Topic: Individual spell purchasing option in RoCo III

[Kosh]

I have been through the forum and did not see any threads on this topic.Has anybody used this option? Any thoughts on it either way would be appreciated.

[yammahoper]

Individual spell purchase is the standard in RMSS/FRP.

It works very well.  Essence Companion has an excellent chapter on spell books, their cost and such.

[Kosh]

I have not read any of the newer versions of RM.I only have RM2 books and companions.I will check it out.Thanks.

[Hurin]

Yes, I much prefer this method of buying individual spells, and am glad that RMSS and the new RMU both us it as standard.

[yammahoper]

If you can find a copy of RM2's Spell Users Companion, it has a table showing the cost for individual spell purchase in it that we used prior to switching to RMSS.

[Spectre771]

If you can find a copy of RM2's Spell Users Companion, it has a table showing the cost for individual spell purchase in it that we used prior to switching to RMSS.

Excellent.  SUC happens to be today's lunchtime reading material.  I'll take a look at that section and pay some attention to it.  Mind you, I/we've only used RM2 with the Spell lists purchases, but one of the spell users now was asking about Individual spell purchases, so this is a topic that I am also particularly interested in.


Thank you to Kosh for asking the question I would have been asking the forum in a few days.

[Kosh]

I like purchasing individual spell s better than lists.It is good to see that it has become the standard of the new editions.

[Spectre771]

Having only read the Individual Spell Purchase and not having used it yet, I'm a little up in the air about it still.  It allows for a plethora of varied spells, but limits the actual number of spells available in the game.  A 5th level PC with access to only 5 spells vs. 5th level PC with 4 spell lists and roughly 3-5 spells per list (12-20 spells at his disposal), but those spells being very specific to a theme (spell list).  It seems like built in balancing for spells.

I'm still reading SUC and I still have to absorb more info on it, but I am still very interested in reading more thoughts and opinions on this topic, more importantly, actual gaming experiences people have had with it.  I'll grab RMC-III after this to read through that.

[Dark Mullisha]

This is a good method to slow down the speed of spells coming into the game, unless you increase the dev points for the player and make them easy to find.

The only issue I have is that it really makes the poor mage at low levels harder to be useful.

[Kosh]

Having never played a mage type in RM I am sure others have a better grasp of the difference it makes.I do not understand Spectre771 comment that a 5th lvl PC would only have 5 spells. as I thought you could buy as many spells as you could afford.I could go figure it out myself Dark M. but if you have the time and inclination could you give a brief comparison say of a 2nd lvl mage using both  spell purchase systems?

On a different branch of this tree,I would like to hear of your experiences playing wizards in RM2/RMC specifically.Have you started at 1st lvl and climbed the ladder to become the Emperor's trusted advisor? What was the concept behind your wizard character?Did he just want to be an adventurer? In my brain the mage type should have had a bigger scope to him than just give me gold pieces.Do I need to come down from my ivory wizard's tower?

[Dark Mullisha]

If you have a spell user that is 2nd level and he was able to max out his spell list he would have a maximum 4 spell lists to 2nd level this would give him a potential of 8 spells (depending on lists and that RMC only lets you learn one list per level) the same mage with single spell picks has only 4 levels.
At 5 lvl he has a potential of 7 lists to 5th level which 35 possible spells levels to 7 spells available for single picks and so on.

It really comes down to what type of game you and your players want to play.
you could allow players to learn more spells per level e.g. 4 per level but this could lead to some gamey play like they buy 4 spells at 50% cost and just roll for them as they go up levels.
If you make it to hard to be a hero players might not enjoy it as much. Lets face it they are suppose to be the savior of the world.
The other way to restrict spells is to look at how you get spell points.
 

[Dark Mullisha]

The highest level Mage type we had in our game as a player was a 26th level Warrior Mage.
Very tough, use to stand in the middle of his own Firestorms and lay waste to everything around him, great for taking out pleb monsters. When Lofty got to high levels the spells only come one at a time due to the method of picking. So he ended up with a broad base of level 15 and lower spells only his fire base spell list was above 25 level.

[Spectre771]

Having never played a mage type in RM I am sure others have a better grasp of the difference it makes.I do not understand Spectre771 comment that a 5th lvl PC would only have 5 spells. as I thought you could buy as many spells as you could afford.

The 5 spells was a conservative estimate.  Realistically speaking, a PC has 35-42 DP to spend (rare cases will have higher or lower amounts depending on what the player has envisioned for their character.)  Mages tend to the lower end of the spectrum of DP as the Stats that award DPs are derived from are not the stats that award Power Points are derived from and are not the stats a mage would want to have higher marks in.  Mages need Empathy, Presence, Reasoning, etc. to be higher than Strength, Constitution, etc.... those stats that DP's are derived from.  The Mage needs the PP, and needs to spend the precious DPs carefully.

Apart from dumping all of your points into spell lists, there still has to be a decent amount of points to spend on other skills besides spell lists.  In order to get the 2 spells or 2 spell lists per level, that is a huge consumption of DP.  Unless the person spends 1 DP for a 5% chance to learn a list and rolls 96+ every time.... it's going to be DPs dumped into learning lists and spells and precious little left over to learn skills.

Even at 1-2 spells per level, a 5th Level PC would have 5-10 spells if lucky and I would say averaging at 6-7 spells depending on how well they roll the Spell Gain Roll.  The example given in SUC was a 1st level Mage could have 2 spells and 2 spell lists IF they spent 40 DPs!  40DP leaves so very little to put towards Runes, Directed spells, Staves and Wands, Lore skills, magical Languages, Channeling, or any of the other Magical skills a Mage should have.

The 5 spells was just a safe estimate based on what I had gathered from SUC.  I started reading RMC-III yesterday on lunch break and I am just at the part now about individual spell purchases.  I'll see how RMC-III compares with what is written in SUC.  Please don't take the numbers used as example as "set in stone."  I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the game play balance and how the individual spell system would work in my game.

[Spectre771]

The highest level Mage type we had in our game as a player was a 26th level Warrior Mage.
Very tough, use to stand in the middle of his own Firestorms and lay waste to everything around him, great for taking out pleb monsters. When Lofty got to high levels the spells only come one at a time due to the method of picking. So he ended up with a broad base of level 15 and lower spells only his fire base spell list was above 25 level.

We've never had a mage live long enough to make it to those levels. LOL.  or is it  ?

Mixed with the mortality rate for our PCs, the time period in college when we gamed, and interspersed with other games that we played, our mages just never made it past 10-12th level.  They either ended up dead, or the player wanted to make a new character to play with for a different type of campaign.  It would be great to see how a high level mage plays out in RM.

[Peter R]

We have a 20th level magicican in a shadow world setting that has 17 named lists all of them to 20th level and a couple to 25th.

We also have a 15th level Illusionist with 22 lists to 10th and 3 lists to 20th as a comparison. If anyone has taken a 'individual spells' style magic user to thos sorts of levels it would be interesting to see how they compared. This weekend the Illusionist used spells from:
Summoning, Spell Enhancement, Guises, Illusion Mastery, Light Moulding, Lofty Bridge, Invisible Ways, Essence Perceptions, Unbaring Ways, Detecting Ways, Rune Mastery, Living Change and Delving Ways. In addition spells from the Smell, Taste, Feel list were prepped but not actually cast.

That session included a single, fairly non-violent sneak in, sneak out raid on an enemy stonghold.

If the individual spell purchases are really limited to realistically 4 or so a level, that illusionist would ony have in the order of 60+ spells. I don't think he would have been able to to half of what he achieved. I am more in Dark M's camp of the PCs should be the heroes of the world.

[Dark Mullisha]

One other thing about spells is that a spell list is usually one type of spell e.g. Invisibility way, you start as Unseen and move into full invisibility, this is really one spell advancing and as you go up in levels the spell gets better with levels with variations.
Kosh are you going to make the PC's pick all the spells below Invisibility sphere before they can take it or let the pick and choose to what they want?

E.g. I am a 15th level PC I get to pick a spell or 4 spells do I take Unseen? nah, I will take a higher level spell that does it all.
Why have all the spells in Spell Law.

[Dark Mullisha]

The highest level Mage type we had in our game as a player was a 26th level Warrior Mage.
Very tough, use to stand in the middle of his own Firestorms and lay waste to everything around him, great for taking out pleb monsters. When Lofty got to high levels the spells only come one at a time due to the method of picking. So he ended up with a broad base of level 15 and lower spells only his fire base spell list was above 25 level.

We've never had a mage live long enough to make it to those levels. LOL.  or is it  ?

Mixed with the mortality rate for our PCs, the time period in college when we gamed, and interspersed with other games that we played, our mages just never made it past 10-12th level.  They either ended up dead, or the player wanted to make a new character to play with for a different type of campaign.  It would be great to see how a high level mage plays out in RM.

They turn into very tough dudes.
We did the Iron Wind scenarios verses the Magic type Assassins, that was awesome, they spent there battles fighting in this city on the roof tops, flying, Teleporting etc. across the city roof tops, very spectacular, Especailly when these all started from level one.
The first thing that you notice is the very little spell prep everything happens straight away. Highly recommend that GM try this.

[Marrethiel]

We've played with individual purchases and found that it does work but you end up with less spells. On the other hand you can (as with RMSS) learn spells over your level which helps with Magic Rituals.

EDIT, I've played the Arcist which was a blast, a very powerful class. Interestingly I found that I had to pay a lot more power points than other classes because I would usually not buy the lowest level version of a spell.

Powerful?
You buy Power, one list and No ESF. This means you start with a hand picked spell list to 50th level which you can over cast at will. Then as the 50th level version of the spell you pick one of those spells that go something like "can cast lower level spells in this list once every round." The first time you have some cash you buy a Spell adder and you can start lobbing high level spells around at low level.

Did I say that I love RoleMaster?

[Spectre771]

Just to clarify something for me, I think I am misinterpreting what is being said about the individual spell purchases as Marrethiel and Dark Mullisha are explaining it.

For individual spell purchase, you are able to purchase spells higher, but you need to also know all the previous spells in the list prior to using that spell and you have to be of that spell's level to cast it.  (SUC)  If you try overcasting, then you have all the penalties associated with that process.

Also...

If there is a blank spot in the list (no level 2 or level 3  spell, but there is a level 4 spell) you also have to "purchase those blank spots" the cost is cumulative.  One blank slot 3 DP, second blank spot 3+3 DP, total of 9 DP for the two blank slots (RMC-III).  I have RMC-III with me today so I can get the page number for reference, but I can't get to the book at the moment.  The boss will not look kindly on my reading books at work while not on lunch break. 

I realize I am mixing two optional rule sets, RMC-III and SUC, but there are still limiters.  I did see the section on over casting and magic rituals which can be REALLY cost prohibitive and really fun if the Mage fails the final Ritual Roll.  The Ritual Perversion tables are pretty fun.... errr... I mean nasty.

[Peter R]

I share the same interpretation as Spectre in that I thought you had to buy your way up the list including the empty slots.