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Old 02-08-2022, 07:20 AM   #41
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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Originally Posted by Shostak View Post
RPM Grimoires are described in Thaumatolgoy: Ritual Path Magic. They give a flat bonus.
They also appear in MH1 (p39).
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Old 02-08-2022, 07:23 AM   #42
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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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",
Something breaking a scenario or the balance of the entire game should always be enough reason to say "No!" as a GM.

If you're worried about hurt feelings over players not being allowed to spend a day or more preparing a massive ritual to essentially bypass an adventure, maybe the RPM system is a bad fit for your group.
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Old 02-08-2022, 07:50 PM   #43
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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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".
You have one option only and it stinks. You need to define everything you want RPM to do. And I mean *everything* and then create a boundary and say, "Nothing past here." Even then you're going to run into edge cases and you're going to have to make judgement calls.

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Originally Posted by WingedKagouti View Post
Something breaking a scenario or the balance of the entire game should always be enough reason to say "No!" as a GM.

If you're worried about hurt feelings over players not being allowed to spend a day or more preparing a massive ritual to essentially bypass an adventure, maybe the RPM system is a bad fit for your group.
Pretty much this. RPM is *not* the system you want to have if you can't say no.
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Old 02-09-2022, 01:14 AM   #44
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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You have one option only and it stinks. You need to define everything you want RPM to do. And I mean *everything* and then create a boundary and say, "Nothing past here." Even then you're going to run into edge cases and you're going to have to make judgement calls..
At this moment I'm concerned only about that getting to really high skill in a spell is too easy (and then it becomes too powerful, which is fine, when your skill is so great). I think the solution of limiting number of points AND money a player can spend on magic is enough to solve the problem for now. I don't like the solution too much, but it's the best I have.

Otherwise I really like the system and don't want to give up on it. Our group already played some other non-GURPS free-magic systems, and it was fine, I think this is not a problem.
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Old 02-09-2022, 02:10 AM   #45
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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At this moment I'm concerned only about that getting to really high skill in a spell is too easy (and then it becomes too powerful, which is fine, when your skill is so great). I think the solution of limiting number of points AND money a player can spend on magic is enough to solve the problem for now. I don't like the solution too much, but it's the best I have.

Otherwise I really like the system and don't want to give up on it. Our group already played some other non-GURPS free-magic systems, and it was fine, I think this is not a problem.
Disallow skill-boosting items. Make it skill and skill alone that gets you where you want to go. Cap skill levels at X and then charge a UB to go beyond. I'm not sure what you're asking at this point. Can RPM be powerful? Sure. It's a flexible magic system. All flex systems can go nuts at certain levels. You (the GM) must limit it in a way you feel is appropriate to your games. I do it all the time because RPM is super easy to hack.
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Old 02-09-2022, 04:41 AM   #46
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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Cap skill levels at X and then charge a UB to go beyond.
Yes, it could work too, thanks!

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I'm not sure what you're asking at this point.
The thread was started because I wasn't sure if it's really so easy to gain such a high skill or I was missing something. Now I know that it is easy, and it is a problem (at least for me). So then I was just discussing how to fix it and now it's kinda solved.
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Old 02-09-2022, 05:53 AM   #47
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

I was double checking the numbers, but I must have missed something. To get a Path skill up to 20 using only the RPM book, you would need Magery 8, Thaumatology and a Path skill (both VH) at 20 and most likely Ritual Adept. Even buying the path skill up from default (max 12?) still ends up around 200 points.
Quite an investment for a typical 150 point character, even a DF one would have to sacrifice almost everything else for it, ofc 500+ points characters could afford this and more.

Swapping 4 points of Magery for a 5pt talent that also raises the cap of a path shaves 20 points, which is significant but not really game breaking.

So, yeah, what did I miss ?
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Old 02-09-2022, 07:19 AM   #48
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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Swapping 4 points of Magery for a 5pt talent that also raises the cap of a path shaves 20 points, which is significant but not really game breaking.

So, yeah, what did I miss ?
It shaves a lot more than 20 points. qchap's example is having a Talent that grants +1 to each of Path of Energy and Path of Magic, so let's compare a character with Magery 8, Path of Energy 20, and Path of Magic 20, against one with Magery 4, Talent 4, Path of Energy 20, and Path of Magic 20. Both pay the same amount to get to Magery 4 and their Path skills at 16, so we'll start from there.

The first character needs to pay [40] for +4 to Magery, [16] for +4 to Path of Energy, [16] for +4 to Path of Magic, and finally [16] for +4 to Thaumatology (Path skills cannot exceed Thaumatology), for a grand total of [88].

The second character pays [20] for Talent 4... and is done. That's a savings of [68], nearly half a [150] character's budget. Granted, it wasn't cheap to get everything to 16 to start with, particularly on top of Ritual Adept, but this may just mean the Talent route is something a [150] character can achieve, while the Magery route is out of reach. Something I forgot to mention above is that the special benefit for the Talent also bypasses needing to keep Path skills equal to or below Thaumatology (but only for the bonus bestowed by the Talent).

Of course, the first character also has the ability to increase all other Path skills to [20], but if all you're interested in is Energy and Magic, Talents get things done a lot cheaper. Of course, you can also get cheaper still by buying Limited Magery (and Ritual Adept, for that matter), such that it's only usable with Path of Energy and Path of Magic (which, again, is an option in Pyramid #3/66, IIRC).
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Old 02-09-2022, 08:05 AM   #49
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

I see, what I was missing is the fact that the talent is supposed to raise both the cap and the skil. 22 vs 5 is quite the difference for every single point a caster wants to boost his selected path.
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Old 02-09-2022, 12:36 PM   #50
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Default Re: Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

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With such a skill it is relatively easy to cast about 300 energy spell. So, if the said caster would choose Paths of Magic and Energy, then, with a mere day of preparations, he could make a Wand of Destruction... Which is scary!
Is it? It's a short-range one-shot single-target weapon that needs to overcome resistance (with rule of 16). It's also stopped by wards, which are significantly easier to cast than destruction and it's reasonable to assume any prepared foe would have them if they were worried about weapons like this.

It does 20d damage. A character with a similar expenditure of character points (in Patron for example) could get, for example, an RPG-7 for slightly less than the cost of that +4 grimoire. It does 6dx5(10) cr ex plus 7dx2 cr ex (so 24d more, at 66x the range, and it can hit multiple targets). It also could be reasonably acquired within a day, and it only takes four seconds to reload.

I'd be more worried about rituals with large scope global effects, than I would be about magical heavy weapons. Even then, most settings would reasonably have a prohibitively large number of wards and other countermeasures that could be assumed to exist, that would render most such castings effectively impossible.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 02-09-2022 at 02:04 PM.
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