RPM economy

[Snaps]

A society where Ritual Path Magic is commonplace is either going to be an undreamed of utopia, or a nightmarish hell on earth. Probably the latter.

Some things to consider:

-Such a society will have spread across the galaxy:

A gate that lasts a year, to any point in our galaxy costs less than 500 energy. This might sound like a lot, but it really isn't. Five decent casters, working together, with the best equipment, grimoires, etc., on a place of power can gather this no problem.

They'd also spread across dimensions:

A Gate to an alternate earth is only 10 energy. They'd have explored far more quantoms than Infinity Inc.

-They'll probably destroy themselves:

The way Working Together works just promotes disasters. You get your full skill roll for the gathering energy, then at the end the leader makes a roll to complete the ritual. What happens when one idiot gets 100 people together and tells them he's going to change the world. They'll quickly gather 1000 energy or more (probably a lot more) then the leader will critically fail the final roll (due to his -100 penalty). BOOM.

-Warfare will be insane:

Take 5 decent casters (14 skill), give them a great place of power (+5 skill), the best tools (+2 or more), Great trappings (-25% to energy cost), and the best grimoire the military can afford (+10 skill).

This gives them a final skill of 31. The Quick and dirty chart gives them a safe threshold of 175. So with their trappings, that means they can each gather about 437 energy by only exceeding twice their threshold. That's 2185 energy that these 5, decent mages can play around with.

Mana Bomb
Spell Effects: Greater Create Energy.
Inherent Modifiers: Damage, External Burning Explosive.
Greater Effects: 1 (x3).
A simple fire charm, that explodes when broken.
Typical Casting: Greater Create Energy (6) + Damage, Exter-
nal Burning Explosive 350d (696). 2106 energy (6×3).

A pretty simple spell, that will cause a 700 yard explosion. Honestly though, you'd probably be safe with up to fifteen or more of these decent mages working together, giving you a 1000d spell.

So many horrors...:

Now imagine they take the energy from the Mana Bomb, and instead summon a demon... or an elemental... or Cthulhu. Summoning a 2,000 point horror to attack your enemies might be more effective than a bomb.

They will be Supermen:

Let's go with 6000 energy being the upper limit of what a millionaire can afford. Total perfection is then possible. A +10 IQ charm, that lasts a century won't even cost 1,000 energy. Same with one for DX. HT and ST are obviously cheaper, and you can build Belts of Strength that are literally powerful enough for someone to destroy the earth with one punch. Super Strength 55 is going to be pretty close to that 6,000 energy mark. Not to mention Armor of Injury Tolerance.

Even if you think my examples are extreme (maybe they are). Even using much less energy you're going to get some big results.

Five casters with even little training should be able to muster up 50 energy each with the right tools. That's 250 energy. That allows quite a number of cool effects. +3 IQ pills might be more common than viagra.

Just some things to think about. My players have been pulling some whoppers on me with RPM. Which is fine. It's a powerful magic system. Much more like Mage: The Ascension then GURPS: Magic IMO.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Servanous

A spell can't make you better at magic but enchanted items can. That's why you can have an item enchanted with magery or ritual adept but you can't add these traits with a spell. As the last point in the stacking spells sidebar says

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!

True, but be aware by default enchanted items only work for their maker, and are bought with points -- Not something that lends itself to mass production. Also be aware that making such magic common place has very unbalancing effects on RPM.

Places of power will be in high demand, very expensive and busy real estate.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Snaps

A gate that lasts a year, to any point in our galaxy costs less than 500 energy. This might sound like a lot, but it really isn't. Five decent casters, working together, with the best equipment, grimoires, etc., on a place of power can gather this no problem.

you say 'decent'. please note that not every setting that uses RPM does so at Monster hunters point levels. It is completely valid to have a setting where the best casters have skill 16 or less in their favored paths. 500 is a TON of energy.Yes, you can do it with 5 custom +10 grimoires and a +5 place of power. If you can get the grimoires (can the folks in the setting make custom grimoires?)

They'd also spread across dimensions:

A Gate to an alternate earth is only 10 energy. They'd have explored far more quantoms than Infinity Inc.

This is actually pretty expected. I'll note you'll need weight, duration, or both. creating a new gate is a greater effect. But at under 40, many mages will be able to handle it. If the worlds they are trying to travel to exist. You can't get to an alternate reality where you're king if it doesn't exist in your multiverse.

-They'll probably destroy themselves:

The way Working Together works just promotes disasters. You get your full skill roll for the gathering energy, then at the end the leader makes a roll to complete the ritual. What happens when one idiot gets 100 people together and tells them he's going to change the world. They'll quickly gather 1000 energy or more (probably a lot more) then the leader will critically fail the final roll (due to his -100 penalty). BOOM.

Thats actually not the way it works. RPM pg. 25 under working together states:

All rolls involved with the ritual are
at -1 for every caster past the first, however,

If you have 100 casters, everyone is rolling at -99 every time they try to gather energy. The optimal way to gather energy

[Snaps]

Originally Posted by ericthered

you say 'decent'. please note that not every setting that uses RPM does so at Monster hunters point levels. It is completely valid to have a setting where the best casters have skill 16 or less in their favored paths. 500 is a TON of energy.Yes, you can do it with 5 custom +10 grimoires and a +5 place of power. If you can get the grimoires (can the folks in the setting make custom grimoires?)

When I say decent I'm thinking Magery 2 and a 14 skill? Honestly, it probably doesn't matter. Even five non-adepts with skills of 12 could probably pull it off.

A 12 skill, with +2 equipment, and +10 grimoires, on a +5 place of power gives those five casters each an effective skill of 29. That gives each of them a safe threshold of 155. Casting the spell is no problem.

Also, there's no reason to only use five casters. A project like this is going to get the best lead mage they can get, use something like 15 mages, all with a wild boar or better to sacrifice, etc. They'll hardly tap into their own energies at all, and pull off this spell with very low risk.

Lastly, I see nothing that limits how many willing sacrifices can contribute to a ritual. Damn, I hadn't noticed that before. That makes a lot of things possible. Probably deserves its own thread.

Keep in mind. I'm not saying that anyone could do this. But it would happen. Probably a lot. Think of how much we spend on space exploration. Or how much empires, kingdoms, and merchants have spent throughout history to explore the world. Gates costs pennies. Any gate someone spends the money on to have created is going to make its money back a hundredfold, most likely more.

Do they even need more than one Grimoire? As I was thinking about it, I see no reason five people can't read from the same grimoire at once. This is the cast in every movie, tv show, and book I've ever read. Buff and the Scoobies, or the Charmed Girls all gather around the dusty tome, then start chanting and casting their spell.

-They'll probably destroy themselves:

Thats actually not the way it works. RPM pg. 25 under working together states:

If you have 100 casters, everyone is rolling at -99 every time they try to gather energy. The optimal way to gather energy

That's not the way I read it, but I could be wrong (I often am). I think they roll their gather energy rolls like normal, and only the rolls to cast the ritual itself has the minus.

[ericthered]

Yeah, willing rituals contributing energy in a linear fashion is mathmatically unstable. I usually disallow or nerf it to be logarithmic (first two sacrifices are worth full, but you need four to triple, eight to quadruple, 16 to get 5 times base, and so forth). I often forget not everyone sees that rule as annoying and stomps on it.

I've never thought about sharing a grimoire between joint casters. Its probably fair. Custom grimoires are not a given, but in an open RPM world that switch is probably on.

---------------------------------

The text of the book, which I quoted, does say "ALL ROLLS are at -1...." I can only assume all rolls includes energy gathering rolls.

[Servanous]

Originally Posted by ericthered

True, but be aware by default enchanted items only work for their maker, and are bought with points -- Not something that lends itself to mass production. Also be aware that making such magic common place has very unbalancing effects on RPM.

Places of power will be in high demand, very expensive and busy real estate.

Ghostdancer covered the first point on his metatronic generator blog where you can bind items for money. As to the second point . . .

Greater Strengthen Magic can temporarily expand the area
covered by a place of power (though not its bonus) or
increase the DR or HP of an enchanted item (though not the
strength of its enchantment). RPM p 10

and a spell of my own design

New spell: Expand place of power
Spell effects: Greater strengthen magic (9)
Inherent modifiers: Area, duration
Greater effects 1: (*3)
This spell expands a place of power so that more casters may benefit from it. In extreme cases an entire city can be covered by such magic.
Typical casting: Greater strengthen magic (9) + 108 for one mile radius + 63 for one year duration.