Originally Posted by GoldenMonkey (Post 1894520)

Could you clarify a few things:

For the Using a Known Ritual advantage, how do you know if it's known? Are rituals Stunts or Skills or Aspects or what?

Is the advantage Relevant Material Component created by a Resource roll?

How is Consecrated Space created?

What does the Heal actually heal? How many stress boxes/consequences are removed?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by GoldenMonkey (Post 1894701)

Not sure what changed...did the Heal ritual drop? The example still seems to be the same.

Keep in mind that the odds of rolling +2 or higher on Fate dice is only 18.5%. The odds of rolling it three times in a row is (.185 ^ 3)= 0.006 or 0.6%. That's once in 166 attempts.

Even the odds of rolling greater than +0 Mediocre three times in a row are less than 25%. (.62 ^ 3)=0.24.

Adding consequences to the magnitude of the failed dice rolls, especially repeated rolls, will cause a rapid accumulation of hits.

Originally Posted by dataweaver (Post 1894732)

If the subject isn't present, you need to have established a sympathetic link to him or the ritual automatically fails.

Instead of measuring the potency of a ritual in terms of how much it increases the Opposition, measure it in terms of how many successful actions need to be completed.

Originally Posted by Count Zero Interrupt

GURPS is a generic roleplaying system I enjoy and it has several magic systems built against its ruleset that would be difficult to translate to Fate. For example the default GURPS Magic system treats spells as a special kind of Skill, modified by the IQ attribute and an Advantage called Magery, and mages end up with dozens of spells. This style of lists upon lists of spells is largely incompatible with Fate for the same reasons that GURPS has several hundred skills and Fate Core leans toward about two dozen and some Fate rulesets even fewer. GURPS Thaumatology introduced several other spell systems like Path/Book and Realm Magic that are broadly more suited to Fate but not without limitations. Eventually as part of the GURPS Monster Hunters series a new style was introduced, and later given its own book, called Ritual Path Magic (RPM) that introduces a system that fits Fate quite well but obviously not without some changes.

Broadly speaking RPM requires a character to have a single skill – Thaumatology – that is used to roll for magical effects. There are in addition Path Skills which allows a player to roll a slightly higher target number in exchange for limiting their diversity. (Though there are few enough Path skills that a dedicated mage might max them out if they’re given enough points.) When performing magic players must raise energy for several turns and then roll against a high penalty of -10 to their Thaumatology or Path skill. This penalty can be negated with the Ritual Adept Advantage which has a fairly high price of 40 points.

What does this mean for Fate Core, however? Since Thaumatology acts as a catch-all “science of magic” skill in GURPS that very few non-mages will (or can in certain campaigns, if the GM limits it) it could reasonable be considered its own skill in Fate as well. Individual Path skills could be Stunts connected to the Thaumatology skill to give an edge (for a Fate Point) whenever the PC is using that kind of magic. The argument for spending a Fate point, as opposed to accepting the limited scope, is that PCs would be likely to play their mages based off the maxim, “When all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail” and use their limited-scope Stunts on every problem.

To further expand the Extra of Ritual Path Magic there is the Permission of taking an aspect allowing the PC to effectively have the equivalent of the GURPS Ritual Adept – ideally their High Concept. Bear in mind, this doesn’t need to be worded “Ritual Adept” but instead something that get the point across that the PC uses magic and this kind of magic if there’s multiple types. Second, they must take the Thaumatology skill. Finally, though optionally, they can take the Path skills as stunts.

To use RPM a PC will roll against whatever opposition is reasonable for the challenge assuming they weren’t a mage. If the task is truly challenging and can only be performed with magic then it’s reasonable to raise the opposition to higher levels but require the mage to effectively take on a Challenge to gain the successes (and in effect raise the energy) to cast the spell. The mage may roll multiple times across multiple turns to raise energy and any successes go toward reaching the goal, however any negative rolls also get added in, and rolling enough minuses to get a Terrible result (-2) will mean failure. (Particularly evil GMs might even argue a single roll bringing to total below Terrible, especially after several energy-building successes means Bad Stuff happens like a nail-studded demon emerges with “Such sights to show you.”)

If the PC is not a mage (no Aspects denoting they’re an RPM mage) the opposition get a bonus of +2 if they don’t have a magical connection (like they have something intimately tied to the subject or a piece of them, e.g. wedding ring, hair, blood, etc.) or know their exact location, a further +2 for not having a consecrated ritual space (which takes significant time and must be ritually prepared long in advance), another +2 if they’re not a mage at all (no Aspects for a different magic system) and finally a further +2 if they want to cast spells in within the timeframe of a Conflict (turn-based time like during combat as opposed to taking as long as needed to raise energy). Bear in mind this can mean +8 on top of whatever the original opposition was (and possibly a visit from a Hierophant of Pain with a single roll).

Finally, this framework could also allow for a system similar to GURPS Thaumatology’s Realm Magic (itself a generic version of White Wolf’s Mage series) by requiring the use of Stunts to perform magic within their limited scopes (and only within their limited scopes) and allowing each Realm (sphere) of magic to be Stunt Families built off of Thaumatology. This method would do away with the required Fate Point because the limited scope is a requirement to do magic at all instead of being optional (i.e. no rolls again straight Thaumatology). A GM using this concept would probably want to give the PCs a high starting Refresh to offset the fact they’ll be taking lots of Stunts.

Suggested Paths (or Realms) for this would be Body (or Life), Chance (or Fate, etc.), Crossroads (or Space), Energy, Magic, Matter, Mind, Spirit, Undead (or Death). Of course this pulls from both GURPS Ritual Path Magic and White Wolf’s Mage the Awakening for ideas. If you’d prefer to make your own list, or rename the existing list, then that’s certainly reasonable.

Originally Posted by Raekai (Post 1894745)

Let's try this again. Changed some descriptions to make some things seem more flexible. Changed some numbers to alter scopes, make some things a bit easier, and to make some other things a little harder. I tried to underline most (if not all) of the important changes.



I'm also not too worried about having a sympathetic link, but I think that's just personal taste. I like the idea, but it's not necessary for my setting. As for measuring it in actions, the problem is that a ritual will then always take a specific amount of "time" as actions. You wouldn't ever get "faster" with rituals.