Non-Mages Casting in Lower-Mana Areas

Non-Mages Casting in Lower-Mana Areas is a new optional rule introduced GURPS ThaumatologyGURPS Thaumatology page 58
Aside from the x10 (decupled) energy cost mentioned in the green box in the left column, the right column's suggestion under Continuous Mana suggests:
*An interesting alternative is to let non-mages attempt to cast spells anywhere, but at -6
It's not clear if this is meant to be either/or approaches or to be stacked.
==Normal Mana alternative==
Magic: The Least of Spells suggests allowing "Average" spells being castable by non-mages in normal mana: only requiring magery to cast them in Low or less.
It's not clear how to reflect that in a Continuous Mana system, except perhaps to let them be cast at +6 to skill to offset the -6 penalty, which would make mages much better at casting them. This is a standard aspect of a Continuous Mana approach though, since High Mana gives skill bonuses to your average mage where it normally would not in the classic system.
==Unskilled Non-Mages==
Whether taking the penalty or cost-multiplying approach (or both) the assumption here is that someone actually knows the skill for the spell (or technique for the spell defaulting to a college skill, if using the "Ritual Magic" system) and just lacks the magery advantage.
If someone lacks BOTH there are additional considerations for letting utter-muggles (ie just about anyone) cast magic.
Firstly is that magic spells ALL lack defaults, so you need to break the rules to allow them to default to something.
Wizardly Dabbler basically does that, since it's Dabbler which ignores the standard requirement of skills having a default when buying up that default.
Basically it just treats defaultless Hard spells (not allowed for VH) which lack a prereq to default at IQ-7 so that 8th/quarter/half a point brings them up to -6/-5/-4 preceding the IQ-2 which a point in a Hard skill normally gives (vs IQ-3 for VH, IQ-1 for average, IQ for easy)
There is an "always work as if known at “skill 9 or less” penalty for these defaulting/dabbler spells paid for with a fraction of a character point instead of the full character point.
Inability to use as prereqs is standard for default skills already per B174's "If the prerequisite is another skill, you must have at least one point in that skill."
As is inability to default other spells from them due to B173's double default rule
Inability to teach is non-standard: normally it's just Intensive Training which is prevented due to the "more points in the skill
being taught than you do" requirement: "have as many or more points in the skill as you do" (0 teaches 0) is B293's only requirement for "Education".
The interesting thing about using IQ-7 defaults for prereqless spells is how it compares to the Improvised Magic perk allowing Spell Defaults from T38: if you have a Hard IQ skill with 1 point in it (IQ-2) a basic -4 penalty (with no additional penalty from prereq count) makes the default IQ-6. "Spells cast at default have double their usual energy cost and casting time" if it applies to SD/IM should probably then also apply to Wizardly Dabbler.
*double cost for default spells times decuple cost for non-mage would be 20x cost, making even a 1 energy spell essentially impossible without risking coma/death
*This could probably take the place of "9 or less" since the function of that is already to double casting time, especially since that's a circumstantial penalty which isn't a penalty at all for low-skill mages, as Dabblers probably already are
*especially since being forced into that category is meaningless if using Alternate Magical Rituals: instead if wanting default/dabbler spells to require more ritual components, it could instate something similar to the Magery limitation of T24's Extravagant Rituals using T37 Flexible Rituals notes on T38
==See also==
*Limited Non-Mage Ceremonies for Magery (Path/Book) is similar but uses a -5
==References==
Category:Rules