Topic: Spell Mastery

[DonMoody]

I have read that and am pretty sure that "most power maneuvers" phrase does not include Spell Mastery.

But as always, each GM decides "what is what" for their game.

DonMoody

[Dark Schneider]

Frankly, I can't understand people who complain about Spell Mastery being too powerful.  "Oh no, you can do x3 to the concussion damage on your bolts" by rolling an Extremely Hard maneuver on a pretty nasty table (Power Man, a partial success = take 10 concussion hits and fail your effect) of which if you fail will also probably trigger a spell failure (if not two).  The skill starts at -20 to even do something, and anything below Near Success will yield horrible results, with Near Success being a "try again if you dare" kind of result.  Thus, anyone even attempting the most basic use of the skill on a routine basis has to be highly skilled or willing to risk dying a horrible death.  At the level a spell user tries the x3 without risking too much(5% chance of failure on a -30 roll where you want at least Near Success requires 115 in the skill...), a fighter might end up constantly hasted, thus attacking twice per round at full OB with his +25 weapon that does triple concussion and an extra elemental critical.

And frankly, if a spell user wants to use the x3 range to save power points by casting Firebolt I rather than Firebolt III, be my guess...  You have to make both your Power Manip roll and your spell casting roll, with the above-mentionned risks.  I hardly find that unbalanced.

I agree, but I changed the skills mainly for 2 reasons:

1) When player has high bonus, it wants to use it many times, and it slows the game.
2) It is a very 'step' skill, this is, or nothing or great power/fumble. And we need a good bonus as the first maneuver is at -20 directly.

For that I changed it to use the bonus as % for increase parameters (split as parry between all effects), only requiring SCSM for casting the spell, but not a maneuver roll (this one is used for other effects but not for parameter increase) and it doesn't takes 1 minute.

This rule allows to use the skill faster, from beginning and more linear, i.e. a cleric with +25 in SM can 'bless' with +25% radius (12,5' instead 10'), you could cast a 'bolt' increasing the damage a portion and no need for many rolls (a 10B result would be 15B if +50 in SM skill bonus).

I like in this manner because I see this skill as "how good are you casting spells for that list", so it should be used in this linear way.

And the SCSM can be easily passed developing some 'magical language' ranks, that added to your list bonus and a +1 per SM rank I use for this rule, we have that is all like specialize in spell lists with SM, but not in the sharp way the original skill.

So I see the spell list as the 'basic form' and then the spell user can improve it as it desires. You can have +25 in one list, +50 in other and +100 (or more) in your favorites.

With the SCSM requirement we are using the spell casting like in HARP, where you always must roll a casting maneuver roll (if I am not wrong), so if you want to haste the game there are rules for include all in 1 roll (the casting maneuver and the attack spell directly in 1 roll).

[markc]

DS,
 One thing I see as a minor problem with your Spell Mastery [SM] rules is that often a spell effect on one list is repeted on another list. Do you allow the higher of the SM skills? Or do you rule that each list is a magical theam in that the effects are interwoven and rely on different spell casting methods?

 By spell casting methods I do not mean game mechanics but simply from a game worlds fluff stand point.

MDC

[Dark Schneider]

DS,
 One thing I see as a minor problem with your Spell Mastery [SM] rules is that often a spell effect on one list is repeted on another list. Do you allow the higher of the SM skills? Or do you rule that each list is a magical theam in that the effects are interwoven and rely on different spell casting methods?

 By spell casting methods I do not mean game mechanics but simply from a game worlds fluff stand point.

MDC

I am not sure what you are talking about, i.e. 'bolt I' with range doubled is equal to 'bolt II'.

Please tell me the exact meaning and maybe an example of that.

Do you allow the higher of the SM skills?

I think that refers to other SM powers, like 'extra target', well for other than 'parameter imporvement' I use the skill in the normal way, that is, rolling the maneuver and using the SM skill modifiers.

I only use the 'automatic-SM' ot 'Auto-SM' (we could call it in this way) for spell parameters, as I see them as part or the spell itself, and adding extra targets or changing a bolt to ball is not a parameter of the spell.

Anoter question is 'what parameters' we can improve, well, that depends (as always) of your game system, I usually only allows to modify range, radius, duration (for spells that has it) and maybe healing spells, but another 'parameters' could be 'fly speed', 'number of targets/levels affected' (for example for 'sleep V'), 'damage' (for directed spells), '% of success' (for lock picks or info spells), etc.

As it is managed by % I think is easy to manage in any way, so you could use for reduce convalescence for healing spells, using that a +100 bonus (that is +100%) reduces the convalescence time to half.

Each one is free to include any thing in 'spell parameters', while is part of the spell itself.

[markc]

DS,
 Sorry I did not get my point across.

About Spells on Multiple Lists:
 Let?s say I have light I on lists A at 5th rank and on list B I have light 1 as a 2nd level spell. They both essentially do the same thing.
1)   So with your idea is there a difference in the spells? Or are they treated the same by your rules?

Spell Mastery:
 As above if you have the same effect [light 1] but on two spell lists [which you have two different skills for spell mastery] do you use the higher spell mastery roll or do you use the spell mastery that provides the largest bonus? Or the smallest bonus?
MDc

[Dark Schneider]

OK.

No problem, as SM is developed for each list as 1 separate skill. The explanation to this could be that, although the spell effect is the same ('light I' both cases), the "origin" (this is, how energy is manipulated to achieve the effect, that is the spell itself) is different, for that SM only affect to energy manipulation for that "origin".

This different "origin" is easily explained because if we learn a spell in one list, we not automatically obtain the spell for all other lists where it appears, and for SM is the same.

So, basically there is no change for spells or SM skill development, I only change how SM is used (in other words, a house rule skill revision). Viewing in this way is much easier. All the concepts like 'basic form', 'parameter improvement', etc. are only theory and are not important for play.

The reason of change

I changed the skill for some reasons, mainly 2:

• 1) Character availability: we had 2 character types, those who are not interested in any way in the skill, an others that will want it as their lives. In group 1 we have professions like cleric or animist, because the skill is not cheap, and for be able to use it for the basic effect, that is a -20 mod., they need to spend too many DPs for the utility of the skill for them. In group 2 we have the uers with the skill as everyman that have destructive spells.
• 2) Power: for group 2 I have tested that it can be very deadly.

Then, with this change (the Auto-SM using bonus as % of improvement):

• 1) As you use the bonus, there is no need to develop many ranks, so group 1 characters can improve their favorite spells as they want each level.
• 2) We can't use improvements like x3, x4, x5 so "easily", as they are devastating, so the power is more under control for group 2.

In a 'real life' view of how the skill is now, look it as spell caster improves it skill for that spell list by practice (that is developing SM skill using DPs). We have 2 sides:

- The spell list is our knowledge to manipulate energy to obtain the desired effect, that is the spell.

- SM is how good are we using the energy produced by PPs consumption, in other words, how much energy are we able to extract from those PPs. So basically in theory we always lose some energy in manipulation, with the limit of the basic spell form.

And adding that is faster to use 

[Temujin]

As for as game balance consideration goes, I do agree your house rule is a pretty cool way to balance things out.

[markc]

 I do not remember if I said this before but I require quite a bit more time to spell master a spell than just cast it normally. But since I use a different combat system it does not translate well into the RM combat system. But if I would guess I think I would require 50% to 200% more to SM a spell.

MDC