Ritual Path Magic & Bestowing Magery Advantage

[Coinage]

In the Ritual Path Magic supplement, it says in the sidebar:

“Spells cannot make anyone better at using magic. - A ritual can never give a bonus to spellcasting, bestow Magery or Ritual Adept, etc. (It could add Magic Resistance or drain Magery, however.) … This restriction only applies to spells; permanent magic, such as that found in places of power (pp. 32-33) and enchanted items (pp. 33-35), can make a caster better at using magic!” (15, Sidebar).

A player of mine was asking if it was possible for a caster without the Magery Advantage to give that same caster the Magery advantage. Basically, he wanted to know if a non-mage character could make himself (or herself) a mage using RPM.

My initial thoughts would be the only way to do so would be to Enchant an item that cast the Wish spell, but again I'm not sure. Would it be possible for the caster to Enchant himself?

If there is, how would such a spell or ritual be designed? Any help would be appreciated.

[Anaraxes]

Original post edited for clarity:

Originally Posted by Coinage

A ritual can never... bestow Magery

The RAW answer is pretty clear. The reason for the RAW answer is of course simply to avoid the obvious (and common) problem of positive feedback loops.

Enchant an item that cast the Wish spell

What Wish spell? RPM doesn't use the spell list in Basic or Magic at all. RPM has its own enchantment rules; see p33. The word "wish" occurs five times in that PDF, none of them as a spell, but just as a verb for the players or GM, as in "may wish to sell charms" or "may wish to resist". In any event, the rule quoted above would mean that such would be an enchantment that RPM just couldn't do. RPM magic isn't recursive, nor all-powerful. (Take that, Gödel!)

It's your game, so you can change the rule if you want. Though if you do, I'd plan on the first action of any RPM mage being to give themselves the maximum number of Advantages. Why waste your starting CP when you get get it all for free? Adjust your planned challenges accordingly, and either have players okay with mismatched character power levels, give extra CP to the non-mages, or plan for the game to consist entirely of mages (except for that one specialist in your group who always plays the ninja cat-girl).

If you really want this Advantage to be gained in play, I'd suggest that any setting using RPM also likely has any number of supernatural entities -- faeries, demons, godlings -- that would be happy to grant Magery to a mortal supplicant in exchange for the proper service and sacrifice.

Or at least they'll promise to grant you Magery. After the service and sacrifice, naturally...

[johndallman]

However, in the right kind of game, using RPM to set up specific conditions that allow a character to buy the Magery advantage with earned points could be perfectly reasonable. It's likely to be a "Magic has been lost and is being re-invented" kind of a setting, rather than one with lot of supernatural creatures around.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by johndallman

However, in the right kind of game, using RPM to set up specific conditions that allow a character to buy the Magery advantage with earned points could be perfectly reasonable. It's likely to be a "Magic has been lost and is being re-invented" kind of a setting, rather than one with lot of supernatural creatures around.

Thats my preference.
Avoids the feedback loop problem and just makes it the usual PC growth problem.

[Coinage]

"... Using RPM to set up specific conditions that allow a character to buy the Magery advantage with earned points could be perfectly reasonable."


That was what I was thinking.

For inspiration, I was thinking something along the lines of Full-Metal Alchemist, the part where Elric and his brother get sucked through the Gate and encounter Truth, and basically have to pay a horrific price for getting access to all that knowledge.

Basically, it can't be done as a RPM spell. Gotcha. Thx.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Avoids the feedback loop problem and just makes it the usual PC growth problem.

Yep. In-game requisites for being able to buy stuff with (meta) character points are pretty common in any genre, and can add a lot of flavor, as well as give PCs something to quest for. Just need to anticipate questions like "why didn't I just cast this spell right at the start" (e.g., didn't have the Tome o' Secrets) or "why don't I just cast that spell on everyone now that I have this Tome o' Secrets?" (e.g., the Tome deletes itself, or there's some singular ritual component, or all those other time-tested excuses).

[N.H.Alicia]

There may be setting-specific ways of gaining Magery.

Examples: Intensive training/meditation, serving an entity, a special artifact or location, human sacrifice, a special elixir, or a special ritual that can be used to grant Magery 0/1 to someone who does not have it.

I recommend using the last as a justification for buying Magery, not as a way to gain it for free.

[PK]

Right. As has been said previously, the only rules-legal way to use RPM to "gain" Magery or Ritual Adept is to craft a ritual that lets you justify buying the advantage with earned character points without requiring training. Such a ritual should be very basic, as it needs no spell effects; personally, I'd be okay with just "Greater Strengthen Magic (9)" for a total of 9 energy.