Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Essentially, a spell that used the Law of Contagion to destroy an entire Cabal. I eventually disallowed it because wow was that powerful only to reallow it using some rules I created to make the cost in line with the effect.

Jim Butcher? Is that you? ;-)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Jim Butcher? Is that you? ;-)

The person casting it had never read the Dresden Files. So...no.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by qchap

With Talents from Ritual Path Specialists from Pyramid 3-66 one could easily build a mage with two Path skills of 20 (Magery 4, Talant 4) and it wouldn't cost too much - a 200 point character could easily have it.

With Ritual Mastery and, say, +4 Grimoir, which is still not very expensive, that mage would have an effective skill of 26 with some ritual. Adding fine workstation with Signature Gear would give 27 skill.

I can't recall Grimoire from Thaumatology, is this an addition to the Path/Book system from Pyramid 3/66 or a new kind?

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Plane

I can't recall Grimoire from Thaumatology, is this an addition to the Path/Book system from Pyramid 3/66 or a new kind?

RPM Grimoires are described in Thaumatolgoy: Ritual Path Magic. They give a flat bonus.

[Taneli]

Effect Shaping RPM (Pyramid, ~66 or so, Laws of Magic) limits the casters a bit more, as you get penalized on the casting roll by -1 per 10 points of energy that the spell would cost instead of repeated rolls to gather energy. It also makes the power of the caster a bit more linearly related to their skill level.

[Aldric]

Isn't a caster skill limited by 12+magery anyway ? How would someone get in the high 20s range ? A grimoire for +4 (but doesn't that double the required time ?) and a +2 for a specific ritual with a perk.
That's 10-11 energy per attempt on average, and a basic Fireball costs 18.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Aldric

Isn't a caster skill limited by 12+magery anyway ? How would someone get in the high 20s range ? A grimoire for +4 (but doesn't that double the required time ?) and a +2 for a specific ritual with a perk.
That's 10-11 energy per attempt on average, and a basic Fireball costs 18.

The Talents referenced in the first post give a bonus to two Path skills and a few related mundane skills - and as an Alternative Benefit (see PU3: Talents; the tl;dr of that is you can essentially have a Talent with a leveled Perk alongside it instead of it improving reaction rolls of narrow groups), each level of Talent gives +1 to the cap for the two Path skills involved. For example, going off of memory, the Anatomist Talent includes Path of Body, Path of Undead, and I think Physician, Physiology, and Surgery (maybe something else as well, I think [5] Talents allow up to 6 skills), and also increases the skill cap of Path of Body and Path of Undead. Someone with Magery 4 and Anatomist 4 has a skill cap of 16 for most Path skills, but 20 for Path of Body and Path of Undead. +4 Grimoires aren't cheap, but they aren't (by default) incredibly expensive either, being equal in cost to one month's wages for an average job (a bit over 10% of average starting cash at TL 8, but a full 70% of average starting cash at TL 3, because CoL is weird). Doubling the time is a bit problematic if you're working under severe time restraints, but that's typically not the case. If you're making a Charm, you can get a bonus from using a Good or Fine workspace kit, but those are markedly more expensive (but still rather affordable if you drop some points into Wealth). And, if you have the time to make a Charm (or a Wand, which requires a markedly longer prep time), doubling the time to gather energy typically doesn't make much of an impact (unless you lack Ritual Adept (Time) 2). Places of Power are also a possibility, and you can reduce the amount of energy required further by using Traditional/Decanic Trappings (where it's not too difficult to get a 5-10% reduction, particularly for a ritual you intend to use frequently - like, say, on that you have Ritual Mastery for).

[Aldric]

Seems like a lot of the issues are then with these new Talents, how does the system itself work without them ? (And I guess without allowing levels of magery like 8+ ofc)

[Christopher R. Rice]

In energy-gathering RPM Magery has no limit because Magery is ER 3 [9] + Additional Path Cap 1 [1]. You can get talents to add to skill levels like anything else.

The problem I think is the ability of the GM to say "No". RPM is meant to be an exchange of ideas between player and GM. If you don't have that things will break down.

[qchap]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

In energy-gathering RPM Magery has no limit because Magery is ER 3 [9] + Additional Path Cap 1 [1]. You can get talents to add to skill levels like anything else.

The problem I think is the ability of the GM to say "No". RPM is meant to be an exchange of ideas between player and GM. If you don't have that things will break down.

It's not really a problem of me not being able to say "No". It's a problem of that I don't like to say "No" just because I subjectively think something is unbalanced, even if it's allowed by the world AND the system rules. I need some excuse to say "No", and in the best scenario that "No" should be tied to rules AND flavor, but one of them is fine too. "Rules" must not necessarily be the system's RAW - they include any houserule, chosen BEFORE the game. So that my player, who made a character while thinking it would work one way, won't discover midgame that it works another way.

I have played with GMs who don't use such principles, and not rarely enough something very disappointing for a player happens.

I don't like making people sad, it's not the reason we are playing, so when I say "No", I should have something better then "I don't like it, it's too powerful".