What can speed up magic?

[Dakchronos]

Not much to choose from for magic. It feels like to much utility and not enough boom to match hardware and superbeings. It hardly has the hype as well.

[say652]

For combat aspect. Tattoo magic.
For that oomph a warlock or shifter or temporal warrior.

[Razorwing]

When you talk about speeding up magic, do you mean casting times (especially in combat)? If that is the case I find that the optional rules for PPE Channeling (from Rifter # 21) tends to provide spellcasters (in any PB game) a rather nice edge when it comes to combat (at least gives them a fighting chance).

As for more spells than are given in the HU2 corebook, the Rifts Book of Magic contains a large number of spells of all sorts that are fairly easy to convert to an SDC setting (just change MDC to SDC)... including additional combat magics.

If you are looking for different kinds of spellcasters (or variations of the Mystic Study power category)... well, it wouldn't be too difficult to adapt most of the different "mage" type OCC to the Heroes Unlimited universe. Just replace the special skills that a Mystic Study receives with the special abilities those classes get and make the normal spell selections those OOCs would choose. I would also use the HU skill determination rules... though the OCC skills and such do make a lot of sense too (just remember to eliminate or replace any high tech skills that are inappropriate for the HU universe... such as energy weapon WPs which are not as common on Earth of this period as they are in other settings).

[drewkitty ~..~]

Not much to choose from for magic. It feels like to much utility and not enough boom to match hardware and super-beings. It hardly has the hype as well.

Title Q: Importing the magic casting times from RUE.

There are four type of magic power cats...matching the number of hardware and the special training power cats are the only one that out numbers the magic power cats. Then there the option at the end of the Mystic Study section that says that GMs can import magic classes from other settings.

Then there is the part that the Mystic Study, over and above most magic "classes", has The Most number of spells and highest level of spells. There is not many types of magic a MS can't cast, and most of the magic it can't cast is the Elemental Magic of Warlocks. So about not a good selection is just someone not using their imagination and making their spell and skill selections to fit the character concept you want for that mage.

In fact that most of the HU power cats are just basic outlines and the Player has to use their imagination about what sort of char they want. Opposed to the card catalog of 53 types of soldier classes in rifts, and just picking the twist on the soldier class you want.

[NMI]

I use the PPE Channeling rules from Rifter 21

[Razorwing]

I prefer the PPE Channeling rules over the RUE rules for spellcasting.

There are a few reasons for this.

The first is from a character development point of view. PPE Channeling allows a wizard (of any stripe in any game) to feel like he is becoming more powerful with each new level he gains as he can channel more PPE per action into his spells. The more levels he gets, the easier some spells become to cast as he can now channel more PPE to cast them in fewer actions/attacks than before. For example... it would take a 1st level wizard (mystic study or Linewalker) two actions to cast Armor of Ithan (half of his actions/attacks if he knew a Hand to Hand style) and Agony would take 4 actions... an entire melee round (1st level characters will rarely have more than 4 actions/attacks unless they seek out skills/abilities that give them additional). At second level, that Armor of Ithan spell can now be cast as a single action and Agony can be cast in 2 actions. By just gaining a single level, the player feels more powerful... even without gaining any more spells.

This doesn't happen with the RUE rules. With these rules, Armor of Ithan will cost only a single action no matter if you are 1st level or 15th... while Agony will always take 2 actions to cast. You don't feel any more powerful when leveling as your spells still take the same amount of time to cast. You only feel a little more powerful if you manage to learn a new spell... which can happen even when one doesn't level.

The second reason is that the most powerful spells should take time to cast. With RUE rules, even the most powerful spell becomes nearly trivial to cast if one has the PPE to do so. A spell that can level an entire city can be cast in a mere 9 seconds... good luck trying to prevent that if you only just found out about it while the wizard attempting the spell is already gone to cast it. With PPE channeling however, even a powerful (high level) wizard will need time to channel that much PPE to cast such a spell... even if he has a large supply of PPE to do so. At 15th level, a Linewalker/Mystic Study character can only channel 75 PPE per action, or 525 PPE per melee (if they know hand to hand they will have about 7 actions by 15th level), requiring even them to take up to 2 melee rounds (or more) to cast spells in the 1000s of PPE... provided they have enough PPE to begin with.

This reduces the importance of time as a factor when dealing with wizards. With RUE, you have to act within the first 3 actions to prevent that uber-spell from being cast, regardless of whether it is a 1st or 15th level wizard casting it. This means they can't afford the time to deal with minions that may try to stop them... they have to prevent that spell from being cast NOW! With PPE channeling, things tend not to be quite so dire as only the most powerful of wizards will be able to cast such uber-spells quickly... and even for them it will take time to do so... melee rounds of constant channeling (in which they can't do anything), allowing players the time to deal with minions that may try to prevent their interference before confronting the wizard just as he is channeling the last of the PPE needed to cast the spell.

In the end, I find that PPE Channeling is a little more balanced compared to the RUE version. Don't get me wrong though... RUE does improve spellcasting over what it was beforehand. Before RUE, spellcasting was nearly impossible in a combat situation as even the mere act of dodging would ruin a spell (which took up half of ones actions for even the simplest of spells). Unfortunately it seems as if RUE decided to go to the opposite extreme and make it too easy to cast even the most powerful of spells. Neither version however made a spellcaster's player feel like they were growing in power as they leveled... they cast spells the same regardless of whether they are 1st level or 15th. PPE Channeling however presents a middle ground between the two extremes that also lets players feel like their characters are improving as they level.

[Dakchronos]

I do like the idea Rifter 21 has to offer for casting. but the pool of PPE is way limiting in my view, when mutants and hardware can just keep using their abilities with little effort. Also, having PPE and save vs magic seems derived from PE seems a bit unfair when physical characters get PE like water. There seem to be so few offensive spells. The ones that are provided are a bit, lacking. Many of the players I have around are those who play d20 games, where spell casters tend to nuke whole room fulls of mobs by lvls 4-6. Could the system be tweaked to have PPE as more of a limiter to show as how much they could channel for a single casting? Rather than more of a outright limit as once it's used up, they're done till they recharge. Rifts book of Magic is a bit more difficult to come by. Our group has the HU books and RUE with a splash of Rifter. I wanna see mage characters rely fully on their magic. I understand that this is a thinkers game, but leave that to hardware, who would have the skills to show their light of awesome.

[say652]

I talk alot of trash on magic, but it is a powerful ability if used properly.
Also it can be extremely useful and powerful but ypu are not! A frontline powerhouse.
For a combat type mage in my humble opinion, Tattoo magic is the way to go.

[Tor]

Tatooed freaks can't match up to Line-makers.