as a penalty to all spells affecting you. It can only be doing one thing at a time, and is switchable as a free action on your turn. * Some spells exist which aren't in G:Magic -- an example is Manabolt (cost 1 per Thrust(Charisma) damage). * If you cast a spell with more levels of effect than your Magery, all the damage is HP instead of FT. * Some people may have limited magery, or a few levels of limited magery (e.g. Shamans). Ritual Sorcery Coming under separate cover. Probably something like GURPS Magic's CeremonialCasting, with some bonuses for sympathy and contagion. Conjury Essentially an alternate Sorcery mechanic. Spirits have a Force, which is half their average attribute. Other stuff (advantages, kewl powerz) scales with this: 2 at force 1, 12 at force 6. You don't use your Will when summoning a spirit: just a roll against your Charisma+Summoning to get it there (it resists with its WL), then against Charisma to soak the damage. If you summon something with greater Force than your Magery, the damage is physical. Your Magery pool can be split as with Sorcery. Most spirits are summoned at a cost of 2 per Force (so you pay 10 Fatigue for a spirit with all stats at 10). You get a penalty to your conjuring roll equal to the Force, and a number of services equal to half the margin of success. Watchers should be cheaper. They cost only 1 point of Fatigue. But instead of naming a Force and rolling to see how many services you get, you name a number of *hours* you want one, and that's the penalty. Each of its attributes is equal to half your margin of success. Most magicians can maintain a number of Watchers equal to half their Charisma at a time. There are effectively different "Spells" available for Conjury: Summoning (requires specialization by tradition: Elementals, Nature Spirits, Watchers, Loa, Daemoni, Spirits of the Great Firey Firmament, etc.), Banishing (requires specialization as above, defaults to other Banishing skills at -3 or Charisma-3)... and I can't think of any more. You use Summoning-3 to contest control of a spirit you can't control (and if you succeed, it just goes free, you still can't control it). Fatigue Recovery You have a magical fatigue pool equal to your HT. Those with Magery over 6 may buy a number of levels of Fatigue Recovery equal to Magery-6. The "Recover Strength" spell is different in this game; go look at CustomSpells. Misc Other weirdshit --- warding, for example --- either works through Sorcery, through conjuring up a spirit to do it for you, or through the same weirdshit mechanics as in Shadowrun (e.g. projecting and dragging a Ward around). Examples As an example of spellcasting, Alice decides to Manabolt Bob. Alice has a WL of 13. She's put two points into "Manabolt" and so has it at 13-1=12 (it being a Hard spell and all). She has six points of Magery to throw around. She decides to nibble him to death, and throw a 1d Manabolt. She doesn't want to risk Strain, so all her Magery goes into resisting Drain: * Alice rolls vs. her Manabolt skill (12). She probably succeeds. * Bob rolls vs. his WL of 10, hoping to succeed by more than Alice did. If he does so, he shrugs off the spell. If not, he gets zotted. He probably doesn't succeed. * Bob now takes 1d of mental damage, less his Mental Tuffness. (Alice has a CH of 10; if it were a 12, he'd be taking 1d+1). * Alice now has to resist Drain. She rolls against her WL of 13 plus her Magery of 6, and unless she rolls a 17 or higher, resists all the Drain. She could keep this up all day... even if she's only averaging a point or so per second, Bob's going to have trouble really soon. Alternately, Alice could decide to Zot Bob's entire party with a really big Manaball. She wants them all down *now*. She's practiced with Manaball, and has it at 15. Manaball costs 2 per Thrust(Charisma), but does it to a whole area. Alice puts all of her Magery into penetration, figuring she'll probably knock herself out with this, but that's what she's got a party for. She casts an 8d Manaball: * Alice rolls vs. her Stunball spell of 15+6=21. She rolls a 9, succeeding by 12. * Bob and everyone near him make resistance rolls. Most of them don't even have a WL of 12, so can't possibly resist. One of them is Chuckie, a Mage -- he's got his whole Magery on Spell Defense. So he rolls vs his WL of 13+6=19, and actually manages to get the 7 he needs to resist. * Bob, at the center of the blast, takes 8d. Everyone a yard out takes 7d, everyone two yards out takes 6d, and so on. Several of them make death checks, and most are making consciousness checks -- remember, physical armor is no help. * Alice now has to resist drain. She rolls against her WL of 13, and lucks out with a 5 -- success by 8. She knocks 4 points off the drain she deserves, for 12. * Alice loses 12 HP and starts making consciousness checks. Much later, Chuckie begins making plans for Revenge against Alice, who took out his entire party (and herself) with one swift manaball. He decides to summon up a Fire Elemental to send after her. He wants something smart enough to use tactics, but weak enough that he can force it around. He decides on Force 4: * Chuckie acquire a Level 4 Conjuring Library and $4000 of perfumed cedars and gasoline, because he's a mage. Shamans and Houngans know about their own special requirements. * As the bonfire blazes, Chuckie calls out to the Elemental Plane of Fire. He rolls against his Charimsa+Summoning of 12+1=13. He throws in all of his Magery, so he's rolling against a 19. He rolls a 10, succeeding by 9. It fails its WL roll against an 8, so he has four services from the glowering beast now standing in his basement. * Chuckie resists Drain. He rolls vs his Charisma of 12, and fails. He takes 8 points of FT, and goes for a little lie down. On the way, he puts the kettle on for tea and orders the fire elemental to kill Alice, then go astral and await his instructions.