[RPM] Dancing Shield

[Anaraxes]

If we take the linked rule literally, then the Block score is not the effective spell level. The "attribute" is -- in this case DX. The created mind has no skill points, so it's operating from defaults. So, the skill-20 caster might produce a DX 20 shield that has a Block skill of 16 which gives a Block score of 8 (+ PD +3).

It's a little less scary than just Block 20, anyway.

I had thought of the "use the caster's skill" angle. But the rule should generalize to any sort of animated object. It doesn't seem reasonable to me to require a witch to have every skill in the book in case he animates something.

It also doesn't seem to fit the usual magobabble for animating statues and intelligent swords. A possessing spirit would have its own skills, independent of what the caster knows. Most of the reason for contacting spirits is because they know something you don't, or can do something you can't.

You could take a more technological view, and treat a created mind as an artificial, programmed entity. That leads to the path of adding a new skill analogous to Computer Programming, but for programming said created minds. This provides another way to rein in the skill inflation by applying TDMs for hasty, on-the-spot creation. That, in turn, encourages witches to work out the "program" ahead of time, giving them another reason to do wizardly research in the lab in their wizard tower, and would tend to limit effective animations to some common objects for which the witch has prepared.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

If we take the linked rule literally, then the Block score is not the effective spell level. The "attribute" is -- in this case DX. The created mind has no skill points, so it's operating from defaults. So, the skill-20 caster might produce a DX 20 shield that has a Block skill of 16 which gives a Block score of 8 (+ PD +3).

That's not taking my post "literally" -- it's taking it out of context. It was a response to someone asking how to figure out what the ST score of a spell would be.

Basically, Ghostdancer has it right -- if a spell requires some sort of attribute or skill level to be determined so that the rules of the game make sense, use the effective spell level. (That is the lowest Path skill used to cast it, applying multi-Path penalties if you cast a spell that required 3+ Paths.)

If you have Path of Matter-19 and Path of Mind-17, then this spell would give the shield an effective skill of 17 (your Path of Mind, at no penalty because there are only two paths involved). That's an effective block of 11 plus DB. Considering that shields only get one block per turn (Basic Set rules) or take a cumulative -5 on subsequent blocks (Martial Arts rules), I don't agree that this is all that overpowered.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by PK

I don't agree that this is all that overpowered.

The scary part isn't the Block score for the one application.

It's that the precedent effectively gives witches the wildcard skill EverythingInTheBook! equal to their Path skill. The best way to solve all problems will be to pump up Ritual Magic and then just animate a shield, sword, toothpick, ballpoint, glove, assault rifle, socket wrench, automobile, helicopter, keyboard, CNC lathe, or what have you, to give it the needed skill. It's far more effective, and even cheaper, than buying up IQ and DX to raise all the related skills for the character directly. The base magic skill becomes a universal attribute for all skills at a cost of 4 CP per level, with the additional bonus that you don't need skill points to eliminate a default, but get Attribute + 0 in each skill for free.

GURPS Magic mages are famous for versatility and niche-stealing. The RPM witch won't even have the problem of a finite spell list. You don't need a Commando, just a guy that carries a gun until the battle starts -- or, if no guy is available, just a Control Matter effect so the gun itself follows your orders. You don't need a Sage, just a ballpoint pen that can write down the answer, or your mobile phone so the speaker can intone the ancient ritual. You don't even need all those other Path skills, since you can just Create Mind on something with the Path skill you need, equal to your other skills.

There needs to be some sort of limit on the skills that you get from Create Mind as part of the base effect. Borrowing from the stat normalizers, maybe all skills start at 10, and you have to Bestow Bonus to raise it. Or some other system for increasing the energy cost for more capable created minds. But it seems a bit much to me to give away all skills as a freebie built into the Path magic skill.

[Lex_BR]

I agree with anaraxes

And i also find it strange to accept the concept that you can create a mind with knowledge that you yourself do not have. Its a possible game breaker if you have a munchkiny player

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Lex_BR

I agree with anaraxes

And i also find it strange to accept the concept that you can create a mind with knowledge that you yourself do not have. Its a possible game breaker if you have a munchkiny player

Then you should not permit them play a RPM caster.

It isn't especially expensive, in energy nor skill, to summon a spirit to do all of those things for you if you don't want to 'create mind'. I have a PC Witch in one of my (not currently running because one of the players had a baby and is kinda busy) campaigns that specializes in the Path of Spirit. He (the PC) effectively has a personal army of demons, spirits, ghosts and a couple of bound angels at his beck and call.

It is reasonable that a warrior-angel is going to be rather scary in personal combat. It is reasonable that a doctor's ghost is going to know medicine. It is reasonable that a demon will know (at least some) of the hidden lore relating to demons. It is reasonable ... but you get the idea.

Why isn't this a problem? Because the Enemy has witches too; what that can be summoned can be banished; what that can be cast can be dispelled; what that can be made can be broken.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The scary part isn't the Block score for the one application.

It's that the precedent effectively gives witches the wildcard skill EverythingInTheBook! equal to their Path skill. The best way to solve all problems will be to pump up Ritual Magic and then just animate a shield, sword, toothpick, ballpoint, glove, assault rifle, socket wrench, automobile, helicopter, keyboard, CNC lathe, or what have you, to give it the needed skill. It's far more effective, and even cheaper, than buying up IQ and DX to raise all the related skills for the character directly. The base magic skill becomes a universal attribute for all skills at a cost of 4 CP per level, with the additional bonus that you don't need skill points to eliminate a default, but get Attribute + 0 in each skill for free.

GURPS Magic mages are famous for versatility and niche-stealing. The RPM witch won't even have the problem of a finite spell list. You don't need a Commando, just a guy that carries a gun until the battle starts -- or, if no guy is available, just a Control Matter effect so the gun itself follows your orders. You don't need a Sage, just a ballpoint pen that can write down the answer, or your mobile phone so the speaker can intone the ancient ritual. You don't even need all those other Path skills, since you can just Create Mind on something with the Path skill you need, equal to your other skills.

There needs to be some sort of limit on the skills that you get from Create Mind as part of the base effect. Borrowing from the stat normalizers, maybe all skills start at 10, and you have to Bestow Bonus to raise it. Or some other system for increasing the energy cost for more capable created minds. But it seems a bit much to me to give away all skills as a freebie built into the Path magic skill.

Originally Posted by Lex_BR

I agree with anaraxes

And i also find it strange to accept the concept that you can create a mind with knowledge that you yourself do not have. Its a possible game breaker if you have a munchkiny player

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Then you should not permit them play a RPM caster.

It isn't especially expensive, in energy nor skill, to summon a spirit to do all of those things for you if you don't want to 'create mind'. I have a PC Witch in one of my (not currently running because one of the players had a baby and is kinda busy) campaigns that specializes in the Path of Spirit. He (the PC) effectively has a personal army of demons, spirits, ghosts and a couple of bound angels at his beck and call.

It is reasonable that a warrior-angel is going to be rather scary in personal combat. It is reasonable that a doctor's ghost is going to know medicine. It is reasonable that a demon will know (at least some) of the hidden lore relating to demons. It is reasonable ... but you get the idea.

Why isn't this a problem? Because the Enemy has witches too; what that can be summoned can be banished; what that can be cast can be dispelled; what that can be made can be broken.

If you think RPM is broken and Magic isn't then...well. Let's not start that argument.

Look, I think I can saw with much confidence that I've GM'ed/played the RPM system more than anyone on these boards except for possibly PK. I had access to the original MH1 before it went into print and I immediately started using it for all my campaigns. That's about 2.5 years of 1 12-hour session a week gaming or 120 game sessions or 1,440 hours that I could have found massive breakages in the system. I haven't yet. There have been things that need to be fixed or expanded but no game system is perfect. It evolves over time and is patched as the holes are found.

That said you are forgetting one very important fact about RPM - if the GM finds a rule he doesn't like in the system he does not have to use it. He can rule otherwise. This is CORE to RPM. The GM is the one who decides how a spell works or what it needs. If he doesn't like "Path skill equals attribute/skill/foo" then he doesn't have to use it. Or he can say it's half Path. Or a quarter. Or whatever.

Personally I like it. Caster's who have innate fine control of a particular Path also retain that fine control when using their magic to do something.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Why isn't this a problem? Because the Enemy has witches too

As has often been noted, character points don't exist to balance the PCs against their enemies. They exist so that they players feel they all have an equitable influence on the game. If investing 400 points in being a witch means you can do everything the Crusader and Commando and Sage and Psi and Sleuth can do -- better, and using just one skill -- aren't the other templates getting a raw deal? Why play them at them all?

At least the Scoobies could do things that Buffy couldn't, even if they didn't have her point total. But with unlimited Create Mind, that ceases to be true, and even with nominally equal point totals, the group gets to watch, twiddling their thumbs as the enemy witches duel their witch. Maybe they'll conveniently cancel each other out, so the lesser figures can actually achieve something. (Shades of Pug in the later Raymond Feist stories...)

I'm not suggesting that created objects can do only what the caster can. That restriction has the opposite problem; if your conjuration can only do what you can, why cast the spell? It'd be faster to just do it yourself, and no need to waste spell energy.

But that doesn't mean everything should be accessible with a wave of the hand. Sure, the doctor's ghost knows medicine. Maybe; ghosts in fiction don't always retain all their memories of life. Often, it's just the emotional bits, particularly the ones that gave them reason to remain. But let's say the doctor's ghost knows medicine -- that doesn't mean there's conveniently a dead doctor from the past right there on your last battlefield where you can just call him up. It would be reasonable, and fitting with the source material, for summons to require research and arcane knowledge like true names in order to work at all, so it may not be possible "on the spot", and the summoner may not have access to the spirit they'd like to have, but instead have to live with the (short) list of ones they already know -- oh, but those spirits may not be right here right now, either, or might not want to come. (Better add Crossroads for a portal and Control Mind to compel them attendance upon your whim.)

If Created Minds aren't spirits, but an artificial automata, then most of these sorts of restrictions don't seem applicable. The creation time might be far longer, though. And the objection about creating something with a skill you don't have becomes much stronger. (AI teams include "subject matter experts" for this reason; the programmers don't know medicine, so they can't create a useful expert system without someone with that skill.)

Purely mechanically, there could be ways to rein in the abuse as well. Perhaps Create Mind takes more energy. Or there's a different base for skill levels. Or it takes multiple effects -- one per skill, one per five points in the skill, Greater effects for anything about 12. I don't claim to have a good answer. I was hoping some others might have some insight there.

But giving a character all skills equal to their best skill -- the most important one that's their main focus, their "prime attribute" -- is stunningly generous. It's hard to see that working well. It's like having Sages be able to do Karate because they read a book on it, or DF Knights doing surgery because they're really good at cutting people up with Broadsword skill.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

If you think RPM is broken and Magic isn't then...well. Let's not start that argument.

Heh. I don't find either broken. My only argument on the subject is that if you have a munchkin player, that you shouldn't permit said munchkin to have access to a flexible power system; they will abuse it. RPM is no more subject to abuse than Alternate Form, Cinematic Skills, Modular Ability, Spells-as-Skills, Talent and so on and so forth.

[DouglasCole]

Would it be crazytown to say that you wind up (say) with a projected skill of 10 plus some sort of bonus for margin of success? Notionally, Path-19 would give Skill-19 on a flat roll.

Another way to go would be to assume something like 10, plus the bonus you'd get from relative skill level (so if you have studied Shield and have it at DX+2, you'd start at 12), and then take -1 to your Path roll for every +1 of skill, so a more-skilled dancing shield is harder to cast.

So if you had Path-19 you could drop your skill by 6 to Path-13 (83% success) and give your Dancing Shield a skill of 16 for Block 11 plus shield defense bonus.

If you were also a shield expert at DX+4, the above would give you +2 more to block (from +4 to skill) for Block-13 plus shield DB.

That gives people who have invested points in a regular skill some benefit, forces an active trade of skill-for-result (like Deceptive Attack), which is pretty GURPS-like, and gives a variable effect. More time (for more skill) might also thus be an effective bonus, etc.

I'm not saying the rule is bad or Ghostdancer and RPK are wrong - as Ghostdancer pointed out, they've been playing with RPM for a LONG time. But there are ways in GURPS to play around with this result for other games styles that might give some desired results.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

...

RPM vs:

Modular Ability ([6] per slot, "nearly anything"; [5] per point; Reduced Time 1, +20%; And Social, +50%)
, Slot 1 [10.2, rounded up to 11]
, Slot 1 (11 points) [77]
Total: [88]

Slot "Ally (25%; Always Available, *4; Conjured, +100%; Minion, +50%; Reduced Time 1, +20%) [10.8, rounded up to 11]" in Slot 1. Flicker it as a free action on your turn into a different Ally built around solving the problem you need it to solve that moment.

Go, "Woo! Why are you here?" at the other PCs.

Its the Ally problem. ("Why are the other PCs there if you have an Ally who can solve any/every problem?") The same solutions apply.