Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: B Hanson on October 10, 2015, 05:01:58 PM
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The Essence thread was getting a bit long so I thought I would start a new one for Channeling Realm. I've decided to call this Project BASil (Brians Alternate Spell Law).
So Channeling...To me, Channeling can't work like Essence or other realms. If there is an assumption that Deities have a tacit awareness of their followers than it follows they will allow certain powers to some and not to others. This would be based on the followers devoutness and role in the religion. A god is not going to grant higher or exclusive powers to some congregate who happens upon a scroll or "prayer book" and learns a spell. Therefore we divided up Channeling into three categories--it also makes it easy to adapt to the RM system of Open, Closed and Base. The categories are:
Holy Servants. These are spells meant for leaders of the God's religion, what would be considered "Holy Powers" or are fundamental powers of Nature (for pagan societies).
Aspect Lists. These are specialized lists whose access will be dependent on the Gods "Aspect" or are specialized and may be given to a follower in service of their Diety. ( Visions might be granted to a non-priest believer for instance). Aspect lists are unlimited--a GM could adopt Fire Law spells from Essence for a priest of the Fire God, or Magic Mastery for the God of Magic etc.
Holy Followers. These are basic, weaker generalized lists for any devout follower of a God. These are simple prayers of protection, healing etc.
One last note. We use a Prayer skill that ties into this categories and restrictions. A player can't cast a spell higher level than his Prayer skill (which equates devoutness with granted ability) and the Prayer skill bonus is used as the casting skill bonus. Whether than makes sense I would still offer that Channeling spell lists should still be tied to the setting and diety.
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Channeling "Follower" Spells. (Open) pt. 1
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Channeling "Followers" Spell Lists (Open) pt. 2
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Channeling "Aspect" Spell Lists (Closed) pt 1.
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Channeling "Aspect" Spell Lists (Closed) pt 2.
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Creature Law. Channeling - "Holy Servant" Spell Lists (Base)
5 Lists: Animal Control, Animal Summons, Animal Forms, Animal Bonds, Animal Healing (being worked on)
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Flora Law. Channeling - "Holy Servant" Spell Lists (Base)
3 Lists: Flora Mastery, Herb Mastery, Flora Commune
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Natures Law. Channeling - "Holy Servant" Spell Lists (Base)
3 Lists: Natures Guises, Natures Lore, Natures Defenses
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Necromancy. Channeling - "Holy Servant" Spell Lists (Base)
3 Lists: Undead Mastery, Undead Creations, Undead Ways
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Healing Law. Channeling - "Holy Servant" Spell Lists (Base)
5 Lists: Flesh Law, Bone Law, Muscle Law, Organ Law, Healing Ways
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Holy Servant. Channeling (Base) Lists.
3 Lists: Summon Followers, Channeling, Blessings.
(Basic Cleric Spells for Priests in an organized religion)
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Holy Warrior. Channeling (Base) Lists
3 Lists: Holy Weapons, Holy Battle, Holy Auras
Basically Paladin or Knight of organized religion or organization.
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Unholy Servant. Channeling (Base)
3 Lists: Dark Channels, Dark Wounding, Dark Master
(evil priest spells)
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Unholy Warrior. Channeling (Base)
3 Lists: Dark Warrior, Dark Protections, Dark Powers
(evil Paladin/warrior spells)
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All Channeling Spell lists above compiled into 2 master files.
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These are fantastic! Great work! I really love the Unholy warrior lists. An excellent anti-hero or evil foe!
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Thanks! I posted up all of our essence lists in the other threads and should have mentalism up when i get some time.
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These truly are fantastic.
I would hesitate to make them all available to my characters, as some seem a little overpowered (e.g. Dark Stunning on Dark Channels is a level 2 spell). But for enemies, those are great!
Looking forward to Mentalism!
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Thanks, these are older versions and I think I corrected and tweaked some of them for power/balance issues. They'll be better presented plus there are notes for every spell list that I didn't include.
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Thanks, these are older versions and I think I corrected and tweaked some of them for power/balance issues. They'll be better presented plus there are notes for every spell list that I didn't include.
Great stuff though! Thanks for posting.
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In response-- these are early versions that i posted! I will post updated spell lists with the full SW rules and/or updated list notes in the near future. If you have similar work, versions etc. and want to crowd source,or crowd compile, lmk.
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Aspect list Demon's bane is missing from the file. Interesting Work. If you are still working on the BASIL project I would look very much forward to seeing your take on mentalism.
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I started on Mentalism a few threads down but I got sidetracked with the Orhan/Charon spells lists on the Misc SW thread and found a bunch more Essence I need to clean up. It's on the "to do" list.
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Looking forward to seeing both your additional essence and the mentalism when it is done. Also looking forward to Klysus, Scalu & Z'tar.
I do not know if you have already written it in an earlier thread but I would like to know how you handle issues like: Semi spell usera & Hybrid spell users. Also concerning pure spell users; do you allow players to pick any pure prefession? Can players choose the shaman profession and combine them with classical cleric spells for example?
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We use our own character law ruleset and eliminated hybrid realms which added complexity and raised more issues than they solved.
However, I'm putting the spells up with their traditional categories (Base, Open, Closed) so they can easily adapted to any of the rule sets.
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A new spell list I've been working on and testing a bit: "Channeling". How do powerful lords, dark masters, demi-gods, minor gods or even Dieties grant channeling and other powers to their devoted followers? Why should only Gods have the ability? Is their a pathway for players to Ascend to godhood, start their own religion or gift loyalists? If the Gods in SW aren't even Gods, but powerful entities, than why can't any powerful being grant similar benefits? How about the Dragonlords?
I'll be blogging about this list over at Rolemasterblog. on Wednesday.
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Spell descriptions are cut off on the right side.
That's pretty fun. The spells are powerful for their level, compared to normal mortal sorts of spells, which could be fine if they come with prereqs. But seems a little much if any Joe Cultleader can learn the list. Building up a cult into an actual religion seems like it would be an interesting campaign theme though.
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oops, thanks for the headsup! Fixed and attached.
I think there needs to be more penalties and restrictions, but why powerful? You need to:
1. Find someone to pledge fealty
2. If they cast a spell you are at -50%. Multiple followers casting could really debilitate the caster
3. If a follower dies there is a severe backlash (E crit).
4. There is range limitations.
I see it more as an NPC list (Closed Channeling) but wanted to create a mechanism to explain channeling in general-especially SW.
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Some of those limitations were in the text that was cut off....
But what is "pledge fealty"? Is it obviously different -- for the follower -- than the loyalty you offer to a feudal lord or to a military commander? In other words, how fully does the follower need to understand the other spells on the list? But in exchange your lord/commander promises that they have a real and definitive interest in your survival (because of that critical), and will bestow them power. That doesn't necessarily seem difficult for someone who is already a leader.
The -50 for casting spells is significant, but brief. Depending on the spells you grant, you might tell your followers to cast them at a particular time each day, in order to mitigate those penalties.
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This started out as more of a thought experiment, so these are good comments. Pledge would be loyalty to the exclusion of any other (god or powerful being). Havent quite pinned that down since it is somewhat setting specific.
In RM, what is expected from a priest or channeler to their god?
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That's purely driven by the setting (and GM). In the RMSS game I play, we have yet to see any divine intervention. Followers' personalities are suited to their deities, but it's self-selected, not enforced. (I don't know if that would change if someone deviated, or if it will shift as the scope of the campaign gradually widens.) Some of the spells were handed down as traditional songs and chants, for ceremonial purposes, their actual function forgotten. For example, no one (in our region of the world) believed in undead anymore, so the spells for getting rid of them were thought to be purely symbolic. When we actually ran into undead, it turned out they still worked. (On the site we use for game notes, there is a page titled "Things that don't exist." It says "
magic orcs undead dragons". But we all know how that last one is going to turn out...)
In other settings, there is a lot more hands-on direction from ones deity.
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For non-forum members you can download the spell files here:
http://www.rolemasterblog.com/project-basil-channeling/