HârnFudge Magic

1 How These Rules Differ From Canon Hârn

• Magic is not unheard of, but practitioners are rare mainly because the ability to cast spells is a rare gift.
• There are no Convocations; references to Shek-Pvar in the Harn texts are treated as references to mages in general.
• The Chantries listed in the Arcane Lore article or in HârnMaster Magic are schools where magic may be learned if a wizard is available to teach it. A chantry may or may not have a wizard in residence and it may or may not have books and scrolls from which spells may be learned; particulars are determined by the GM.
• The art of creating magically enchanted items has been lost and forgotten. Magic items are both rare and valuable.

2 What You Need to Use HârnFudge Magic

Since this system is a conversion of the GURPS magic system, it is all but required that the GM own a copy of GURPS Magic, and GURPS Grimoire if desired. The rules below are not nearly complete; only information that is different from that found in the GURPS system is supplied.

3 Mana

Magic is the channeling of magical energy that exists in living things. This magical energy is called Mana. Different people have different amounts of mana within them. Those with high levels of mana are able to cast spells.

A character's mana is purchased in levels during character creation and advancement. Each level of mana that the character has is worth 3 points of mana; this energy is consumed during spell casting. One mana level costs 4 CP during character creation. During character advancement, each mana level costs EP equal to 4 times the number of mana levels the character already has. (For example, a character with two mana levels would have to spend 8 EP in order to get a third mana level.)

4 Spells

Characters with one or more mana levels are able to learn and cast spells. Each spell is considered a skill with a default of None. A spell may be taught by another spellcaster or learned by studying a scroll or magic book.

4.1 Casting

Casting a spell is usually of difficulty Great. In extremely favorable circumstances, a difficulty of Good is possible. In unfavorable conditions, a difficulty of Superb (or higher) is not unheard of. The GM will determine spell difficulties on a case by case basis.

GURPS spells have a listed casting time. This time is usually in seconds; one second is the length of a GURPS combat round. In HârnFudge Magic, seconds of casting time are translated into actions. So, a spell with a casting time of 1 second in GURPS would require one action to cast in HârnFudge; the spell would fire at the end of that action, just as a sword blow lands at the end of the character's action in melee combat. A spell with a casting time of 5 seconds would require 5 consecutive actions and fire at the end of the fifth action. Spells with casting times of minutes or hours are directly translated; these are spells that are generally not attempted during combat.

If a mage is distracted or injured while concentrating on casting a spell, he must roll vs. Willpower to maintain concentration. Difficulty to maintain concentration is usually Good, but this can vary according to circumstances. Failure means that the caster's concentration is broken, and he must start over.

GURPS spells also have a casting cost. In HârnFudge this cost is the number of mana points the character must have available in order to cast the spell. If the spell is cast successfully, the mana points are temporarilly depleted. If a mage has no mana points available, it does not mean that he or she is physically or mentally exhausted; it simply means that the character is unable to cast spells. Mana points are recovered at a rate of 1 every 15 minutes, provided that no spells are cast during that time. Unlike in GURPS, the cost for a spell does not decrease when the spell is known at a high level of skill.

On a critical success, the spell is cast without expending any mana points. On a failure, one mana point is lost. On a critical failure, the full cost of the spell is spent.

It is assumed that in order to cast a spell, gestures and spoken words are required. If a character is able to either perform the gestures or speak the words, but not both, a -1 penalty is applied to the roll. If the character is able to do neither, a -3 penalty is applied.

4.2 Maintaining

Many spells may be maintained, with or without concentration, by the expenditure of additional mana points. It is possible to cast additional spells while others are still active. The caster is at -1 for each spell he is concentrating on. The caster is also at -1 for every three spells (round down) that are active, but that do not require concentration.

4.3 Bonuses and Penalties

GURPS and HârnFudge have different attributes, but it is usually fairly easy to translate spells that affect attributes if a little common sense is used. Bonuses are halved, rounded up. Penalties are halved, rounded down. (-3 in GURPS translates to -1 in HârnFudge; +3 in GURPS translates to +2 in HârnFudge.)

4.4 Damage

GURPS uses six-sided dice to generate damage amounts. For HârnFudge, halve results (round up). Subtract from this number the target's Damage Capacity, Mass Scale, and Armor Value (if applicable) to determine the Damage Factor of a spell.

4.5 Missile Spells

Unlike in GURPS, special ranged spells (missile, breath, and jet) do not require a separate skill roll to hit. However, these spells can be dodged by their intended target. The difficulty to dodge a spell is equal to the rolled degree of the casting.

4.6 Casting Spells at Range

Most Regular spells can be cast at range. If the caster is unable to touch the target, he is at -1 for each ten feet of intervening space between him and the target.

5 Magic Items

The art of item enchantment has been lost. As a result, spells from the Enchantment college are not available, and item information for most spells can be ignored. Those magic items that do exist are generally self-powered.