Author Topic: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)  (Read 7017 times)

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Offline B Hanson

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Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« on: October 08, 2015, 09:38:17 PM »
I rewrote Spell Law for my own RM campaign over the last few years and recently updated it with some changes coming through RMU--specifically Size Rules, Fatigue Rules, Breakage Rules. However it's probably best suited for the older versions of RM and easily adapted if some of the rules don't fit your game style. It includes:

1. Alternative rules for SCR's and spell acquisition.
2. Spell lists are grouped by similarity and not by profession (but includes a chart to assign these new lists to current, companion and RMU professions).
3. Expanded lists: 60 Essence lists, 54 Channeling and 45 Mentalism, plus another 30 lists for alchemy(investiture), written magic(runes, symbols, glyphs, signs, sigils), performance magic(songs, tales, music, dance and art).
4. Consolidated spells that eliminate redundancy and filler spells. I added a lot of new spells--around 4000 total spells.
5. Created greater power/ability distinctions between the different realms.
6. Includes over 50 "cantrips"
7. New rules governing magic items.

For now I'm going to leave out most of the alternate rules and just start posting up spell lists starting with the realm of Essence....
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2015, 09:43:06 PM »
Essence Spell List Summary. Attached is a summary of spell lists. We have disconnected professions and spells--characters can take spells they want but there are pre-requisite lore skills needed before spells can be learned. What we call Greater, Lesser and Minor "Paths" are really the same as Base, Closed and Open.

However our Essence Realm is more akin to physics--spells relate to the elements and the raw manipulation of physical qualities of objects and things. "Sleep", "charm" etc are no longer Essence powers. This is part of the strategy to group spells by similarity and create better distinctions between realms.
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2015, 09:44:18 PM »
Minor Path (Open) List part 1.
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2015, 09:45:08 PM »
Minor Path (Open) List pt. 2
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Offline markc

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2015, 02:49:34 AM »
I have a fair amount of stuff on my plane ATM so I when ahead and approved the files as I know B Hanson has posted ICE approved stuff in the past.
If anyone finds anything offensive please report the post or PM me and I will take care of it, ASAP.
MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2015, 12:51:57 PM »
Lesser Path lists (Closed) pt. 1
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2015, 12:53:40 PM »
Lesser Path lists (Closed - Essence) pt. 2
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Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
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Offline jdale

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2015, 12:55:37 PM »
Thanks for posting these. I'm sure I can find some things I can adopt...
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2015, 09:28:22 PM »
Transformation Law.  Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

3 lists: Living Enhancements, Living Change, Living Augmentation

Note-- Greater Path (Base) are the most difficult to learn but represent true focus and specialization in a type of Essence Magic. For Pure Essence users GM's may want to limit casters access to 2-3 Greater Paths.
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2015, 09:37:21 PM »
Shield Law.   Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

3 lists: Elemental Shields, Weapon Shields, Spell Shields.
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2015, 09:46:08 PM »
Spell Law.  Essence -  Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

3 Lists: Spell Disruption, Spell Reigns, Spell Mastery
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Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #11 on: October 09, 2015, 09:54:12 PM »
Delving Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

3 Lists: Physical Analysis, Detections, Power Analysis
www.RolemasterBlog.com
Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
Files Uploaded: https://tinyurl.com/y47cfcrc

Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #12 on: October 09, 2015, 10:04:23 PM »
Dimension Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

3 Lists: Gate Mastery, Phase Mastery, Time Mastery

Note: these should be very difficult spells to obtain!!!!
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Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #13 on: October 09, 2015, 10:11:30 PM »
Demonic Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

3 Lists: Demonic Summons, Demonic Protection, Demonic Forms
www.RolemasterBlog.com
Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
Files Uploaded: https://tinyurl.com/y47cfcrc

Offline jdale

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #14 on: October 10, 2015, 12:18:46 AM »
Since the characters can gain access to base lists later on, do you have a way you deal with substantially overlapped lists? E.g. character has developed Physical Enhancements and later gains the Living Enhancements spell.
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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #15 on: October 10, 2015, 08:32:34 AM »
I think your asking about the overlap between the single "lesser path" list and the similar "greater path" spell group?

Yes, most of the Lesser Paths (and a few Minor) are less powerful distillations of the Greater Path groups, so potentially a player could develop a lesser path list and then decide later to learn a greater path and would have some spell overlap. Or a Minor path and later want the Lesser. We haven't found that to happen. A few thoughts:

We aren't just renaming open, closed and base and assuming the same spell acquisition style--it's a different process. So a pure isn't going to take a one or two "base", a few "closed" and some "open". It's less of a top down and more of a bottom up. Someone who wants to be a powerful spellcaster is going to need to focus most if not all of his DP's on acquiring 1-2 Greater Paths. They MIGHT have some DP's to grab a few spells off of a Minor list. Non or Semis won't be able to commit the DP's to the Greater Path and probably not even a Lesser. A "Warrior Mage"  type would probably take 1-2 Lesser Elemental Spells. The remainder of the DP's would be needed for combat skills.

There are 4 basic Spell development sinks (pre-req's dP's, spells acq DP's, PP dp and casting skill DP) A player will end up naturally falling into the basic archetypes: non, semi or pure. On top of that Pures really have to decide if they want to specialize (focusing on a Greater Path) or have a wide range of spell abilities (focus on many of the Lessers and Minor). We have one player who would be considered a Magician under RM rules--but rather than have 1 or 2 Greater Path (Base) elemental groups he wanted spells in all the elements. He ended up focusing on learning all of the Lesser Path Elemental Spells. Sort of a "Jack of all Elementals".

At 10th lvl most of spellcasters are going to have half or less the spells they would under RM Spell Law (40 versus 80 or more) I tried to eliminate all the filler/low utility spells and fill in blanks (still working on that)  which in SL is probably about 25% of the material so you could argue they have the same amount of useful spells. I prefer my players have a manageable amount of high utility spells with specialization rather than the fireball/fly/sleep/charm magic-user trope. It creates distinct flavors for spell casters--common in fantasy literature but less so in RM. "Learning" what an opposing spellcaster specialization is becomes part of the player strategy. We had a player who focused on just 2 Greater Path: Spell Law and Shield Law and called himself a Magehunter. He didn't have any real offensive spells but he was a wrecking machine against other spell casters. He hired 2 bowmen as retainers who would pick away at the other Mage. It was pretty cool.

For now I'm not going to put up all of our optional rules or spell notes for each list--there is enough new rules analysis going on! Just going to plug away at posting spell lists for anyone interested. Still have 30+ Essence lists to go up and then I'll start on Channeling...



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Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #16 on: October 10, 2015, 10:32:05 AM »
Wind Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

4 Lists: Defensive Winds, Controlling Winds, Attacking Winds, Moving Winds

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Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
Files Uploaded: https://tinyurl.com/y47cfcrc

Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #17 on: October 10, 2015, 10:39:32 AM »
Water Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

4 Lists: Call Water, Water Commune, Water Forms, Command Water
www.RolemasterBlog.com
Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
Files Uploaded: https://tinyurl.com/y47cfcrc

Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #18 on: October 10, 2015, 10:47:00 AM »
Earth Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

4 Lists: Earth Forms, Earth Mastery, Earth Attacks, Earthly Reigns
www.RolemasterBlog.com
Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
Files Uploaded: https://tinyurl.com/y47cfcrc

Offline B Hanson

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Re: Brian's ASL (Alternate Spell Law)
« Reply #19 on: October 10, 2015, 10:53:49 AM »
Sonic Law. Essence - Greater Path (Base) Spell Lists

2 Lists: Sound Control, Sound Waves
www.RolemasterBlog.com
Other stuff I've written: https://tinyurl.com/yxrjjmzg
Files Uploaded: https://tinyurl.com/y47cfcrc