[RPM] question about conditional spels

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

I'll have to dig around in the RPM book tonight, before the wife gets home. :-)

One thing I found an interesting idea, towards the end of D&D 3E, was "reserve spells." If you don't cast your highest-level spells (say, you've "prepared" a lightning-based spell), you were able to repeatedly cast a much-lower-powered (for instance, lightning-based) spell.

I'd kind of like to eventually get that figured out, in converting the gist of the idea to RPM... Probably something like a limit on Ritual Adept (so, for instance, "cast a lightning-based ritual in tens of seconds, instead of tens of minutes, but only while a powerful lightning-based ritual remains among your conditionals").

I'd work this as some sort of limited Gizmo, me thinks. Maybe with a Nuisance effect of -5% (or maybe even a Feature) that allows you to do a Quick and Dirty ritual at the cost of a conditional spell slot.

[Qhaysh]

First of all, thanks for all the input! ^^

Now, it clearly is a game balance thing, then. What bothers me about it is I don't know how to justify this ingame, how to make it work with the setting's metaphysics. The perk option doesn't alleviate this much, because I'd still have to explain why being able to have 2 hung copies of the same spell requires special training...

Would it help if I limited the duration of the hanging to a single day? Would it make it more balanced? It's a fantasy setting, so I don't think it would be too weird making magic have a slightly vancean feel... Maybe I could also increase the triggering time, maybe from a ready to a concentrate... hmmmm...

[Qhaysh]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I'd work this as some sort of limited Gizmo, me thinks. Maybe with a Nuisance effect of -5% (or maybe even a Feature) that allows you to do a Quick and Dirty ritual at the cost of a conditional spell slot.

The D&D version let you use the power as many times as you wanted, so I guess a slightly more faithful build would be some sort of ultra-dedicated ER and some sort of regeneration... Though I can see how that would get really pricey really quickly.

Maybe another option would be to use the effect-size reduction of Control (Magic) to make any appropriate effects Lesser...

[Christopher R. Rice]

Not really, you're still going to run into players who are willing to refresh their spells daily so they can have multiple damaging spells go off at once. Doing away with the Conditional Spell limit is like doing away with Stacking Spells. That is to say you can...but things are going to break...a lot. Of course, as the GM you can simply ignore that part - it's your game, you do as you like - but the consequences of the removal are going to bit you in the tuckus.

I suppose you could charge a 10-point Unusual Background for those who can ignore the rule, say, one or two layers deep. So you can have a Lesser Path and a Greater Path effect plus any combination of Lesser/Greater. But I have no idea how that would play out and what that might do to the game system.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Qhaysh

The D&D version let you use the power as many times as you wanted, so I guess a slightly more faithful build would be some sort of ultra-dedicated ER and some sort of regeneration... Though I can see how that would get really pricey really quickly.

Maybe another option would be to use the effect-size reduction of Control (Magic) to make any appropriate effects Lesser...

You guys would know more about it than I would. I quite playing D&D in 2004(ish) and I've never looked back. Too much emotional crap to deal with. So, as long as you had a spell slot dedicated to this you could just keep casting lightning bolt or whatever? That just sounds like regular spellcasting RPM style to me.

[Qhaysh]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

You guys would know more about it than I would. I quite playing D&D in 2004(ish) and I've never looked back. Too much emotional crap to deal with. So, as long as you had a spell slot dedicated to this you could just keep casting lightning bolt or whatever? That just sounds like regular spellcasting RPM style to me.

Yeah, basically, as long as you had an uncast spell that fulfilled the specific feat's criteria (e.g.: any Evocation (Lightning) spell), you were able to use a (usually spell-level dependent) mini-power (e.g.: a zapping power which caused 1d6 per level of your highest uncast Evocation (Lightning) spell).

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

You guys would know more about it than I would. I quite playing D&D in 2004(ish) and I've never looked back. Too much emotional crap to deal with. So, as long as you had a spell slot dedicated to this you could just keep casting lightning bolt or whatever? That just sounds like regular spellcasting RPM style to me.

As long as (for instance) you had a powerful lightning spell in a conditional, you could (for instance) cause a static jolt whenever you hit someone with your hand.

It's the difference between (in this example) having a ranged ranged attack spell that you COULD use, versus having a much-weaker melee attack that you could use frequently (as quickly as you could Ritual-Adept-speed gather energy).

The "reserve spell" mechanic was part of the bridge that D&D was making (between 1E/2E/early-3E, over to the 4E), realizing that a spellcaster could cast spells every combat, and it wouldn't break the game. As long as you didn't use your "bazookas," you could continue to fire away with your "pistols."

Edit: And yeah, D&D 3E has a lot of stuff I don't like, much of the mechanics. (4E was even worse... Too like MMORPGs, but having to do the math instead of letting a computer do it.) The ideas they had, however, had plenty of "Rule of Cool" to it.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Hmmm. I'm not sure if this is something you could or should translate over. Let me think about it. It sounds to me like it's (as you suggested) a ER with a specific theme (e.g., Limited Scope) and a fast recharge rate. This might even be better done as a advantage with Accessibility modifiers "Only when you have X spell as a conditional spell."

[Qhaysh]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

As long as (for instance) you had a powerful lightning spell in a conditional, you could (for instance) cause a static jolt whenever you hit someone with your hand.

It's the difference between (in this example) having a ranged ranged attack spell that you COULD use, versus having a much-weaker melee attack that you could use frequently (as quickly as you could Ritual-Adept-speed gather energy).

The "reserve spell" mechanic was part of the bridge that D&D was making (between 1E/2E/early-3E, over to the 4E), realizing that a spellcaster could cast spells every combat, and it wouldn't break the game. As long as you didn't use your "bazookas," you could continue to fire away with your "pistols."

Edit: And yeah, D&D 3E has a lot of stuff I don't like, much of the mechanics. (4E was even worse... Too like MMORPGs, but having to do the math instead of letting a computer do it.) The ideas they had, however, had plenty of "Rule of Cool" to it.

You know what, we're overthinking this. Just build it as a power and slap an Accessibility (Only when you have appropriate spell hung) -X%, and you're done.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Ghostdancer. Should've been expecting that :)

[Celti]

I'm allowing multiple copies of the same conditional spell to be hung in the game I'm going to start running tomorrow, with the caveat that all spells in this setting are conditional; a mage has to take her time and prepare her spells before using them in a very Vancian style.

Yes, this allows a mage to throw six fireballs in rapid succession if that's what she prepared, but that eats up into other spells she might have had hanging instead, as she can't just bust out the utility spells through normal casting at the time that they're needed.