Some Thoughts on DFRPG vs D&D Magic

I was adding some spellcasters to an encounter and quickly grew frustrated trying to stat them out with DFRPG spells.

Putting together spellcasters for DFRPG really reinforces how much I would rather wing it. Obviously they can ignore spell prereq chains and I do not really have to figure their skill levels individually (just a single casting number is fine). But picking out spells and adjudicating effects RAW kind of bores me for the enemy side.

As an example, I added these casters to prevent the party from standing back and shooting bows at my melee enemies. How many spells can stop ranged attacks? Two + darkness/fog stuff.

So, instead, I just decided what effects I wanted, made up some evocative spell names to tie into visual effects, and slapped a number to roll against. Done.

It does not help that DFRPG has a small subset of GURPS spells and GURPS has a very different setup than D&D. 

For example, fire resistance. D&D spells grant fire damage reduction, and 3e spells suffered attrition (Endure Elements prevented 10 damage per round and ended after absorbing 20 damage). Compare to the Resist Fire chain in GURPS which costs 4 points and at base level grants immunity to anything less than molten lava (you can gain complete and total resistance by spending more FP/EP when you cast).

Speaking of spending when you cast, D&D has the level system to gate access to more powerful spells while GURPS uses Magery and spell chains, both of which boil down to character points. This means even a low-point character could learn high prereq spells, just with the tradeoff of being a very one-trick pony. Which is why high-prereq spells are not as different from low-prereq spells as D&D's low vs high level spells at base. Instead, GURPS uses scaling effects by Magery levels and FP/EP cost. Fireball (5 point spell chain + Magery 1 = 15 CP) at minimum reqs can do 3d damage for 3 FP/EP. If you buy Magery 6, it can do 18d for 18 FP/EP. If you splurge on Magery at character creation, you likely do not have enough to splurge on extra FP/EP (or on raising your spell skill level high enough for discounted FP/EP costs).

Of course, GURPS fireball is not a big AoE like D&D's; it is a single-target spell. Even Explosive Fireball has a pretty severe damage taper (full damage in target hex then 1/3 for each hex away from center).

GURPS as a system weights heavily to Wizard as problem-solver over DPS (D&D does as well, to be fair, but it hides it better).

Stone Missile with Magery 6 can do 18d+18 but it requires a roll to cast, a roll to attack, and the enemy gets a roll to defend. And the FP/EP needed to cast to that level is pretty draining. Other attack spells have a roll to cast and then the victim gets a roll to resist. If you fail to cast you lose 1 energy (or full cost on a critical failure). But if you successfully cast and then fail to hit, or if they successfully resist, say goodbye to the energy you put into your spell. At least D&D deals half damage on a save.

Buffs only need the one roll to cast. Your party is likely not resisting (not that the buffs grant a resistance roll but maybe they took Magic Resistance, lowering your effective skill to cast). And then you just need to maintain. Plus, you likely get quite a bit more damage out of the 3 seconds and 5 energy to cast Great Haste on the Barbarian or Knight (who now get double actions for 10 turns and can target multiple foes) than you would on 3 seconds and 18 energy for a huge Stone Missile (which can only hit one dude and could very well be overkill).