Author Topic: ERA for RMC Professions customization: spell costs  (Read 1000 times)

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Offline Boromir

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ERA for RMC Professions customization: spell costs
« on: June 13, 2021, 07:42:19 AM »
This is going to be technical and only of interest to those doing a lot of customization of ERA professions.

In the provided examples,
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ERA\RMC\Configuration\Professions\Magician.prof.xml and
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...\Fighter.prof.xml spell costs are defined as
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<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" categoryName="Spell List Acquisition" cost="1/*"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" cost="2/2/2-2/2/2-2/2/2-2/2/2-6/6/6" categoryName="Own Realm Closed Lists" />
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" cost="2/2/2-2/2/2-2/2/2-2/2/2-4/4/4" categoryName="Own Realm Open Lists"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" cost="2/2/2" categoryName="Own Realm Own Base Lists" />
and
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<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" categoryName="Spell List Acquisition" cost="20"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" cost="20-40-60-80-100" categoryName="Own Realm Open Lists" />
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" cost="40-80-120-160-200" categoryName="Own Realm Closed Lists"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" cost="20" categoryName="Own Realm Own Base Lists" />
respectively.
Now I am not particularly familiar with RMSS/RMFRP, but these skill costs look more like the values for these versions of RM rather than RMC, at least for the magician, because the patterning of "2/2/2" matches those versions' individual spell picks rather than the RMC's 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E' portions approach.

Based on RMC Spell Law, Table 03-03, p.24, I would have thought that the values should instead for the magician be
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<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" categoryName="Spell List Acquisition" cost="1/*"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" categoryName="Own Realm Open Lists" cost="1/*-1/*-1/*-1/*-2/*"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" categoryName="Own Realm Closed Lists" cost="1/*-1/*-1/*-1/*-3/*"/>
<SkillCategoryCost groupName="Spells" categoryName="Own Realm Own Base Lists" cost="1/*"/>
The fighter values seem to be consistent with Table 03-03.

Well, in my custom professions, I defined the spell costs for pure spell users as above with "1/*" rather than "2/2/2", but I am getting an error on "level up" with non-base spell lists.  I think it is because I used the "1/*" rather than the triplet of values. 

So I have three questions, that others may be interested in:
  • What are the allowable patterns in the spell costs?
  • When do I need to specify the five values pattern "x-x-x-x-x", (corresponding to the five portions) versus just a single cost of "x"?
  • Does it really matter anyway, because I manage my spell list acquisition manually?

Offline Boromir

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Re: ERA for RMC Professions customization: spell costs
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2021, 02:19:34 AM »
I've done further testing, and changed all instances of 1/*, 2/*, 3/*, and 4/* from RMC Spell Law Table 03-03 to 1/1/1, 2/2/2, 3/3/3, 4/4/4 in the 5-tuples for Own Realm Closed Lists and  Own Realm Open Lists XML statements and everything works fine.  I'd still like to understand the answers to the questions above though.  These expressions do look to me like a hang-over from support for RMSS/RMFRP.  I think they do not really have any impact on the behaviour of character development or combat in ERA?

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for RMC Professions customization: spell costs
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2021, 03:21:24 PM »
After checking, I can tell you that "Spell List Acquisition" is the only of the skills considered for the default rules for gaining spells in RMC.

The costs in the categories are obtained by combining RMC Spell Law Table 03-03 Complete Spell List Availability with Option 2.2 Non Random Spell Acquisition by Individual Spells. So they are only relevant if you are using RMFRP-like spell gains.

So, for the default ruling, and learning other spell portions like high level, closed for semis, etc, you'd need to specialize the Spell List Acquisition and enter the spell list name, but also change the cost, since the different values when using that ruling are not coded into ERA.

Let us know if that's clear, or if there are gaps in my explanation.

Offline Boromir

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Re: ERA for RMC Professions customization: spell costs
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2021, 04:13:00 AM »
@Voriig: That's excellent - thankyou.