Spells without spell lists?

>>50054668
GURPS, Ritual Path Magic allows you to learn paths(Body, Mind. Energy and Matter are examples) and then pour energy into a ritual to do something related to the path, obviously more energy makes for a more powerful effect. The better you are at using a path the more energy you can pour into a single ritual and the quicker you are at it.

Alternatively, Sorcery allows you to make your own spells, you have a specific list of known spells, but you can make every spell you know. You can also improvise weak spells on the spot.

>>50054745
I'll look into these, but I have a poor understanding of GURPS. Will I still be able to comprehend them?

>>50054668
Choose a superior magic system instead, like Ars Magica or Mage.

Or stay a pleb and play Barbarians of Lemuria, which is basically what you described.

>>50054858
Not really, you'd need at least a basic understanding of GURPS for both, they're both so flexible because they build from the huge underlying structure that is GURPS. There isn't much to understand though, unless you plan to actually use GURPS.

Sorcery: Make a spell and pay character points to learn it. You can use one spell you know at a time or improvise a minor spell. Spells can be nearly anything yu can think of, power only limited by how powerful a sorcerer you are. That's about it.

Ritual Path Magic: Learn to manipulate a specific thing with your magic. Construct a ritual at any time that affects that thing in some way. If you know how to manipulate several things you can make a single ritual that incorporates control of several things at once. Spend time gathering energy. Cast. As long as you can manipulate the right things your only real limit on what you can do is how much energy you can gather. That's about it.

>>50054668
Spheres of Power 3pp rules for Pathfinder?

>>50055020
Mind giving me a summary?

>>50055059
I'll look into this ASAP, thanks.

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>>50054668
In Mage you can technically cast any spell that is conceivable in your imagination, with mechanics for how potent that spell can be, how long it is, how long it takes to cast it, etc

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>>50054668
GURPS has a few ways to approach this.

>>50056986
In Ars Magica you basically have a bunch of casting stats. These can be verbs, like Create, Destroy, Manipulate or Change; or nouns like Fire, Plant, or Mind. When you decide a spell, you basically assign a verb and a noun to it, so a Fireball would be Create Fire, and erasing someone's memories would be Destroy Mind. The DM sets the DC based on how big the effect is and you basically roll Verb+Noun to cast the spell.
Mage is similar, but there your casting stat determines what can you do with it (one dot in Fire means you can control fire, two dots means you can create fire, etc.).
In Barbarians of Lemuria you work out the effect, assign a rough DC for it, then if it's too high (and for anything you couldn't accomplish without magic it *will* be too high) you can take several drawbacks, like needing an elaborate ritual or a sacrifice or rare material components, to lower the DC until you have a significant chance to cast successfully.

>>50058066
I see. The problem I'm running into is my system has very simple classes, and I want to present a flexible magic system that doesn't require long lists. Because classes don't gain new skills or spells as they level up, it's also difficult to add more and more words.

Characters do, however, have a pool of focus they can gain and spend. I was thinking of making something like this:

>Elementalist
>Staff and robes
>+1 INT
>You have power over earth, wind, fire and water. When you cast a cantrip, gain 1 focus. Spend focus to increase the magnitude and DC of your effect using the chart below as a general guideline.
>Cantrip: Using fire like a torch, chilling a small object, tossing a small stone, conjuring drinking water
>1 focus: unleashing a bolt of fire, launching icicles
>2 focus: shaping stone at will
>3 focus: flying for a short time
>4 focus: detonating a large fireball
>5 focus: summoning a mighty blizzard, changing the weather

Something like that, with more examples and a disclaimer that these aren't the only possible effects.

>>50054668
A mana system?

>>50058218
Sure, but how would you describe a price -> effect relationship in a mana system?

>>50055041
>>50054745
to expand on this for >>50054668
>>50054858
if he's talking about the same ritual magic I know, it also has this kind of an effect:
YOU ARE FIREMAGE. You love fire magic. Your intelligence ad magery stats are solid, so you have a fire magic skill of, oh, lets say 16. Thats good, not amazing, but good.

simple, low level spells, like 'snap fingers, get fire on tinder' are practically impossible to fail and probably free for you to use 'mana' wise. The more steps past this you go, though, the bigger your skill penalty.

Something like conjuring a fireball to throw at some dweeb will drop you 3 or 4 skill: a 12 is still respectable odds of success, and you might get a bit of a discount on the spell cost, letting you hock a multi-dice fireball fairly easily and reliable, but not as easily as making a fire or warming a drink.

Something really complicated, like turning yourself into a fucking elemental or blanketing a 15 foot AOE with fire are both advanced, top level spells, and would drop you to a 7 or 8 skill and suck up your mana like your gaming group with a pizza. You might be able to do it, but you'll have good odds, if not absolute odds, of failure.

This is my favorite variant of magic in GURPS, though does suffer from some skills shit stomping others in usefulness and power. That said, several schools are very good in combat but only marginally useful elsewhere. Some schools are awesome for solving problems (like the sound school and body control school. Making someone sneeze at the right time is shockingly useful). Light-dark school, for example, has lots of fun tricks, but also has sunbolt: arguably the best 'thrown ball' spell in magic. Lasers man.

It also can get janky with multischool spells, like high end heal/necromancy magic, high end necromancy/creation magic, and high end elemental mixtures.

>>50054668
Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion offers "Super Sorcery" as a power. Make a roll using your rank in super sorcery and if it fails bad things happen.

>>50058712
Not Ritual Magic, Ritual Path Magic, which I like a whole lot more than plain ritual magic. You should check it out.