[RPM] Storing power

[johndallman]

The classical MH campaign with patrons, lots of research and a good idea of what you're up against allows for creating mission-specific charms. Our Florida! campaign doesn't have patrons, or resources other than those owned by the characters, none of whom are wealthy (a fugitive, a high-school teacher, a singer in a small-time rock band and a security camera installer). It's all a bit casual and organised-on-the-fly, befitting the campaign's basis in the stories of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey.

It would be very useful to have an equivalent of paut for RPM, a way to store energy for use later. I can't find anything like that in published material; the nearest thing is enchanted items that boost Magery and thus personal mana reserve. The GM and I reckon such a thing may have been deliberately omitted, to keep RPMists from being too good at everything, but we aren't sure.

Doing it looks as if it would be based on Greater Control Magic in some way. An idiom of pouring your personal reserve into a "container", refilling it and pouring again seems vaguely plausible.

What's the forum's opinion on this idea?

[Varyon]

Something like a Wildcard Charm might work. Such a thing would be created using Path of Magic (but no effects, not yet). It serves to give you energy usable to cast any ritual, but said rituals cannot be augmented with energy from elsewhere (not even from gathering energy), and they automatically gain a Greater Control Magic effect. For example, let's say you have a 60 energy Wildcard Charm, and you decide to use it to cast a Fireball (RPM42). That makes the ritual Greater Create Energy (6) + Damage, External Burning 3d (0) + Greater Control Magic (5); with two Greater Effects, the energy cost is 55; you could use your remaining 5 for a +3 to damage.

While Path of Magic is what's used to create it, it's inappropriate to allow someone with sky-high Path of Magic to use this to create charms that can do anything at all, without needing to worry about other Paths. A solution would be to see what multiple of Safe Threshold (for Path of Magic) your Wildcard Charm is at; with Path of Magic 16, the above 60 energy charm is at exactly 4x Safe Threshold. You then apply the same multiplier to the Safe Threshold for the skill level you would be operating at to make a normal charm with the same ritual - so if the character creating the Charm had Path of Energy 14, his Safe Threshold for the ritual would be at only 9; x4 to that is 36, which isn't enough for the ritual. When creating a Wildcard Charm, it's probably appropriate to make note of how much energy it would have for each Path, to avoid needing to do the calculations during play. Honestly, I'd suggest just setting them as something like "Safe Threshold x4, maximum 60 energy," and use the skill level of the one using the charm to determine how much energy it produces (if you want to be able to hand off charms to mundanes to help them, I don't see a problem with letting you "set" the ritual - this makes the Wildcard Charm into a more typical charm, using your skill levels).


The above would allow you to have a general resource of sorts, allowing you to react to a variety of situations. Specific charms are more efficient, as they have one fewer Greater Effect in play, but a Sunburst Charm isn't so useful when you run into a werewolf instead of a vampire.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The classical MH campaign with patrons, lots of research and a good idea of what you're up against allows for creating mission-specific charms. Our Florida! campaign doesn't have patrons, or resources other than those owned by the characters, none of whom are wealthy (a fugitive, a high-school teacher, a singer in a small-time rock band and a security camera installer). It's all a bit casual and organised-on-the-fly, befitting the campaign's basis in the stories of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey.

It would be very useful to have an equivalent of paut for RPM, a way to store energy for use later. I can't find anything like that in published material; the nearest thing is enchanted items that boost Magery and thus personal mana reserve. The GM and I reckon such a thing may have been deliberately omitted, to keep RPMists from being too good at everything, but we aren't sure.

Doing it looks as if it would be based on Greater Control Magic in some way. An idiom of pouring your personal reserve into a "container", refilling it and pouring again seems vaguely plausible.

What's the forum's opinion on this idea?

I already did this (I know you must be tired of me saying that when it comes to RPM). See here.

[Varyon]

My previous post could have been more clear. Here's the way I see Wildcard Charms working; note some of this wasn't even alluded to in the first post.

1) The character creates the charm using Path of Magic, following the normal charm-making guidelines.
2) The amount of energy he puts into the charm becomes its maximum value. This value divided by the character's normal Safe Threshold (that is, without a workspace, place of power, or whatever other bonuses he's making use of for this ritual) is the multiplier.
3) The user of the charm (which may not necessarily be the creator) can "set" the charm to work for any ritual he or she is capable of; doing so requires a Concentrate maneuver and an appropriate casting roll (the same as would be used if the character had just gathered all the relevant energy). This roll functions just like the normal casting roll, with one exception - on any Success, the character may opt to either immediately cast the ritual, or turn the Wildcard Charm into a more typical charm of the appropriate ritual.

As a note, Traditional/Decanic Trappings cannot be used when creating the Wildcard Charm, but can be used when casting from it or turning it into a more typical charm. Grimoires and Ritual Mastery apply their bonus to skill both for determining Safe Threshold and for the casting roll.


So, as an example, let's say we have someone with Path of Magic 16 creating a Wildcard Charm. He uses a Fine Workspace Kit (+2) in a Place of Power (+1), increasing effective skill to 19. Using the guidelines from Quick and Dirty Conditional Rituals (RPM26), he opts to create a 105 energy spell; this is over his Safe Threshold of 55, but not quite double it, so he rolls 3d+1; he rolls 13, for 14, which is low enough for no Critical Failure. He makes another roll to avoid quirks, with effective skill 18 (19-1), and gets a 16, which succeeds. As his normal Safe Threshold is 15, he has created a Wildcard Charm that multiplies Safe Threshold by x7, to a maximum of 105 energy.

He gives the charm to his ally, a mage who favors fire rituals. Just before a battle, the mage decides the charm would be best spent on a powerful fireball, which he has a +2 Grimoire and Ritual Mastery for; he also takes out a fire opal while "setting" the charm, good for a 5% reduction in cost. He normally has Path of Energy 20 and Path of Magic 14, which would be skill 14 with the spell; this gets boosted to 18 from the bonuses. x7 to Safe Threshold would be good for 294 energy, but the charm is limited to 105. With a 5% reduction to end cost, that 105 energy can actually produce up to 110 energy. As noted previously, the base cost for Fireball with this charm is 55; an additional 55 is good for +33 to damage, or a total of 11d+1 (in RPM, +4 damage is +1d, rather than being +4/+7 for +1d/+2d). With a successful roll, he sets the charm in place - and does so in only 5 seconds.

[AlexanderHowl]

I would just have it being a Greater Control Magic effect with a base cost equal to the amount of energy stored, plus the Lesser Control Magic/Lesser Create Magic for charm/elixir, times three for the Greater effect. You end up paying (3×energy stored)+15 for the charm.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I already did this (I know you must be tired of me saying that when it comes to RPM). See here.

I'm not going to get tired of good solutions. This is fairly simple, looks plausible, and yields the right kind of amount of energy. It also gives me considerable motive to buy Path of Magic from its current 16 to 17, since that almost doubles the amount I can store.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

See here.

OK, I thought I understood this, but on reading the comments I may have made a mistake or two.

The first roll is against Lesser Transform Magic, which costs 8 for Transform and 0 for weight on any sensible battery. Does one need to pay for duration?

The second roll is against Lesser Create Magic, which costs 6 for Create and 0 for weight. Your comments on the blog post seem to say that's all one has to do to charge the battery. Is that correct? It isn't necessary to make gathering rolls for the energy before putting it in?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm not going to get tired of good solutions. This is fairly simple, looks plausible, and yields the right kind of amount of energy. It also gives me considerable motive to buy Path of Magic from its current 16 to 17, since that almost doubles the amount I can store.

It likely needs some playtesting.

Originally Posted by johndallman

The first roll is against Lesser Transform Magic, which costs 8 for Transform and 0 for weight on any sensible battery. Does one need to pay for duration?

No, just roll Path of Magic until you get 8 energy and the vessel is prepared.

Originally Posted by johndallman

The second roll is against Lesser Create Magic, which costs 6 for Create and 0 for weight. Your comments on the blog post seem to say that's all one has to do to charge the battery. Is that correct? It isn't necessary to make gathering rolls for the energy before putting it in?

The second roll works like refilling your mana reserve: you keep rolling till it's full. In this case the batteries' reserve is equal to some multiple of your safe threshold. So if you could store 19 points in it you'd roll until it had 19 points or until you reached some number you wanted - you don't have to fill it up entirely if you don't want to.

[johndallman]

Thanks, that's clear now.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Thanks, that's clear now.

Excellent. Glad I could help.