[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Humabout

You're right. I was mixing up your and his posts and scrambling them. While I'm not necessarily against the high point cost for doing craziness for free, I'm just not totally feeling the three levels for a -2 reduction in multiplier. Even if one level gives a bonus to gather attempts, does it stop doing this when you reduce a greater effect to a lesser? Something just feels off about it. I'll give it some more thought in the morning and see if something springs to mind.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yep, 40/level for Control (Magic) is my pricing.
I hadnt used it to reduce Greater Effects to leser but have used it for +1 to rolls and skills as if each level counted as Magery. This contradicts the use of Control (Psi) in the Pyramid article GhostDancer referenced but IMHO Mana is an external force your drawing in so it feels appropriate to me.

I feel it is pretty darn pricey for that bonus but it can be used to lower or raise others skills and for Power Defense.
Using it for reducing Greater Effects to Lesser is an interesting idea.
If it were magery at that price it would be worth +4 to gathering energy and 12 ER. Making that worth 1 Greater Effect seems ok but I never tested it.

I want to point out something here: Control of all EM Radiation is 25/level (which is easily a pervading force as magic) and God-Like Control, that is Control (Time) or Control (Space) is 30points per level. So making it cost 40/level (unless there is a bundled UB or other trait) is unfair to the players. That said, I might be able to get behind something like

Control (Magic; Cosmic, Affects Self, +50%) [45/level] and allow only archmages or those with lots of points invested in magical Paths in the like to take it.

As for it's bonus reduction to per level - keep in mind that Control (Psi) 20/level gives a +1 to skill rolls per level and a +1 to power levels per 10 levels. That's... a lot really for psis, I know, I have a game where there is a character who basically has a Meta-Psi power and he's nasty against other psis. I mean, worse than anti-psis because he can cause them to critically fail their skill rolls. I originally used 10 levels = reduction of Greater effects by one multiple (x3 becomes x2, x2 becomes x1), but it didn't work out. So I instead increased the base cost to 30/level and treated it like God-Like control, but used the Natural Phenomena rate for Greater effects (level 1 does nothing, level 2 reduces it a multiple, level 3 reduces it the multiple by 2, etc.) - it works almost perfectly. It's also easy to remember: Each level that reduces a Greater effect by one step coincides with the number of levels needed. So Control 3 (Magic) reduces one Greater effect, Control 5(Magic) reduces two, Control 7 (Magic) reduces three, and so on.

Anyways, that's my reasoning. My players balked at the originally pricing, but no so much now. I'd say that having the ability to affect just yourself or just others is worth +0% and doing both is +50%. And thanks to you guys, I've started another article for on how to use Control (Magic) with RPM. :-D