RPM Group Enchanting

[christ0pher]

Hypothetically, let's say I have a group of fairly competent and gifted Ritual Path Mages from a modern secret magic setting that, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up on a parallel Earth during WWII similar to the IST setting.

So, that's mages with future knowledge, of a sort, on an Earth with little to no knowledge of magic with a small yet budding Super population.

These Mages, of course, decided right away that they want to flex their magical might and smash some evil Nazis and join in all the fun the Supers are having.

Using RPM enchanting and working together what could/should they make that would let them blend in and go toe-to-toe with the Supers(around 500-1000 points for the big guns) of the day? Most bang for their buck.

[Minuteman37]

Can we get some skill levels plz?

[christ0pher]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Can we get some skill levels plz?

Sure, 6 PCs with magery between 4 and 8, Thaumatology ranging from 23 to 18, and path skills mostly low twenties and high teens.

And all are ritual adepts.

[starslayer]

Lets go with a median magery of 6 then (18 energy points); that's 108 energy before we even get to casting.

Assume they are willing to sacrifice their fatigue and some health towards the endeavour; extra 10 energy each- 168 energy before we even get to casting.

Lets work with skill 20 for the path, which puts an extra 100 energy in reach.

The group can reliably do castings in the 268 range.

This will let them put together 'canned fireballs' in the 60d range (yes, 60 dice of damage).

Canned 'everybody I don't like sucks' spells in the -5 range

Canned 'everybody I do like is awesome' spells in the +5 range.

Healing spells in the 15d range (or for most targets instantly restored to full health- bonus, make the trigger for this 'about to fail a death check' to give second chances from just barely dead states).

Create basically any piece of equipment from their native timeline that they have the crafting skills for with a duration of several years.

Establish a base of operations, on the moon, with a series of portals connecting them to multiple points on earth.

Establish reliably scrys to important nazi strongholds ('lets see what hitler is doing today').

Of course using RPM to go toe to toe with supers is a waste; if they want to get the most 'bang for buck' they'd be better off with spells like

Enscorel the ENTIRE WORLD to give +3 to fighting nazis for the next 5 years.

Give the ENTIRE WORLD visions of the nazi atrocities (which would likely push 'on the fence' nations like the united states to join the war effort earlier).

Curse the ENTIRE WORLD to give -3 to nazi activities (though this one would be resisted and thus may not take).

Damage ALL nazis with ~25d of damage (external attack, but with an area that covers the whole planet with an accessibility on the damage).

[christ0pher]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Lets go with a median magery of 6 then (18 energy points); that's 108 energy before we even get to casting.

Assume they are willing to sacrifice their fatigue and some health towards the endeavour; extra 10 energy each- 168 energy before we even get to casting.

Lets work with skill 20 for the path, which puts an extra 100 energy in reach.

The group can reliably do castings in the 268 range.

This will let them put together 'canned fireballs' in the 60d range (yes, 60 dice of damage).

Canned 'everybody I don't like sucks' spells in the -5 range

Canned 'everybody I do like is awesome' spells in the +5 range.

Healing spells in the 15d range (or for most targets instantly restored to full health- bonus, make the trigger for this 'about to fail a death check' to give second chances from just barely dead states).

Create basically any piece of equipment from their native timeline that they have the crafting skills for with a duration of several years.

Establish a base of operations, on the moon, with a series of portals connecting them to multiple points on earth.

Establish reliably scrys to important nazi strongholds ('lets see what hitler is doing today').

Of course using RPM to go toe to toe with supers is a waste; if they want to get the most 'bang for buck' they'd be better off with spells like

Enscorel the ENTIRE WORLD to give +3 to fighting nazis for the next 5 years.

Give the ENTIRE WORLD visions of the nazi atrocities (which would likely push 'on the fence' nations like the united states to join the war effort earlier).

Curse the ENTIRE WORLD to give -3 to nazi activities (though this one would be resisted and thus may not take).

Damage ALL nazis with ~25d of damage (external attack, but with an area that covers the whole planet with an accessibility on the damage).

That is awesome, thank you starslayer.

Your "damage all Nazis on the planet" brings up an interesting question: What's to stop some group of evil mages from afflicting everyone on the planet with Terminally Ill?

One other option I've considered is granting the group a pool of character points, as we transition into this new world, allowing them to enchant permanent items, bound spells or magical tools (Thaumatology Ritual Path Magic P.33), like an amulet of DR or cloak of flight, maybe even a low powered Golden Age Green Lantern ring.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

That is awesome, thank you starslayer.

Your "damage all Nazis on the planet" brings up an interesting question: What's to stop some group of evil mages from afflicting everyone on the planet with Terminally Ill?

One other option I've considered is granting the group a pool of character points, as we transition into this new world, allowing them to enchant permanent items, bound spells or magical tools (Thaumatology Ritual Path Magic P.33), like an amulet of DR or cloak of flight, maybe even a low powered Golden Age Green Lantern ring.

Why not give every terminally ill: Resistance, rule of 16 applies to RPM castings and afflictions can be resisted (notably external damage cannot be resisted- which is why I proposed it as a '25d damage to every nazi on the planet' which would circumvent most cover DR and armour). Of average individual about 4% will resist. Of superior individuals (HT 12ish) about 10% will resist, and of exceptional individuals (resistance stat 16) >50% will resist. As well- since casters are traditionally quite smart, depending on the level of beaurocratic involvement they may be unwilling to cast the spell with the restrictions given because they know it will go horribly wrong
Nazi admin - 'inflict everyone non-aryan with a wasting disease!'
Casters - 'everybody knows this 'aryan super-man' thing is more ideology than science right? This will hit everyone. Yea, lets just say that the stars don't align for that spell, or blame the allies'.

Of course, that's still really damned effective so then there's option 2 that I use in my own games which I call the ripple effect; Spells that exceed 100 energy cause 'ripples' both forward and backwards in time. The bigger the spell and or scope of the effect the bigger the ripple. Kill everyone on the planet style effects generate a few weeks worth of ripple- so two weeks before the spell is going to be cast magic-sensitive individuals feel the disturbance and can start taking measures to counter it. This is a great standing quest hook 'insane cult X is going to cast water->soup which will kill all ocean life, you have ~ 2 weeks to find out where they are going to cast it, why, and stop them', it also keeps PC casting from getting too out of hand (everyone can tell the PCs are going to put together a 70d fireball effect, but that's single target/small area- gets the PCs on a list or two of people to avoid, but no organized attempts to stop the casting- PCs are going to hit the whole damned planet with something and now there is an organized effort to stop them).

I have been purposely vague about how profound the ripple effect is, and I encourage likewise.


Side note- Damage all Nazi's on the planet:

Nazi no more
Spell Effects: None.
Inherent Modifiers: None.
Greater Effects: 1 (×3).


This Casting: Greater Destroy Body (5) + Damage, External Crushing 15d (Accessibility- Only Nazi's, -10%) (16) + Area Of Effect, 1,000,000 yards (68). 267 energy (89×3).

This will actually only cover ~1/20th of the earth's surface (circumference of the earth is ~40,000,000 yards) , but that would very nicely encompass all of Europe, possibly including Japan. It would not get through bunkers, tanks, or other environments protected against external damage- but the part where every Nazi outdoors or in regular buildings just crumples as if hit by an invisible blast wave will be pretty awe-inspiring as well as gut their numbers (as well as sparing forced conscripts who are not themselves nazi's- horray!).

[Anders]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

Your "damage all Nazis on the planet" brings up an interesting question: What's to stop some group of evil mages from afflicting everyone on the planet with Terminally Ill?

The GM. Seriously, RPM needs GM oversight. Lots and lots of it. I recommend a shock collar around the RPM-user-player's neck and use it whenever the player makes a munchkin suggestion. Unless you are playing Munchkin.

[Kalzazz]

An issue is you need to explicitly choose who to exclude. And pay a fee per two people excluded. So a 'not hit all non Nazis' is very tricky

However, I have discussed somewhere on here optional rules on 'hit everyone wearing the Trident of Neptune', so you could hit everyone wearing say the twin lightning SS logo. But that would include say a disguised OSS agent

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Side note- Damage all Nazi's on the planet

You need to include a "Sense X" effect to have this sort of target discrimination, and you certainly shouldn't get any discount for it (and note that Damage normally can't get any discount at all - you can just offset some of the cost for Enhancements by tacking on Limitations). How you identify a "Nazi" is up to you - Sense Chance to determine if they'll do some sort of anti-Semitic activity in the near future, Sense Matter to target them based on wearing of Nazi paraphernalia (like Kalzazz mentioned), or Sense Mind to determine if they identify themselves as Nazis, could all work. In any case, this should probably be a Greater Effect, which is going to boost your Greater Effects Multiplier to x5. In fact, I'd be tempted to toss a Lesser Control Magic effect as well, but that isn't strictly necessary.

[Kalzazz]

I would consider 'identify Nazi heraldry' to be a lesser effect. I mean, the purpose of identifying logos is to be identified, so by the 'in their nature' argument of lesser effects, very lesser