RPM at high power levels

[Nereidalbel]

Ok, I'm making a mage for a 3000 point game, with Magery and IA capped at 100, and since all forms of magic exist in this setting, I want to use RPM.

What I'm unsure of right now is how ridiculous Path skills work with energy gathering rolls; is every success a critical, or is it really going to be possible for me to have MoS 80+?

On a side note, what kinds of non-combat things could I reasonably pull off with this? Throwing fireballs/lightning bolts is nice and easy to calculate costs on, but it's the fancy stuff that I haven't really tried yet.

[mlangsdorf]

Remember that Ritual Path Magery doesn't add to skills, so unless your GM is letting you buy IQ 100, you're not going to have Path skills in the 80+ range. Even if he does, you can have a MoS of 80+ and you only get a critical success on a 6 or less.

Ritual Path Magery 100 [1000] does let you spontaneous cast a ritual of up to 300 points by tapping your energy reserve in a single second, so a modified version of Destruction (RPM p41) that does 24d bu damage is a single Concentrate spell for you. Though you can only do it once before having to spend 3-10 seconds recharging your energy reserve. Similarly, you can remove all gravity on Earth for an hour by casting Suspend Gravity (RPM p50) with an area of effect of 5000 miles (roughly 200 energy required).

Assuming your path skills are around 40, you have a safe threshold (RPM p26) of 265, meaning you cast reasonably expect to cast spells with an energy cost in the 1000 point range. I think that's enough to give everyone on earth Slave Mentality, Sense of Duty (You), and Spoken understanding of your language, with a few points left over. Couple that with some kind of spell to project your voice world wide, and you've just enslaved the world. But honestly, there aren't a lot of sample rituals with costs in the 500+ range, so I could be off as to your abilities.

Good luck with this game.

[Nereidalbel]

Nah, IQ 30 and plenty of points into skills. Still probably spend less on getting Path skills to stupid levels than just buying every spell in Standard Magic at 1 point.

Assuming 40 skill, how large of a portal could I reasonably create, and to what reasonable range? Assuming I haven't been to the destination point to set up some form of beacon/anchor first?

Now, if I wanted to be a complete jerk and make it rain nitroglycerin over an area, how would you set that one up?

[mlangsdorf]

If you have IQ30, the only path skill you want is Thaumatology-100 [288], since all your Path skills default to Thaumatology -6. With the -5 penalty for fast casting, you can generate an average of 78 energy each second, in addition to the 300 point mana reserve from Ritual Path Magery 100.

Creating a Gate is Greater Create Crossroads with some kind of Area of Effect modifier and some kind of long distance modifier and a duration. So opening a gate 1/2 mile in diameter that lasts for 2 hours and connects to the moon (~200,000 miles) costs somewhere between 300 and 500 energy (I am not sure if it's two Greater effects to create both halves of the gate). On the low end, that's something you can do in a second and recast 5 seconds later. On the high end, it takes you 4 seconds to cast and 9 seconds to recast. Either way, it's pretty nuts.

Rain of Nitroglycerine would be Greater Create Matter, with an area effect (200 yds for 24 energy), range (700 yds for 15 energy), damage (18d cr exp for 32 energy), and a damage modifier (Overhead Persistent for +70% or +22 energy). For 297 total energy, you can rain most of a pound of nitroglycerine into a fairly large area and a good range, continuing for 10 seconds after you're done casting - and since it fits within your energy reserve, you can definitely cast this every 5 seconds. Now while you'll turn anything remotely human into chunky salsa this way, anyone with significant DR (70+) will completely ignore this, aside from some complicated and confusing knockback. But certainly any building or anything in the area will be completely destroyed.

(All costs in these posts are approximate and based on my understanding of RPM. If I get stuff wrong, sorry. Wait for Christopher to correct the details.)

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

If you have IQ30, the only path skill you want is Thaumatology-100 [288], since all your Path skills default to Thaumatology -6. With the -5 penalty for fast casting, you can generate an average of 78 energy each second, in addition to the 300 point mana reserve from Ritual Path Magery 100.

They default to Thaumatology and are capped to 12 +Magery.
And there is another limit, from p. 6 of the RPM book

Every Path defaults to Thaumatology-6. Thus, someone
who has at least one point in Thaumatology can cast spells!
However, a defaulted Path skill cannot exceed 12, regardless of
how high the caster’s Thaumatology skill or Magery level is.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Ok, I'm making a mage for a 3000 point game, with Magery and IA capped at 100, and since all forms of magic exist in this setting, I want to use RPM.

What I'm unsure of right now is how ridiculous Path skills work with energy gathering rolls; is every success a critical, or is it really going to be possible for me to have MoS 80+?

On a side note, what kinds of non-combat things could I reasonably pull off with this? Throwing fireballs/lightning bolts is nice and easy to calculate costs on, but it's the fancy stuff that I haven't really tried yet.

It can become...boring, actually, if you don't have the imagination for it. I had a player make a 2k RPM caster for my supers campaign and he retired the character very quickly. That said, you really don't need skills above 40(ish). I'd spend the rest in Magery (for mana reserve) and once that topped out I'd buy straight Energy Reserve.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

If you have IQ30, the only path skill you want is Thaumatology-100 [288], since all your Path skills default to Thaumatology -6. With the -5 penalty for fast casting, you can generate an average of 78 energy each second, in addition to the 300 point mana reserve from Ritual Path Magery 100.

Originally Posted by Refplace

They default to Thaumatology and are capped to 12 +Magery.
And there is another limit, from p. 6 of the RPM book

Every Path defaults to Thaumatology-6. Thus, someone
who has at least one point in Thaumatology can cast spells!
However, a defaulted Path skill cannot exceed 12, regardless of
how high the caster’s Thaumatology skill or Magery level is.

What Refplace said.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Creating a Gate is Greater Create Crossroads with some kind of Area of Effect modifier and some kind of long distance modifier and a duration. So opening a gate 1/2 mile in diameter that lasts for 2 hours and connects to the moon (~200,000 miles) costs somewhere between 300 and 500 energy (I am not sure if it's two Greater effects to create both halves of the gate). On the low end, that's something you can do in a second and recast 5 seconds later. On the high end, it takes you 4 seconds to cast and 9 seconds to recast. Either way, it's pretty nuts.

This looks about right actually, no need of a second effect though. You're opening the gate to the moon.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Rain of Nitroglycerine would be Greater Create Matter, with an area effect (200 yds for 24 energy), range (700 yds for 15 energy), damage (18d cr exp for 32 energy), and a damage modifier (Overhead Persistent for +70% or +22 energy). For 297 total energy, you can rain most of a pound of nitroglycerine into a fairly large area and a good range, continuing for 10 seconds after you're done casting - and since it fits within your energy reserve, you can definitely cast this every 5 seconds. Now while you'll turn anything remotely human into chunky salsa this way, anyone with significant DR (70+) will completely ignore this, aside from some complicated and confusing knockback. But certainly any building or anything in the area will be completely destroyed.

LOL. That's actually pretty good. "Rain of Nitro," I like that.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

(All costs in these posts are approximate and based on my understanding of RPM. If I get stuff wrong, sorry. Wait for Christopher to correct the details.)

Oh come now, I'm not that bad, surely.

In general, if you're playing a scary powerful mage, you're not going to want to toss fireballs and lightning bolts. Instead, do some instant death type spells: a internal damaging attack that does 32d of damage is death for any normal (10 HP) target. Consider doing a Heart Attack or Coma affliction (+60 or +80 energy). For non-combat spells the sky's the limit. You're going to be able to give yourself +10 to a Skill (+512 energy) or attribute bonuses out the wazoo (+10 to all attributes is a mere +600 energy). Basically, at that level you have to be careful or you will outshine every other player character. RPM casters are Swiss army knives - but at that level you're a Swiss army katana.