Need help with some stuff with Ritual/Path magic.

[DeathDaisy]

Originally Posted by Jaware

I was under the impression that the bestow a bonus/penalty modifier had to be used on a separate spell that pierced the targets defenses so that they would be "under the effects of the -resistance" spells, in order for the other one to actually be used.

Can you use the bestows a penalty in order to make a spell you cast harder to resist if that is part of the spell?

I can't say where I read it without looking around a bit, but I'm 98% sure that you can add Bestow a Penalty to a ritual to make the spell harder to resist. I'm sure someone will correct me if I misremember. On the offchance that I remember wrong, which has happened, I have played that way in campaigns without issues, so shouldn't pose a problem even if it turns out it's not RAW.

Originally Posted by Jaware

I don't disagree. I don't think it's unbalanced or anything. I was just curious on the best way(and most point effective) way to raise the cap of the various paths.

As for batteries, I was thinking of using the exempt on Ravens and pennies about the ability to make one time use "batteries" for it since my game is only a 150 pt fantasy game.

I checked out the batteries on raven and pennies, and that should work great. Ghostdancer is something of a real life magician when it comes to RPM, so if I happen to say something that goes against what he has written, I'm probably wrong.

Originally Posted by ericthered

There is a LOT you can do to get around climbing up the RPM ladder 18 points at a time.

Higher Purpose (Tradition) is in the RPM main book, and its expanded even further in pyramid 66. This allows you to cut through level caps for a category of spells, up to a maximum of 3. Very nice.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Ritual mastery can give +2 to any ritual.

Thing is, that is still a point investment that severely limits the versatility of an RPM caster. Rather than +2 in four different rituals, I'd rather get a +1 in all rituals involving a path. YMMV, of course.

Originally Posted by ericthered

If you have safe access to a place of power, that's a huge boost to what you can cast.

Yeah, finding a place of power is a huge boost to any caster and can be a fun part of an adventure. I'd say it's part of the "time investment and risk" I spoke of.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Finally, Grimoires CAN be a substitute for skill and training. They make you less than flexible, but in some settings its much easier to find a good book than a good caster. I've actually designed a setting where grimoires are considered indispensable tools and every single mage has them.

If your setting has a lot of really powerful grimoires going around, then yeah, of course. However, in a setting where this isn't the case, a GM dishing out powerful grimoires is probably upsetting the balance quite a bit, making the party mage very powerful without them investing the points in it, thus eclipsing the rest of the party.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Pyramid 66 has specialist talents that raise the cap on paths only for that talent.

Yeah, went back and read it, this is a good way if you specialize, which I guess you'll have to do to have any combat utility at lower points.

Overall, I'd still say you're not going to throw any larger amount of fireballs without considerable risk and/or time investment. Just the non-adept cast times makes charms pretty much the only option.

With that said, you could probably get a quite capable magician at just 150 points if you are willing to give up some versatility. However, in a fantasy setting I guess that is often genre appropriate. Druids do druid stuff and elementalists do their stuff, with little overlap.