Topic: Base lists and professions? Q By Thrud

[markc]

Thurd asked;
Let's open another maybe a smaller can of worms?
I'm just toying with an idea here...
What's your take on baselists? Are you born to learn just a specific kind of magic? But first...
We assume baselists are more complex spells than open and closed thus motivating specific leaning rules.
We assume you are stuck with your realm no matter what.

Would you allow a thief to develop the magician base lists as his/her own if he/she makes a "profession change"? No change in DP costs, just a new "in game" career for the character.

Moved by MDC

[markc]

Thurd;
 First I ask all players to declare their realm of magic at PC gen. I also give every player a free rank in PPD and MPD if using SM:P.
 So yes you are born to a specific type of magic but all people that worship deities can supply the deity with PPD's. The same reason applies to MPD as IMO all people have some base mental points by being alive and interacting with their environment.

 I am not sure where you are going with the base lists idea as in RMSS/FRP the Arcane Companion provides a DP cost to learn base lists of any realm. That is if you the GM, allows cross realm spell list development in your game. I think there probably they same DP cost for other realm 1 and other realm 2 in one of the RoCo somewhere but I do not have the info for you.
 So yes with the rules in RMSS Arcane Companion I do allow professions to develop any base list if they want to spend the time and energy to do so.
 I also like the use of TP spell lists like those in the Es Comp. Ment Comp and Chan Comp. And I think that can be a good way to provide spell lists or spells to other professions.
 If you have the Spell Users Companion it has a type of list called "Prosaic list" [sp?] that are simple spells for everyday life. So you might use the list in a high magic world to represent the ability of everyone being able to cast spells. IMO I would like to see a "Prosaic List" to have an open spell system such as a list of spell to pick from for levels 1-5, another list for spells of more power to be ranks 6-10, etc. That way there could be a lot of basic spells for people to pick up but they are not really powerful, but very useful in day to day life.

MDC

[thrud]

This was inspired by the other thread where we were discussing changing profession.

The idea was to allow the former thief to develop Magician base spell lists as his own base lists due to the fact that he changed career "in game".
A "changing profession" without changing DP costs since DP costs represent the characters natural predisposition to learning various skills.

[markc]

 Thurd;
 Yes I agree but it is a separate topic and we try and keep 1 topic to a thread. Also IMO it is easier for another poster to see you question in a separate thread by its title in case they mist it in your post in the other thread on page 6 or so.

 If you want to include any other background then feel free.
MDC

[thrud]

I just did

[markc]

BTW I am sorry I messed up the title and I will work to get your name instead of a day.
MDC

[thrud]

Thanks 

[Cormac Doyle]

I think I've fixed the thread title

[markc]

I think I've fixed the thread title

Thanks very much.
MDC

[pastaav]

Would you allow a thief to develop the magician base lists as his/her own if he/she makes a "profession change"? No change in DP costs, just a new "in game" career for the character.

To allow the thief to pay magicans cost or a fighter to pay paladin cost would be pretty much the same as to allow a real change of profession. The idea of keeping past ranks and paying DP costs for a new profession is exactly what the typical minmaxer is after.

In RMSS there is simply no need for this anyway since it provides the costs for cross realm development. If you insist on using RM2/RMC then you should probably add some houserules along the same lines.

The thief with essence as realm would for magician base list in RMSS pay 70 dp for each rank for level 1-5, 140 for each rank for level 6-10, 210 dp for each rank 11-15 and so on. Some would probably argue that this cost is too little, but I think it is reasonably balanced. (RMSS has about the double DP as in RMC so in RMC terms it would be 35 dp, 75 dp ,105 dp). A more reasonable spell choice for the thief who want to learn magic would probably be to stick to open and closed lists from his own realm that only would cost 18 and 35 dp (RMSS scale)

[thrud]

Please read the question one more time.
I explicitly said NO CHANGE IN DP COSTS.
Thief DP cost is 10 for spells.
Yes, I am talking about keeping the 10 cost and allowing the former thief to have baselists.
In this instance I'm saying the former thief will get 6 baselists being magician baselists since he changed career.

[markc]

Thurd;
 I am sorry to sound like a broken record but in RMSS it has the cost built in. Now in RMC I seem to remember that semi's can not take closed base lists as other base lists. So the answer is no for my game.
 I would also point out to the player they could have played a Magent [thief-essence user] in RMSS. I do not know the appropriate profession in RMC.
 I also let players switch PC's up to 3 months into the game as what you think might be goos at the beginning may not work out in the long run. For example I had a player play a Mythic [Chann Comp] and the profession just did not fit in with what the party was doing in the game world.

 Also from the other thread it was talked about not letting a pure arms profession go to pure spell caster. Which is what you are doing.
 If you use the above statement from the other thread then the thief might be able to go to warrior mage of some other semi-profession and have 5 base lists as it states in RMC.

 MDC

[yammahoper]

Please read the question one more time.
I explicitly said NO CHANGE IN DP COSTS.
Thief DP cost is 10 for spells.
Yes, I am talking about keeping the 10 cost and allowing the former thief to have baselists.
In this instance I'm saying the former thief will get 6 baselists being magician baselists since he changed career.

Yes.  Absolutely.  Becoming a Mage with the mindset of a Thief is fine and proper.  Such an approach assumes a very scientific ideal that all skills can be learned and mastered with the right tool rather than blessings or being chosed or born with "the gift".  This fits the skill set of RM perfectly, in no small part because it IS a scientific system of its own written in math.  Our thief has through the game gained free access to mage materials, secrets and such but pays the cost as a thief to learn the skill set of a different mindset.  The limits of this are the very static descriptions and effects of the base list spells.  We should get entire new ways and methods to weave elemental power from the thief mindset; unless the mage mindset is SO overwhelming the weave can take no other form (both views could work in a game world for me).  If so, then such a game would probably not allow changes in profession.

From a munchkin point of view, it is incredibly inefficient to do this.  Easier to make a level one mage and start over.

As a GM, I know the game reaches a point were to much ability by PC's becomes a bad thing.  I ran a long term game with five plus players, running 11 total characters in the story (each PC was level 80+), if one at a time in game, and there was little any single PC could not do.  The result was the inevitable dominance of certain PC's over all the others, though usually in specific situations.  For example, the Noldo Warrior almost always went first.  With a Qu mod near 100 and a sword that allowed melee attacks to be resolved in the spell casting phase (which I translated to a +30 Init mod when we moved to the 200pt init system...btw, I still celebrate the day that sword was out of my game via a level 50 Disjunction spell off Ethereal Mastery...).  The end result was total domination of melee (the 570 OB didn't hurt either).  So then a time came for stalking: while the Noldo wasn't the best here, there was no failing for him.  Or the others either.  Lower skills held by the mages were enhanced with spells, often resulting in skill totals HIGHER than the experts (in my games to day, I allow magic mighty abilities, but when it immatates a skill, I do not want bonuses resulting any higher at the highest level of the spell to be better than a level 20 master of the profession built around that skill).  The worst exaggeration is when one of those spells is used on the fighter ot thief with thier already 300+ skill totals.

And that brings us back to the scientific mindset, whose language is math.  The core mechanic of RM allows for unlimited growth.  Over unlimited time, those numbers get very large indeed (read some SW stuff for a great example).  Restrictions are needed because this is a game.  How much restriction varies because we are not.

[thrud]

Thank you yammahoper. You understood the question correctly.

[markc]

 I also think that you could use Talent Law to give the thief some spell lists.
MDC

[pastaav]

Please read the question one more time.
I explicitly said NO CHANGE IN DP COSTS.
Thief DP cost is 10 for spells.
Yes, I am talking about keeping the 10 cost and allowing the former thief to have baselists.
In this instance I'm saying the former thief will get 6 baselists being magician baselists since he changed career.

I did very much notice the idea to give access to other professions baselist with the same cost. That is why I posted in the thread in first place...if you are considering this option I think you also need to be aware that RMSS that actually have rules for learning other professions baselist and charge lots more for such access. IMHO there is a very good reason for this, but you are of course free to disagree...

[thrud]

There are options in RMC as well and we use them already.
This is just a spinoff thread -> How to deal with characters who want to change professons midplay.

[Dark Schneider]

IMO obviously it should not be allowed, if not we destroy the RM profession concept. If thief has cost for same realm - other/base is for using them, and bypassing them you are giving too much advantage to those professions.

Paying 10 DPs a non-spell user for buy a pure spell-user spells?, if we add this thief can buy ranks in arms, subterfuge, armor, and many others cheaper than magician, I am sure you see it as me, totally unbalanced. Then allow magician to buy ranks in subterfuge like a rogue because he changes his career "in game", it not sounds very well to me.

For that, I recommend to use the change profession (this is really change your career "in game"), so change the thief to magician, learn spells, and maybe later you change profession again, etc. But this is another topic... (look for it, there are many good ideas for change profession in RM in this forum).

[thrud]

Dark Schnider> I hear you. It's kind of interesting what you're saying because the reason I started this thread was due to the opposition towards changing profession.

It all boils down to one thing, do you think spell lists are genetically coded in the character?

Ok, I'm going to be my own worst enemy...
The obvious reply to my question would be the following:
Open spells are the easiest to learn, closed are more complex and base spell lists are the most complex lists available.
A non doesn't have the mental capacity to learn base lists.
That is a character starting game as a non spelluser doesn't have what it takes and it doesn't really matter if he changes his life completely and locks himself into a library for the rest of his life.

Ok, let's stick with this just a little longer.
Semi's are obviously able to learn base lists since they have their own.
Some Semi's (RM2) have base lists from other professions, pure spelluser professions.
Could a semi change career and gain access to other professions baselists as his own?
i.e. change profession but keeping DP costs.

[Arioch]

Thurd asked;
Let's open another maybe a smaller can of worms?
I'm just toying with an idea here...
What's your take on baselists? Are you born to learn just a specific kind of magic? But first...
We assume baselists are more complex spells than open and closed thus motivating specific leaning rules.
We assume you are stuck with your realm no matter what.

I've underlined what I think it's a fundamental error in the starting question, the error which IMHO spawned this whole problem.
Characters are not born to do anything and there is no difficult to learn list, nor easy to learn list.
And that's because, as we all know, PCs are not real people and lists are just a set of rules for handling special in game effects.
So, professions are not mindsets, nor part of the genetic code of the character, they're just part of the rules we use to play this game. What's their meaning in the in-game world? Absolutely nothing.
They have a meaning only in the "metagame" level, as they give us the costs in DPS we, as players, must spend to improve a character's skill bonuses.
Spell lists are the same: there is no in-game reason for which a magician has fire law as a baselist and a thief doesn't. There are only out-game reasons:
One of these reasons is balance: as yamma said professional limitations are there to assure that no character will get more benfits of the others as the game proceed (as a matter of fact, they fail to do this, as spell users actually become much more powerful than all non-spell user professions, but that's another topic).
Another are player priorities: professions are skill sets of skill costs and special abilites. As players we choose our character's profession according to what at the moment are our priorities, what we want our character to do in game, or the aspects of the game we want to explore, if you prefer.
We do not play a magician because our character is born with a predisposition for magic, we play it because we want to kill our enemies with fireballs, or because we want to be the knowledgable guy in the party, or whatever.
So, while rationalizing the in-game meaning of these things can be fun, imho it's also dangerous, because it brings us to search answers for questions related to one field (game mechanics) into another, completely unrelated field (fluff, in-game events) and makes us forget what the real purpose of the game rules is.
Imho we shouldn't be asking "what are baselists" or "what are professions" in-game, but what's their mechanical/metagame meaning.

So, why a player would want to change his character profession, or its baselists? Is there a balanced way of doing it?