[RPM] Help me tweak the basic RPM system

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I do not really agree with that statement.
Note ES = Effect Shapping and EA = Energy Accumulation
Fewer rolls is why I have my minor NPCs use ES.
However EA or Energy in combat is still less then your fighters will be doing and it helps keep the player involved and an element of chance by making multiple rolls.

EA is impossible to use in combat, so that really doesn't count. If you're talking about EA out-of-combat taking fewer rolls than an entire normal combat - that's kind of the problem. You seem to want a single casting of a single spell to be equivalent to an entire combat, or maybe just an entire combat round. In my opinion, that's a horrible way to go about it. A casting of a single spell shouldn't put the entire game on hold for however long it takes to roll twenty different skill checks. While it might take an hour or ten days or whatever in-game, it shouldn't take that long out-of-game - a single in-game action taking years can reasonably be done in a single roll of the dice in real life, and that simplification is a necessary aspect of role-playing, in my opinion.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yeah I noticed they match up fairly well except for a few things and mostly that is where Path/Book doesn't have anything.
Such as the costs for effects like altered traits.

The default extra time though wont really cut it which is why I went with basing it off the Super Collaboration rules.
Te bonus for multi day castings is 256 days for +8 skill and 512 days for +9 skill. Using that it could take a very long time to make even a minor item.

I'll grant that the Path Magic rules as written are biased toward collaboration over personal dedication; that is, even the simple collaboration rules do a better job of offsetting penalties than taking extra time does. This is, IMHO, due to the way that the Extra Time bonuses end up on a doubling scale; I suspect that much of the issue could be resolved by flattening out the benefit to +1 per day.

Originally Posted by Refplace

The minor collaboration rules are close to the same bonus just replace number of people with days. So applying the Super to days is what I went with.
That 9 skill penalty now becomes 9 days if you go for no penalty.
Would have to make a bunch of items to see if it is at a level I like,

Bear in mind that the high-powered collaboration rules assume that every participant rolls, and a failure by any of them ruins the ritual for everyone. Translating this to the extra time model would result in making a roll each day, which is a bit too much like the energy accumulation model for my taste. (OTOH, there are still important differences, such as the first failure ending the ritual outright instead of merely not making any progress, and the margin of success not really factoring in. Still, I'd rather not go this route.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Langy

EA is impossible to use in combat, so that really doesn't count.

It is? Man, I'll have to explain to the witches that they've been doing it wrong, then. :)

While it might take an hour or ten days or whatever in-game, it shouldn't take that long out-of-game

Does the "accumulating energy" phase really take that long for your group? In my experience, the lengthiest part (in real life) of the casting time by far is designing the spell. Usually for out-of-combat spells, it takes about 5-10 minutes for the player to decide what he wants to cast and do the math, then about 1-2 minutes for him to make a bunch of rolls. It's just "roll, note result, roll, note result, roll, note result," after all.

I can think of plenty of times that the other players were yelling at the caster to hurry up and design his spell, but literally zero times that they thought he was rolling the dice too many times or too slowly. But then again, I have the advantage of knowing these rules like the back of my hand, so I'm good at guiding my players through them. If anyone else says their experience differs, I'll certainly believe them.

a single in-game action taking years can reasonably be done in a single roll of the dice in real life, and that simplification is a necessary aspect of role-playing, in my opinion.

If a spell is being cast and time isn't a factor at all, you can use the Quick-and-Dirty rules from MH4 for it. They're aimed at charms and conditionals, but they actually work fine with any ritual that isn't under time pressure. That reduces any spell down to just two rolls.

[Kuroshima]

My limited experience agrees with the feline reverend. Mind you, in my game the RPM caster can accumulate 3 times per combat round (1k point Supers game), and still, his turns take less time than other players

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

It is? Man, I'll have to explain to the witches that they've been doing it wrong, then. :)

I may have misremembered how long it takes a Witch to do energy accumulation; we've been using regular Path/Book magic in our MH-like game, and in it it takes 1d seconds per round of accumulation - doing 12d seconds of accumulation just isn't possible in any combat we've ever played out.

Even then, most rituals where you're using energy accumulation are still impossible to pull off in the limited time available in combat, since they require more than five rounds of energy accumulation. I don't think we ever had any combat that lasted more than five rounds in the entire campaign, except for the big end-of-campaign boss fight we did Wednesday, which may have been six or seven rounds of combat.

Does the "accumulating energy" phase really take that long for your group? In my experience, the lengthiest part (in real life) of the casting time by far is designing the spell. Usually for out-of-combat spells, it takes about 5-10 minutes for the player to decide what he wants to cast and do the math, then about 1-2 minutes for him to make a bunch of rolls. It's just "roll, note result, roll, note result, roll, note result," after all.

Oh yeah, designing the spell does take the longest, but we do that prior to actual gameplay for the most part.

I can think of plenty of times that the other players were yelling at the caster to hurry up and design his spell, but literally zero times that they thought he was rolling the dice too many times or too slowly. But then again, I have the advantage of knowing these rules like the back of my hand, so I'm good at guiding my players through them. If anyone else says their experience differs, I'll certainly believe them.

We game via Skype, with a die-rolling add-on, so it works a little differently for us. Unfortunately, the die-rolling addon isn't the bestest thing ever, so sometimes it takes a while to process everything, and it spits out a huge gob of test when you roll. This clutters the chat, and since you have to wait for it to spit something out each time you roll, it can take a while to note the results of an action.

In any case, I just find the 'roll a large number of times' model unwieldy and far prefer to use a 'roll a single time for a single action' model. Maybe two or three in specific circumstances (like when the target dodges, or you need to roll a critical hit). EDIT: I may have unfairly used a bit of hyperbole in my previous posts; RPM's Energy Accumulation model isn't impossible to use in any way, I just don't care for it much.

If a spell is being cast and time isn't a factor at all, you can use the Quick-and-Dirty rules from MH4 for it. They're aimed at charms and conditionals, but they actually work fine with any ritual that isn't under time pressure. That reduces any spell down to just two rolls.

Which is one reason I really loved that release. It alters what I consider to be the worst (and one of the only) failings of the system into something manageable. I'd just be happier if it worked more like a standard GURPS skill roll, rather than a 'look up a chart and find the effects' deal.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Qhaysh

I was able to come up with two ways to do it:
1) Import part of the "Effect Shaping" mechanics into RPM. Modifiers closely related to scope (such as number of targets and area of effect) require more energy, as usual. Other elements more closely related to complexity (such as adding a bunch of advantages or complex triggers) affect the casting roll according to a modified version of the Effect Shaping Modifiers tables at the end of Thaumatology. Since Energy Accumulation and Effect Shaping are both possible mechanics for the Path/Book systems, I don't think it would be much of a problem using the aforementioned tables. So the casting roll is a single roll, but it has more modifiers affecting it.

Since I really like this idea, I'm going to go into detail how I'd do it. Note that these modifiers are just what 'feels right', and might not be completely perfect. I'm planning on using this with a modified version of Threshold magic, so the energy costs would come straight from there, but it should be compatible with taking it from normal FP, too. Anyways.

Area of Effect, Damage, Duration, Healing, Speed, and Subject Weight all work exactly as they do in the normal RPM system, adding the same amount of energy required to the ritual. The only change I'd make would be modifying added energy for damage types so that it instead modifies the actual damage done, rather than modifying the energy cost.

Spell Effects, Afflictions, Range, and Greater Effects all add penalties to the skill roll (as would generic modifiers like adding an armor divisor to the damage done). Range works exactly as normal, using the Speed/Range table. Spell Effects give half their energy cost as a penalty, rounded up (so a Control effect, which is normally 5 energy, would give a -3 penalty). Alternatively, have it be half of Energy-2 if that's too much of a penalty. There is a -2 skill penalty per Greater Effect.

Afflictions give a penalty equal to -1 per +25% as a modifier to the Affliction advantage.

Altered Traits and Bestowing a Penalty or Bonus work as a mixture of energy costs and skill penalties. For Bestowing a Penalty or Bonus, the skill penalty is based upon the scope of the penalty/bonus - -1 for Single, -2 for Moderate, -5 for Broad. The energy cost is equal to the Single energy cost in RPM, or possibly half that (rounded down).

Altered Traits typically give a skill penalty equal to one-fifth of the energy cost in normal RPM. For leveled traits, however, only apply the cost for the first level of the trait as a skill penalty. The energy cost is +1 per level of the trait. So, a spell that gives a DR bonus would have a -1 skill penalty and cost 1 energy per point of DR added.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Langy

Even then, most rituals where you're using energy accumulation are still impossible to pull off in the limited time available in combat, since they require more than five rounds of energy accumulation. I don't think we ever had any combat that lasted more than five rounds in the entire campaign, except for the big end-of-campaign boss fight we did Wednesday, which may have been six or seven rounds of combat.

Perhaps the issue is that RPM rituals that can be pulled off in a combat timescale are generally very modest in power. Basically anything which requires a Greater Effect is too expensive, ruling out any D&D-style attack spells (Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc). Casters have to stick to what they can perform with just their personal energy reserves plus maybe 1 cycle of energy accumulation. The trick then is to create useful rituals in the vicinity of 10 energy, which is quite difficult to do.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Perhaps the issue is that RPM rituals that can be pulled off in a combat timescale are generally very modest in power. Basically anything which requires a Greater Effect is too expensive, ruling out any D&D-style attack spells (Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc). Casters have to stick to what they can perform with just their personal energy reserves plus maybe 1 cycle of energy accumulation. The trick then is to create useful rituals in the vicinity of 10 energy, which is quite difficult to do.

Right - I was saying that Energy Accumulation is pretty much impossible in combat time scales; if you can make use of your energy reserve, it's obviously much faster, but that's not Energy Accumulation, it's kind of cheating to get around the issue.

[dataweaver]

One tweak that I use is to allow the personal mana reserve to be refilled using Thaumatology instead of the Path of Magic: it allows for better rolls (since your skill in Thaumatology is by definition at least as high as your skill in the Path of Magic), and doesn't turn the Path of Magic into a skill that all but the dumbest Witches must take.

And as for combat use of energy accumulation: if you have a high enough skill that you can take a -4 penalty and still have a reasonable chance of success, you can make energy accumulation rolls as often as once per second. That would mean two rolls per round: one to accumulate enough energy to cast the spell, and another to cast it. A witch with, say, Path of Body-18 could cast 1d6 healing effects on her allies every round almost indefinitely.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

One tweak that I use is to allow the personal mana reserve to be refilled using Thaumatology instead of the Path of Magic: it allows for better rolls (since your skill in Thaumatology is by definition at least as high as your skill in the Path of Magic), and doesn't turn the Path of Magic into a skill that all but the dumbest Witches must take.

And as for combat use of energy accumulation: if you have a high enough skill that you can take a -4 penalty and still have a reasonable chance of success, you can make energy accumulation rolls as often as once per second. That would mean two rolls per round: one to accumulate enough energy to cast the spell, and another to cast it. A witch with, say, Path of Body-18 could cast 1d6 healing effects on her allies every round almost indefinitely.

Except they probably can't accumulate enough energy to cast a spell in a single roll. Just about every ritual requires more than 10 energy, and you are unlikely to be able to get that much in a single accumulation.

Edit: A basic 1d healing ritual costs at the minimum 7 energy, and I might even make that a Greater Effect, making it 21 energy at the minimum. It's almost impossible to gather that much energy in a single combat round - even your 18 skill witch would only accumulate 4 energy per second on average.