MH Thaumatology for Dummies?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

Cheers that does help.

Is there anyway to get the cost down, because at 57 points it will take ages to accumulate enough energy to actually cast that. I'm guessing on the average of over a minute.

The Control Mind & body options does the target get to resist at all as you are actually taking control away from themselves?

Yes they get to resist. Kelly actually lists what they resist with in his description.
So Resit with Will for example.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

Is there anyway to get the cost down, because at 57 points it will take ages to accumulate enough energy to actually cast that. I'm guessing on the average of over a minute.

There's no real way to reduce the energy cost. And, unless you have Ritual Path Adept (time), it will almost certainly take much more than 1 minute, because each roll to gather energy is actually 5 minutes by default.

However, the Ritual Path Adept (Time) advantage lets you make your first energy accumulating roll in only 5 seconds, and lets you tap energy sources in only 1 second. So someone with that advantage and a bunch of energy sources available could potentially cast a ritual fairly fast, at least in under a minute. But Ritual Path Magic really isn't intended to be a system where mages toss spells in seconds. If you want to have a bunch of magic ready to throw at a moment's notice, that's where charms come in - you prepare charms ahead of time for the spells you want to cast, and then use them when the time comes, more or less in a single turn. But you have to have the right ones prepped. That's one of the tradeoffs for the Ritual Path Magic system - it's very flexible, you can pretty much do anything with it, but it's not fast.

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

The Control Mind & body options does the target get to resist at all as you are actually taking control away from themselves?

As I mentioned in the writeups, they all get resistance rolls. Anything ritual that affects someone else allows a resistance roll. See the "Success" bullet point, Ritual Path Magic p. 22.

[Highland_Piper]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yes they get to resist. Kelly actually lists what they resist with in his description.
So Resit with Will for example.

That is one of the problems with dyslexia. I can miss whole sections of text. Not to mention background colour is a big deal and this forums background colour hinders my reading.

So what I'm getting out of this is Path/Book is not useful for quick protection or attacks and the caster better be packing a Glock.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

So what I'm getting out of this is Path/Book is not useful for quick protection or attacks and the caster better be packing a Glock.

It's not useful for casting a defense or attack suddenly, no. But you can cast a ritual that, for instance, will give you some decent amount of DR against attacks, triggered to start the first time you get attacked, and then go for a certain duration. That's the whole point of charms - you prepare the ritual you think you'll need ahead of time.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

you prepare the ritual you think you'll need ahead of time.

RPM was designed for the Monster Hunters line, and MH makes it important to do investigation, research, and preparation, not just wade right into to the monster-of-the-week and start swinging. It's also a system where magic is supposed to be the province of weird occult rituals, as with most wainscot settings, not just the excuse for casual superpowers. So taking a while to prep "spells" (charms) fits right in.

It also lends the system something of the feel of classic D&D, especially the tournament dungeons. Wizards know a lot of spells, but they have to pre-select only a few that they'll get to cast in the dungeon. There's no time in combat to memorize a new spell or do ritual casting. You fight with what you brought, and what you brought depends on how much you correctly anticipated about your target.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

So what I'm getting out of this is Path/Book is not useful for quick protection or attacks and the caster better be packing a Glock.

Just for the sake of clarity what is being discussed is _not_ Path/Book Magic. The system under discussion is Ritual Path Magic.

Path/Book Magic is different. Still not useful for quick casting unless you have 3 Ritual Adept Advantages but if you do casting only takes 1D6 seconds for Effect Shaping.

People who want quick reaction abilities generally want something else than either of these systems. Try Psionics or Cinematic Martial Arts or just a big gun.

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Just for the sake of clarity what is being discussed is _not_ Path/Book Magic. The system under discussion is Ritual Path Magic.

Path/Book Magic is different. Still not useful for quick casting unless you have 3 Ritual Adept Advantages but if you do casting only takes 1D6 seconds for Effect Shaping.

People who want quick reaction abilities generally want something else than either of these systems. Try Psionics or Cinematic Martial Arts or just a big gun.

Or Sorcery. Or Sorcery and RPM together.

[Kalzazz]

As a note, see Ammunition Charms (pg 27 of RPM)! Then your Glock can fire bullets which unleash the painful hurting wallops when they hit (as opposed to the papercuts of mild annoyance which handguns normally deliver)

Also just buff up your Glock in general, that could be good


See the 'indirect damage rituals that don't involve hand held projectiles' rules on pg 17 of RPM for fun with attack spells you don't physically have to lob

Your spell loadouts are your friends, your bread and butter, this is how you get to be an ADnD style mage who can churn through his spell list in a few fights and then stack dice towers while the rest of the party handles the rest of the adventure (not quite, but close)

With the combination of Fast Draw (Charm) and the pg 17 rule above (plus resistable attack spells and such), you can churn out 1 spell a round while your stock of charms holds out

Here is an example for a Ninja Themed Ammunition Charm loving RPMist of a spell loadout (far from perfect, but it is there)

Max 25 Conditionals Current Loadout
Ultimately Sharp Go-Shuriken 3 3
Super Storm Go-Shuriken 4 4
Ultimate Power Go-Shuriken 3 4
Explosive Force Go-Shuriken 3 3
Healing Throwie 3 3
Ninja Smoke Bomb 3 3
Lion, Tiger and Bear Oh My! 2 2
Shadow Clone Technique 1 1
Friendly Bolas Barrage 2 2


Column 1 is the name of the spell, column 2 is the amount she currently has handy, and column 3 is how many she would have under the full loadout

[Tinman]

A ritual path caster also has a number of spell slots that can be filled with pre-prepared conditional spells (like a D&D mage memorizing spells per day).
IIRC it's Thaumatolgy + (Magery*2). So if you have Thaumatology 16 & Magery 3 you will have 22 slots. Plenty for an encounter or two.
Use these slots for combat and defense spells.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Tinman

\
IIRC it's Thaumatolgy + (Magery*2). So if you have Thaumatology 16 & Magery 3 you will have 22 slots.

Not quite. It's just (Thamatology skill + Magery). So your example could only have 19 rituals ready and waiting. But that's still quite good!