I am making a bunch of stuff for GURPS in Elder Scrolls using my own custom stuff and a lot of the additions in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. One thing I am working on is making GURPS Magic feel more war-mage friendly using some of the option rules from GURPS Thaumatology. My version of Elder Scrolls is High Mana and magic is very common, so common that people use it for farming and you can reasonably expect a normal person to know a spell or two by age 30 or so. Now, they are not "wizards" but they know some useful spells that make day to day life easier. Shrines grant real blessings, scrolls are cheap enough that a farmer can afforded them, potion are the same. I am setting this is up so everyone reading gets the point that this is not a setting where magic is rare, "mystical", or poorly understood; rather, magic is normalized. Now, that being said, I am wondering if my changes lead to as situation where the height of wizards are so powerful that they can't be defeated by the height of archers/melee warriors.

I don't think so, but I am worried about the spells that can just end of fight losing the downsides of range; like Stun or Flesh to Stone. There are plently of scrolls and items to counter magic, so I might just be paranoid, but I would love input. Here are my ideas for changes:

Spell Range & Accuracy

By the unmodified rules, combat magic is short-ranged. A Regular or Area spell suffers a skill penalty equal to its distance in yards from the target (−1 per yard), and most Missile spells have low maximum ranges — a fireball reaches only fifty yards, where a common archer outshoots it. To bring spellcasting into line with the war-magic of this setting, where a skilled battlemage is a genuine battlefield threat and a master is terrifying, these rules extend the reach of all four kinds of magical attack, with every extension scaling off the caster's Magery. Range becomes another expression of magical talent: the gifted reach farther, the master farther still, and the untrained Magery 0 caster operates at the unmodified baseline.

Rule 1 — Magery Grants Penalty-Free Distance for Regular & Area Spells

Each level of Magery adds one full hex (yard) of penalty-free distance before range penalties begin to apply to a Regular or Area spell. In practice, subtract the caster's Magery in yards from the distance to the target before computing the penalty. A Magery 3 caster suffers no penalty out to three yards, then the normal progression resumes from there.

In ordinary battlefield casting this shifts the −1-per-yard curve outward by the caster's Magery: a Magery 3 mage striking a target eight yards away figures the distance as five yards (−5) rather than eight. The benefit also applies to ceremonial casting (Rule 2), shifting that reckoning outward in the same way. Because of how range penalties scale, the penalty-free distance matters greatly at close range and very little at long range — it sweetens the near work without inflating the far.

In ceremonial casting, the lead caster — the one who makes the skill roll — determines the penalty-free distance from their own Magery. The Magery of assistants and spectators does not contribute to range.

Rule 2 — Ceremonial Regular & Area Spells Use the Speed/Range Table

When a Regular or Area spell is cast as ceremonial magic, it no longer suffers the brutal −1-per-yard distance penalty. Instead, it reckons range using the Size and Speed/Range Table (the same table used for ranged attacks): roughly −2 at five yards, −4 at ten, −7 at twenty, −11 at fifty, −13 at one hundred yards — further reduced by the caster's penalty-free distance from Rule 1. A ceremonial caster who can see the target may therefore illuminate, heal, read, or harm anything within sight at a manageable penalty — but every such casting takes at least ten seconds, often minutes, requires assistants, and remains subject to the ordinary perils of ceremonial work (a roll of 16 always fails). This is prepared, ritual war-magic: siege-breaking, mass blessing, battlefield-spanning effect, paid for in time and exposure rather than in steep penalties.

This rule applies only to spells that would otherwise use the default −1-per-yard penalty. Spells that already use a different range system are unaffected: Information spells keep their native Long-Distance Modifiers, and any spell with its own special range scheme (such as the Gate spells' distance bands) keeps that scheme. The ceremonial upgrade replaces the bare per-yard penalty and nothing else.

Rule 3 — Missile Spell Range Scales with Magery

A Missile spell's ranges increase with the caster's Magery level: +5 yards to 1/2D range and +10 yards to Maximum range per level of Magery. A Magery 0 caster throws at the spell's printed ranges; the scaling begins at Magery 1.

Worked Ranges & Notes:
Fireball (printed 1/2D 25, Max 50): at Magery 1, 1/2D 30 / Max 60; at Magery 3, 1/2D 40 / Max 80; at Magery 5, 1/2D 50 / Max 100.

Lightning (printed 1/2D 50, Max 100): at Magery 3, 1/2D 65 / Max 130; at Magery 5, 1/2D 75 / Max 150.

The slower growth of 1/2D relative to Max means a high-Magery caster can reach far but shoots accurately only at moderate range — extreme-range shots still suffer the 1/2D damage falloff.

Rule 4 — Missile Spell Accuracy Scales with Magery

A Missile spell's Accuracy rises with the caster's Magery, by +1 per two levels, rounding up. As with any Accuracy bonus, it applies only when the caster Aims — a snap-cast Missile spell gains none of it.

Magery	Acc Bonus	Fireball (base Acc 1)
0	+0	Acc 1
1	+1	Acc 2
2	+1	Acc 2
3	+2	Acc 3
4	+2	Acc 3
5	+3	Acc 4
6	+3	Acc 4

At Magery 5–6 the bonus brings a Fireball to Acc 4 — better than a common longbow — so the master who Aims can land the long shots Rule 3's extended ranges unlock.

The Four Lanes of Magical Reach

Taken together, these rules sort magical attacks into four distinct roles, each keyed to Magery and each with its own battlefield character.

Missile spells are cast in hand and resolved with an attack roll against the Speed/Range Table, their ranges and Accuracy both rising with Magery (Rules 3 and 4). A talented thrower becomes competitive with archers at medium range; a master out-reaches and out-aims them. This is the mage as direct ranged combatant.

Battlefield Regular and Area spells use the −1-per-yard penalty, shifted outward by the Magery penalty-free distance (Rule 1). They are close-range, talent-gated, and fall off steeply past the penalty-free bubble — fast and personal, but exposing the caster to the foe who closes the gap. This is the mage striking at arm's reach in the press of melee.

Ceremonial Regular and Area spells use the Speed/Range Table (Rule 2), again shifted by Magery (Rule 1), reaching across a whole battlefield — but slowly, with assistants, and chancily. This is prepared war-magic: the ritual circle that breaks a siege or blankets a field, the channel-three working writ large, dependent on time and protection the way a screened formation depends on its counter-magic cover.

Information spells are untouched by these rules, keeping their native Long-Distance Modifiers and their reach of many miles for a competent specialist. This is the mage as scout, spy, and strategist — the role the unmodified rules already grant, and the one in which even a cautious caster who avoids the front line remains formidable.

The result is a battlefield on which the lone battlemage is a close-to-medium threat whose reach measures their talent, while the prepared ritual group is what projects magic across distance. The folk-caster, the trained battlemage, and the ceremonial circle each hold a distinct and lore-consistent place — and because every lever runs through Magery, the whole forms one system rather than a handful of separate exceptions.