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Old 05-31-2013, 05:31 PM   #11
Dammann
 
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

My recollection is hazy, but I think the issue is that RPM was designed to work with 400 point casters, and loses some facility when scaled down to 250 point casters. Divine Favor should work pretty well at 150 points and up. RPM calls for a suite of Advantages and Skills that make for a tight budget in Dungeon Fantasy.

I would think that one could specialize a bit, though, and have Wizards who are good with particular Paths. Maybe Limitations could be placed on Ritual Adept? So the DF Wizard using RPM might be able to fling around Acid Balls like no one's business, but if he wants to raise some undead, he is going to have to take his time, hit the books, etc. Perhaps he could apply Limitations that relate to Great vs Lesser Effects, and be able to cast Lesser Effects better than Greater. Just spitballing, based on my notion that points were to blame. Limitations are what makes Divine Favor viable, so maybe the answer to RPM in DF is to load up on some Limitations.
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Old 05-31-2013, 05:49 PM   #12
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

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Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
From what I understand, last time I asked this question, wasn't it hard to balance the power-per-point between RPM and DivF?

I asked in regards to replacing Wizards with [RPM] Adepts in Dungeon Fantasy, and was told that the Adepts would be weak compared to the (Pyramid article) Saints.
I wonder if this spurred me to work on solutions for my own game. A thread link would be handy.

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Originally Posted by Dammann View Post
My recollection is hazy, but I think the issue is that RPM was designed to work with 400 point casters, and loses some facility when scaled down to 250 point casters. Divine Favor should work pretty well at 150 points and up. RPM calls for a suite of Advantages and Skills that make for a tight budget in Dungeon Fantasy.

I would think that one could specialize a bit, though, and have Wizards who are good with particular Paths. Maybe Limitations could be placed on Ritual Adept? So the DF Wizard using RPM might be able to fling around Acid Balls like no one's business, but if he wants to raise some undead, he is going to have to take his time, hit the books, etc. Perhaps he could apply Limitations that relate to Great vs Lesser Effects, and be able to cast Lesser Effects better than Greater. Just spitballing, based on my notion that points were to blame. Limitations are what makes Divine Favor viable, so maybe the answer to RPM in DF is to load up on some Limitations.
I've used RPM with 100 points characters. Granted they aren't Adepts but they can work at low levels. Just because it was introduced in MH doesn't mean you can't work below MH power levels.
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Old 05-31-2013, 06:14 PM   #13
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

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Originally Posted by Ghostdancer View Post
I've used RPM with 100 points characters. Granted they aren't Adepts but they can work at low levels. Just because it was introduced in MH doesn't mean you can't work below MH power levels.
The only caster in my MH game is an Inhuman (a demon) with only about 15 points in RPM advantages, perks, and skills. She is truly scary given enough time to cook up charms.

(Of course, last session she rolled a crit fail on one of her charm creation rolls and ended up blowing up her apartment. Hehehe...)
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Old 05-31-2013, 07:35 PM   #14
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

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The only caster in my MH game is an Inhuman (a demon) with only about 15 points in RPM advantages, perks, and skills. She is truly scary given enough time to cook up charms.

(Of course, last session she rolled a crit fail on one of her charm creation rolls and ended up blowing up her apartment. Hehehe...)
Ahh, the old exploding apartment trick. Missed it by that much.
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Old 05-31-2013, 10:09 PM   #15
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

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This is one way to do it. Keep in mind that the reduction of Greater Effects into Lesser ones can make things realllllyyyy wonky. I don't suggest you do that.

Since I used both of these books pretty much exclusively in my campaign for "arcane" and "divine" magic I'll tell you my way. :-D

1) Learned Prayer (Mana Reserve) - I figure how much a Energy Reserve (Mana Reserve) the paragon can buy with his Divine Favor. For example, a paragon with Divine Favor 11 could have a Energy Reserve (Mana Reserve) 30.
2) I allow the use of Meditative Magic for living a "holy life" from Fantasy and let them store up those points as a separate mana reserve they can tap as if it is there own. This makes for CRAZY miracles the theurgist (divine caster) can pull out of no where.
3) Using the Learned Prayer above allow a petitioning paragon to roll his reaction and see how much extra mana his god grants. I used 5 for Neutral, 11 for Good, 18 for Very Good, and 43 for Excellent. It has so far worked quite well.
Questions... For this... How do I get to those higher energy costs? How does general work? How does the Mana Reserve learned prayer work? How does the Mana Reserve refill?

I'm just looking for a little bit of clarification. This could be perfect.
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Old 05-31-2013, 10:43 PM   #16
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

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Questions... For this...
Okay. Last post of the night though. ;-)

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How do I get to those higher energy costs?
Not sure what you mean here.

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How does general work?
General and Specific prayers are what I assume you're talking about here. For the most part I just used the costs I listed for the reaction roll. So if my theurgist rolled a Excellent reaction roll vs. his god he gets access to 43 additional mana for his spell that I treated exactly as if it were a part of his mana reserve (no need to tap it as a additional source). For specific prayers I actually allowed the player to ask for a specific prayer and then set a arbitrary cost (I usually just doubled the values for the reaction rolls to determine the maximum cost of a given spell).

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How does the Mana Reserve learned prayer work?
I simply treated it as additional mana the paragon could draw on. Since it doesn't refill on its own (you refill it using your Path of Magic skill) I figured it was pretty balanced. Remember while they have access to it they shouldn't also have access to other learned prayers at the time. I don't have time tonight but trying doing a search on Divine Favor for Learned Prayers and using multiple Learned Prayers at once if you don't want to be restricted like this.

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How does the Mana Reserve refill?
Just like your mana reserve, i.e., you roll your Path of Magic to refill it and it refills during downtime between adventures.

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I'm just looking for a little bit of clarification. This could be perfect.
I try to help when I can. I hope this has helped some. I've had a hard few days and my mind isn't exactly on the ball.
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Old 05-31-2013, 11:00 PM   #17
Raekai
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

I just mean that resurrection is over 1000 energy. How is my RPM Cleric supposed to reach that? I just feel like there's something that I'm missing here. With 30 in his Mana Reserve and an extra 43 from his god, that doesn't even cover 10% of the cost for resurrection. How does he get that other 937 energy? Is it just using the same other rules of RPM? I just... I don't know what I'm not grasping here.

Not to mention that I'm still a little confused on the general prayer... Even on an excellent reaction roll, I can only get a result of something worth 43 energy?

What are the pros and cons of using this versus straight up RPM? What are the major differences? Man, this could be yet another little Pyramid article all to itself. And I say could because I expect you to spill the answers for free. ;) Hahaha.
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Old 05-31-2013, 11:22 PM   #18
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

One idea I was toying with was, if you took the Ritual Mastery perk (MH1, pg 25), you could get a free conditional ritual for it.

So, you have less character points to spend on RPM, but to compensate, you can get free casts of your favorite rituals (plus the other benefits of the perk). So kind of like a Vancian "fire and forget" wizard, with the option charms (like scrolls), and the occasional multi-minute castings of improvised rituals.
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Old 06-01-2013, 10:51 AM   #19
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

I will say that, for lower powered RPM play, it makes sense to reverse-engineer RPK's Ritual Adept advantage back into it's four component parts, each only 10 points, or making it into a four level advantage, with the first giving you fast energy collection for the first try, the second eliminating the need for consecrated space, the third for eliminating the need for contact or contagion, and the final for allowing fast energy gathering on second and subsequent tries.

It's easier to squeeze into a 250 point character, especially if you can buy it up later as you 'get bet at this stuff'.
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Old 06-01-2013, 12:24 PM   #20
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Default Re: Mixing Ritual Path Magic and Divine Favor... Can it be done?

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I will say that, for lower powered RPM play, it makes sense to reverse-engineer RPK's Ritual Adept advantage back into it's four component parts, each only 10 points, or making it into a four level advantage, with the first giving you fast energy collection for the first try, the second eliminating the need for consecrated space, the third for eliminating the need for contact or contagion, and the final for allowing fast energy gathering on second and subsequent tries.

It's easier to squeeze into a 250 point character, especially if you can buy it up later as you 'get bet at this stuff'.
I've made common practice of this, and I find it allows greater diversification among casters. I second this idea!
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