[RPM] Detecting a ritual

[The Colonel]

Presumably if the witch is the target of the ritual there may be a few more options - their familiar and/or patron might simply point it out to them, medium might notice unusual spirits hanging about (if that's how magic works in your setting), danger sense might start going off for no apparent reason and other forms of divination might reveal bad omens. Perhaps even fortune telling might work...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Yes. Or include Duration + Range. So you can use the spell again to detect another subject, but that requires another Path roll that is resisted normally.

That's an interesting option - if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that Range (when combined with Duration) can potentially function as a sort of "poor man's Area Effect" - it detects the nearest subject, then can detect the next one, so long as you succeed again at the initial casting roll (and the target fails their resistance). Is this outlined in a book or Pyramid article? If not (or if the published source doesn't delve into the nuances), if you fail or the target resists does the spell move on to the next target or just fizzle out prematurely? Or is it more something that just detects the nearest subject, then if something else becomes "nearest" you wind up with the Path vs Resistance rolls, and if that succeeds it switches to detecting that target only?

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Presumably if the witch is the target of the ritual there may be a few more options - their familiar and/or patron might simply point it out to them, medium might notice unusual spirits hanging about (if that's how magic works in your setting), danger sense might start going off for no apparent reason and other forms of divination might reveal bad omens. Perhaps even fortune telling might work...

If you're looking to detect rituals cast specifically on you (or perhaps near you, say if someone is trying to track you through your sword), I think Lesser Sense Magic + Area Effect (2 yards) + Duration (1 day) would be an affordable, easily-renewable option; it would basically tell you anytime you or something within 2 yards of you is the target of a ritual. I think upgrading to Greater Sense Magic would tell you what ritual it was, but I'm not certain on that. Personally, I'd be inclined to let you toss Range onto it, using the improved range bands of informational spells; if a ritual is cast within this range, you also know where the spell originated from.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That's an interesting option - if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that Range (when combined with Duration) can potentially function as a sort of "poor man's Area Effect" - it detects the nearest subject, then can detect the next one, so long as you succeed again at the initial casting roll (and the target fails their resistance). Is this outlined in a book or Pyramid article? If not (or if the published source doesn't delve into the nuances), if you fail or the target resists does the spell move on to the next target or just fizzle out prematurely? Or is it more something that just detects the nearest subject, then if something else becomes "nearest" you wind up with the Path vs Resistance rolls, and if that succeeds it switches to detecting that target only?

Yes. With Range and Duration you can roll at every interval as long as your spell lasts to detect another subject. With Area effect you detect all subjects in the area who fail to resist. You almost always want to use Area of Effect instead of Range and Duration though because a) less rolls and b) less time. But you CAN do it. And no, it's not in a book anywhere, I am simply explaining how it works. If you fail to detect your subject you get no information that it failed. You just move on.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Yes. With Range and Duration you can roll at every interval as long as your spell lasts to detect another subject.

Apologies, but what do you mean by "interval," here? Are you saying you only roll again (and get to detect something new) each time you renew your Duration, or are you referring to something else?

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

And no, it's not in a book anywhere, I am simply explaining how it works. If you fail to detect your subject you get no information that it failed. You just move on.

Yeah, my thoughts were that the player didn't know the results of the rolls. Rather, if there were 5 targets in range, and the spell failed (either due to a failed Path roll or a successful resistance) against the third, in the "moves on to the next" case there would be rolls for the next two and, provided both succeeded at detecting them, the player would be told the locations of targets 1, 2, 4, and 5, with no mention of target 3; in the "fizzles" case, things would end there, and the player would only be told the locations of targets 1 and 2, with no mention made of any beyond that.
(Of course, this is a case where you'd want to use a dice-rolling app, random number table, etc - you don't very well want the player to notice you rolling your dice 10 times and then telling them about the four targets they noticed, as they may well realize those extra rolls mean there are one or two targets you failed to detect; similarly, in the "fizzle" case, if they hear 6 rolls and you tell them about two targets, they'll probably realize there's at least one more target behind those two, they one their spell fizzled against)

My concern here is that, while Range is more onerous, the difference in energy cost creates something of a perverse incentive for the player to use Range+Duration instead of Area Effect (possibly +Duration), particularly when Long Distance Modifiers are in play. Using Area Effect on a major city is an impressive feat - Chicago, IL would need around a 25 mile diameter. Away from my books, but I think Area Effect of 25 miles (~50,000 yards) would be around +52 to base energy (+48 if you use radius based on SSR, I can't recall which it uses), while a Range of 12.5 miles (or 25 miles for that matter) using Long Distance Modifiers (thanks to being an information spell) would only be around +5 to base energy. If it really only detects the first target, or if it fizzles out upon failure or being resisted, then Area Effect is potentially worthwhile for large areas. If I'm understanding your interpretation correctly, a character who is casting with effective skill 12 (ignoring the difficulty of gathering so much energy with such a low skill) would be paying an extra 47 energy just so they can detect 100% of those who fail their resistance rather than only ~74%; a character with effective skill 16+ would be paying the same to boost their ~98.5% success rate to 100%.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Apologies, but what do you mean by "interval," here? Are you saying you only roll again (and get to detect something new) each time you renew your Duration, or are you referring to something else?

You get to roll once when the ritual is done, then again at 5 minutes/seconds later, and so on. Just as if you were gathering energy for the spell. Add Selective Effect if you can ignore known sources of whatever you're looking for. In some games Area Effect costs a LOT than the base and this is a method that allows you to ping for sources of whatever without going crazy on the energy cost from Area Effect.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Yeah, my thoughts were that the player didn't know the results of the rolls. Rather, if there were 5 targets in range, and the spell failed (either due to a failed Path roll or a successful resistance) against the third, in the "moves on to the next" case there would be rolls for the next two and, provided both succeeded at detecting them, the player would be told the locations of targets 1, 2, 4, and 5, with no mention of target 3; in the "fizzles" case, things would end there, and the player would only be told the locations of targets 1 and 2, with no mention made of any beyond that.
(Of course, this is a case where you'd want to use a dice-rolling app, random number table, etc - you don't very well want the player to notice you rolling your dice 10 times and then telling them about the four targets they noticed, as they may well realize those extra rolls mean there are one or two targets you failed to detect; similarly, in the "fizzle" case, if they hear 6 rolls and you tell them about two targets, they'll probably realize there's at least one more target behind those two, they one their spell fizzled against)

My concern here is that, while Range is more onerous, the difference in energy cost creates something of a perverse incentive for the player to use Range+Duration instead of Area Effect (possibly +Duration), particularly when Long Distance Modifiers are in play. Using Area Effect on a major city is an impressive feat - Chicago, IL would need around a 25 mile diameter. Away from my books, but I think Area Effect of 25 miles (~50,000 yards) would be around +52 to base energy (+48 if you use radius based on SSR, I can't recall which it uses), while a Range of 12.5 miles (or 25 miles for that matter) using Long Distance Modifiers (thanks to being an information spell) would only be around +5 to base energy. If it really only detects the first target, or if it fizzles out upon failure or being resisted, then Area Effect is potentially worthwhile for large areas. If I'm understanding your interpretation correctly, a character who is casting with effective skill 12 (ignoring the difficulty of gathering so much energy with such a low skill) would be paying an extra 47 energy just so they can detect 100% of those who fail their resistance rather than only ~74%; a character with effective skill 16+ would be paying the same to boost their ~98.5% success rate to 100%.

Not really. The extra rolls alone can do ugly things. You're better off with Area Effect if that's cheap because you get everything at once and you're better off with Range and Duration if Area Effect costs most. It's just a case of doing things multiple ways.