Magery 0

Magery 0 in 4e is introduced on B66. Initially besides allowing the casting of known spells in low/normal, Very High Mana casting gives FP refunds to mages but not non-mages.
==Basic sensing==
It allows 2 chances to detect if an item is magical: first sight and first touch.
This was initially phrased like ALL magic items (temporary or permanent) in Basic Set but later restricted in GURPS Magic to permanent ones, excluding temporary.
==Sensing mana changes boosts==
===Fantasy introducing aspect sensing===
Detecting Aspected Areas (pg 44 of GURPS Fantasy) was introduced in 3 Feb 2006, 24 days prior to 27 Feb 2006 date of GURPS Magic, in respect to crossing the boundary of an Aspected Mana zone:
*A mage gets an IQ + Magery roll to notice that he has crossed the boundary of an aspected area.
* On a critical success, he will know the nature of the new area;
This means for non-crit success they only know "the aspect changes" but not "what it changed to".
Analyze Magic is suggested to find out, although another way (for those who lack that spell) could be just to try spells from different colleges to see how the mana affects them.
===Magic introducing boundary sensing===
Sensing Mana is added in GURPS Magic pg 6 about 3 weeks after Fantasy came out. It's a vague "sense the change when they cross a boundary" but apparently no extra details: so a mage wouldn't know if they crossed from Normal into Low or Normal into Very High, for example.
*no extra info is mentioned for a critical success but it could be a reasonable house rule to give the added "tell the mage the level" policy resembling "tell the mage the aspect" policy in Fantasy
===Powers introducing person sensing===
P187 posits this new option:
: GMs may optionally permit a mage to recognize a living being imbued with powerful magical forces (such as strong innate powers), and perhaps even extend the rule to other supernatural categories such as spirit powers.
==Talent for Powers==
GURPS Powers also introduced the idea that Magery could function as a Talent for any ability modified with the Magical -10% limitation which was listed as being analagous to the Mana-Sensitive limitation from basic set, another huge improvement.
Unlike 189, P29 warns twice against using discounts if allowing this:
:No modifier of any kind ever applies to the price of Talent.
: The best examples are Magery (without any special modifiers) as Talent for a magical power
This also has a potential conflict with the Talents as Magic suggestion from T198 in GURPS Thaumatology which proposes the idea of applying Mana-Sensitive to Talents which only work in mana. This logically shouldn't apply to magery since it is probably assumed to have that built into it. It is likely meant for the B89 ones which work for normal skills and not Power Talents.
T198 also says "A Talent can’t be one of the abilities of a power (see Powers, pp. 202-208)."
Given Enchantment Through Talent this is also a possibly cheaper way than Magery to enchant.
==Thaumatology changes==
GURPS Thaumatology changed the way higher levels of magery interact with Magery 0 invalidating the Basic Set's descriptions of how the limited forms of magery function.
Magery 0 is generally unaffected by limitations and enchantments applied to Magery 1 and above resulting in Partially Limited Magery where the mage can detect and use magic items, and cast spells that don’t have Magery 1+ as a prerequisite, whenever they want.
This is reflected in Magery 0's point total, with the following exceptions:
*Sanctity Replaces Mana (±0%)
*Psionics Replaces Mana (±0%)
*Functions as a Different Talent: (±0%)
To denote when Magery 0 is functioning in its default mode it should be listed separately on a character sheet:
*Magery 0 [5]
*Magery (enhancements and limitations) [derived cost]
==Splitting Magery 0==
Thaumatology gives the ability to have Magery 0 without the ability to cast spells under Total Spell Incompetence calls Cannot Learn Spells as a limitation on magery.
This opens the approach to looking at "cast spells in mana less than high" (alternatively: no -6 penalty for casting spells if using Continuous Mana) as a 3pt advantage (for Continuous you could split that into 1 pt per -2 avoided), and all the other parts of magery 0 (sense items, sense changes in mana, aura resembling mage) being a 2pt advantage.
Of those two portions (3/5 and 2/5) the Power Investiture as Modified Magery notes raises the question about where "use magic items" falls.
Magic Item Sensitivity being a -20% limitation (essentially a perk of Magery 0) has built into it sensing items AND using mage-only ones. It's not clear if 
==Fractional Magery==
Fractional Magery (1 point/level; max 5): This is a special form of Magery (Path/Book) under the Limited Non-Mage Ceremonies rules. It is effectively what Ritual Aptitude was in Classic.Classic: Spirits page 75. though Ritual Aptitude 5 traditionally didn't gave the other benefits of magery making it effectively Magery 0 (Functions as a Different Talent [0%]; No Magic Item Sensitivity [-20%]) in 4e making it 4 points.
==Sensing items==
:note: this is something available to those with Incompetence Total Spell or Limited Magery 0 with halved limitations (only applies to spellcasting)
"The GM makes a Sense roll (p. 358) when you first see a magic item, and again when you first touch it."
*there is a note on Magery 1+ "Add your Magery level to Perception when you roll to sense magic items"
B358:
:"Sense rolls" include Vision rolls, Hearing rolls, Taste/Smell rolls, and all rolls to use special senses
It remains unclear if the requirement to "see" or "touch" magic items means that modifiers/ which modify those senses (ie Darkness penalties mitigated by Nightvision, having Acute Vision or Bad Sight) would influence this roll.
What it likely means is that there are actually TWO rolls. First the normal sense roll to see if you actually NOTICE a magic item (modified by usual vision bonuses/penalties) and then just sense+magery (not influenced by those modifiers) if the former is a success.
B358 does not include a "touch" section. There are skills that could involve telling details by touch but they would not be relevant here.
Reliable or Hard to Use on Magery 0 might plausibly modify this roll and the roll to sense mana changes. This should probably be worth half-value in either case if the penalty only applies to sensing rolls and not spellcasting though. Reliable on spellcasting would be off-limits anyway: 5% of 5 points is WAY cheaper than 10 points for a +1. That bonus would only make sense if GMs allow Extra Effort with magery to give Temporary Enhancements or Extra Levels. In that case, whether or not you halved the value of Reliable would determine which aspects of Magery you could boost.
*Allowing HTU to apply at full value if it applies to spells would be MORE than balanced: it's actually quite crippling. By comparison Path/Book Magery version of Magery 0 gives -20% to cost per -1 to cast spells instead of -5% for -3. OTOH for path/book the ability to use Perception for mana/items does not kick in at those partial levels.
===Sensing Alchemy===
M212 "a mage gets an automatic roll of (Per + Magery) to recognize an elixir as magical when he first sees it."
*no mention here of "first touches it" though
==Bonuses==
Unlike Sensing Mana there does not appear to be a +3 bonus for INTENTIONALLY trying to sense magic items (as opposed to instinctively recognizing them). OTOH there is no -3 penalty built in either.
==Time for sensing items==
T23 Ceremonial Magery:
: you can only sense magic items by performing a minor ceremony, taking at least 10 seconds, before touching them.
This appears to remove the ability to sense items at-first-sight entirely, with no explanation.
This also implies (by implying the x10 casting time of Ceremonial Magic) that sensing items should actually take 1 second under basic rules. Description in Basic however gives the impression it's not only a free action but also a reflexive one.
This is where building this from Detect allows more options. That uses 1 second by default too, but which can be reduced to free via Reduced Time. The ability turning itself on rolls at -4.
Things like reliable give a bonus solely to that (confusing for Magery 0 due to the clumping of abilities) and can be tied to things like Takes Extra Time (as a Limited Enhancement) to emulate the Time Spent rules.
The Time Spent rules could probably be allowed for Magery's item-detection and mana-detection rolls under Basic/Magic rules since they were not traditionally thought of us spells.
With Thaumatology treating it like a spell in this way though, using Time Spent could be controversial.
Time Spent could logically already apply to Detect, using "Reliable if Taking Extra Time" (LE) simply multiplies the concept.
==Sensing PERMANENT items==
Anyone reading B66 might be under the impression it applies to ALL magic items.
===Basic Detect===
The Detect Magic spell on B249 did not INITIALLY imply otherwise:
:Lets the caster determine whether any one object is magical.
:If the spell is successful, a second casting tells whether the magic is temporary or permanent.
Why this was useful (aside from allowing a high IQ to sub for a low Per) is that it could be repeated, whereas Magery 0 only allows rolls on "firsts".
===Rewritten Detect===
M101 greatly amended DM and included this note:
: not the same as the ability to detect magic items that comes with Magery 0;
:that ability only detects permanent magic items
This handicapped magery's ability to detect non-permanent magic items in Basic Set. This is probably a fair exchange though since Magic added the ability Sensing Mana. Probably an okay trade-off. But there are now basically "two mageries" between Basic/Magic.
M101 also gave other new benefits for DM:
:detects items, spells, magical creatures, and any other ongoing magical effect
Strangely, despite that broad description in the 2nd paragraph, the 1st still only discusses items.
===Sight===
Mage Sight (M102):
:essentially a more reliable version of the magical sense that comes with Magery 0
MS differs from it's prereq DM in that it requires SEEING the items item (Detect Magic does not require this, but as a regular spell, rolls at -5 if the mage can't see the target). It's unclear how to apply the -1/yard to Mage Sight since there are multiple targets. It's possible that there's no penalty at all if the target is considered to be the actual mage.
Detect Magic has a niche in detecting magic in things a mage knows about but can't necessarily see. He would however need RP reason to focus on that thing. For example it helps with "see if someone cast a spell on my coat without opening my closet".
Mage Sight has a niche in that since it detects entire FOV, the mage needs to reason to focus on examining any particular item. It helps with "I'm looking in my closet and want to know if one of my thirty coats is enchanted"
===Sense===
Mage Sense uses a 1/yard penalty unusual for Information Spells but has a huge benefit: detecting unseen magic items in general, even ones they don't know about (surpassing the requirement of Detect Magic to focus on a particular target).
*modifier is based on "distance .. to object sought" which would be the NEAREST magic item for a general inquiry, or further if they narrow down the specifics of their request (example: "second nearest" or "nearest permanent item" or "nearest healing item")
**this is maintained for a duration, the mage rolls at the END of the spell, but bases the penalty on how close he got to the target by the end of the time
***given that penalties can determine things like the possibility of crit success (0 energy cost) it would be strange for there to be only one roll. More logically there would be 2 rolls: first when finishing casting the spell (1 second) to see energy cost to initiate it (no modifiers) and then again at the end, to determine if the item is detected. This however would avoid the "it cost me nothing" means of knowing that an information spell succeeded.
****even though crits do not normally appear to affect maintenance costs (unlike high skill, which does) this might instead be an exception. In which case 0-cost "maintenance" could be evidence of accurate info
*****most likely this would work better as just having a variable "casting time" like Steal Vitality or Steal Energy does. Ironically, those two would conceptually work better as having 20-second maintenance periods (just costing 0 to maintain, similar to fireball)
===Seek===
Seek Magic is high-tier, taking 10 seconds to cast instead of 1 second like Mage Sense. The 1-time cost of 6 energy is initially higher but 2-3 minutes of Mage Sense would eclipse it at 5-7 energy.
*this uses better modifiers, the standard Long-Distance Modifiers of info spells instead of the crippling -1/yard of Mage Sense. OTOH it doesn't give the option to move around during casting/maintenance to try and minimize the penalty by wandering close to a target during the time: penalties would only be wherever you were at the end of the casting, per usual.
==Kromm quotes==
In 2007 at http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=31011
Hal attempted to summarize what Magery 0 does:
:A: Detect Mana field intensity (Ie No, Low, Middle, High, and Very High)
:B: Detect Magic items in a limited manner
:C: Cast spells in a Low or Normal Mana region
:D: Us Magic items that require magery to function properly (ie Mage only magic items)
Kromm replied:
:We consider A & B the same thing -- you can detect magical fields.
:We consider C & D the same thing -- you can manipulate magical forces.
: And we consider C & D basically a zero-cost consequence of A & B -- sensing magical forces lets you at least try to manipulate them.
This was later contradicted in 2008's Thaumatology where Total Spell Incompetence has the concept of detecting mana and items without being able to cast spells or use magic items: Limited Magery 0 similarly halves magery limitations if they only apply to spellcasting and not sensing items/mana. Kromm did hint at that though:
: One can game-mechanically split these up all kinds of ways,
: but be warned that the logic of Magery 0 is that which I just presented,
: not a package deal of various parts that one could naively define in a vacuum.
==References==
Category:Advantages