RPM: Dresden Files

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Refplace

It fits mine though.
Having more energy to draw on is pretty much the smae as more ST, you just use it up which fits many of his fight scenes.
An exception is when he was using Hellfire and that did it harder for the same amount of energy he would normally use.
Hellfire and Soul Fire could still be bought as extra ER though just with limitations.

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Soul fire i would have as a special case, because it is more like burning HP

I just made rules for this for a Pyramid article - it fits perfectly. Until that comes out, I'd use the rules for Assisting Spirits for this.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I just made rules for this for a Pyramid article - it fits perfectly. Until that comes out, I'd use the rules for Assisting Spirits for this.

Could work for Hellfire though doesnt feel the same.
I think Assisting Spirits and I see negaiting for power.
Hellfire ER with a reaction penalty as a nuisance effect and possibky a minor corruption effect.
Soulfire as Distortion points or Threshold (I like Threshold better) and the penalty is lost FP or HT on failed rolls.

Yeah more I think it the more I like the Threshold version.
UB cost to get access to it.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That optional rule seems to me to be very clearly intended as a world metaphysics rule, rather than as something that can vary between individual characters.

I agree completely that is the original intent of the rule, however when looking at the difference in terms of difficulty Harry and Molly cast their spells at it had me wondering what it would look like if you flipped some lesser/greater effects for both of them to better reflect their casting styles. The more I talked about it in this thread the more I began to think that differentiating various casting styles by what would be considered a greater or lesser effect between different traditions might be something worth pursuing for my home game with various examples to show the general idea.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

It can be done that way, of course, but how would you handle it character creation-wise?

Carefully, very very carefully ;)

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

How would you empower the player to choose, during character creation, which of the two types of magic it is that his character has?

The way I am likely to do it is with a copious amount of sticky notes in my thaumatology book initially as I brainstorm greater/lesser switch ideas. Choose x number of magical traditions/styles written up as a six tier talent system with a prerequisite of one level of Higher Purpose (magical tradition). Somewhere in the magical style I would have the switches occur to the characters Lesser/Greater effects and make notes of what this means for the character.

I would likely either put enough carrots into the various magical paths to make sure the character would want to continue on or put enough sticks in the paths to discourage players cherry picking them somehow.

Furthermore I would want to look at putting in various hard switches for different races in whatever campaign world I come up with as well. Dwarves for example as creatures of Elemental Earth might be restricted racially to only having Ritual Adept [Space] with a underground enviromental limitation on it but also treat various matter based spells as if they were a Lesser effect rather than as a Greater effect. However if they cast a spell outdoors they might automatically add a greater effect penalty to it.

Furthermore I would look at statting a number of thematic Ritual Mastery Perks for each style that I created that would get unlocked at each level of my Power Talent tree.

Would all of this take a great deal of balancing that I might get wrong absolutely but I can probably get it right enough at least for my table and perhaps enough even to share some of the ideas with the forum afterwords probably. No gauruntee that it will happen at this time because it is a big project for a system that I don't have down yet and I don't know how much interest my players are going to have for such a system for next little while anyways.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Could work for Hellfire though doesnt feel the same.
I think Assisting Spirits and I see negaiting for power.
Hellfire ER with a reaction penalty as a nuisance effect and possibky a minor corruption effect.
Soulfire as Distortion points or Threshold (I like Threshold better) and the penalty is lost FP or HT on failed rolls.

Yeah more I think it the more I like the Threshold version.
UB cost to get access to it.

The thing is, Hellfire has no actual limit from what I can tell. So being able to draw additional energy equal to your Occultism/Thaumatology is a good way to go.

Soulfire as Threshold might work. But there are all kinds of ramifications you'd need to figure out. How do you recovery your tally? Bob seems to suggest it's really slow. How big is the tally? What happens when you exceed it?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

The thing is, Hellfire has no actual limit from what I can tell. So being able to draw additional energy equal to your Occultism/Thaumatology is a good way to go.

Soulfire as Threshold might work. But there are all kinds of ramifications you'd need to figure out. How do you recovery your tally? Bob seems to suggest it's really slow. How big is the tally? What happens when you exceed it?

Hellfire has a limit or he would have thrown even more powerful spells.
Drawing on Hellfire is either extra energy or an enhancement that does more damage.

Soulfire as ER would have some stuff to work out as you say.
I would give it a Tally based on HT, call it 10 with REC 1 and let them buy either up as regular Threshold.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Hellfire has a limit or he would have thrown even more powerful spells.
Drawing on Hellfire is either extra energy or an enhancement that does more damage.

Right, his limit is his skill with Occultism or Thaumatology - but the source itself doesn't have one. It also works better than ER because you get the Will rolls to resist gaining Distortion.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Soulfire as ER would have some stuff to work out as you say.
I would give it a Tally based on HT, call it 10 with REC 1 and let them buy either up as regular Threshold.

Interesting thought. I'll have to toy with this some, but that could work.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

So you don't care about rules design quality. Duly noted!

Moderator: Please desist with the personal attacks. Christopher has participated in GURPS rules design as a playtester, a Pyramid author, and most recently a contributor to GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic. His contributions have passed our quality tests and been popular with gamers. You are welcome to read and critique his specific works, but not to pass snap judgments on him in his publisher's forums.

[Pragmatic]

Hellfire, Soulfire: Do you guys have the Dresden Files RPG supplement "Your Story"? Both are described on page 291-292.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Hellfire, Soulfire: Do you guys have the Dresden Files RPG supplement "Your Story"? Both are described on page 291-292.

I do. I've read that. I actually have a article for Pyramid that covers Soulfire really well (among other things). And if it ever comes out, I'll link it back to this thread. Soulfire was partly a inspiration for the optional rule in fact, well, that and Todd MacFarlane's Spawn.

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Hellfire, Soulfire: Do you guys have the Dresden Files RPG supplement "Your Story"? Both are described on page 291-292.

I like Sponsored Magic, but I was unimpressed by the implementation of Soulfire. Sponsored Magic in general is probably doable as Spirit-Assisted, but what that would do when used with Soulfire, I don't know.