[RPM] Misc Questions

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

I think that version of Backlash is a little iffy, even if FP/HP damage is okayed. 10 FP paid up front with an additional 10 FP per minute would be Costs Fatigue, 10 FP, -50%... letting them skip the up-front cost seems like it should make the limitation smaller, though I'm not sure by how much.

Trust me. It sucks and I rarely see players voluntarily take it. Having to pay the cost after you've done other stuff can lead to unconscious-y land. A place you don't want to be in most instances. It's at least half as useful as full blown resistible Unconsciousness so no, I think the price works just fine for the most part. Paying before or after is in my opinion a feature - 'cause when the taxman comes you still have to pay.

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

We're in agreement, so the 'nope' is slightly puzzling. The thing you're replying to isn't 'look at how you can do things', it's 'look at how wrong it is to do it this way'. As I said, it doesn't mesh with how RPM handles durations, which is that duration on an Altered Traits advantage isn't part of the advantage, it's part of the ritual.

Nope...as in yup. As in "No, I agree with this guy."

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

You did catch a corner case I missed, though -- someone could certainly have Reduced Duration on an ability like Affliction were it granted by Altered Traits: it'd affect the duration of the effects of that ability, not duration of the ritual itself.

Yes. That is possible, but I'd bee leery. Like I said, all time-related modifiers can be incredibly tricky and requires GM oversight.

[Ejidoth]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Trust me. It sucks and I rarely see players voluntarily take it. Having to pay the cost after you've done other stuff can lead to unconscious-y land. A place you don't want to be in most instances. It's at least half as useful as full blown resistible Unconsciousness so no, I think the price works just fine for the most part. Paying before or after is in my opinion a feature - 'cause when the taxman comes you still have to pay.

To be fair, the issue probably lies more in the RAW price of Costs FP than your proposed limitation, which looks fair in terms of game balance and is comparable to other backlash effects, as you note. Costs FP should be worth more than -5% per level, probably, but it doesn't look like they're changing that ever.

The problem I'm pointing out is mostly that it's going to be hard to get your limitation in print at that value since it's strictly superior to Costs FP. Presuming your limitation applies the cost every minute if they keep the ability active for a long time, compare a character with Costs FP to one with an equal amount of Backlash, FP.

1. If they use enough FP to pass out, the guy with Backlash is conscious for one minute longer.

2. If they use enough FP to go into a penalty state (1/3 FP or whatever), the guy with Backlash gets to ignore those penalties for a minute before the backlash kicks in.

3. If they use only a little FP, so that they're not penalized, it works out more or less the same whether you have Costs FP or Backlash.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

To be fair, the issue probably lies more in the RAW price of Costs FP than your proposed limitation, which looks fair in terms of game balance and is comparable to other backlash effects, as you note. Costs FP should be worth more than -5% per level, probably, but it doesn't look like they're changing that ever.

The problem I'm pointing out is mostly that it's going to be hard to get your limitation in print at that value since it's strictly superior to Costs FP. Presuming your limitation applies the cost every minute if they keep the ability active for a long time, compare a character with Costs FP to one with an equal amount of Backlash, FP.

1. If they use enough FP to pass out, the guy with Backlash is conscious for one minute longer.

2. If they use enough FP to go into a penalty state (1/3 FP or whatever), the guy with Backlash gets to ignore those penalties for a minute before the backlash kicks in.

3. If they use only a little FP, so that they're not penalized, it works out more or less the same whether you have Costs FP or Backlash.

This is really off-topic here so I'll be brief: I don't see how it could possible be superior - ignoring all things that increase or decrease FP recovery (since you'll be paying or gaining points for those). You're simply switching the cost to a up front, or after cost. Plus, with Backlash - you cannot opt to maintain the advantage (which you can do with Costs Fatigue). Adding something like this would also add the same problems as a transitive ability, that is, you get a minute and then you have to activate it again. That's how I wrote it up and as for in print - I've had other rules gurus poke at it and have had little to say. No idea if the work itself will be used, but the concept is sound. And that's pretty much what I have to say on the subject. :-)

[Terwin]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

When I wrote it up for my conversion I did: Greater Strengthen Body (3) Altered Time Rate 1 (Backlash, 10 FP, -50%) (50) + Duration, 10 minutes (1) + Subject Weight, 300 lbs (3). 171 energy (57x3).

Hmm, interesting Backlash modifier...
lesser strengthen body (improved night vision with backlash-10fp -50% duration 1 second) seems like a handy attack spell, can I take -50fp or more for -80%?

Backlash -XXHP would be a really handy assassination tool as well, just give it a duration of a couple hours...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Terwin

Hmm, interesting Backlash modifier...
lesser strengthen body (improved night vision with backlash-10fp -50% duration 1 second) seems like a handy attack spell, can I take -50fp or more for -80%?

Backlash -XXHP would be a really handy assassination tool as well, just give it a duration of a couple hours...

Backlash has a built-in "switchable" type effect, in that the character has the option of using it, so you're just using a ritual to give someone a useless Advantage.

This does risk getting abusive if you also throw Uncontrollable on there - outright disallowing the modifier might be appropriate.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Backlash has a built-in "switchable" type effect, in that the character has the option of using it, so you're just using a ritual to give someone a useless Advantage.

This does risk getting abusive if you also throw Uncontrollable on there - outright disallowing the modifier might be appropriate.

You'd just have to convince somebody you're giving them a phenomenal boost to strength, without warning them about the backlash. Just because it's switchable doesn't mean somebody who doesn't know better won't use it!

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

You'd just have to convince somebody you're giving them a phenomenal boost to strength, without warning them about the backlash. Just because it's switchable doesn't mean somebody who doesn't know better won't use it!

That makes it usable for assassination (where your skills may be better served convincing him that bottle of poison is totally a Potion of Make Me Awesome), not so much for in combat unless you've got phenomenal skills for convincing them ("Oh no, I meant to atrophy his muscles to nothing, and instead I have given him strength like unto a god! Whatever shall I... what do you mean I'm talking out loud?" except actually convincing, instead of clearly a ploy).
Of course, ruling that the target of a "grants ability XYZ" ritual will know what that ability actually is wouldn't be outlandish, and would avoid such abuse outright.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That makes it usable for assassination (where your skills may be better served convincing him that bottle of poison is totally a Potion of Make Me Awesome), not so much for in combat unless you've got phenomenal skills for convincing them ("Oh no, I meant to atrophy his muscles to nothing, and instead I have given him strength like unto a god! Whatever shall I... what do you mean I'm talking out loud?" except actually convincing, instead of clearly a ploy).
Of course, ruling that the target of a "grants ability XYZ" ritual will know what that ability actually is wouldn't be outlandish, and would avoid such abuse outright.

If Ogg, the Orc with a great axe suddenly feels twice as strong, you'd better believe he won't think twice before swinging that thing at full force. Unfortunately for him, that +10ST has a Backlash he didn't stop to think about!

[Nosforontu]

A quick thought brought on by a discussion with a player in my regular groups about just how open ended RPM is and the ability of a rpm caster to retool his charms each day for a new threat.

Has anyone thought about adapting the Familiarity rules for RPM? As per the general rule each point in rituals would grant you two rituals you know using that ritual at no penalty, other rituals using that path would be at a -2 penalty to your energy accumulation rolls. I would probably also say that once you drop a point in a spell mastery perk for a ritual that it would free up a ritual slow that you know.

I am thinkig and right now it is just out loud that points spent on Higher Purpose [Magical Tradition] would count as bonus familiarity options for that Higher Purpose, and that beyond Magic [Charm] each Ritual paths magical familiarity would be further restricted to single path rituals. Then allow points in Thaumatology to give you access to multi path rituals as being familiar.

It would be a good chunk of work to do at the begining of the campaign for the caster. So I would probably let the familiarities float until he/ she casts a ritual and give them the option then of counting it as one of their familiar spells.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

If Ogg, the Orc with a great axe suddenly feels twice as strong, you'd better believe he won't think twice before swinging that thing at full force. Unfortunately for him, that +10ST has a Backlash he didn't stop to think about!

It's going to depend heavily on how exactly the effects of the ritual work (which of course is up to the GM), but the way I see it, Ogg isn't going to notice any sort of boost until he activates the ability, and he can't activate the ability if he doesn't know he has it. For him to know he has it, either a) the ritual automatically tells him (and thus also tells him the Backlash; this is more a metagame effect, so whether or not Ogg would understand the ramifications of the Backlash don't really matter) or b) the mage (or one of his allies) informs him, but does so in a way that both fails to raise Ogg's suspicions and leaves out the Backlash effect.

For GM's who feel Ogg should know he's got an ST boost but has no idea what it's going to cost him, and believe this is an unbalanced, broken method, it may be appropriate to set the energy cost as the greater of (or perhaps some sort of weighted average of) the cost for the Altered Traits and the cost for causing an equal amount of FP damage (in this case, 10 is something like 3d, which costs an additional 8 energy, doubled to 16 for being Fatigue; this is more than the 5 energy of Enhanced ST (Backlash 10 FP -50%), so go with 16 or perhaps something like 14).

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Has anyone thought about adapting the Familiarity rules for RPM?

That's not a horrible idea. Something I've considered for if I get a DF game (using RPM) up and running is to limit spells to those the character either has a Grimoire or Ritual Mastery for. A further idea to this is to allow them to spread out the Ritual Mastery bonus like Dabbler, getting a smaller boost (or no boost at all, but the ability to cast without a grimoire) in a larger number of spells for that [1].