[RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I just got Ritual Path Magic (I still don't have Thaumatology proper), and I had a thought about allowing single-Path controlling skills. For instance, Esoteric Medicine is equivalent to Thaumatology for Path of Body only; Path of Body defaults to it at -6, you can have path of body skill no higher than the lesser of 12+magery or Esoteric Medicine, etc. Linked to this is the idea of allowing certain Talents to function as Magery(RPM) for a single Path (e.g. you can learn Path of Body up to the lower of 12+Healer talent and Esoteric Medicine, etc). Does this strike anyone as likely to be unbalancing? Should there be any additional charge for Talents that function this way? (I'm leaning towards not).


On a largely unrelated note, and just to make sure that I'm getting this right:
Alternate rituals based on Create Pocket Dimension:
Phantom Apartment:
Spell Effects: Greater Create Crossroads + Lesser Create
Matter.x7 +Lesser Create Energy + Lesser Control Spirit + Lesser Create Spirit
Inherent Modifiers: Area of Effect.
Greater Effects: 1 (x3).
This spell creates a fairly nice apartment in a pocket dimension. The caster and any
being he brings along can access it. It functions identically to
“normal” reality in all respects and has its own self-renewing
supply of air. The apartment is furnished with a bed, a sofa, an armchair, and a coffee table. The kitchen area has a two burner stove and a small refrigerator. The apartment has electricity and running water, and has an invisible servant who takes care of most needs.
Typical Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Lesser Cre-
ate Matterx7 (42) + Lesser Create Energy (6)+ Lesser Create Spirit (6)+Lesser Control Spirit(5)Area of Effect, 7 yards (6) + Duration, 1 month
(11). 246 energy (82×3).


Personal Oasis:
Greater Create Crossroads + Lesser Create
Matter.x3+Greater Create Body
Inherent Modifiers: Area of Effect.
Greater Effects : 2 (x5)

This spell creates an alternate dimensional area that the caster can access and bring others to. The oasis is filled with sand. In the center is a freshwater spring and a date palm. The air is breathable, the spring inexhaustible, and the dates edible.
Typical Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Lesser Cre-
ate Matter x3(18) + Greater Create Body(6)+ Area of Effect, 10 yards (8) + Duration, 1 month


As I understand it, like the basic pocket dimension, these can both be renewed for 11 energy, is that right?

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Part One: Balanced in comparison to what? If that's how you decide magic works, then that is how it works. It will be more difficult to be a generalist if you use a different capping skill for each path, but you will get more specialists. It depends on what you want.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

It's in addition to, not instead of. The idea is that Path of Body defaults to Thaumatology-6 or Esoteric Medicine-6, while Path of Mind defaults to Thaumatology-6 or Hypnotism -6, etc. So a generalist caster would buy Thaumatology and Magery, but a specialist might not.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I'd be tempted to make it Thaumatology-6 or Esoteric Medicine-5 to give more reason to be a specialist.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

What's the advantage for a specialist to take Esoteric Medicine compared Thaumatology? Or importantly if you want to play a specialist mage the normally way to do it is to take Magery with a limitation, normally this is something like One College Only

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Esoteric Medicine has uses outside of magic, namely in treating patients in more mundane ways. A healer, for example, would be better off using Esoteric Medicine, as it gives him the option of healing without needing to exhaust his ER and/or spend time gathering mana, at least with minor wounds and the like. There's also the fact that Thaumatology is VH, while Esoteric Medicine is merely H, giving a higher default for comparable point investment. It would likely also be appropriate to limit any Magery or Ritual Adept Advantages to One Path Only (probably -20% or so).

EDIT: This thread gives me an idea - much modern esoteric medicine focuses on taking various supplements in capsule form. A capsule charm might be interesting, particularly if it's one that takes a little while to be dissolved - you take the capsule, then once the outer layer has been dissolved (and thus the charm is broken) the ritual takes effect. You could get energy discounts for using supplements that are thought to have an effect similar to what you're shooting for (so an anti-cancer supplement might give a discount when used as a charm for a Restore Body effect that gets rid of the cancer).

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I can't believe I didn't think of that, but, yeah, that's a lot of what I'm thinking of. Also, sneaky stuff - a slowly-digesting charm probably isn't going to be easily discovered, letting you enter somewhere "unarmed" (no active or hung magic, no apparent charms) then wreck some merry hell once the charm activates.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

That's pretty much the idea. It's conceptually similar in some ways to the old Hedge Magic article from S John Ross' site, the idea that certain mundane or semimundane skills can be exploited for magical effects in the right circumstance or by the right person. I've worked out potential secondary governing skills for all the Paths but Magic, which shouldn't have one, on my view. The Path of Magic is what you learn when you're a sorcerer or the like, and dabblers need not apply. (This means that unspecialized casters can't use conditionals, but that's a feature, not a bug; I could see letting someone with Alchemy or Herb Lore default Path of Magic off of that for the purpose of elixirs only, though.)

Thinking of the Hedge Magic rules, it might be interesting to let any skill default to Path effects that are relevant to that skill with all the usual rules (meaning that, in practice, no one without Magery or some other special trait will probably be able to get anywhere, but they can try if they want to. Meanwhile, a wise woman or cunning man, with Magery 0, enough Occultism, Religious Ritual, or something similar to have an idea what kind of correspondences to use to help with the energy gathering/reduce cost, what sorts of tools and ritual spaces are good for a skill bonus etc, and maybe a couple of Ritual Adept perks, can enhance their simples and medicines to have greater effect, grow more and better herbs and vegetables in their garden than the space would ordinarily support and so on. This would lead to a subtly magical world with occasional deeply powerful adepts (people with Thaumatology, Path skills and so forth). If you want to keep it on the subtle, rule that people who aren't working from Thaumatology can only ever try to acheive Lesser effects, and only a real caster can get Greater effects.
The writeups I've seen indicate that One Path Only is a -40% discount on Ritual Adept. I'd say that 2-4 paths would be -20%, and any more than that is no discount.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I don't see why you'd want to do this except for flavor and it's going to make magic a much poorer deal. What I would do if I were you is keep the Path cap as is, but allow a secondary skill replace Thaumatology - if better. So for your Path of Body example you could raise it no higher than Magery+12 or the higher of Thaumatology of Esoteric Medicine. As for Talents, if it brings the skill count of the Talent up it should increase the cost. So for Healer it wouldn't increase the cost (Healer encompasses 9 skills - adding more wouldn't break the threshold of a Medium-sized Talent, which is 12 skills or less).

Why do you have so many Create Matter effects? You only need one plus the Subject Weight - which you're lacking here. You're creating stuff. What I'd do for a fully furnished apartment is figure out how much a given Status costs and then multiple that by 5. So a Status 0 apartment probably has about $3,000 worth of stuff (at most). Then consult the Create Matter chart (p. 16 of GURPS Thuamatology: Ritual Path Magic); in this case it'll require a IQ-5 roll to visualize what you're doing and create properly functioning objects.

As above. You can use a single Create effect to make multiple items and you're missing Subject Weight again.

You can renew them up to the duration for the spell, yes.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

An interesting feature, and one that makes investing in alternate skills have more of a pay off, would be to allow appropriate charms to not be limited by Path of Magic at all. For example, the supplement charms I suggested, provided they have effects appropriate for Esoteric Medicine, simply require rolling against Path of Body - the price for Lesser Control Magic is still in effect, but the "roll against the lowest skill" rule isn't.

Note this should only apply to charms, not to normal conditionals, and the effect needs to be appropriate for the underlying skill. With Esoteric Medicine, a pill that cures cancer (Greater Restore Body) is fine - a pill that makes you grow wings (Greater Transform Body) not so much.

EDIT: A quick look at RPM's Grimoire indicates curing cancer would indeed be a Greater effect (Lesser only works against diseases with finite duration, like a cold or the flu), so my initial ruling was correct.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Honestly, this is 90% of the reason; I just wanted to know if people who are more experienced with RPM saw some reason it was obviously broken in a munchkiny direction.


Yes, that was what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear. But for people who don't have Thaumatology, Esoteric Medicine is their only available default.




Cost of living? I'm not sure I understand what number you're multiplying by 5 here.
Now, per the Duplicate Object Ritual (p. 42 of GURPS Thuamatology: Ritual Path Magic), adding a Lesser Sense Matter effect and having a set of apartment furnishings on hand to duplicate into the phantom apartment would eliminate this problem, right? (it says you have to be touching the object to be duplicated, would adding Area of Effect change that?)


This is the bit that I was failing to understand.

So, fixed:
Phantom Apartment:
Spell Effects: Greater Create Crossroads + Lesser Create
Matter. +Lesser Create Energy + Lesser Control Spirit + Lesser Create Spirit
Inherent Modifiers: Area of Effect.
Greater Effects: 1 (x3).
This spell creates a fairly nice apartment in a pocket dimension. The caster and any
being he brings along can access it. It functions identically to
“normal” reality in all respects and has its own self-renewing
supply of air. The apartment is furnished with a bed, a sofa, an armchair, and a coffee table. The kitchen area has a two burner stove and a small refrigerator. The apartment has electricity and running water, and has an invisible servant who takes care of most needs.
Typical Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Lesser Cre-
ate Matter (6) + Lesser Create Energy (6)+ Lesser Create Spirit (6)+Lesser Control Spirit(5)Area of Effect, 7 yards (6) + Duration, 1 month
(11) +Subject Weight (3,000 lbs) (5). 120 energy (40×3).


Personal Oasis:
Greater Create Crossroads + Lesser Create
Matter.x3+Greater Create Body
Inherent Modifiers: Area of Effect.
Greater Effects : 2 (x5)

This spell creates an alternate dimensional area that the caster can access and bring others to. The oasis is filled with sand. In the center is a freshwater spring and a date palm. The air is breathable, the spring inexhaustible, and the dates edible.
Typical Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Lesser Cre-
ate Matter (6) + Greater Create Body(6)+ Area of Effect, 10 yards (8) + Duration, 1 month (11) + Subject weight 450 tons (estimated weight of sand and water filling half that volume) (10). 235 (47x5)


You said in a different thread (I can probably find it if necessary) that the Greater Create Crossroads effect in Create Pocket Dimension (and thus by extension in these two spells) is only good for the initial access, and you'd need a separate Create Greater Crossroads effect to get back once you left. Would it be doable within the RAW to attach the initial Crossroads effect to something, creating a gate that exists for the duration of the spell? For instance a tent which, when you set it up and walk through the door you go to the oasis rather than the inside of the tent, or a cardboard box in an alley that leads to the phantom apartment?

EDIT:
That also works; I was looking for a way to make charms available but not regular conditionals, and that would do it.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Nope, the reverse of broken. Perhaps a bit too strict.


I could see this working, and I've actually done this before in a way. It was me toying with the rules where I tied the core skill in such a either/or manner for a fantasy campaign. I've got all the ways I've bent and broke the system in a file, this was one of the first things I tried, iteration something or other (somewhere in the teens).


I shorthanded this a bit more than I thought I did. Basically, look up the status of the dwelling you're creating in your pocket dimension (see p. B265) - multiply that number by 5 and then use that as the amount for which you need to roll on your Create Matter effect. This way you don't have to say "It creates a couch, table, nightstand, etc." you say "It creates a Status 0 dwelling" and right away player and GM will know what that means.

Yes. It would. I'd require Area of Effect to be able to "scan" everything. That seems workable.


No biggie. :-)

Right off, I don't see anything problematic with that.

I don't know if I'd try to figure out cost of sand and water like that...that's....annoying and finicky. Again, I don't see anything off.

Yes. You'd use a Lesser Create effect to attach a "gateway" to a specific object or place for a specific pocket dimension.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

So something a bit more handwavy for subject weight then?


Heh, I have a sudden vision of a hobo Gate mage with backpack that's bigger on the inside (I have a ritual written up for that one around), in which he keeps a folded cardboard box just large enough for someone to crawl into. He rides the rails with a pack on his back, and never stays in one place very long, and is superficially indistinguishable from anyone else who's on the bum, but can be a very helpful ally or contact if approached right. Seems like a good fit for a magical 20s-40s setting.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Honestly, I'm not sure how I'd handle it other than...not like that. It's not so much as "handwavy" as something like that would slow down gameplay and despite it's detractors - RPM is all about "ease of access."



Ye old bag of holding. I too, have done this in a game. The hobo part, not so much - but that's cool. I didn't ride the rails, but when I was 15 I wandered the east coast via Greyhounds. I did piecework, dishwashing, etc. for three months as I just wandered around. So I can dig where you're going with that. :-)

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Can you put a workspace in your magical apartment? (you cant use magic to boost magic, so you cant create a workspace I figure, but, if you already have one can you move it in there and set it up?)

How much space does a workspace consume? Can you lug it around with you and set it up in your room at the inn? Or in your dorm room? What about in a wagon?

Im definitely interested in seeing the Bag of Holding spell

Greater Control Matter to turn a boat into an airship has been one idea Ive pondered on lugging stuff around, the Voyageur Canoe seems wonderful for this purpose, being a high tech low tech bark canoe that practically screams to be labeled elven

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I see no reason why not.
Per p 18, a fine kit fills a large room and takes 20 hours to set up or pack for moving, so the phantom apartment might need an area upgrade if you want that plus living spaces. The other two are 200 lbs and 20 lbs respectively, so you probably could haul them around conveniently with you.
This one is based on something from a book, but it can easily be adjusted for larger weights and a different object.
Sleeves of Holding:
Spell Effects: Greater Create Crossroads
Inherent modifiers:
Greater Effects:1(x3)

Allows the user to store up to 50 lbs of supplies in their sleeves without encumbrance. The items must be small enough to fit up a sleeve in the first place.

Greater Create Crossroads (6)+ subject weight (50 lbs) (2)+ duration 1 day (7): 45(15x3)

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I don't seea issue with it - it might take a while to get your stuff into it for a actual workshop (which is 200 lbs.)

See above.

Heh.

I would build this as:

Pocket Space
Spell Effects: Lesser Create Crossroads.
Inherent Modifiers: Altered Traits, Payload (Cosmic, Doesn't Count Against Encumbrance).
Greater Effects: 0 (x1).

This spell creates a larger space inside a pocket, sleeve, backpack, or other material object that can normally hold things. Once cast it allows objects that can fit through the opening to be stored there and retrieved by anyone (this may inspire Fright Checks or utter confusion by those who are unaware of magic!). The maximum amount of weight it can hold at once is equal to the Basic Lift of the caster, though he uses his Path of Crossroads as his effective ST for the purposes of this spell.

Typical Casting: Lesser Create Crossroads (6) + Altered Traits, Payload 10 (Cosmic, Doesn't Count Against Encumbrance, +50%) + Duration, 1 day (7). (15). 28 energy (28×1).

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

What happens if your pocket dimension linked item gets hit by a dispel magic effect or you hit a NMZ? Is it a wardrobe malfunction as items explode from it, items cease to exist never to be seen again, or the items are still happilly in their pocket dimension and you must use a new lesser create effect to bind to it?

Would this work to put a ship in a bottle and get it out again? (supposing one wanted to have a ship to use to cast flight spells on, but its hard to fit the ship in the inn with you)

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

The way I ran it when it came up was that things were 'adrift in astral space' if a pocket dimension failed, but you could fish them back up and resummon them with appropriate Greater effects cast soon enough after the things were lost. Possibly drawing the attention of Elder Things, the way overuse of psi does.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I would tend towards the last one. Now, if someone finds your pocket dimension (with a Sense Crossroads effect, probably), and deliberately attacks it (Destroy Crossroads), you might be in trouble.
You could certainly create an extradimensional space big enough for a ship and linked to an item via either method, but it would need more area/payload.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Now, without further ado, Hobo Bill:
Hobo Bill
250 points
TL: 6
Attributes: [90]
ST:10 [0] HP: 10
DX: 11 [20] Will: 13
IQ: 13 [60] Per: 13
HT: 11 [10] FP: 11

Social Traits:[-5]
English Native/Native [0]
Social Status -1 [-5]
Advantages: [110]
Absolute Direction [5], Higher Purpose (Gate) 1 [5], Magery (Ritual Path) 1 [15], Magery 2 (Ritual Path; Path of Crossroads only, -40%) [12], Natural Caster 1 [15], Ritual Adept (Path of Crossroads only, -40%) [24], Unaging (Magic, -10%) [14].Warp (Magical -10%, no more than 2 miles -70%) [20],


Disadvantages: [-45]
Alcoholism [-15], Compulsive Behavior (Traveling) [-15], Laziness [-10], Loner [-5]

Perks: [5]
Ritual Mastery (Distant Attack)[1]
Ritual Mastery (Conjure Gate)[1]
Ritual Mastery (Phantom Apartment)[1]
Ritual Mastery (Pocket Space)[1]
Ritual Mastery (Boozehound)[1]

Quirks: [-5]
Loves Mulligan Stew [-1]
Takes hospitality seriously [-1]
Never wears shoes [-1]
Loves good booze, but can't be bothered looking for it [-1]
Offended at the suggestion of taking a job for pay [-1]

Skills: [70]
Area Knowledge (North America) (IQ/E) +2 [4] 15
Area Knowledge (Other dimension relevant to campaign) (IQ/E) +2 [4] 15
Brawling (DX/E) +1 [2] 12
Body Sense (DX/H) +1 [8] 15*
Filch (DX/A) + 1 [4] 12
Hidden Lore (Otherworldly creatures)(IQ/A)+2 [8] 16**
Knife (DX/E) + 2 [4]13
Navigation (Land) (IQ/A) +1 [4] 17*
Scrounging (Per/E) +1 [2] 14
Streetwise (IQ/A) +2 [8] 15
Symbol Drawing (IQ/H) +1 [8] 15**
Thaumatology (IQ/VH) +1 [12] 15 **
Urban Survival (Per/A)+1 [2] 14
* includes +3 from Absolute Direction
**Includes +1 from Natural Caster
Techniques:

Path Skills (IQ/VH)**: [30]
Path of Body 11
Path of Chance -1 [4] 13
Path of Crossroads +1 [12] 15
Path of Energy -1 [4]13
Path of Magic -1 [4] 13
Path of Matter -1 [4] 13
Path of Mind -2 [2] 12
Path of Spirit 11
Path of Undead 11
Rituals:
Boozehound:
Spell Effects: Lesser Sense Matter, Greater Create Crossroads.
Inherent Modifiers:
Greater Effects: 1 (x3).

This spell locates the nearest spirituous liquors (the caster can exclude known sources), and allows the caster to reach out an arm and bring the container to his location (so long as it's no larger than a large jug).

Typical Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Lesser Sense Matter (2) + Subject weight (20 lbs) (1) + range (3 miles) (21). 90 energy (30x3)

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Well, the Voyageur Canoe is 35ft long, and weighs up to 5.5 tons fully loaded

So something like this?

Ship in a Bottle - meant to be cast on a bottle, but any container will work. It will allow big things to be placed in the bottle (such as a small ship, like the 35ft long, 5.5 ton Voyageur Canoe). It does not actually need to be able to fit through the opening, things passing in and out warp handily, so a ship can be placed in the bottle despite size differences.

This Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Greater Transform Crossroads (8) + Duration, 1 month (11) + Subject Weight, 5 tons (6) + Area Of Effect, 15 yards (10). 205 energy (41×5).

Not sure about how to handle 'it can handle size changes so the ship need not actually fit inside the bottle opening', figured Greater Transform Crossroads handles it for a proper wormhole effect

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Per Ghostdancer's #18 in this thread you'd also want a Lesser Create Crossroads effect to link the extradimensional space to the bottle, but that looks good to me otherwise.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Currently rather beyond Jaina's skills, but something to strive for sometime. And to look out for a grimoire for

The Greater Transform Crossroads seem the way to handle the bottle/ship size discrepancy?

Modified is
Ship in a Bottle - meant to be cast on a bottle, but any container will work. It will allow big things to be placed in the bottle (such as a small ship, like the 35ft long, 5.5 ton Voyageur Canoe). It does not actually need to be able to fit through the opening, things passing in and out warp handily, so a ship can be placed in the bottle despite size differences.

This Casting: Greater Create Crossroads (6) + Greater Transform Crossroads (8) + Lesser Create Crossroads (6) + Duration, 1 month (11) + Subject Weight, 5 tons (6) + Area Of Effect, 15 yards (10). 235 energy (47×5).

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Hmmm. I think that if you were to destroy the anchor it'd go adrift in whatever plane it was in (or near) until a Greater Sense Crossroads effect were used in combination with a Greater Restore Crossroads effect to restore it's connection to our reality.

I don't see why not. Path of Crossroads is all about bending space and creating spatial shortcuts. So yeah, that can work.




Heh. Hobo Bill LIVES.

This is funny as hell. You get points for this. LOL.


That'd require a Greater Transform effect which you have. You'd need more weight to affect your 5.5 ton example.

You still need more weight to cover a 5.5 ton vessel.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I hope this is not necromantic of the Evil Sort, but I wonder, is this spell correct?

Jaina the Mageling was asked by a friend to make said friends room bigger, as said friend looted a dragon sized cloud mattress which was awesome, but also bigger than their entire room at the Adventurer's Guild

Supersize My Room
Spell Effects: Greater Strengthen Crossroads.
Inherent Modifiers: Subject Weight + Area Of Effect + Duration.
Greater Effects: 1 (×3).

Supersize My Room - This spell makes a room bigger, cast usually on the door of the room, it conveniently expands the interior dimensions. Often thought to be a variant of the Hideaway spell.
This is a popular spell and grimoires are often readily available, as very many magic students wish to use said grimoires to make their rooms at school bigger.

This Casting: Greater Strengthen Crossroads (3) + Subject Weight, 5 tons (6) + Area Of Effect, 10 yards (8) + Duration, 1 years (22). 117 energy (39×3).

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

Pretty sure that you need a create crossroads effect instead of a strengthen.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I had thought that since I wasn't trying to create an apartment from nothing, rather just make an existing apartment bigger that Strengthen would be appropriate, but could go with Create if that would work better

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

I would rule that the apartment is 'real' space, so to create new pseudo spave you need a create crossroads effect. If you already had an extradimensional space hanging around for some reason, that would be another story.

Re: [RPM] Thoughts and clarifications
 

This basically. If you're making it "bigger on the inside" you need a Create effect.