Magic in GRIFTS has to be modified from GURPS rules in order for combat magic to be able to compete with futuristic firearms. Magic in the RIFTS books are portrayed as being competitive with technology for effectiveness, and so to retain that flavor the following rules apply.

Magery - In standard GURPS games, Magery maxes out at 3. In GRIFTS it maxes out at five, though a character can only purchase the advantage to level three during character creation. Reaching the coveted 4 and 5 levels requires extraordinary circumstances and vast magical knowledge. Some magical artifacts will increase a mages Magery, but the typical way one reaches this pinnacle of Magical aptitude is with hard work and arcane lore. If the story permits a character to advance Magery past level 3, the cost is a straight 15 pts per level.

Missile Spells � Missile spells in GRIFTS max out at 6x the mages Magery skill. So a character with Magery 3 could create an 18 dice fireball. The strength of missiles are grown at the spell caster�s Magery +1 per round, so the same mage would increase the strength of a missile spell at 4 dice per round.

Resistance Spells � Spells which provide Damage Resistance (DR), or a damage bonus instead of dice also max out at 6x the standard GURPS magic, this includes the Might spell, but not other spells that increase stats.

Time, Energy and Cost Tradeoffs - (hurried or careful spell casting) pg. 119 GURPS MAGIC � Skill does not automatically reduce energy cost and time required to cast spells. Instead, a mage may choose to reduce energy cost, at a -3 penalty for each -1 to cost. Or he may reduce casting time, at a -3 skill penalty for each halving of time (minimum of one second).
Or the mage can take extra time. For each doubling of uninterrupted casting time, the caster either gets a +1 to effective skill or -1 to energy cost.

Advantages - Players have more flexibility to meet different situations.
Disadvantages � Low-skill wizards can produce powerful effects, given a great deal of time.

Ley Lines and Nexi � Ley Lines range in width from 100 yards to five miles, and tend to be half as high as they are wide (but do extend underground as far as they do above). In certain areas, Ley Lines �pool� causing areas with the combined power of multiple Ley Lines, without their linear nature. Such zones are dubbed �Nexus Points� and attract supernatural creatures and are thus very dangerous. The �typical� Ley Line is 500 yards wide.
The majority of Rifts Earth is normal mana. There may are a few areas of low mana about, however they are extremely rare. No areas of no mana have been identified as occurring naturally.

Magic becomes easier as one approaches a Ley Line. The area from the edge of a ley line (including the air and below the surface of the ground) to a distance equal to the Ley Line�s width only requires that mages spend 2/3 of the normal fatigue for the spell (rounded up, minimum of 1). Psionics are unaffected by Ley Lines as they are conduits of pure magical energy, not psychic force.
Within a Ley Line or within one mile of a Nexus Point anyone can cast spells (high mana area; the Recover Strength spell is twice as effective in this region), spells are at � cost (round up), and the spell caster can draw on the Ley Line for 1 point of fatigue per spell cast, this can reduce the effective cost of spells to 0.
The area within 200 yards of a Nexus Point is a very high mana zone, spells only require 1/3 of the normal fatigue. Recover Strength is four times as effective as within a standard very high mana area, and the caster can draw upon the Ley Lines for 2 points of fatigue per spell cast. At times when a Rift is present in Nexus Points, the area around the Rift out to 50 yards becomes a wild magic zone as huge pulses of magical energy ripple through the zone.
Nexus Points are sensitive areas where mana pools in huge quantities making the fabric of time and space unstable. Rifts open in these areas, tears of the time/space continuum that lead into other worlds, and other times. Heavy spell use in these regions can trigger such an effect, as well as occurring naturally.

Technowizardry (Technological Magic) � The flavor of the GRIFTS universe is one where post apacolypse Earth is struggling to survive the coming of magic and all the demonic beings that brings. Technology is comparably rare outside of the very few city centers that have emerged from humanities ashes. To allow Technological magic to be utilized by players would severely damage game play. Hence the following colleges of magic fall into the realm of Technowizardry, and are not initially available to players.

Machine Spells
Energy Spells
Radiation Spells
Metal and Plastic Spells

These colleges are jealously guarded by the Technowizards who develop this magical hybrid of magic and science. Centers of Technowizardry can be found in Lazlo, New Lazlo, Tolkeen, and Stormspire in North America. Mages who are not part of this order who have access to even one of these spells are typically hunted down and either the spell is forcibly removed from his/her memory and the source of the forbidden knowledge destroyed, or the mage is slain (depending upon the ethics of the Technowizards involved).

Spells may be learned form Tomes, Scrolls, or other Mages. They require the same amount of study as normal skills (200 hrs) and are all considered mental hard skills. If you do not know any other spells from the college that the spell you are attempting to learn a spell from, you will REQUIRE a tutor to teach you the ways of that college before you can learn any spells from it. You may get this information from a written source that is an authority on that particular college such as a spell book, however to fully understand it you must pass a mage test (target is 10+ magery score). Failure means that you will require tutoring before you can learn the spell. The tutoring will be considered to be included in the 200 hours needed to learn the spell in question.
In the case of those colleges considered to be in the realm of Technowizardry (Machine, Energy, Radiation, and Metal/Plastic) you MUST be first tutored by a mage who understands those colleges before any spells of those areas may be learned. Such knowledge is forbidden to non-techno clansmen, and to have such information illicitly is a death warrant in most areas!

Learning Spells � Spells are learned like any other intellectual skill. All spells are mental hard skills, and may have a series of prerequisite spells that must first be learned in sequential order. There are two questions one must answer before learning a spell, acquisition, and study time.
Acquisition is typically either through another spell caster, or through a Grimoire/Library.
Learning a spell, with an instructor, requires 200 hours of study per point spent on the spell. Spells can be learned from a library or Grimoire without a teachers assistance, however the time of study is doubled to 400 hours per point. These rules can be found on the sidebars of pages 82 � 83 of the basic GURPS rulebook.

Mages seldom share their spells out of the kindness of their hearts. Even open hearted generous souls value the intense time and effort needed to obtain such knowledge and part with it only dearly. This can be as simple as an exchange of spell knowledge, to as complicated as a transfer of lands/goods for the information. Whatever the teacher charges will be the going rate in that area, outside of large city states or the magic zone, finding knowledgeable mages is very difficult and seldom rewarding for the prospective student.

Banned and Adjusted Spells � The Invisibility spell works as listed against unaided vision. When an invisible target is seen through augmented vision (including but not limited to cameras, optic bands, binoculars, cyber-eyes, etc) the effect of invisibility is similar to the blur spell (-1 to hit per energy point invested). This is to prevent invisibility from dominating game play as a defense. Note, motion sensors, or creatures/tech that acquires a target in some other way than the visual spectrum is completely immune to this spell.

Accelerate Time and Teleport has both been removed from the game in order to preserve the flavor of the world. Both would challenge the premise of GRIFTS and require absurd explanations to be able to include into the game.
Missile Shield, Reverse Missile, and any other 'absolute miss' spells are being dropped from the game.

Spell ranges have been increased to the horizon, standard distance penalties apply.

Armor:
Max DR is 6 times the caster's Magery rating
Cost is equal to 1/4 (round up) of the added DR, 1/2 of that cost to maintain
Duration: 1 minute
*note* This spell does not stack with physical armor worn by the mage. Only the more effective of the two will be used and it should be noted that this spell provides no PD.

Any spell which targets an individual, or group of individuals that is successfully resisted, immediately makes those targets aware of the caster and that some form of magic has been attempted upon them. Otherwise they become ineligible as targets for that spellcaster with that spell for 24 hours. This is decided by the spellcaster at the time of the failure.

Cyberware interferes with the very nature of magic. Spellcasters who augment their bodies suffer from reduced magic ability. Up to 10 pts of cyberwear can be added to a mage�s body without ill effects. For every 10 pts afterwards 1 is subtracted from the Mage�s Magery advantage until the offending cyberwear is removed. Psionics are a function of expanded use of the brain and are not dependant upon a physical body apart from the actual brain, therefore they are unaffected by cyberwear that does not invade the brain