Help me with my "Purple Magery"

[Raekai]

If anyone is familiar with Final Fantasy, you will know that Blue Mages have the power to copy enemy abilities, and Red Mages have access to both black and white magic. I have combined the two so that a Purple Mage would be able to copy any spell (or ability, in the form of Partial Shapeshifting), but I feel the way I have it right now is really inefficient, and I want to make sure I can get the most bang for my buck.

Right now, I have it as Wild Talent 1 (Accessibility; External; Focused; Retention). At the moment, once a week (because I'm using in-game time), I can use this Wild Talent to copy an ability and then learn it if I have a free character point. Yay! But... Prerequisites are what is really bogging me down. I want to copy that guy's Fireball, but without the prerequisites, it's no good! That defeats the entire purpose of a Purple Mage. I want to copy these spells.

Any help is welcome, and I will provide more information if it is needed!

Thanks!

[starslayer]

Take a second wild talent that is focused on granting charms.

Then each ability learned could cost 2 EXP, but you get the charm for it as well, meaning it has no prerequisites.

Alternatively take IQ! (only for beating spell prerequisites) and take 5 levels.

[Kalzazz]

Or take the 'No prereqs' mod on your magery

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Take a second wild talent that is focused on granting charms.

Then each ability learned could cost 2 EXP, but you get the charm for it as well, meaning it has no prerequisites.

Alternatively take IQ! (only for beating spell prerequisites) and take 5 levels.

How exactly does that work? I'm not too familiar with the way that charms work.
And how would IQ! work?

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Or take the 'No prereqs' mod on your magery

Wait... You can do that? You can take No Prerequisites for Magery? That thought never occurred to me, and that may be the easiest/best solution! Where can I find the limitation cost for that?

[quarkstomper]

I know this is irrelevant to the question asked, but you know that you will have to give your mages Animal Empathy: Spiders, and lots of Spider Control spells simply so that you can see if anybody gets the "Spiders of the Purple Mage" reference.

[Kalzazz]

For some reason I thought you could, Im sure Ive seen it somewhere, but I don't see it in Thaumatology

[Raekai]

Oh, I found it! It's on page 67.

No Spell Prerequisites: ... +30%.

[ericthered]

+30%? that .... seems a little low, particuarly if you want to know only a few really nice spells.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by ericthered

+30%? that .... seems a little low, particuarly if you want to know only a few really nice spells.

That's why I thought, but it's right there. And spells don't necessarily need prerequisites. They're balanced to themselves by energy cost. But it works! Huzzah!

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Raekai

That's why I thought, but it's right there. And spells don't necessarily need prerequisites. They're balanced to themselves by energy cost. But it works! Huzzah!

Might want to talk to your GM before you get excited, he or she might not like that option. The text on Thaumatology p67 makes it clear that eeven with the extra cost of No-Prereqs Magery, you still need to add more restrictions, to balance it.

If I were a GM presented with a request like that, and it wasn't something I was already planning, I might change the Enhancement cost to +60%, if I couldn't come up with another good balancer.

Can your mage only learn spells by seeing an enemy use them, or would that make you exactly like a Blue mage?