[RPM] Starting Character Points

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Note! I personally consider Luck to be _vital_ to a Competent RPMist. An RPMist without luck is a grave menace to society. An RPMist with luck is just a menace to society!

Yeah, I can see that. I actually had a player build an RPMist with a three point version of luck that only worked for magic and cost HP. It actually worked pretty well: critical failures, rather than being eliminated, sent the Mage in need of medical care, and importantly to the player, was predictable.

The emergency room thought she had some weird condition with an unknown trigger. And yes, they knew who she was.

[Peter Knutsen]

Aren't there Limited versions of Ritual Adept around? That might help shave off a few points...

[Angle]

Yeah, as per pyramid 3-66, page 17, both Magery and Ritual Adept can be limited with "Standard Tradition only, -20%" or "Narrow Tradition only, -25%". Beware though, letting mages take all of this right out the gate on all of their stuff might make them scary powerful. I'd make it more of a mid game thing, and have the go on a quest to find the secrets for it.

Also, if you want them to be casting whole spells in combat, you might want to have them take Gathering Mastery[35] (Modified by the same modifiers as Magery and Ritual Adept) in addition, which in combination with ritual adept, drop gathering times to 1 sec. Without it, they'll basically need to rely on conditional spells, energy reserve, and sacrifice to cast things in combat. Though if you have relatively slow combat, instead of Dungeon Fantasy facemashing, it might not be necessary...

Gimme a sec, and I'll work on a generic template.

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RPM Traditionalist Caster

IQ! 11 [10]

Advantages:
Full Adept (Narrow Tradition -25%) [30]
Magery 0 [5]
Magery +1 (Narrow Tradition -25%) [8]
4 levels in a a specialized talent from Pyramid 3-66, pages 19-20 [20]
Higher purpose (@Narrow Tradition@) 2 [6]

Magic Skills:
Thaumology 10 [4] (14 for paths related to your talent)
Pick two paths at IQ +3, 14 *+4 from talent [8]

Other skills
12 points in relevant supporting skills, magery, .

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

Hmm. Well, I'm ot great at writing templates, so it's basically Erics, except generalized and with 10 points moved from ritual adept to Magery and supporting skills. Anyone else care to take a crack at it?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

"IQ!" is a shorthand by some on this forum for "buy up IQ but buy Will and Per back down to 10."

So what he's doing is buying IQ 13 [60], Will 10 [-15], and Per 13 [0], for a total of 45 points.

Ah. I haven't memorized the shorthand yet. I still check back to the Abbreviations page constantly.


To me it looked like he'd typed out IQ and then accidentally shifted 1 to ! and dropped the 2.... since my internal cakculator figured that out based on the cost.

[Kalzazz]

Thaumatology and Paths are both VH skills, you shouldn't get the same numbers for different amount of points (getting 14 in the two paths for 8 and 14 in Thaum for 4, something has gone awry I think)

[Angle]

That's 4 per path, for a total of 8. Does that go against the format for templates?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Ah. I haven't memorized the shorthand yet. I still check back to the Abbreviations page constantly.


To me it looked like he'd typed out IQ and then accidentally shifted 1 to ! and dropped the 2.... since my internal cakculator figured that out based on the cost.

The bang Stat discussions have gotten heated. Some of us consider it silly that that counts as a disadvantage when simply not being as super perceptive or willful as you are smart is more of an advantage.
Some have completely separated Will and Perception from IQ for that and other reasons.

Though Ht! costs so little that it can easily lead to abuse.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

...
Note! I personally consider Luck to be _vital_ to a Competent RPMist. An RPMist without luck is a grave menace to society. An RPMist with luck is just a menace to society!

I thought Luck can't affect magic rolls. Is RPM an exception to the rule?

[Angle]

I don't think there's any restriction against using luck with magic, unless someone else is using the magic or you have your luck with "Aspect: Something besides magic".

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I thought Luck can't affect magic rolls. Is RPM an exception to the rule?

There is a rule about that, but it's much less than "can't affect magic rolls".

Per Magic p12, that book's form of ceremonial magic can't be affected by Wish or Bless spells, or Luck.

Per Magic p160, Lichedom can be affected by Luck, and Wish or Bless spells.

Thaumatology p30 points out that you can't use Luck to re-roll results on a magical critical failure table, which is a case of the general rule that you can't use Luck on effects tables, such as the Threshold magic Calamity table. At the GM's option, buying Cosmic, +50%, on Luck, removes this limitation.

Thaumatology p179 offers the GM the option of not allowing Luck with Words of Power, which are meant to be horribly dangerous.

Per T:RPM p15, Luck gained via RPM can't be used to improve RPM, as part of RPM's general magic-can't-boost-magic rule, but ordinary Luck works fine.

That seems to be all.