Topic: Magician real cost for directed spells

[Dark Schneider]

I think with magician there is a mistake in directed spells, it has ever a cost of 2/5, but I have some thoughts about this.

1st: the magician has disadvantage compared to other professions, like illusionist or sorcerer, why they should have the same cost (2/5 to 2/6 simply for illusionist), while the other 2 professions have lesser cost for others (illusionist have cheaper influence).

2nd: the magician is the fighter of directed spells, having the common open and closed lists ones, plus its base lists ones (that are 5), so it is supposed the magician should develop more directed spells in parallel, just like the fighter with weapons.

3rd: in the Master Skill Table in RMCo2 (I think, I don't remember well) we have a cost for directed spell for magician of 1/4.

That gives me the idea that for a reduced set of skills, like using only the basic RM2 or RMFRP book, a cost of 2/5 can be good, but using a complete set of skills, where we have the same DPs for more skills, the magician should have a cost for directed spells of 1/4 or 1/5. The more important one is reduce the 1st cost from 2 to 1 to allow parallel development, like the fighter develop more weapons in parallel than the rogue, for example.

IMO, this is a continued errata in RM game, the cost was changed to 2/5 at one time, and never revised with these points in mind. Maybe was changed to 2/5 when created the basic RM book that, as it has a reduced set of skills, then 2/5 cost seemed appropiated.

[Nders]

If I were you I would just use the cost from the master development table in RoCo II

[markc]

 I do not remember but the cost may be changed in Fire and Ice.

 But I also do not think it is out of line IMO as having it cheaper IMO makes it seem that that Magician is only a directed spell "PC". It also leaves more DP for other things for the Magician.
 I have not taken a look but what other skills in RMSS/FRP have a cost of 1/x? And for what profession are they for? This may provide an answer as to why they did what but again I think the game designers probably did not spend a lot of time going over the skill costs they way we tend to do after years of game play.

MDC 

[rdanhenry]

Well, in RMSS/RMFRP, the Magician benefits from having multiple Directed Spells by getting more out of the Directed Spells skill category. 2/5 compares well to a Fighter's weapon costs, as that is the same as a Fighter's second weapon category cost. A Fighter is faced with more different classes of weapons than the Magician has directed spell skills. And all but two of those weapon categories cost more than a Magician's directed spells. So a Magician really doesn't appear to be badly off at all.

Have you actually had any problem with Magician characters seeming weak in actual play?

[RandalThor]

I agree with rdanhenry, with the single cost of 2/5 for ALL of their directed spells, they are able to be the "fighter of directed spells." No, they don't have one at 1/5 but neither do they have any at 2/7 or even worse. So, ultimately they are able to increase their directed spells overall faster/better than the fighter (plus, there are fewer directed spells than weapons).

If you really want to make them different, though,you can assign costs depending upon if the directed spell is from a base, open, closed, other base own-realm, other any other-realm, or arcane spell list (arcane being last only if it isn't their realm - if that is the case all of this has to be revisited) and assign them the same costs as the fighter's weapon development costs, in the order presented. That would make the directed spells from their own base spell lists cost 1/5, those from open (own-realm) cost 2/5, closed (own-realm) cost 2/7 and so on.

Personally, I don't see the need, but it is an option.

[Dark Schneider]

Well, I have here what I want for comparison:

- Magician: art-active: 2/5, influence is 2/6, DS (Directed Spells) is 2/5.
- Illusionist: art-active cost is 1/5, influence is 2/5, DS is 2/6.
- Sorcerer: same costs but Channeling and Divination are common skills in addition.
- Mystic: art-active cost is 1/4, influence is 1/4, DS is 2/6. In addition Adrenal stabilization in common skill.

I used other essence users professions.

But I also do not think it is out of line IMO as having it cheaper IMO makes it seem that that Magician is only a directed spell "PC". It also leaves more DP for other things for the Magician.

Here is the answer, actually is the magician who have less DPs as the DS cost the same (or practically), but other skills are more expensive.

makes it seem that that Magician is only a directed spell "PC"

That is because it is, not a directed spell "PC", it is a directed spell "magic user", we only need to see its base spell lists.

I mainly want to compare with others spell users, not the fighter, that was only a comparison, is like a parallelism fighter-rogue and magician-other essence spell user, as profession so diferent as magician and fighter can't be compared as equal, for that I said "is the fighter of directed spells", it could be said "is the fighter of spell users" too.

Besides, we are now thinking about moving some rules from new Combat Companion to the game, and the only 2 costs for weapons is one of them, so with this, all the melee weapons for fighters would be 1/5. IMO (I voted yes nowadays) is better that weapon expertise should not be defined in adolescence when selecting the weapons costs, it should be defined by your ranks, and a weapon with cost 3+ for a fighter is not as I see a fighter.

If I were you I would just use the cost from the master development table in RoCo II

That is what we are using actually  

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

3rd: in the Master Skill Table in RMCo2 (I think, I don't remember well) we have a cost for directed spell for magician of 1/4.

(...)

IMO, this is a continued errata in RM game, the cost was changed to 2/5 at one time, and never revised with these points in mind. Maybe was changed to 2/5 when created the basic RM book that, as it has a reduced set of skills, then 2/5 cost seemed appropiated.

I think that supposition is correct: in the RM2 Character Law & Campaign Law, the cost was already of 2/5 but it was later changed in RoCoII to 1/4.
For my part, I use the RoCoII master table, so it's 1/4 for me. :p

[thrud]

Interesting. Are there any more who's using the 1/4 cost? How's it working out?

[Nders]

Well I used to use the Master development table and thus the 1/4 cost and it never caused any problems and in the end it really does not matter one bit if it is 2/5 or 1/4. You usually develop your lowest level directed and pick up on the others based on your similar skill from well shock bolt usually. In this manner the magician starts ahead of all the others even if they have a very similar cost for directed spells. These days however I use combat companion which I am very impressed by and using CC the cost makes a great difference. A cost of 2/5 or 2/6 means that you're in the same bracket and have the same costs fordeveloping directed spells and have the same power-potential. I have not yet tried using the 1/4 with CC but I think I would consider it to set the magician apart from other spell users. I believe in a strict separation of realms but for those that do not I would strongly suggest using the lower cost for the magician in order to illustrate that it is he who in the end does the directed spell trick best.

Also if I were already using the costs from RoCoII I would skip using RMSS entirely and switch to Rm2/RMC

[thrud]

Looking it over in CC. (Combat styles)
2/5 is a bracket better than 2/6 so being a magician does matter.
However, loosely interpreted...
Essence -> 2/5 bracket
Channeling -> 3 bracket
Mentalism -> 2/6 bracket

That being said there is a two braket difference between Mentalism and channeling but only one between Essence and Mentalism.
If one would make the magician cost a 1/4 we would have a two bracket difference to the Mentalist. More logial perhaps but not necessarily better gamewise?
I could see it working out with a 1/5 cost for magician making it on par with the fighters melee cost.
It would however make a BIG difference for the magician interested in many bolts. Using the magician base lists as base we have 5 bolts in total.
A Combat style with all 5 bolts would cost 5/10 vs 6/12 and you get full OB in ALL bolts.
A magician gets a +3 level bonus to directed spells as well.
Not counting stat bonuses.
Lv 2 2 ranks (+10) +6 = +16 shockbolt
Lv 4 6 ranks (+30) +13 = +43 waterbolt
Lv 6 10 ranks (+50) +18 = +68 fire or ice bolt
Lv 10 18 ranks (+66) + 30 = +96 lightning bolt

As class 1 spells (casting time 1 round)
Lv 8 +82 shock bolt
Lv 10 +96 water bolt
Lv 12 +108 Fire or Ice bolt
Lv 16 +128 Lightning bolt

Without the Combat style benefits you would have a +40 class 3 lightning bolt at lv 10.
Any reduced cost for the magician will benefit him greatly but as always, you could do the same with the 2/5 base cost and the only difference would be 3pts per level.
I guess the real question is how much you want the magician to suffer for his bolts?
If I were a GM I would probably opt for the 1/5 cost but we're all different with different tastes.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

I guess the real question is how much you want the magician to suffer for his bolts?

For my part, not much, if at all. markc said that "having it cheaper IMO makes it seem that that Magician is only a directed spell "PC"" but it is completely the case. No other profession has five elemental bolt attacks in their base list. Even with their "similar" low weapon cost, a fighter can choose not to develop many, but a Magician? It's part of his base spell lists, so he will have to spend DPs to learn the spells; it's not so much an option as it is an obligation to him so his profession is a directed spell profession.

...OTOH, I have my spellcasters develop each directed spell as a different skill, as per normal rules, so...