Is it too easy to cast powerful spells with RPM?

[qchap]

Hello! I have an RPM question again.

I really like the system on paper, but when I delve in numbers, some things seem to be overpowered.

With Talents from Ritual Path Specialists from Pyramid 3-66 one could easily build a mage with two Path skills of 20 (Magery 4, Talant 4) and it wouldn't cost too much - a 200 point character could easily have it.

With Ritual Mastery and, say, +4 Grimoir, which is still not very expensive, that mage would have an effective skill of 26 with some ritual. Adding fine workstation with Signature Gear would give 27 skill.

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!

The only thing that could stop the caster is a very scary botch (which won't come up too often with such a skill). But even it could be mitigated by Stabilizing Skill.

And still, given how RPM works, that caster would still be very versatile and even could have some more powerful spells, maybe a little less scary then destruction. Such a character would outshine everyone!

As I see the system, RPM is designed to trade speed and power to gain versatility. But it seems like it, having the versatility, outshines everything else in power too, keeping the speed thanks to charms.

Am I missing something? If not, what GM should do with such a problem? I don't like an idea to forbid Destruction or some other powerful spells - I just don't like how easy is to get them, without losing much.

[Gnome]

This might not be the most helpful answer, but my experience with RPM was that you're exactly right--the RPM caster outshined everyone else, and the only reason the other characters had an impact is that the RPM caster created very powerful buffs for them. It didn't really matter who the other PC was, he became a super-warrior thanks to the buffs. And the RPM caster could usually solve most randomly occurring problems with a ritual. My "solution" was to give the opposition powerful magic as well, which made the game challenging, but everything still kind of ended up revolving around that one PC.

The game was still fun in a lot of ways, due to role-playing being fun. It was an Indiana Jones style game, with clue-finding and tomb-raiding.

When I came to the forums I did get a lot of good advice (as always), although some of it was kind of pointing toward running a very different sort of game. Basically, I was told yes, an RPM caster can dominate if given time to plan--so don't give them time to plan. The game should be action, action, action with no breaks to cast rituals (even with Ritual Adept!). This sounded impossible to me for this kind of game, but for a dungeon crawl or something it might be possible.

The other advice I got (which I partially took) was to use meta-magic against the RPM PCs. I think this is a good idea, although I don't like to overdo this kind of thing. I'd rather not let someone make an uber-powerful PC than let them make one only to realize their superpowers just somehow never seem to work...

Finally, at some point after my game, a "buff limit" was proposed, which would have weakened the RPM caster in this game a bit, since he was very focused on buffing. That said, I don't know what shenanigans could have occurred, had he focused on something else...

[Varyon]

Don't forget Ritual Mastery, for a further +2, as well as Traditional/Decanic Trappings, for a percent reduction in the cost of the ritual. A 10% reduction is often readily achievable for a ritual that you've opted to invest in, which corresponds to around an 11% increase in effective energy gathered in a given amount of time. Away from my books, so I can't check the Quick and Dirty Charms rules, but actually gaming out the gathering of energy, you'd need an average of 20 rolls (technically, more like 19.5 rolls) to reach 300 energy with Ritual Mastery, for around a 9% chance of a critfail; with Ritual Mastery and a 10% reduction (and investing the MR 12 you got along with your Magery 4), you're instead looking at around 17 rolls (technically, more like 16.2 rolls), for around a 7.5% chance of a critfail - Stabilizing Skill is a worthwhile investment (but then, unless you intend to only cast a handful of times, or restrict yourself to low-energy spells so Botches aren't quite so bad, Stabilizing Skill is pretty much always a sound investment).

Yeah, if the GM allows an RPM mage to get a high level of skill, said mage can readily dominate. The other characters are largely reliant on the mage to buff them to keep up. Enemies with resistance to magic, anti-magic grenade charms (throw a high-level charm of Dispel Magic with Area Effect into the middle of the PC's to watch their buffs evaporate), etc can help, but aren't necessarily the answer. I don't have the answer, personally.

[Gnome]

The chances of a fail/critfail on the ritual can be greatly reduced by Luck. Avoiding botches is generally important enough to save your Luck for this eventuality...

[ericthered]

RPM is indeed that powerful. It can also be fun. I have two suggestions:


1) spell "quirks" should not have trivial effects. Three of them should utterly warp the spell when put together, or otherwise seriously inconvenience the caster. One of my favorites was making the caster glow for 24 hours. In a MH campaign with secret magic and a lot of investigation. that was a single failure quirk.



2) RPM mages should have a lower point budget than everyone else. My typical monster hunter games are run on either 600 points of template, 500 points of custom character, or 400 point RPM users mostly from the template. It works out about even. I can't advise you on the specifics of other point levels, just relate what's worked for us.

[Celjabba]

Some approach and houserules I used (not all of them applicable to all games !)

-buff limit (now official)

-requiring extra greater control magic effect(s) for large scale spells
(range over the horizon except for sense spells, effect crossing running water, effect crossing dimensions, area > 100m radius except for sense spells, duration over a week, weight over 150 tons... for example, you can scale those values up and down depending on the tone of the campaign)
This make game-shattering spells harder to cast.

-having place of powers inflict a negative modifier to the roll to cast equal to their strength, for any area spell that would affect them (one effect per place, unless that is know to the caster.)
That rule make worldwide spells mostly impossible barring special circumstances.

-having the opponent use spell wards, anti-magic, magic resistance, ... when logical (without overdoing it !)

-Also having various spell wards and old spells existing in the game world, and applying the stacking rule ruthlessly !

-In many game, it make sense to limit Ritual adept. Removing (or making more expensive) one or several of Connection, space or time can change the magical experience a lot.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by qchap

then, with a mere day of preparations,

One day could be too long to wait.

Do not neglect the time aspect of RPM or you will frequently end up in these types of situations. Without copious preparation time, a RPM mage will be a lot more constrained in what they can do.

[Michael Thayne]

Risk of quirks / botches is absolutely essential for balancing RPM. While Luck can mitigate this to some extent, under no circumstances would I allow Stabilizing Skill to be used with RPM. Nor would I feel obligated to allow combining RPM with any options from Thaumatology not explicitly included in the system.

[Michael Thayne]

One other thing I will say about RPM—some of the balance issues are similar to those presented by Vancian magic in The Other Game. One key to balancing RPM is probably to try to discourage the 15 minute adventuring day. To quote a poster from the now ten-years-old linked thread:

"The problem is largely alleviated by random encounters, proactive enemies, attacks while you're trying to rest, etc. The dm doesn't have to use these techniques all the time, but if you know that your rest period isn't a sacred safe time, it changes the 'go nova all the time' part of the dynamic, if nothing else."

[mlangsdorf]

The problem with regularly limited preparation time is that while it somewhat clips the wings of the super-skilled RPM caster, it makes the semi-skilled and dabbler RPM caster nearly worthless. A less skilled caster - base skills in the 14-15 range, slightly more modest grimoires, and no ritual adept - is struggling to hit 22 on their best ritual (and possibly only 20). That limits them to 60-80 point rituals.

Most of the magical systems in GURPS give massive rewards for achieving effective (or base) skill 20+, and make it no too difficult to do. The easiest solution is probably to limit the maximum skill levels via GM veto - "no, you can't have any Path skills over 19, and you can't have more than 150 total skill across all your Paths" or whatever suits you best.