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Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice
If that's what you're going for then retool Ritual Adept - remove the Connection part for those who have it. Done. Since it seems like no one has Ritual Adept anyways aren't you already emulating this?
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From Thaumatology, casting in the presence of the target fulfils any Connection requirements. Activating a condtional ritual or Charm when standing by a target seems to fall under this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice
From what I've read it just seems like you're artificially building up skill levels to compensate for penalties you're adding on. If you want to remove massive bonuses I'd suggest you kill the bonuses (halve them for instance) and bring skill levels back to norm. Unless you are literally going for the idea of "skill 15 + bazillion for foci, place of power, etc." If you only allow +1 or +2 bonuses for things in the first place you won't need to worry about stacking penalties so skills become sub-base.
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It's a device so that ordinary people are mostly useless when it comes to the occult, unless something Terrible is teaching them, giving them power and bonuses.
Also, so that a smart, prepared and educated caster can learn just enough to get into trouble, but not enough to deal with it. Basically, anyone other than servants of dark forces, chosen ones and generational super-geniuses will not be able to perform adventuring-useful magic.
And, yeah, I'm going for a feel where whole adventures revolve around amassing positive modifiers for one ritual, the way Tim Powers stories tend to work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice
I like the idea of a boat with a threshold. That's just cool.
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It is. The idea for this campaign was literally a player asking if they could play modern Monster Hunters who travel by boat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice
But on topic - consider allowing the mana bonus to stay, but add a seperate roll to make it "stick." This gets you the flavor you want and means PCs still will seek out places of power to use. For example:
After the casting roll make a Will-based roll against your base skill or effective skill, whichever is less. Each two points by which you succeed lets you keep the a +1 bonus from the local mana. Any failure or success of one or less results in the bonus fading outside of the higher mana level.
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That might not be unfair, I suppose.
Though I anticipate needing to have no worries about the PCs not desiring Places of Power. Just being able to cast rituals there, such as divinations, is well worth it. Add being able to gather energy there for charms and conditional spells and people will still kill for Places of Power.
Remember, they'll tend to be in favorable mana zones, as well. A consecrated Place of Power might be -3 to -5, as opposed to an unconsecrated spot on an average street at -13 to -15.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice
Why not just add a special variation of duration instead of spending time on it. Or maybe in addition to it. Just double the cost of the Duration and that's how long the spell in the charm lasts without an HT roll. Or perhaps allow a Lesser Strengthen Magic effect + Bestows a Bonus to get a bonus versus weakening.
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I'd allow the Lesser Strengthen Magic effect combined with Bestows a Bonus, sure. I'm also considering having all effects that can endure the dawn outside a Threshold need to be bound in an object or living being, metaphysically something that has a threshold-like field around it.
And creating any long duration conditional rituals calls for Greater Strengthen or Control Magic effects.