[Thaumatology, Powers] Everything I Ever Wanted to Know About "Magic Is Power"

[munin]

(Gef, I think, not munin...)

If you don't want players improvising, consider using another advantage besides Patron as a base for alternative abilities (if you go that route). For example, Detect (Supernatural Phenomena) fits mages and has a base cost of 20 points -- you could start with a 10-point Vague, then remove Vague, then start adding Precise, Analyzing, Reflexive, and Long-Range to build it up to a 78-point ability -- or Detect (Supernatural Beings and Phenomena) can be built up to 117 points (or maybe more, with other enhancements). That should be plenty of points for most spells to base off of, though you may need to be creative with the affliction of some of the more expensive advantages. And they'd actually get some use out of the base advantage.

However, if you don't allow your players to design spells that means you'll have to. And designing potentially hundreds of spells is a lot of work -- many people have started such an effort and most get tired and abandon it (except simulatoralive).

Originally Posted by Landwalker

... But I also recognize that this would have the effect of keying many abilities to only a single skill, and that that skill (unlike the attribute the abilities are normally keyed to) would be much easier and less expensive to raise to high levels, so there is likely an element of imbalance there. ...

Not really. Most spells will be based on Affliction + Malediction, which uses Will, so a skill won't be that much cheaper (and has a buy-in cost just to get it up to Will+0), or will be paying points to base it on IQ (well ... just two for Affliction).

And even if a mage does spend a bunch of points to raise their all-encompassing skill to high levels, the Rule of 16 will keep them from overwhelming their enemies -- what that high skill level will allow them to do is compensate for range and other penalties -- and if you restrict mages to Malediction 1 we're only talking about a few yards for range: useful but not overwhelming.

EDIT: And there's always the Maintaining Skill rules (p. B294) to keep skills from getting too excessively high.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

Let me see if I understand Munin's suggestion correctly:

1) The core advantage of a mage will be a "Patron" representing their inborn magerificness, priced based on the table of pg. 4 of Divine Favor.

2) By itself, that advantage won't really do anything. However, it will act as a sort of "price offset" and effective level-and-point cap (Edit: With level cap parallel to the Frequency of Appearance for a like-priced Divine Favor) on all of a mage's subsequent abilities. This significant point savings should balance out the fact that the mage (unless he has Wild Talent) can't just ask himself for a miracle.* (Edit: Forgot to add that the advantage, like Divine Favor, would range up to Frequency of Appearance / Ability Level 16.)

3) The mage will buy subsequent abilities (e.g. an innate flame-jet attack, or Healing, or magical flight) as Alternate Abilities (1/5 cost) to the governing "Patron."

0) I'm not munin, sorry, although I do like birds.

1) Basically, yes. I suggested this as a model but you could tweak it. I would make three changes, actually: I'd apply the limitation Unconscious Only, and the Magic power modifier, and I'd downgrade the patron's power level by a step, so it's always less than God.

2) It doesn't do NOTHING; rather, it has a small chance to do just about anything...anything you want, deep down, but with the limitation Unconscious Only, not necessarily what you intend. If you buy up the level, it has a large chance to do things; that is, the "patron" has a high chance of showing up. However, this is an untrained, uncontrolled, and unintended use of magical power likely to have unwelcome consequences. That's why wizards learn spells, after all. A desperate wizard, out of options, might revert his Alternate Ability back to the Raw Power and take his chances that something helpful might happen - a potential deus ex machina under GM direction. Most of the time, though, the wizard has his Alternate Ability configured for a spell, so he's at no risk of random manifestation. The main advantage of this approach, the reason I suggested it, is that it provides a levelled numerical statistic from 3 to 16 that can be used to set maxima for spells, frex, Innate Attack no higher than Raw Power level.

3) Yes. Alternate Abilities that have the limitations suitable for spells. Different magical traditions might have different limitations, but one of them is probably IQ Roll Required for any advantage that doesn't have this built-in already. Rather than the IQ roll, you could substitute an appropriate IQ-based skill like Thaumatology (or a separate skill per power group, or a separate skill per spell).

[Landwalker]

Gah, sorry guys. I was in a rush this morning, and the speed and Slow Riser disadvantage obviously didn't combine in a favorable manner for me.

I won't be able to give much response for a couple more hours (work + cell phone = limited accessibility), but I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions when I do. I like the suggestion to slap the "magical patron" with Unconscious Only, since it means I won't have to deal with players constantly trying to use the base advantage to call down a rain of fire on the goblin camp, and instead the onus of trying to improvise suitable effects is rather rarer and up to my own discretion as GM. If I can avoid that problem, the approach is rather more appealing.

I also like (at least conceptually, not having been able to sit down with it, either) the tiered Detect approach Munin suggested.

I'm interested in looking at these closer this evening, and especially figuring out how Magery and/or Power Talent will fit into each of them.

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by Munin

However, if you don't allow your players to design spells that means you'll have to. And designing potentially hundreds of spells is a lot of work -- many people have started such an effort and most get tired and abandon it (except simulatoralive).

Oh, I don't mind players designing spells at all, as long as they design them ahead of time, and pay for them, and have them approved by the GM, rather than trying to spring some sort of exploit out of their hindquarters in mid-encounter. And I'm always happy to work with my players to try to put together a spell/ability they're interested in.

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Alright, let's look at these two approaches some more.

The Munin Method

Originally Posted by munin

If you don't want players improvising, consider using another advantage besides Patron as a base for alternative abilities (if you go that route). For example, Detect (Supernatural Phenomena) fits mages and has a base cost of 20 points -- you could start with a 10-point Vague, then remove Vague, then start adding Precise, Analyzing, Reflexive, and Long-Range to build it up to a 78-point ability -- or Detect (Supernatural Beings and Phenomena) can be built up to 117 points (or maybe more, with other enhancements). That should be plenty of points for most spells to base off of, though you may need to be creative with the affliction of some of the more expensive advantages. And they'd actually get some use out of the base advantage.

Using the Divine Favor table just as a general guideline, we might come up with something like this:

Level Cap     Ability
    3         Detect: Supernatural Beings and Phenomena (Short Range -10%; Vague -50%) [Final Cost: 12 Additive, 13.5 Multiplicative]
    4         
    5         
   ...        
   ...        
   ...            
   15         
   16         Precise +100%, Reflexive +40%, Reliable 10 +50%, Long Range +50%, Analyzing +100% [Final Cost: 132 Additive, 378 Multiplicative]

And then perhaps you just extrapolate to determine Ability Cost thresholds that bump you up to the next "cap level".

Tangential Observation: Holy smoke signals, Batman, Multiplicative Modifiers without any limitations are brutal.

Pros: The "core ability" has uses other than cap determination.

Cons: Those uses are pretty broad, and thus may not be appropriate for more "aspected" mage builds. There's not a lot of inherent concreteness to the progression, and it would require me to either define each step or come to terms with allowing players to progress as desired, provided they meet the point thresholds.

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The Gef Method

Pretty well covered above already, but to spell it out as I understand it:

Magical Attunement — Patron, Extremely Powerful [Base 25] (Magical -10%; Highly Accessible +50%; Special Abilities +100%; Uncontrollable: Dangerous -30%; Unconscious Only -20%) — Final Cost is 47.5 CP (Additive) or 37.8 CP (Multiplicative) before Frequency of Appearance Modifiers

Note that there's no Minimal Intervention, since there is no reaction roll involved.

Tangent Time
Incidentally, I can't get my attempt to reverse-calculate the Divine Favor advantage itself to work. At FA 10 (an x1 multiplier), the advantage should calculate/round to 70 CP per Divine Favor. But I get:

Divine Favor, FA 10 — Patron: True God [Base 30] (Divine -10%; Highly Accessible +50%; Special Abilities +100%; Minimal Intervention -50%) — Final cost 57 CP

Using additive modifiers, I'd guess that the final cost should be either 69 CP or 72 CP (a total of +130% or +140% modifiers). Instead, I have a total of +90% modifiers. Where is the +40%/+50% that I'm missing here?

Pros: I'd be hard-pressed to find a player who could abuse this, on account of Uncontrollable and Unconscious Only. Allows the GM to make ad-hoc judgments if and only if he wants to and thinks it's appropriate. The steps (frequency of appearance) are very clear and defined.

Cons: Assuming I'm calculating that right, low-FA Attunement is pretty cheap. FA 6 (and thus, cap of Level 6) for around 25 CP, FA 4 for around 12-15 CP.

Counterpro: Because the "point cap" is low relative to the "level cap," it means that even if a mage does have Magic Attunement at FA 6, he'll be hard-pressed to actually get six levels out of any ability unless he puts some significant limitations on it. Another way to keep things from getting overly wonky.

General Observation: Still, I'd like to get the base cost of Magic Attunement up a little bit, both to make middling levels a bit less attainable for starting mages and to give a bit more leeway in the ability building.

Maybe-Con? Maybe not?: Because Magical Attunement doesn't really do anything other than raise the caps (except in the direst of circumstances), it's not really an appealing advantage in its own right and in a lot of ways amounts to a tiered Unusual Background. Is this a good thing? Bad thing? I'm not really sure.

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Closing Thoughts

1) With regards to Magery and/or Power Talents, I still like the "Max 3 Magery, Max 4 Total" rule I mentioned earlier. I don't see any reason why that would not be able to work with either of the above methods.

2) Right now, I'm personally leaning towards Gef's method, for two main reasons: Greater control as the GM to prevent abuses, and being neatly, discretely, and clearly tiered.

3) Seriously, what am I missing on Divine Favor?

4) It looks like the next item to tackle, once the last bits of this are wrapped up, is whether or not to do the Skill thing.

[dataweaver]

Concerning point #3: Divine Favor is a variation of Patron. That means that there's someone out there who's watching over you — it just so happens that the "someone" in the case of Divine Favor happens to be an effectively all-powerful deity. Forget the Prayers for the moment, and think of it in terms of the way a Patron works: you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of thugs, so you pull out your cell phone and call your patron. (Roll for Frequency of Appearance to see if he answers the phone.) "Uh, boss? I'm kind of in a jam right now; could you help me out?" (Now make a Reaction Roll to see what he thinks of your request for aid.) "Sure," he says; "I'll send someone right over." Moments later, a heavily-armed black ops guy crashes through the window and opens fire on the thugs that were threatening you, driving them away.

You can do all of that using just Patron; you don't need a "Summon Black Ops Guy" Ability on your character sheet. Now, translate that to Divine Favor by replacing your boss with God, the cell phone with a prayer, and the heavily-armed black ops guy with an avenging angel. No "Summon Avenging Angel" capital-P Prayer needed; just the Divine Favor and a couple of good rolls.

Is that any clearer?

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Concerning point #3: Divine Favor is a variation of Patron. That means that there's someone out there who's watching over you — it just so happens that the "someone" in the case of Divine Favor happens to be an effectively all-powerful deity. Forget the Prayers for the moment, and think of it in terms of the way a Patron works: you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of thugs, so you pull out your cell phone and call your patron. (Roll for Frequency of Appearance to see if he answers the phone.) "Uh, boss? I'm kind of in a jam right now; could you help me out?" (Now make a Reaction Roll to see what he thinks of your request for aid.) "Sure," he says; "I'll send someone right over." Moments later, a heavily-armed black ops guy crashes through the window and opens fire on the thugs that were threatening you, driving them away.

You can do all of that using just Patron; you don't need a "Summon Black Ops Guy" Ability on your character sheet. Now, translate that to Divine Favor by replacing your boss with God, the cell phone with a prayer, and the heavily-armed black ops guy with an avenging angel. No "Summon Avenging Angel" capital-P Prayer needed; just the Divine Favor and a couple of good rolls.

Is that any clearer?

Oh, no, I definitely get how Divine Favor works. #3 was really just a call-back to my tangential problem of figuring out how it was priced. I'm clearly missing a +40-50% enhancement somewhere in order to get the math to work out the way it does in Divine Favor, or else I'm doing the math plain wrong to begin with. I just don't know where it is.

[munin]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

...Tangential Observation: Holy smoke signals, Batman, Multiplicative Modifiers without any limitations are brutal.

If there are no limitations, then Additive and Multiplicative should come out exactly the same. With multiplicative, don't multiply each enhancement separately, add them up and apply them normally, then apply the total limitations to that value instead of the advantage's base value. That's all.

Originally Posted by Landwalker

... At FA 10 (an x1 multiplier)...

It's not working out because FA 10 isn't ×1, FA 9 is (p. B36). FA 10 is interpolated between FA 9 at ×1 and FA 12 at ×2, so it's about 1.3.

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by munin

If there are no limitations, then Additive and Multiplicative should come out exactly the same. With multiplicative, don't multiply each enhancement separately, add them up and apply them normally, then apply the total limitations to that value instead of the advantage's base value. That's all.

It's not working out because FA 10 isn't ×1, FA 9 is (p. B36). FA 10 is interpolated between FA 9 at ×1 and FA 12 at ×2, so it's about 1.3.

Well now I feel awfully silly for both misremembering the multiplicative modifier rules and for a giant Reading Comprehension Fail on the Frequency of Appearance rules. Thank you greatly for catching both of those problems!

Edit: So if I'm now reading it correctly, that would make Magical Attunement have a base cost of 26 CP using Multiplicative Modifiers (25 * [1 + 0.5 + 1] * [1 - 0.1 - 0.3 - 0.2] = 25 * 2.6 * 0.4 = 26 CP), right?

[munin]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

... Magical Attunement have a base cost of 26 CP using Multiplicative Modifiers (25 * [1 + 0.5 + 1] * [1 - 0.1 - 0.3 - 0.2] = 25 * 2.6 * 0.4 = 26 CP), right?

25, 2.5, and 25, but you've got the mechanic correct.

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by munin

25, 2.5, and 25, but you've got the mechanic correct.

Augh. I can't even blame this one on Slow Riser, just being fast and careless. Thanks.

Up until that revelation, I was on the fence about whether to deal in Additive or Multiplicative modifiers, but I think that about settled that. That's just way too cheap.