[RPM] Conditional Rituals (Too Powerful?)

[templar]

Hi everyone,

I recently got RPM and must say that I am very impressed at the final product. It strikes me as one of the best magic systems in gaming that I have ever come across, and that's saying something.

One issue that I am concerned about when introducing the system into my campaign are the the Conditional Ritual rules. The system, if I understand it correctly(which I might not be-if so please set me straight!), allows a mage to pre-cast a number of spells with "Triggers", equal to the mage's Thaumatology skill + levels of Magery.

The system seems easy enough, and I like the fact that a mage can store spells to activate instantly, but I question the implementation. The system doesn't take into effect the combined energy of the spells being stored, which could lead to abuse if a mage wants to store 18-25 extremely powerful effects (say 19 Destructions-which would exceed the Safe Threshold by double with a Thaumatology of 19).

I know one of the inspirations of the system was to model the spell slot system of DnD, but in it's current format, a character can hold the equivalent of 18-25 9th level spells. The only limiting factor is that if a mage greatly exceeds his safe threshold, he is going to pick up spell quirks.

I'd like to include Conditional Rituals in my game, but I'd like to figure out a way tone limit the total energy that can be devoted towards a mage's Conditional spells. I'd also like to ask anyone who has used the system to let me know what their experiences were with the system.

Update - This is what I've decided to implement for any latecomers to the discussion...


Limiting Conditional Rituals
A character can have a number of Conditional Rituals "slots" equal to his Thaumatology + His Magery (as the default system), however each CR that exceeds its safe Threshold costs +1 slot, +2 slots for exceeding twice his safe threshold, +3 slots for more than three times the safe threshold, etc.

Example: Jonas the Seeker is a mage with a Thaumatology of 15 and a Magery of 2; possessing 17 slots for Conditional Rituals. His Safe Threshold is 29. He currently has 4 Rituals prepared: Fireball (31), Fighting Irons (11), Death Touch (63) and Haste 32. This costs Jonas 8 of his 17 slots (1 for Fighting Irons, 2 each for Fireball and Haste, and 3 for Death Touch).

This still allows Sorcerer to keep large number of Conditional Rituals prepared, but powerful rituals may require additional slots, depending on the mage's Thaumatology and Magery scores.

[JP42]

So, if I'm understanding correctly, you're going to have a caster with an effective skill of 19 create a Destruction charm. Destruction is a 291 energy spell, and effective skill 19 on the Q&D Rituals chart has a threshold of 55. This will exceed his safe threshold by 5 times, giving him a +5 on his roll, which means he can roll as high as a 10 without issue, but an 11+ leads to a critical failure. Thus, he's got a 50/50 chance of it blowing up, each time he tries it, ignoring any possible quirks if he succeeds.

Or am I misunderstanding your situation?

[Varyon]

I haven't done too much with RPM yet, but giving the character some energy threshold they can't exceed probably wouldn't be too far off. Offhand, 10x the Safe Threshold in total energy might work.

EDIT: I should also note that if you want multiple instances of the same spell, you have to use Charms. Standard conditional rituals don't let you have multiples of the same spell in queue.

EDIT2: 10x is too low. Something more like (Thaumatology+Magery)x, or even half again this, would probably be better. So for a character who can normally have 20 conditionals, can instead have 20x or 30x Safe Threshold in total energy in conditionals.

[templar]

Originally Posted by JP42

So, if I'm understanding correctly, you're going to have a caster with an effective skill of 19 create a Destruction charm. Destruction is a 291 energy spell, and effective skill 19 on the Q&D Rituals chart has a threshold of 55. This will exceed his safe threshold by 5 times, giving him a +5 on his roll, which means he can roll as high as a 10 without issue, but an 11+ leads to a critical failure. Thus, he's got a 50/50 chance of it blowing up, each time he tries it, ignoring any possible quirks if he succeeds.

Or am I misunderstanding your situation?

I misspoke, Destruction's cost for some reason I thought was 97 (missed the x3), and therefore only double the Safe Threshold. I do feel the system could be open to abuse, because:

1) No energy cap on total number of spells that can be stored. The only limit is Thaumatology+Magery.
2) Quirks can be trouble, but if a mage has significant downtime he can simply dump and recast the spell, ignoring Quirks.

Again though, I've only just read the system. As I understand, this system was first introduced in Monster Hunters (which I don't own), so I'm hoping to get other peoples comments that have used the rules.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I don't see too much of a issue here. Conditional spells are subject to the rules for Stacking Spells (Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic (p. 15). So you could have a Fireball spell or a Destruction spell - but not multiples of said spell.

As for getting rid of a quirk, you have to cast the spell before you cancel it (After Casting, Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic, p. 22) and the quirk will affect you immediately.

So that seems to solve most of your issue. Yes, you can have powerful spells as conditional spells, but you can only have one such spell at a time. If you try to cast another, the oldest spell vanishes.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by JP42

So, if I'm understanding correctly, you're going to have a caster with an effective skill of 19 create a Destruction charm. Destruction is a 291 energy spell, and effective skill 19 on the Q&D Rituals chart has a threshold of 55. This will exceed his safe threshold by 5 times, giving him a +5 on his roll, which means he can roll as high as a 10 without issue, but an 11+ leads to a critical failure. Thus, he's got a 50/50 chance of it blowing up, each time he tries it, ignoring any possible quirks if he succeeds.

Or am I misunderstanding your situation?

I wouldn't allow anyone to ever exceed three times the safe threshold, as it's just about impossible for them to actually succeed on that even if they get all successes.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I don't see too much of a issue here. Conditional spells are subject to the rules for Stacking Spells (Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic (p. 15). So you could have a Fireball spell or a Destruction spell - but not multiples of said spell.

As for getting rid of a quirk, you have to cast the spell before you cancel it (After Casting, Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic, p. 22) and the quirk will affect you immediately.

So that seems to solve most of your issue. Yes, you can have powerful spells as conditional spells, but you can only have one such spell at a time. If you try to cast another, the oldest spell vanishes.

Note that this isn't the case with Charms, which can exceed the stacking rules. This leads to the exact same problem as before.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Langy

Note that this isn't the case with Charms, which can exceed the stacking rules. This leads to the exact same problem as before.

Right, except you have to take a Ready action to break them, they can also be stolen (or given away). RPM scales really well for higher levels. Skills in the 20s are going to produce casters than go do some seriously heavy stuff - I don't see a problem with that.

[templar]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I don't see too much of a issue here. Conditional spells are subject to the rules for Stacking Spells (Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic (p. 15). So you could have a Fireball spell or a Destruction spell - but not multiples of said spell.

Thanks for the response Ghostdancer. I'm not sure if I'm following you on the Stacking spells rule though. The Stacking Spells section mentions that a target cannot be under the same effect more than once. I wouldn't assume that holding two triggered spells of the same effect would count as stacking, unless both were triggered at the same time (or while the target was still under the effects of the first spell).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by templar

Thanks for the response Ghostdancer. I'm not sure if I'm following you on the Stacking spells rule though. The Stacking Spells section mentions that a target cannot be under the same effect more than once. I wouldn't assume that holding two triggered spells of the same effect would count as stacking, unless both were triggered at the same time (or while the target was still under the effects of the first spell).

Sure. :-)

They do. That's one of the things that keeps them in balance. You could have a Greater Create Energy (Fireball) and Lesser Create Fire (Ignite Fire) as conditional spells, but you couldn't have two Greater Create Energy (Fireball) or two Lesser Create Fire (Ignite Fire).