[RPM] High Energy Cost spells (Example Body of Shadow)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

• No matter what the Transformation is, never count more than one of the pair of Effects as a Greater Effect. This could drop the aforementioned 80 points to 48 points.
• Make Transformations a special case: they always count as a single Effect; but it costs an extra (guessing) 2 energy if that single Effect uses two Paths. So a “Transform Body to Energy” Effect would cost 10 energy instead of 8. Instead of 80 points base for a Greater Transform, it would only be 30 points.
• Or just have it count as a single Effect, with no price inflation; if you’re highly skilled with both Body and Energy, transforming between them is no harder than converting light into sound or a man into a pig. The 80-point Greater Transform would only be 24 points.

While there certainly can be metaphysical reasons why transforming a man (living mammal) into a pig (living mammal) is easier than transforming a man into a "living shadow," regardless of the level of skill in the relevant Paths, I typically agree with this. The way I handle it is, if a single effect clearly should use two Paths, you simply do it as a single Spell Effect, using the lower of the two Path skills involved. For example, my Feeding Bolt is a single Greater Transform Body/Undead, because the bolt harming the target and healing the caster is a single effect, and Undead is really only included due to the specific metaphysics of my setting (notably, the spell by Ghostdancer that I more-or-less copied from was simply a Greater Transform Body effect). If there are two separate effects that are closely related, and both are arguably Greater, I'll let them get by as one Greater and one Lesser - the Positive/Negative Energy Bolt/Blast/Blade rituals from that same post are examples of this.