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Old 11-19-2018, 10:05 PM   #11
Coinage
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
My point was that the “Ritual Powers” section in Pyramid 3/66 applies a -5% Limitation for having to engage in ritual activities including hand motions and chanting. It's out of date because Power-Ups 8 sets the value of each (gestures and chants) at -10%, resulting in a net -20% where the original article only called it at -5%.
Checking the book:

"Must be able to speak and make simple gestures (-5%)" (Pyramid 3/66, p. 13)

You are right. The updated Power-Ups 8 does change it to [-10%]. Kudos.

However, the modifiers applied to the converted spell depends upon the Energy Cost. Spells that cost 9 or less just get the Magical [-10%]. Going by the updated account, Spells that cost 10-19 get Magical [-10%], plus "your choice of Accessibility, Must be able to speak and make simple gestures (-10%) or Costs Fatigue, 1 FP (-5%)." (Pyramid 3/66, p. 13).

Last edited by Coinage; 11-19-2018 at 10:29 PM.
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Old 11-19-2018, 11:09 PM   #12
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

I'm still wondering about the "under the hoof" for sorcery. Page 6 of Th:So has Extra Effort rules at a fixed -4 regardless of what level your underlying ability is. Powers 160 is -1 per +5% (-4 for +20%) so for 1 level to be 20% assumes an underlying advantage at 5th level, even though in the example they're improving Shape Fire 3 to Shape Fire 5. +65% levels would be a -13 roll, not -5, so Sorcery's EE rules are a lot more advantageous when you have spells at levels below 5, but not as useful as the baseline power rules when you have them above 5th.

Th:So 13 explains the Sorcery power modifier is just Magical + Costs Fatigue. This leaves 3 gaps with duplicating some of magic's traditional rules
*B235: Very High Mana giving FP spent on spells back next turn and changing all failures to critical failures
*B236: Energy Cost (ability to sub HP for FP)
*B237: Cancelling Spells for 1 energy

I'd like to understand how to build these features into the power modifier.
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Old 11-19-2018, 11:40 PM   #13
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

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Originally Posted by Coinage View Post
Checking the book:

"Must be able to speak and make simple gestures (-5%)" (Pyramid 3/66, p. 13)

You are right. The updated Power-Ups 8 does change it to [-10%]. Kudos.
Not -10%; -20%: -10% for needing to speak, and another -10% for needing to gesture.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Coinage View Post
However, the modifiers applied to the converted spell depends upon the Energy Cost. Spells that cost 9 or less just get the Magical [-10%]. Going by the updated account, Spells that cost 10-19 get Magical [-10%], plus "your choice of Accessibility, Must be able to speak and make simple gestures (-10%) or Costs Fatigue, 1 FP (-5%)." (Pyramid 3/66, p. 13).
Updating further, that's a choice between a -5% limitation (costs FP) and a -20% “meta-limitation” (needs gestures and chants). Given that, I would recommend phasing in the ritual requirements more slowly (e.g., 10–19 requires you to choose one of speech, gestures, or FP; 20–29 requires you to pick two of them; and 30–39 requires you to pick all three) and making the initial FP requirement be two FP, not one. As well, Power-ups 8 suggests a third possible accessibility limitation (also worth -10%) of “requires material components” that should be considered, potentially delaying the point where more accumulated energy translates directly to a higher FP cost even further.
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Old 11-20-2018, 12:19 AM   #14
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

The Extra Effort rules in Sorcery are simplified to make them easier to use in play (instead of looking up the spell's point cost and worrying about how much each additional level costs relative to that, just apply a fixed penalty per level). It matches Powers' Extra Effort rules when the next level costs 20% more than all levels before it put together, meaning that an exact match would assume that the cost of a leveled power must go up exponentially. So yes, there comes a point when the “-4 per level” isn't as beneficial as the “-1 per +5%” rule from Powers. That's a necessary concession to the need to keep things simple in play.

As for the three gaps you mention: I'd be inclined to just chalk them up to the Magical modifier: by making your Ability sensitive to Mana Level, you get access to the benefit of having any energy expended on a spell in a Very High Mana Zone — that is, the Magical modifier grants the benefits of the various Mana Levels as well as the drawbacks. Likewise with the other two gaps you pointed out.
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Old 11-20-2018, 08:21 AM   #15
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
Not -10%; -20%: -10% for needing to speak, and another -10% for needing to gesture.


Updating further, that's a choice between a -5% limitation (costs FP) and a -20% “meta-limitation” (needs gestures and chants). Given that, I would recommend phasing in the ritual requirements more slowly (e.g., 10–19 requires you to choose one of speech, gestures, or FP; 20–29 requires you to pick two of them; and 30–39 requires you to pick all three) and making the initial FP requirement be two FP, not one. As well, Power-ups 8 suggests a third possible accessibility limitation (also worth -10%) of “requires material components” that should be considered, potentially delaying the point where more accumulated energy translates directly to a higher FP cost even further.
Right, looks like I would have to completely re-do the Ritual Powers conversion chart. Thx for some guidelines.
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Old 11-20-2018, 12:39 PM   #16
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
As for the three gaps you mention: I'd be inclined to just chalk them up to the Magical modifier: by making your Ability sensitive to Mana Level, you get access to the benefit of having any energy expended on a spell in a Very High Mana Zone — that is, the Magical modifier grants the benefits of the various Mana Levels as well as the drawbacks. Likewise with the other two gaps you pointed out.
Mana-Sensitive / Magical only mentions the nullification in No Mana and the -5 (when applicable) in Low Mana, assuming the -10% was designed purely around that (or you wanted to emulate these effects in other powers) I'd like to break it down.

The enhancement aspect is basically "Reduced Fatigue Cost" in multiple levels equal to whatever you might spend on the sorcery (which could get pretty high, especially if allowing Extra Effort).

Getting it back 1 second later doesn't seem to have a mechanic unless you can fiddle with "Aftermath" (normally for delaying onset of a Temporary Disadvantage) or "Onset" (normally for delaying the time until enemies take damage) on enhancements so that the enhancement doesn't take effect until an amount of time after an advantage has been activated.

I guess since more expensive spells could be more dangerous, the drawbacks of "all failures are crits" could be viewed a scaling up with multiple levels of RFC.

Since you tack on another -5% to change Costs Fatigue to Costs HP (limitations lower point totals like disadvantages) treating that as merely an option could maybe be treated like "Controllable Disadvantages" which are usually rated as Perks.
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Old 11-20-2018, 02:40 PM   #17
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

See, this is what I don't like about the 4E GURPS Powers system: it's competing with Hero System to see which can be the most fiddly.
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Old 11-26-2018, 12:32 AM   #18
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Default Re: Converting RPM to Sorcery

Let me suggest a different approach to combining RPM and Sorcery: start with Sorcery, but replace Sorcerous Initiation with Magery (RPM). The Sorcery rules for Improvised Spells goes away entirely, replaced by the RPM rules. The one thing that stays is that you can't Improvise (i.e., use RPM) when a Learned Spell is active. Then build custom Spells to reflect the Rituals that you've internalized. Like regular Sorcery, there's no need for gestures, intonations, or anything else; just a second of concentration and one FP. Heck, you don't even need to roll for it: it just works. That's the benefit of internalizing it.

If you like, you can escalate the FP cost to reflect the amount of energy that would need to be accumulated under RPM casting rules; but that's not necessary, as you're already paying more points for a more powerful Spell. As I said before, Sorcery balances things using character points instead of energy accumulation requirements.

One thing that I'd allow for this combination of Sorcery and RPM would be automatic access to the Temporary Enhancements stunt for those Enhancements that correlate with ritual effect factors, like Area Effect and Extended Duration: concentrate for another second, pay to more FP, and make a Will-based Thaumatology roll at -1 per 10% of the appropriate Enhancement. So that would be a -2 per level of Extended Duration and -5 per level of Area Effect. If you feel that you must charge points for this, it would be a Perk (Rules Option, IIRC); but I'd reserve that for settings where this combined RPM/Sorcery is juxtaposed with more traditional Sorcery that lacks the access to Temporary Enhancements. If this is the only Powers-based system in the setting, the access to durable stunts is merely a campaign setting.

As you practice, you can make levels of these Temporary Enhancements permanent by building them directly into the underlying Spell.
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