RPM Tattoos and 'Wands' questions

[qchap]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Its one ritual so no stretching it out with breaks. The limit on your stack is thus based on the lower of ...

• Your maximum number of charm/conditional slots
• The amount of time you can devote to casting before needing to sleep
• The amount of energy you can gather in one casting, so your Energy Reserve or other source plus how many energy gathering rolls you try for (less a limit if using Effect Shaping variants)

If you fail the casting you have to do it all over again and wasted the energy, effort, and possibly materials (typically on a critical failure).

This casting charges the wand and has to be redone to recharge the wand. So if you built a 10 casting wand it would have 10 spells but you could not recharge it partially. You would have to wait till its empty then recast all the spells. So your usually going to want to make items you can fully charge in one day.

Do I understand correctly, that once you prepared the wand (spent needed amount of hours and made the creation roll), you cast a spell only once, and then the spell is copied? E.g. I spent 24 hours prepairing my wand of fireballs, do I cast Fireball only once to have all 20 copies in my wand?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by qchap

Do I understand correctly, that once you prepared the wand (spent needed amount of hours and made the creation roll), you cast a spell only once, and then the spell is copied? E.g. I spent 24 hours prepairing my wand of fireballs, do I cast Fireball only once to have all 20 copies in my wand?

Your basically casting multiple spells and adding a surcharge to bundle them.

[qchap]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Your basically casting multiple spells and adding a surcharge to bundle them.

Sorry, now I am totally confused. Is it one ritual, or multiple one after another?
Let's describe an example step-by-step. So, I want a wand of fireballs, with 20 of them. How I see it:
Step 1. I need to spend 24 hours preparing the wand (given I have materials) Step 2. After time is spent, I need to make some roll, like Artist (Woodworking). If it's failed - I need to start all over.
Step 3. Cast spell(s). This step is confusing me right now. I have two versions of how it should be done.
a) Immediately after first two steps, I cast a Fireball into the wand. The one cast is enough - the wand now contains 20 copies of it.
b) Immediately after first two steps, I cast a Fireball into the wand and repeat it 20 times in a row, every cast counting as a separate ritual.

Which one is correct? Or neither is? What surcharge are you speaking about?

[Refplace]

The surcharge is the extra cost for the spell.
Per the article...
Such items take a number of hours equal to (the number of rituals “stacked”)¥1.2 and might require a skill roll depending on what the item is.
So your paying a 20% extra cost to stack them.

I envision this as one single ritual, requiring all the energy to be gathered and used at once.
One campaign uses Effect Shaping so instead of more energy it increases the skill penalty. The other campaign I play a mage in uses energy but you don't gather it so its only one roll. In both circumstances though its an all or nothing affair, you pay everything for the number of castings desired and it either works or the energy was wasted.

[qchap]

Originally Posted by Refplace

The surcharge is the extra cost for the spell.

Yes, I understand what this word means.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Per the article...
Such items take a number of hours equal to (the number of rituals “stacked”)¥1.2 and might require a skill roll depending on what the item is.

I'm aware of this too, but...

Originally Posted by Refplace

So your paying a 20% extra cost to stack them.

...where is this come from? Do you mean some energy cost? Where is it comes from?
Or do you just mean time? If you mean time, then why is it 20%? Usually you spend half an hour, so 1.2 hours is more then 20% surcharge, that's why it confused me.
I don't use (and not yet familiar with) the Effect-Shaping option, so maybe it's something connected with it?

Originally Posted by Refplace

I envision this as one single ritual, requiring all the energy to be gathered and used at once.

Originally Posted by Refplace

The other campaign I play a mage in uses energy but you don't gather it so its only one roll. In both circumstances though its an all or nothing affair, you pay everything for the number of castings desired and it either works or the energy was wasted.

You say that you don't gather the energy, so it's one roll. But then you say that you pay everything - how then? Somehow I keep confusing more. It's the first rpm feature which causes so confusion to me, but I really want to get how it works.

[Refplace]

Sorry. I asked the author to chime in so hopefully he will and be able to explain it better than I am apparently doing.
Its also entirely possible I am not understanding something.

[qchap]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Sorry. I asked the author to chime in so hopefully he will and be able to explain it better than I am apparently doing.
Its also entirely possible I am not understanding something.

No problem and anyway thanks for all your answers! Hope we'll be able to sort it out.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by qchap

The only queation I have is that it's not clear for me from the text, wether I can have a number of 'wands', equal to my spell slots number, each having up to my spell slots number copies of a spell, or I can have TOTAL prepared spells up to my spell slots number? E.g. I have 20 spell slots, could I have 20 different 'wands' with up to 20 copies of a spell in each? Or could I have, like, only two wands with 10 copies of a spell in each (or 5 in one and 15 in other, for example)?

Stacked charms still count against the maximum number conditionals you can have, it's just you can have more in one roll reducing quirks and botches. So if you have 15 conditionals you could have three "wands" that have Fireball, Fireball Authentic, and I Can't Believe It's Not Fireball. That's it. Stacking charms doesn't give you more of them.

(Not to confuse matters, but in some of my games they DO give you more but I reduce the number of conditionals quite a bit. So that's an optional rule you can consider.)

Originally Posted by qchap

And one more little question about the option: why it is called "Charms 'R' Us"? Maybe there is some wordplay which I don't understand as non-native speaker?

"Toys R Us" is as store chain in the US. I was trying to be clever.

Originally Posted by qchap

How do I make a tattoo charm? The text doesn't say anything about it, so I assume I just spend 30 minutes and cast a spell, no additional rolls, as an ordinary charm.

Correct.

Originally Posted by qchap

Is charm workspace needed? Or is it another type of workspace, as for elixirs? Again, nothing stated, so I assume I can just use an ordinary workspace (of course I must have something to make the tattoo with).

Correct. I've required another type in the past because a normal workspace kit is not going to have tattoo needles.

Originally Posted by qchap

The text says that drawn tattoos disappear after use, inked tattoos fade after use, and what about scarring?

Scars remain but fade a bit like tatoos.

Originally Posted by qchap

There stated, that you can reuse a tattoo to have a 10% discount. Does making the same drawn tattoo counts as reusing?

No, it needs to be a tattoo or scarring.

Originally Posted by qchap

The text says, that I could have up to ST tattoo charms, but charms with the same spell can occupy one space. So, if I have ST 10, I could have up to 10 different tattoo charms, and more if some are the same, right?

No. You can never have more conditionals regardless of form than your conditional limit. For tattoos you can have a number equal to your ST and that's it. You can stack some to save space, but that doesn't give you more.

Originally Posted by qchap

As I read the text - it's as easy to create as an ordinary charm, but it solves the same problem as a 'wand', AND solves another problem, allowing to trigger spells mentally (so, tiying up and gagging the caster wouldn't help). It even offers some discount.

It is the proto application of "wands" as I wrote it before I did that. Triggering spells mentally isn't an issue. DF19 incantations do the same thing and there is zero issue for game balance. Foes who know you have tattoos and might be a mage are going to "break" your charms by scoring them for at least 1 HP of damage (which while not listed is an obvious way to disarm a caster) for tattoos or scarring or just erasing or smudging the ink. The latter can be ruined by liquids too - it's just ink - and that will destroy it. So a supersoaker and a 9 year old can take out a tattoo caster if they know what they are up against. Using grease and non-smearing ink would be possible, but should probably take more time and be less delicate.

Originally Posted by qchap

The only drawbacks I can think of is that it couldn't be lent (but couldn't be broken or stolen either, so it evens out) and, well, it's a tattoo, so it's visible (but you could cover it with clothes).

Not really. Being able to lend a charm is...huge. It's about half of the utility of most conditional spells. Tattoo charms are also obvious. You have to wear a lot of clothing to hide them.

Originally Posted by qchap

And one more small thing: I have a similar concern about the Herb Lore option for elixirs. It's the same as Alchemy in all ways except it has an easier way to obtain components, making it strictly better. Is it right?

Herb Lore should probably only allow non-Greater effects and Alchemy should have no such restriction. That's basically how it works for non-RPM Herb Lore - the list of what that skill can do are restricted.

[qchap]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Stacked charms still count against the maximum number conditionals you can have, it's just you can have more in one roll reducing quirks and botches. So if you have 15 conditionals you could have three "wands" that have Fireball, Fireball Authentic, and I Can't Believe It's Not Fireball. That's it. Stacking charms doesn't give you more of them.

(Not to confuse matters, but in some of my games they DO give you more but I reduce the number of conditionals quite a bit. So that's an optional rule you can consider.)

So, it is the way I thought to begin with, thanks!
The only thing I still don't understand fully, is how is it made in only one roll?
Example: I have 20 slots and want to put 5 of them into my wand of fireballs (so it would have 5 fireballs and I'd have another 15 spell slots). I spend the 1.2*5=6 hours, make creation roll with, e.g. Artist (Woodworking), and then what? I cast one fireball with regular rules and it counts as 5 identical fireballs in my wand? Or maybe I do it with Quick Charms rules?

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

No. You can never have more conditionals regardless of form than your conditional limit. For tattoos you can have a number equal to your ST and that's it. You can stack some to save space, but that doesn't give you more.

So, if I have ST 10, I can always have only up to 10 tattoo charms, even if some are stacked? Like, if I want to stack 10 Fireball tattoos, I couldn't have any more (given I have more conditional spell slots)? It would be just some more not-tattooed space on my skin, not usable for charms?

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Foes who know you have tattoos and might be a mage are going to "break" your charms by scoring them for at least 1 HP of damage (which while not listed is an obvious way to disarm a caster) for tattoos or scarring or just erasing or smudging the ink.

If it's easy enough, then I can see how is it balanced. What hit penalty would it be to score a hit on a tattoo?

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Tattoo charms are also obvious. You have to wear a lot of clothing to hide them.

So, a tattoo charm should be considered a big tattoo? Like a whole sleeve or something?

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Herb Lore should probably only allow non-Greater effects and Alchemy should have no such restriction. That's basically how it works for non-RPM Herb Lore - the list of what that skill can do are restricted.

Sounds good, thanks!

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by qchap

So, it is the way I thought to begin with, thanks!
The only thing I still don't understand fully, is how is it made in only one roll?
Example: I have 20 slots and want to put 5 of them into my wand of fireballs (so it would have 5 fireballs and I'd have another 15 spell slots). I spend the 1.2*5=6 hours, make creation roll with, e.g. Artist (Woodworking), and then what? I cast one fireball with regular rules and it counts as 5 identical fireballs in my wand? Or maybe I do it with Quick Charms rules?

The stacking spells does not change how the charms are made. At all. Use those rules normally. It just modifies time to do so. That's it.

Originally Posted by qchap

So, if I have ST 10, I can always have only up to 10 tattoo charms, even if some are stacked? Like, if I want to stack 10 Fireball tattoos, I couldn't have any more (given I have more conditional spell slots)? It would be just some more not-tattooed space on my skin, not usable for charms?

Ignore the stacking rules for right now. If you have a ST of 10 then you can have up to 10 tattoo charms on your person. Period. It doesn't matter how many charms you get via your conditional limit. Now stacking charms lets you put multiple copies of a charm in a given area/object/etc. So you might have 15 conditional charms all tattoos and five of those are Fireball that you stack in a given tattoo. Make sense? Stacking charms does not give you more slots. It lets you be more sensible with the space. That's it. That's all it does.

Originally Posted by qchap

If it's easy enough, then I can see how is it balanced. What hit penalty would it be to score a hit on a tattoo?

Same as for the limb/location.

Originally Posted by qchap

So, a tattoo charm should be considered a big tattoo? Like a whole sleeve or something?

It's kind of up to the GM. But at least a quarter. Yes. IT uses ST as a limiter because ST more or less is mass. I could have used HP instead, but I liked ST so that's what I went with.

Originally Posted by qchap

Sounds good, thanks!

No worries.