[RPM] Misc Questions

[PK]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

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.

That's an interesting idea. I like it. The only thing you'd have to decide is how many successful castings it requires to be considered "familiar" with a new ritual. The usual rule is "eight hours of practice," but for any spell with a short (or instant) duration, that's incredibly harsh if you're an adept. ("I successfully cast it!" "Great, that took you 20 seconds total? Do that 1,439 more times and you're familiar.") So it's probably more fair to make it eight castings rather than eight hours. Perhaps every four castings removes -1.

Originally Posted by Varyon

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.

And in the hopefully-not-too-distant-future, there'll be official rules for this. As a sneak peek, we're going with -60% for "spells you have Ritual Mastery for," -50% for "spells you have a grimoire at hand for, even if you're not using it for this particular casting," and -40% for either. I'm not worried about giving away the farm here, because that's only like 2% of the new stuff from the article I have queued up.

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].

I like that! Allow Ritual Mastery to give +2 to one ritual, +1 to X of them, or "no bonus but it still counts as knowing Ritual mastery" to Y spells.

While it's tempting to go X=2, Y=4, I don't think that'd be fair -- skill bonuses in RPM are effectively exponential, so halving the bonus should more than double the number of spells (though not much more!). And it's important to have a fairly high Y value to avoid overly nerfing casters. So off the top of my head, I'd try X=3, Y=10 (just a different, common GURPS progression) and playtest how well that worked.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by PK

That's an interesting idea. I like it. The only thing you'd have to decide is how many successful castings it requires to be considered "familiar" with a new ritual. The usual rule is "eight hours of practice," but for any spell with a short (or instant) duration, that's incredibly harsh if you're an adept. ("I successfully cast it!" "Great, that took you 20 seconds total? Do that 1,439 more times and you're familiar.") So it's probably more fair to make it eight castings rather than eight hours. Perhaps every four castings removes -1.

I could see that or just treating it as a soft cap of "if you want to add this ritual to your familiarites you must either spend a point to bump up a spell you are already familiar with to Ritual Mastery perk or bump up your relative skill level". It might help offset the fact that IQ +Magery is cheaper than bumping up the relative skill levels of the Ritual Paths + Thaumatology.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

I could see that or just treating it as a soft cap of "if you want to add this ritual to your familiarites you must either spend a point to bump up a spell you are already familiar with to Ritual Mastery perk or bump up your relative skill level". It might help offset the fact that IQ +Magery is cheaper than bumping up the relative skill levels of the Ritual Paths + Thaumatology.

It's very important that you don't require players to spend points on skills, etc., to add more familiarities. The whole point behind them is that it's a temporary penalty that you can remove with practice. The Basic Set suggests a "familiarities per point" equivalence, but that's strictly intended to give a way to estimate how many familiarities starting characters had before play began. Once play is underway, there is no further link between "familiarities" and "character points." Instead, you gain new familiarities every time you practice sufficiently with equipment (or, in this case, spells).

By way of comparison, see how the Cross-Trained perk -- a single character point devoted toward nothing but "buying familiarities" (something normally not allowed) -- grants a player unlimited familiarities for a single skill.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by PK

And in the hopefully-not-too-distant-future, there'll be official rules for this. As a sneak peek, we're going with -60% for "spells you have Ritual Mastery for," -50% for "spells you have a grimoire at hand for, even if you're not using it for this particular casting," and -40% for either. I'm not worried about giving away the farm here, because that's only like 2% of the new stuff from the article I have queued up.

My plan is to go with -50%, but you don't get the +2 for Ritual Mastery unless you're using a Grimoire (the "+1" version of Ritual Mastery becomes -1 without a Grimoire, but at least you can still cast it, and the "+0" becomes -2 without a Grimoire).
I had originally thought maybe I should discount it further, as -50% was the "Grimoire or Mastery only" Limitation value I had seen before, but maybe an extra -10% for "Ritual Mastery isn't quite as useful without a Grimoire" above the -40% for "Either works" would be appropriate.

Originally Posted by PK

I like that! Allow Ritual Mastery to give +2 to one ritual, +1 to X of them, or "no bonus but it still counts as knowing Ritual mastery" to Y spells.

While it's tempting to go X=2, Y=4, I don't think that'd be fair -- skill bonuses in RPM are effectively exponential, so halving the bonus should more than double the number of spells (though not much more!). And it's important to have a fairly high Y value to avoid overly nerfing casters. So off the top of my head, I'd try X=3, Y=10 (just a different, common GURPS progression) and playtest how well that worked.

I was at first thinking of 2, 5, but thought that was too low and figured 3, 10 might be more fair. 5, 20 might even work with my "-2 if you lack a Grimoire" houserule.


EDIT: As for Familiarity penalties, perhaps sufficient study of a Grimoire would be appropriate? 8 hours of study, along with a few "test" castings (4, maybe), might work. You might also allow the character to make up a "reference guide" that serves as a +0 (or lower) Grimoire for this purpose.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by PK

It's very important that you don't require players to spend points to add familiarities. The whole point behind them is that it's a temporary penalty that you can remove with practice. The Basic Set suggests a "familiarities per point" equivalence, but that's strictly intended to give a way to estimate how many familiarities starting characters had before play began. Once play is underway, there is no further link between "familiarities" and "character points." Instead, you gain new familiarities every time you practice sufficiently with equipment (or, in this case, spells).

I get that and for the most part I agree with that sentiment. However in regards to RPM and the fact it is essentially an open ended spell book system of magic keeping the rtituals tied to the points invested into the rituals would help create a spell book system of familiar rituals.

Using the familiarity rules as the base line for this would roughly give the players 2-16 familiar rituals at start for each Path, and might encourage a greater importance on relative skill versus absolute skill. Not saying it would be right for every group but I think it might be a good idea for my own groups comfort level of how versatile the RPM system is compared to the powers system.

[Christopher R. Rice]

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...

I wouldn't allow this at all. You're basically ignoring the damage system.

Originally Posted by 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.

I did. In this very thread. It's here.

Originally Posted by Varyon

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].

I've done this - it works well.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I did. In this very thread. It's here

Doh well thats just embarassing :)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Doh well thats just embarassing :)

It's been clipped to my EverNote file of "Write this up." I've got some ideas to expand it too. So you'll be seeing it again at some point (maybe). :-D

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

It's been clipped to my EverNote file of "Write this up." I've got some ideas to expand it too. So you'll be seeing it again at some point (maybe). :-D

Probably just in time for me to ask if any one has ever thought of using the familiarity rules for RPM rituals :)

[Qhaysh]

I'm planning a Magical Academy campaign set in my homebrew fantasy setting, featuring a heavily modified version of RPM. And I also chose to use a familiarity-based system for spells. I just took the information I had and extrapolated the following chart:

0 hours: -2 to spell rolls
1 hour: -1 to spell rolls
8 hours: -0 to spell rolls
50 hours: +1 to spell rolls
200 hours: +2 to spell rolls

This might actually be a little harsh, but it does benefit from study-time reductions from talents.

You don't need to use my progression, though; just take the info we have (no study is -2; 8 hours is -0; and Mastery, which is +2, requires 200h, since it costs one CP) and extrapolate it to your needs.