RPM Magic and Thaumatology Path/Book Magic rituals

[VulpesFulva]

Yeah, the most basic RPM Ritual I can think of is "I hold the doodad in my hand and wave my fingers all mystically and spooky trying to get a response from it. Is it magic?"

Bought as

Lesser Sense Magic (2)

No modifiers.

Energy cost: 2

[Icelander]

In my 'Monster Hunters by Gaslight' campaign, socialite, gambler, amateur consulting detective and rakehell-cum-occultist Reginald St. John Woodsworth has become fond of obtaining an object crucial to the identify of someone and then using that item as a Charm to perform a magically-aided impersonation of them.

The ritual he places on this object combines the effects of the Path/Book ritual Guise with a limited version of the Path/Book ritual Liar's Charm, i.e. a penalty for anyone else to use IQ, Per, Detect Lies, Empathy or magic to determine that he is not the person he is pretending to be. The game-mechanical effect of the Guise of a certain person are that it adds a bonus to Reggie's Acting, Disguise and Mimicry skills, only for the purpose of pretending to be that specific person.

So far, Reggie has only used this on people he superficially resembles and he has also employed a mundane disguise, taking their clothing and making use of dye, make-up and such. This ritual therefore takes a minimum of 10 minutes to cast and requires access to the impersonated's individual clothing and at least a limited amount of diguise kit, which I suppose counts as a limitation to final cost, but I'm not sure how much of a one it ought to be.

I had thought that the penalty to other's rolls to penetrate the disguise could be accomplished with a Lesser Control Chance effect. The disguise itself, the game mechanical effect of which is a bonus to Reggie's skill rolls to impersonate this particular individual, would be Lesser Control Mind, as it changes what is perceived, not what is real.

Are any other effects required to gain the bonuses above?

Is it fair to call each category of rolls, a penalty to penetrate a particular impersonation and a bonus to perform that same impersonation, a narrow category for cost purposes? Reggie has no bonuses to Acting for the purposes of any other deceptions he might want to carry out in his guise and there is no penalty to detect lies he tells that don't have to do with maintaining his guise.

As the target is the object itself and Reggie gains the bonuses only while he carries that object, would I use any cost modifier for Target Weight?

When this was used in play, I ruled that these were narrow bonuses, that no cost modifier for weight was necessary, and that having access to at least some of the victim's clothes and an item of special significance to him, in addition to taking ten minutes to apply make-up and prepare a non-magical disguise, translated into at least -20% discount. The end result for a disguise that would last 'the rest of the night' (I used the 12 hour duration cost) was therefore a 32 energy ritual that was reduced down to 26 for the appropriate and inconvenient trappings.

Impersonation Charm
Lesser Control Mind (5) + Bestows a bonus, +4 to a narrow range (8) + Lesser Control Chance (5) + Bestows a penalty, -4 to a narrow range (8) + Duration, 12 hours (6). 32 Energy (32x1), reduced to 26 for trappings