[RPM] Cost/Balance of <<Effect>> or <<Path + Effect>> Only?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Klark

On Ghostdancer/Christopher Rice's blog, a lot of his RPM guides include a specialized or limited form of Magery or Ritual Adept. The -40% discount for limiting an advantage to a single path seems fair, but I'm curious if that -40% would work for Magery or Ritual Adept limited to a single spell effect like Sense or Destroy. It seems thematically appropriate to allow this (i.e. a mage that focuses on detection and analysis), but if there's a mention of it anywhere I missed it.

In a word: yes. For now, you could probably equate a specific Path with a specific Effect. So Magery (Sense only, -40%) would cost 6 points a level and would be useful only for spells that included a Sense effect. I wouldn't let a player include a Sense effect in every single spell he does however, that smacks of munchkinism.

Originally Posted by Klark

Assuming that there's nothing wrong with including <<Effect>> Only, -40%, what would you guys recommend for an advantage limited to a single Path and Effect? -60%? The one thing I'm worried about is that some Path/Effect combinations are much more broad than others, meaning those combinations will be restricted less but recieve the same amount of point back. I understand that there's not much you can do if players pick something horrendously suboptimal like Sense Crossroads Only, but there are still issues with options like Restore Body Only (a tempting choice for adventurers on a tight points budget) being significantly more restrictive than something like Create Matter Only (a combination with countless uses). Aside from a list of "combinations A+B, C+D, and E+F are worth more," I don't know how to tackle this.

There is a resource coming out that will be far more useful, but again, you could do it like this. Some effects are going to be more useful than others - this much is true for RPM. You as the GM are going to need to say "No you can't have this, sorry" if it bothers you that much. I originally said about -35% for a single path, but I used it in game and it didn't feel worth it. So I raised it to -40%...but...I'm starting to think it might have been worth -35% and will probably use that.