should it be a perk to know a Spell Concept?

Plane · 06-09-2022, 01:54 PM

Using the rules for Player-Created Spells (M15) or "Theoretical Magic
and Spell Design" (F167) there is a stage at which a tester (not necessarily the inventor) puts a skill point into a spell before testing what it does.

This might be called a 'prototype perk' and it's a gamble since you don't know the outcome until you make the roll, and then it's locked in place, with issues like "a critical failure happens every time I cast the spell even on a normal success" being the equivalent of a "major bug"

(that's one issue I'm not clear on - whether you reroll on the crit fail table every time you cast, or you roll 1 time and the same crit fail result is a consistent major bug tied to the spell)

Prior to this though is a successful "concept roll" process. It seems like once you succeed at the concept roll you have a kind of 'successful concept' where you don't need to repeat the process and just need to brute-force the prototype rolls until they succeed

(otherwise if you need a simultaneous consecutive success in concept-then-prototype it'd take a long time for that to coincide)

In this way, having brute-forced concept rolls until reaching a "I have a successful concept" seems like an asset. You not only have the ability to attempt prototypes for yourself, but apparently also to instruct others to spend a skill point and attempt prototypes based on that concept.

Should that be at least a perk? It's an advanced capacity in a way that others who haven't succeeded at the concept roll lack. There doesn't seem to be any drawbacks to having it, it's kinda like a "pact with a demon" - you have extra options which you may or may not utilize.

It seems similar to technological familiarity in that we don't quite quantify knowing this still via character points (maybe it's not worth a full point by itself?) but possibly we could do that by batching them together in large quantities, maybe using a similar system as Dabbler where for every 8 technological familiarities (or invention concepts) your character knows, it's considered 1 CP of value?

06-09-2022, 01:54 PM	#1
Plane Join Date: Aug 2018	should it be a perk to know a Spell Concept? Using the rules for Player-Created Spells (M15) or "Theoretical Magic and Spell Design" (F167) there is a stage at which a tester (not necessarily the inventor) puts a skill point into a spell before testing what it does. This might be called a 'prototype perk' and it's a gamble since you don't know the outcome until you make the roll, and then it's locked in place, with issues like "a critical failure happens every time I cast the spell even on a normal success" being the equivalent of a "major bug" (that's one issue I'm not clear on - whether you reroll on the crit fail table every time you cast, or you roll 1 time and the same crit fail result is a consistent major bug tied to the spell) Prior to this though is a successful "concept roll" process. It seems like once you succeed at the concept roll you have a kind of 'successful concept' where you don't need to repeat the process and just need to brute-force the prototype rolls until they succeed (otherwise if you need a simultaneous consecutive success in concept-then-prototype it'd take a long time for that to coincide) In this way, having brute-forced concept rolls until reaching a "I have a successful concept" seems like an asset. You not only have the ability to attempt prototypes for yourself, but apparently also to instruct others to spend a skill point and attempt prototypes based on that concept. Should that be at least a perk? It's an advanced capacity in a way that others who haven't succeeded at the concept roll lack. There doesn't seem to be any drawbacks to having it, it's kinda like a "pact with a demon" - you have extra options which you may or may not utilize. It seems similar to technological familiarity in that we don't quite quantify knowing this still via character points (maybe it's not worth a full point by itself?) but possibly we could do that by batching them together in large quantities, maybe using a similar system as Dabbler where for every 8 technological familiarities (or invention concepts) your character knows, it's considered 1 CP of value?