Savage Worlds and Gun Mages, need some evaluation

[gundark]

I am running a IK campaign this year, either with the new rules or with Savage Worlds. As I don't know what the new game will look like outside very basic info I'm busy planning the campaign with Savage Worlds.

Gun Mages present a problem for me. I've seen some good conversions and some that didn't feel right. The problem with the original d20 class was that it really lived in the shadow of the Wizard/Sorcerer. The challenge was to make the class feel different from a caster with the "Bolt" spell. I brain stormed and might have found something that "feels" right for me and I am looking for constructive criticism.



Arcane Background: Gun Mage (it maybe edge instead)
10 power points. The character does not choose spells, instead they spend power points to do certain actions
- add a d6 to damage - 2pp per d6 added
- reload a weapon - 1pp (does not incur multi-action penalty)
- Call their pistol to their hand - 1pp if pistol is in sight, 3 pp if not (not sure about a max range)
- Hit an ethereal creature (for normal damage) - 1pp
- add a bonus to hit - 1 pp per +1 to shooting

You could spend multiple power points for various effects. Adding a d6 to damage and a +1 to your shooting roll, and reloading your Magelock for next turn would cost 4pp.

I know it's rough, but thoughts?

[StJason]

Oof. Overpowered.
2d6 pistol damage +3d6 (6 mana), +4 to hit (4 mana). Which pretty much guarantees a raise for another +1d6 damage. GM will likely have at least d8 Shooting (d10 more likely). Give them a double-barreled pistol for double-taps (+1 to hit and damage) and you start to get really sick. Throw on a few feats like Trademark Weapon, Dead Shot, or Marksman (to say nothing about dual-wielding...) and suddenly GMs rule the world.

Needs some hard limits. Otherwise +10 to hit or +5d6 damage will be common. And why not?

Random thought: What about adding elemental effects instead of straight damage buffs?
Say, add an Electrical trapping +1-2 PP. Does an additional die to people in metal armor, standing in water, or otherwise surrounded with conductors.
Add a Fire trapping, +2PP, target catches on fire on a 6 on d6.

Add a few feats to add more elements and/or tricks for gun mages to use.

[Sosthenes]

I think you're fighting against the system here a bit. I've got pretty disenchanted with SW after a while, but as far as I've seen, everything is done with Powers, from spellcasters to martial artists to superheroes. Adding a new mechanical subsystem just to be different makes little sense and is prone to balancing issues (cheap multiple actions are always a bit iffy). Never mind that in your current draft, I fail to see the in-game efforts of a gun mage, i.e. what he does to achieve said effects. Telekinetic reloading and "just" doing more damage is a bit too Jedi for my tastes.

I do agree that removing the D&D-ish nimbus of spells would serve a gun mage well (just like bards). But that's easily done with a more specific/unique Arcane Background, you can keep the powers. Nobody would confuse a SW superhero or Deadlands huckster with a Gygaxian/Vancian magic-user.

Not too long ago I had to do the same, albeit with a different system. So the player and me talked about interesting visuals to base a gunmage concept on. We ditched the usual spell stuff soon enough, and focused on two things: guns & bullets. Enchanting either of them would clearly differentiate one from the gestures & invocation based sorcerer/wizard types. In the end, the player decided to focus on the guns. So he currently has the ability to draw runes on each gun, enabling one of a set of special effects (fire sheaths, ghost killers, armor piercing etc.). The drawback is that it takes time to change the enchantment (10 mins in our game), so that you don't have all the power available all the time.
The other alternative we considered was bullet-specific enchantment, i.e. you spend some time to imbue an effect onto a bullet. Again, the drawback is the time it takes and that you have to pre-select your power usage.

Both options would be easily converted into SW arcane backgrounds. For the gun-enchantment, you do have the drawback that you don't have all Powers ready all the time, as opposed to a mage. But you might get a power-point reduction for this. Maybe 1 point for each spell comes from the alchemical blastpowder.
For a bullet-specific theme you might get a lot more power points (maybe 20 like a superhero), but you do have to pump them into the bullets ahead of time.

And by the way, if you add damage, for balancing reasons I'd suggest a "double-barreled" approach, i.e. not adding the damage, but getting two damage rolls. In a similar vein, adding accuracy is probably better done with reducing called shot penalties, not straight-forward bonuses. There's an Aim power in Deadlands Reloaded that does it like that – and it doesn't allow free effect boosting by pp usage, but does +1 on a success, +2 on a raise. Keeps it in check.

[PG_Snoitpo]

If you look into the Super Powers companion they have a number of different powers that can do something similar to what you are looking at but seem to have a better balance to them. I would think that having the arcane background of sorcerer and the gun mage be an edge might work out better. It would be putting standard spell powers through your gun as your source of focus and adding the extra damage from the bullet to your ranged touch attacks. Any feed back on this idea?

[PG_snapshot_superhero]

This is something I had cobbled together from various other conversion documents with some thoughts of my own. Never ended up testing it, but maybe it will help?

Arcane Background (Gun Mage)
Arcane Skill: Spellcasting (Smarts)
Starting Power Points: 10
Starting Powers: 2

Available Spells: Armor, Barrier, Blast, Blind, Blink, Bolt, Burst, Deflection, Draining Touch, Farsight,
Havok, Invisibility, Jet, Pummel, Quickness, Slow Fall, Smite, Speed, Stun

Arcane Focus: A Gun Mage must use his firearm as part of the Trappings for all of his known Powers. If
he is unable to handle (or in some cases, fire) his weapon, a Gun Mage suffers -4 to his spellcasting rolls.
This also means that if a gun mage possesses a firearm that has any inherent bonuses, those bonuses
would also be applicable to their Spellcasting as well.

This dependency on their firearm does have some advantages, however. First, a Gun Mage may use one
round of ammunition in place of a Power Point. The Gun Mage may, consequently, cast Powers with a
cost of 1 for free. The ammunition must usually be fired to release its power however. Such rounds do no
direct damage if fired at a target, but the Power takes effect normally.

? For example: Dorian, a Gun Mage, knows the Powers Bolt, and Blast. He decides to fire a single bolt
at an enemy, which normally costs 1 Power Point. He may use one round of ammunition in lieu of a
Power Point, and so may cast a single bolt for free.

? In another encounter, Dorian is faced by 3 foes. He decides to cast 3 bolts, each with increased
damage. Normally, this would cost 6 Power Points, but Dorian may use the round of ammunition in
his pistol in place of 1 Power Point, so the 3 bolts cost only 5 Power Points. He fires, and his pistol
shoots out a single bullet, which then splits into 3 brightly colored bolts of light!
Unfortunately, normal firearms are not built to withstand
the arcane forces channeled by a gun mage. Each time
the gun mage channels a spell through his firearm, he
must roll 1d10 and subtract a number equal to the
number of power points used normally for the spell from
that result. On a result of 1 or less, the gun has broken
under the tremendous pressure of the spell and must be
repaired before being used again. (A gun mage may use
his bennies to reroll this check.) Magelock pistols are
immune to this damage, and thus a gun mage wielding a
magelock pistol does not need to make these rolls,
although the gun could be destroyed due to other
means.


? For example: Using the second example listed
above, after Dorian resolved his attack using
three bolts of increased damage, he would then
roll 1d10. Dorian rolls a 7, after which he
subtracts 5 from the result since that is the
number of power points he expended to cast the
spell. This leaves him with a final result of 2.
Since the final result was not a 1 or less, his
pistol continues to function as normal.


Bond with a Magelock Pistol: A gun mage is capable of bonding with his magelock pistol. Doing so
takes a full day and uses up materials costing 100 gp. The bonded weapon becomes an extension of the
gun mage, and while many gun mages carry a second, third, or even fourth pistol, not all of them can
bond to multiple pistols.


Bonding with a magelock pistol grants the gun mage the ability to cast touch spells at range and grants
him the Trademark Weapon edge.

[PG_Snoitpo]

I am actually running a Wild West game tomorrow and I will make a small gang of gun made NPCs that they will meet if they progress in the story enough. I'll give you some feed back if all goes well. Only the leader will be wielding mage locks though. The rest will have basic revolvers.

[PG_Snoitpo]

Didn't run the game today. Flaky crowd of players.