RPM grimoire only

[fifiste]

I have an idea for a magic system that at least first sounded rather self consistent in my own thoughts. Still I would like some feedback and have also a few questions.
Idea .... Use RPM as in Monster Hunters - with exceptions. You can in reasonable time cast only pre-defined spells that are in your grimoire already.(maybe treat PC-s as adepts in these cases and non-adepts in other cases).

For adding new spells into grimoire you need to do it as an invention - with thaumatology as the invention skill.

The idea here is to remove some of the on the fly adjudicating troubles form the GM and to remove time spent on figuring out spell parameters on the fly. It can help the players more prone to decision paralysis and especially the other fellows on the table.

And i think in some games it can give cool focus on the research and development angle and on some others vice versa remove all this from sight(keep it DF-ish) and just use spells bought/looted/found etc.

Questions:
Should I just use the costs on the inventions chapter?
What would TL-s be? - the complexity would probably be rather high for most spells?
What would be the cost at character development to have some list of spells already in your grimoire ? Figure out their retail price somehow and buy them for cash/points for cash or signature gear etc.?

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by fifiste

I have an idea for a magic system that at least first sounded rather self consistent in my own thoughts. Still I would like some feedback and have also a few questions.
Idea .... Use RPM as in Monster Hunters - with exceptions. You can in reasonable time cast only pre-defined spells that are in your grimoire already.(maybe treat PC-s as adepts in these cases and non-adepts in other cases).

I'm definitely in favor of this kind of system. It keeps the flexibility and balance of RPM, while minimizing the in-game time and calculations. Langy proposed a similar thing for RPM in DF.

Questions:
Should I just use the costs on the inventions chapter?
What would TL-s be? - the complexity would probably be rather high for most spells?
What would be the cost at character development to have some list of spells already in your grimoire ? Figure out their retail price somehow and buy them for cash/points for cash or signature gear etc.?

Here's one option from Ghostdancer:

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I did this exact thing when running one of my campaigns. I transitioned over from the standard spell system to RPM (which is also when I did my own conversion of Magic spells to ritual path magic spells). At first, I only allowed rituals that duplicated existing spells, then I slowly allowed the PCs (and one in particular) to figure out that spells weren't as rote as they thought. Adding a Armor Disorder to Fireball, increasing the time of the Haste ritual and so on. I treated each "varied" spell as a Simple invention and "new" spells as Average (for 30 energy or less), Complex (for 30 to 150 energy), and Amazing (151 or more energy). It worked pretty well and eventually one new spell lead to the fracture of magical energy that enabled the use of free form spell casting.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by fifiste

I have an idea for a magic system that at least first sounded rather self consistent in my own thoughts. Still I would like some feedback and have also a few questions.
Idea .... Use RPM as in Monster Hunters - with exceptions. You can in reasonable time cast only pre-defined spells that are in your grimoire already.(maybe treat PC-s as adepts in these cases and non-adepts in other cases).

For adding new spells into grimoire you need to do it as an invention - with thaumatology as the invention skill.

The idea here is to remove some of the on the fly adjudicating troubles form the GM and to remove time spent on figuring out spell parameters on the fly. It can help the players more prone to decision paralysis and especially the other fellows on the table.

And i think in some games it can give cool focus on the research and development angle and on some others vice versa remove all this from sight(keep it DF-ish) and just use spells bought/looted/found etc.

Hmmm. Okay.

Originally Posted by fifiste

Should I just use the costs on the inventions chapter?

Short Answer: Yes. I've already talking at this in a another thread here.

Originally Posted by fifiste

What would TL-s be? - the complexity would probably be rather high for most spells?

Instead of a prerequisite chain (which is what they suggest in Magic), I gave a -5 penalty beyond the first Path skill required (doubled if you don't have Ritual Adept), -1 per Lesser effect, and -2 per Greater effect.

Originally Posted by fifiste

What would be the cost at character development to have some list of spells already in your grimoire ? Figure out their retail price somehow and buy them for cash/points for cash or signature gear etc.?

An Unusual Background (Ritual Inventor) [10] for any number of original spells, and Secret Spell [1] for just a few spells, with a perk required for each spell. I'd remove the need entirely or reduce it for those with Ritual Adept.

[Peter Knutsen]

I think if you were to go a Ritual Perk only-route, you should give each character (not just player characters, but all characters) a number of free Ritual Perks, derived from some value. It could be IQ, or half of IQ+Thaumatology, or 2 per Path skill the have learned (minimum 1 CP), or anything like that. In order to offset the high cost of having to buy those Perks, which was never thought into the RPM system as a mandatory element.

[mehrkat]

I've been trying to figure out how I wanted to deal with calculation time. I've got an inspiration for a "typical" fantasy game where the magic system is RPM but they can only do "precasts". Basically require them to have a safe space to cast.
In my brain it feels a lot like fire and forget magic.

However, maybe Peter's idea for required rituals might work as my main problem is how do I keep from boring my nonmage characters.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by mehrkat

However, maybe Peter's idea for required rituals might work as my main problem is how do I keep from boring my nonmage characters.

In general, if you spend a lot of work making the magic system cool, and less work making the non-magic stuff cool, you're going to wind up encouraging people to play mages. I'm finding my preferences moving towards totally eliminating tactical magic.

[Adelus]

I really like this idea, and was eagerly awaiting the RPM book for ideas on tackling this to use RPM as a sorta building system for academic spells, but I can see a few problems.

If you allow spells to be cast on a non-adept timeframe without the restriction of having spells with Ritual Mastery, in their Grimoire, or some kind of Technique system (which I was planning for my house rules), then you run the risk of people only using their grimoires for combat-scale spells, spells they really want buffed, etc. Everything else they'll do when they have time, or make charms for it.

You might want to make non-Grimoire casting take a bit longer or impose some other difficulties, otherwise players might neglect the system when not under time-sensitive conditions.

[fifiste]

Quite right. I was more in line thinking that they will not only use the timeframe for non-adepts but actually be non-adepts when not using grimoires with all appropriate penalties.
What to you think the Ritual adept(with grimoire only spells) should be worth in this campaign?
Also it would probably be good idea to keep (most/all) grimoires a spellbooks only meaning no flat bonuses. Grimoire that will give somekind of bonus to casting would be rare or non-existent.

[Terwin]

Originally Posted by mehrkat

I've been trying to figure out how I wanted to deal with calculation time. I've got an inspiration for a "typical" fantasy game where the magic system is RPM but they can only do "precasts". Basically require them to have a safe space to cast.
In my brain it feels a lot like fire and forget magic.

However, maybe Peter's idea for required rituals might work as my main problem is how do I keep from boring my nonmage characters.

Something to consider:
Unless you are in a position to take -10 to skill, each gather attempt takes at least 1 combat turn, (up to 5 turns with Adept, and 'not in combat' times without adept)
So there should be plenty of time to calculate the cost of a combat spell, while waiting to gather the needed mana.

Even outside of combat, a quick guestimate by the GM should work pretty well most of the time.

And don't forget that charms more or less need to be made at 'home', and would probably be down-time activities more than anything else.

Also, I suspect I would come up with a page or two of pre-calculated spells covering most common needs that you could pre-approve over email, just like charms.

Finally, as there are only a hand-full of tables that are relevant for calculating spell costs and I would probably print those out all on one sheet so there would not be any 'I know just the spell effect for this situation, just a sec while I look it up in the Magic book so that I have all the details' that slowed things down in that first game with syntactic magic.

Give a nice high limit on charms and there may be very few instances of even needing to cast during a session(aside from a series of rolls at the beginning while waiting for everyone to arrive, but that does not seem problematic as I am the host and you are usually the first to arrive)