Topic: Power Point Development Question

[Tolen]

I've been helping my son create his first character, and I think I may be doing this wrong.  It can't hurt to ask.

For PPDev and spells, the book lists the stat bonus as 'Realm stat bonus.'  Is that triple?  Every other category has three stats, so I've been tripling them.  Is that wrong?

[Karizma]

I triple them as well.  I assume that it shows up once so that it eliminated doing "Em/Em/Em".

[Right Wing Wacko]

Actually, if you look at the sample character sheet in the book (in the character creation section), realm stat is counted only once...

I am talking only about RMFRP.

[Tolen]

Well there you go, so it is.

Would have been nice to make that a bit more obvious (explicit).

Thanks RWW, and Karizma

[markc]

 Tolen,
 First: Welcom to the forums.

 Second: In my game I tend to like the mages to have more PP's so I give them double the stat plus their SD stat bonus. That is a house rule and has served me well in the past.

 Also IMO RM tends to be harder to play at low levels than other RPG's and I have seen some get a little frustrated. So another house rule I use is that pure arms start at 3rd level, semi spell caster start at 4th and pure spell casters start a 5th. Why well pure spell casters at low levels have very few options, they have a few spell lists at 1st level and a few other abilities that they have to roll well to use.

 BTW, if you have any more questions just post and people will try and help out.

MDC

 

[Dark Schneider]

It only counts once, it is and aid for 1st lvl. to add some extra PPs. But really PPs are based on ranks not stats.

The low level spell casters life is not easy 

[Tolen]

First Markc, thanks for the welcome (though I have posted here before...I mainly lurk unless I do have a question).

Those are interesting house rules, though the double plus SD would hurt this character...he's elven.
For the time being I'll leave it tripled.  I'm just proud of myself for remembering that the more lists you develop, the more expensive it gets.

As far as starting at higher levels, I've been trying to avoid that since virtually every game I've played in for the last ten years started somewhere above level one. (DnD, Rifts, Traveller, etc.)

Furthermore, for the time being I have no players, so it will just be my boy and I in solo adventures.  We're both learning the system as we go, so we can tweak and adjust while we play.

I will say that I recently created a magician character just to learn the character creation system (which I do with any game), and had a very decent array of spells at level one.  ('cept I forgot to multiply the costs for the extra lists...).  Of course, I had to forgo the training packages to do it.  The training packages are a neat idea, but they eat up so many of your starting DP's.  Of course, it take a generous DM to let you pick TP's later in your career.

It only counts once, it is and aid for 1st lvl. to add some extra PPs. But really PPs are based on ranks not stats.

Actually, I know this one, it is explicitly stated on page 33 (RMFRP) that Power Points are based on total skill bonus, not ranks.

[yammahoper]

First Markc, thanks for the welcome (though I have posted here before...I mainly lurk unless I do have a question).

Those are interesting house rules, though the double plus SD would hurt this character...he's elven.
For the time being I'll leave it tripled.  I'm just proud of myself for remembering that the more lists you develop, the more expensive it gets.

As far as starting at higher levels, I've been trying to avoid that since virtually every game I've played in for the last ten years started somewhere above level one. (DnD, Rifts, Traveller, etc.)

Furthermore, for the time being I have no players, so it will just be my boy and I in solo adventures.  We're both learning the system as we go, so we can tweak and adjust while we play.

I will say that I recently created a magician character just to learn the character creation system (which I do with any game), and had a very decent array of spells at level one.  ('cept I forgot to multiply the costs for the extra lists...).  Of course, I had to forgo the training packages to do it.  The training packages are a neat idea, but they eat up so many of your starting DP's.  Of course, it take a generous DM to let you pick TP's later in your career.

It only counts once, it is and aid for 1st lvl. to add some extra PPs. But really PPs are based on ranks not stats.

Actually, I know this one, it is explicitly stated on page 33 (RMFRP) that Power Points are based on total skill bonus, not ranks.

If you pick up Character Law, there are new new talents in it.  One of those talents is called POWER, which provides ranks in spell list, which can free up some dev points to buy a training package or two at level one.

Also, one bg option will half the cost of a training package.

Set dev points can also provide more dev on avaerage that stat based dev and remove the punishment factor for wanting to play a stupid thief with poor reasoning abilities or no self descipline or a sickly mage with low Constitution or a clutzy fighter with low Agility.  Low end would be 75 dev a level, high would be 90.  I give 100 dev a level because it makes players happy and experience has shown me players cannot over develop with 100 dev.

Finally, I know several GM's who hand out the training packages based on the PC's background story.  How many would be up to you, of course.

lynn

[Tolen]

I have ChL, but don't remember the talent that cuts the cost in half.  Will have to go back and re-read.  Either way, my magician was just an experiment to learn the process.  Having learned it, I was able to help my son with his wood elf Animist.

A half price TP still sucks up skill points...One of the things I like about RMFRP is how you can have a much larger number of spells than other games at 1st level.  (That and the crits are fun.)  Any game that lets me build a wizard who can actually cast something besides a magic missile or two at first level gets my vote. 

P.S.  I have considered the set DP gains, but haven't implemented them yet.  As it is, every character I have made for this system tends to max out the top five stats, and let the others drag.    I don't mind the rich get richer syndrome, but being forced to set a specific subset of stats high to get the DP does irk me a bit.  I'll have to give it a try.

[maikeru]

Just out of curiosity how old is you son?  I'd love to play with my son but he is only 7 and is having a hard enough time with the basic math, let alone some RM math.

-mike

[Karizma]

Why am I getting sleepy, and suddenly want to use my college funds for I.C.E. books?

Ah well, I was going to say, I think it's awesome you're teaching your son!  I'm also in a position where I have no players.  However my significant other has taken interest in role-playing, so we're thinking about trying one-on-one sessions of AD&D2 (I'm starting him with AD&D2 before throwing all the skills of RolemasterFRP at him; I don't want to scare him off ).

However, I'm nervous about solo-party adventures.  Do you throw in NPCs?  Does the player control these NPCs in battle, or just lead them?  Or do you scale down things significantly so he can take them on by himself?

[yammahoper]

The last solo campaign I ran I wrapped around the politics and conflicts of a noble family.  When the Psionist PC got to 8th level, I had him discover an ancient family heirloom/artifact sword hidden in the depths of the family mansion (a secret dungeon long abandoned).  When he overcame the constructs and traps to gain the sword, the sword told him of its promise to the family long ago to serve and how the eight jewels of the sword had been removed from its hilt by one of his familys greatest enemies, and archmage whose very descendents were now the PC's greatest foe.  Thus began a long journey to recover the lost jewels (the sword could sense in which direction they lay and had visions of what occured around those jewles). 

It was a smashing success.  LOTS of NPC's and the occassional ally.  Keeping it political worked for me.

lynn

[Tolen]

Luke is 10, but he's been an off-and-on part of our gaming groups since he was about 7(ish).  We started him on D20, but that was mainly because that was the only game in town, no one wanted to play anything else.  I did get my groups to try new things on occasion, so he's played some white wolf, some rifts, and some traveller as well.  (Oh, and we did have a rather successful SilCore game based on WWII...with mecha.  I used Gear Krieg as a launching point, and then several sessions later, we switched it to Alternity.)

As far as solo adventures go, I plan on winging things a lot for the time being, as this will be the first full-on DMing I've ever done in RM (despite having the books for ages).  So single creatures, I plan on making a few NPC's available when he needs them (a healer, for certain, plus various sky-sailors, monks, and so forth).  Once we both get the rules tucked well under our belts, I'll start experimenting with multiple creatures, larger creatures, stuff like that.  Besides by then he'll have leveled up too.

Now if only I didn't live in the middle of gamer-nowhere...I'd love to open this up to more players.

[Dark Schneider]

Actually, I know this one, it is explicitly stated on page 33 (RMFRP) that Power Points are based on total skill bonus, not ranks.

Not, what I want to say is that PP dev is based on developing ranks and you should not put your hope for this skill on stat bonuses, because it is really not important but for 1st lvl.

Looking at talents we can see that they give you always bonuses based on how many ranks you have developed, and never give you a fixed bonus.

So, when I say 'rank based' I say that the important for this skill is how many ranks you have, and other things like stats can be almost ignored, so giving statx3 bonus is not how the skill was thought.

It is usual at beginning to think 'but I have few PPs at 1st level', but it is the usual, low levels for spell users are hard. In RM2 you only had 1-3 PP at lvl 1, it was hard but I survived, remember that is a team work.

So, although you think using stat once is low bonus, I strongly recommend to use it as rule says, don't try to have too many spell uses in 1st lvl as you are only an apprentice, remember that. It is not usual that an apprentice could abuse using magic at that level.

This is said by a permanent spell user (magician for all RPG I play) and I can say that is balanced.

[Tolen]

I see what you're saying now.

I'm not convinced that letting him a few more points is going to unbalance things that much though (in this case, anyway).  Sure it means he gets to cast more often, but right now, all of his spells are low-level choices.

Someone who knows the system better might build more ranks and higher level choices into his character, but even then, each time he casts those spells, he's gonna take some pretty serious penalties for it being so much higher level than the character.

However, having had it pointed out where it does show the single stat mod, I'll keep it in mind.

[Tolen]

And in regards to that talent that cuts the cost of TP's in half.  Can someone point me to a page number?  I can't seem to find it.

*Edit*  Seems that in the Martial Arts Companion, it mentions taking half the cost off for a background option.  It also cuts the time required in half.

[markc]

And in regards to that talent that cuts the cost of TP's in half.  Can someone point me to a page number?  I can't seem to find it.

*Edit*  Seems that in the Martial Arts Companion, it mentions taking half the cost off for a background option.  It also cuts the time required in half.

 I am glad you found it as I have been using it so long I have forgot where it came from. BTW you are very lucky to have the RMSS MAC it is one of the very hard books to find and can be quite pricy when it comes up for sale.

MDC

[Ecthelion]

A half price TP still sucks up skill points...

But OTOH you get quite a number of skills with a TP...

One of the things I like about RMFRP is how you can have a much larger number of spells than other games at 1st level.  (That and the crits are fun.)  Any game that lets me build a wizard who can actually cast something besides a magic missile or two at first level gets my vote. 

Even when not tripled I have always had the impression that PPs of mages at level 1 are fine. An Elven Magician, as you are playing, if I got it right, should have 7 (from 1 rank) + 5 (prof. bonus) + 2 (race) + >=5 (stat) = min. 19 PPs. Of course casting gets a little harder once the first quarter of these PPs is used up, but still I think a spell user can have quite a number of PPs available. In contrast with the RM2 rules spell users often had only 1 or 2 PPs at level 1. Maybe it's because I played RM2 first, but I never saw the need to boost PPs at lower levels.

P.S.  I have considered the set DP gains, but haven't implemented them yet.  As it is, every character I have made for this system tends to max out the top five stats, and let the others drag.    I don't mind the rich get richer syndrome, but being forced to set a specific subset of stats high to get the DP does irk me a bit.  I'll have to give it a try.

Personally I like the current system which makes you decide whether to go for DPs or boost important stats like the realm stat, Qu and St.

Generally I would suggest to go with the rules as they are as long as you have little experience with the system. Only later I'd suggest to implement own house rules. This is IMO true for the PP question as well as a rule about fixed DPs.

[yammahoper]

...I can't help myself...

USE THE ESSENCE LUKE!

ohgodohgodohgod, sorry...

[Tolen]

Hehe, that joke kept going through my head as I tried to describe the realms of magic to him.  'The Force' was the best way to make that click with him.

Generally I would suggest to go with the rules as they are as long as you have little experience with the system. Only later I'd suggest to implement own house rules. This is IMO true for the PP question as well as a rule about fixed DPs.

Generally I do with a 'new' system.  I've played before, just not a whole lot.  I suppose I should have mentioned that we will be playing by the rules for a level or two before making any of the suggested changes, just to be sure we are doing it right.  (Which is why I started this thread to begin with, I wasn't sure.)  Who knows, maybe the init system will click for me after a few runs.