Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-07-2014, 01:53 PM   #1
JP42
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Default [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

I've laid hands on the RPM PDF, and the biggest problem I have with the Grimoire as presented at the back of the book is that nine out of ten of the spells cost far in excess of a reasonable amount of energy.

So, I'm curious, has anyone started up a quick-n-dirty Grimoire of spells, grouped not by effect but by cost ("Under 10", "11-20", "21-40", etc)?
JP42 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 02:09 PM   #2
Christopher R. Rice
 
Christopher R. Rice's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by JP42 View Post
I've laid hands on the RPM PDF, and the biggest problem I have with the Grimoire as presented at the back of the book is that nine out of ten of the spells cost far in excess of a reasonable amount of energy.

So, I'm curious, has anyone started up a quick-n-dirty Grimoire of spells, grouped not by effect but by cost ("Under 10", "11-20", "21-40", etc)?
I got this somewhere on my hard drive, JP42. I got your email address and/or you have mine, one of the two. Regardless, send me a email and I'll see about getting it to you when I have a free moment.
__________________
My Twitter
My w23 Stuff
My Blog

Latest GURPS Book: Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves
Latest TFT Book: The Sunken Library

Become a Patron!
Christopher R. Rice is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 08:54 PM   #3
Philomath
 
Philomath's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

I have one I'm willing to share if you PM me your email address.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic
The only way to get a 'perfect simulation' is to kit up your players, train 'em (or not), and make them actually fight to the death in the backyard.
Unrelatedly, I am now recruiting new players.
Philomath is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 09:03 PM   #4
Raekai
World's Worst Detective
 
Raekai's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by JP42 View Post
I've laid hands on the RPM PDF, and the biggest problem I have with the Grimoire as presented at the back of the book is that nine out of ten of the spells cost far in excess of a reasonable amount of energy.

So, I'm curious, has anyone started up a quick-n-dirty Grimoire of spells, grouped not by effect but by cost ("Under 10", "11-20", "21-40", etc)?
Check the link in my signature. It's outdated and a little messy, but I'm working on redoing it. If you have basic Excel skills, you can reorganize each college by cost.
Raekai is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 10:26 PM   #5
JP42
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raekai View Post
Check the link in my signature. It's outdated and a little messy, but I'm working on redoing it. If you have basic Excel skills, you can reorganize each college by cost.
Before I download your latest - what's the rewrite consist of?
JP42 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 10:38 PM   #6
Raekai
World's Worst Detective
 
Raekai's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by JP42 View Post
Before I download your latest - what's the rewrite consist of?
The rewrite will cover the same spells plus a little more and maybe even a few of my own. Since the RPM book came out, the ritual costs are a lot more accurate (I think), and I have added a minor description to each ritual so those without GURPS Magic can use it, or those with it can use them without having to constantly reference their book. This time around, I went solely for the spirit of each spell rather than going for the perfect conversion. Of course, that watered down the flavor a little bit, but GMs and players can run with it from there. Not to mention, I played around with conditional durations a little bit. All in all, I think people will see a significant improvement.
Raekai is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 10:53 PM   #7
PK
 
PK's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dobbstown Sane Asylum
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by JP42 View Post
I've laid hands on the RPM PDF, and the biggest problem I have with the Grimoire as presented at the back of the book is that nine out of ten of the spells cost far in excess of a reasonable amount of energy.
I assume that "nine out of ten" was intended as hyperbole, since I took the time to plot out the energy costs of all of the spells to ensure that all ranges of power were represented, from 2-energy spells to 350-energy ones.

Personally, when I don't have any better context and must roughly approximate, I use "30 energy" as my guiding star for what a skilled caster could be expected to reasonably whip up on the spot. I lost my spreadsheet during a problematic OS upgrade, but by my quick hand count there are 82 spells in the grimoire chapter, 37 of which cost 30 energy or less

So a little more than half of the sample spells are high-energy, while a little less than half are low-energy. The reason for the slight weight toward high is that expensive rituals tend to be more complex and tricky, and it was important to illustrate how to build such things in RPM. After all, the primary goal of Chapter 4 was to illustrate how to use the system to build your own rituals -- having it serve as some sort of "official grimoire" for campaigns was secondary.
__________________
Reverend Pee Kitty of the Order Malkavian-Dobbsian (Twitter) (LJ)

MyGURPS: My house rules and GURPS resources.

#SJGamesLive: I answered questions about GURPS After the End and more!
{Watch Video} - {Read Transcript}
PK is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 11:15 PM   #8
Raekai
World's Worst Detective
 
Raekai's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Also, JP42, if you see any glaring errors or changes that should be made in my work, then please feel free to let me know. Likewise, if you have a couple of requests for rituals, then I am all ears.
Raekai is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 11:32 PM   #9
JP42
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by PK View Post
I assume that "nine out of ten" was intended as hyperbole, since I took the time to plot out the energy costs of all of the spells to ensure that all ranges of power were represented, from 2-energy spells to 350-energy ones.
Guilty! I hadn't done any real evaluation, and was going on my gut feeling after seeing many rituals that I thought should be fairly commonplace coming in at what I thought was high energy. Now that I've seen a spreadsheet breakdown, I see that there's more range than I first estimated.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PK View Post
Personally, when I don't have any better context and must roughly approximate, I use "30 energy" as my guiding star for what a skilled caster could be expected to reasonably whip up on the spot. I lost my spreadsheet during a problematic OS upgrade, but by my quick hand count there are 82 spells in the grimoire chapter, 37 of which cost 30 energy or less

So a little more than half of the sample spells are high-energy, while a little less than half are low-energy. The reason for the slight weight toward high is that expensive rituals tend to be more complex and tricky, and it was important to illustrate how to build such things in RPM. After all, the primary goal of Chapter 4 was to illustrate how to use the system to build your own rituals -- having it serve as some sort of "official grimoire" for campaigns was secondary.
And as a fan of the system, I hate to be negative about any of it, but the chapter didn't really do it for me. I think I wanted to see more specifically worked examples - a breakdown of why decisions were made about Lesser versus Greater, why particular modifiers were deemed appropriate (like, why Altered Trait over Bestows a Bonus; or should this be Range, Long Range or Area and why).

As for the low-end spells, I think my goal was to come up with more than just a couple that fell into the "under 5" category - those that you could likely fuel without any gathering, if the need arose - and then under 10, then under 20 - spells that even though they demand some energy gathering of all but the most spectacularly powerful mages, would still be practical on the fly, or as charms for non-adepts of more moderate skill.
JP42 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2014, 11:52 PM   #10
Refplace
 
Refplace's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
Default Re: [RPM] Low-End Grimoire

Quote:
Originally Posted by JP42 View Post
As for the low-end spells, I think my goal was to come up with more than just a couple that fell into the "under 5" category - those that you could likely fuel without any gathering, if the need arose - and then under 10, then under 20 - spells that even though they demand some energy gathering of all but the most spectacularly powerful mages, would still be practical on the fly, or as charms for non-adepts of more moderate skill.
Going by my experience at reg magic from 100 to 500 point levels I would say a 20 energy spell is pretty doable and an easy cast.
Magery 2 gives you 18 energy and likely skill 14 in your major Paths and probably all of them.

The dynamic from regular Magic is different but the net effect is comparable with an edge to the RPM mage.
A regular mage with those skills would cast 1 or two spells for free at skill 15 but in most fights struggle to get off s many as 3 spells and then need some downtime to rest.
A RPM mage could easily toss one decent spell of almost any kind and have prepared a dozen conditional rituals that take no effort or time to cast.
Need less downtime to refill the ER but more time to redo the conditional spells. Without tapping into your ER you can still get your 20 cost spells off though not in most combat/melee situations.
Refplace is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
grimoire, low energy, magic, rpm, starter

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:50 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.