Topic: Race bonuses to Hybrid RRs

[markc]

There are 4 kinds of progression in RMSS: Standard, Combined (which is like RM2), Limited, and Special.  PP Development and Body Development are the only "Special" progressions, iirc.  Limited included all Spell Lists and the Awareness: Perceptions category of skills.  One interesting effect of the Limited progression is that stat bonuses make up a potentially huge differentiator in ability.

 Yes but I have allowed just about any progression and there are talents that modify the progression cost also. This fact means that there are more than just the ones listed in the book. You can look at the talents that provide PP bonuses per rank of skill or in essence modify the skill rank progression for PPD and MPD. I have also a talent that does the same for DB as it seems a good option to mirror the other talent and my players tend to like it also.
MDC
MDC

[rdanhenry]

The Talents that change progression are only for those that are already Special (i.e., those that already vary from character to character based on race). Therefore, the Talents do not create a new type of progression, they merely alter the special nature of a member of the Special progression type.

[markc]

I have also created talents that modify the skill progressions the same way, ie +1 to the progression for Long Sword.
MDC

[Marc R]

I've always averaged the bonuses. . .I've been wrong in the past though, it appears I am wrong in this instance, per the RAW.

As a point of reference. . .in my games when you resist Channeling it's at In bonus (or x3 IN bonus) and when you resist Essence it's at Em bonus, but when you resist a Sorcerer's Essence/Channeling hybrid lists, you resist them at the average (In/Em)/2 i.e. (inx3)+(emx3)/2

I think that makes sense, and establishes a precedent, in the sense that if you're averaging the racial stat bonus, you should be averaging the RR bonus, which gives you bonuses all around the same range, rather than have the bonuses for hybrids be radically higher or lower than for pure.

Rdan is correct above, the reference is in RMFRP Character Law page 16.

Hybrid caster casting a spell from a pure list, it's resisted as the pure single realm as normal.

For hybrids casting spells off hybrid base lists . .rather than (Emx3)+(Inx3)/2, it says to use Em+In, and that if either realm of the hybrid spell corresponds to the target's realm they get the +15 own realm bonus, and you use the BAR column that's most to the target's advantage. . .

RMSS Spell law uses the text lifted from RM2 SL, so I don't think it applies, especially since the RMSS core book text seems to match the RMFRP CL text.

So it seems Peter's comment above makes sense, though it makes Hybrid lists very hard to use on many targets, especially them Dwarves, and makes the bonuses vs hybrid lists scale somewhat differently from pure RR bonuses.

I couldn't find any actual book reference explicit in the racial RR bonuses vs Hybrid spells though, it only discusses the stat bonuses. . .if anyone finds the reference, or the errata, a point there would be much appreciated.

[Ecthelion]

After taking a look at the RM2 Character Law + Spell Law as well as RMSS Standard Rules + Spell Law I found out the following (most of which other already have mentioned above):
- RM2 Spell Law states that for Hybrid RRs the stat bonuses of the realm stats of the affected realms get averaged. So if a character who gets affected by a Sorcerer's spell has +10 In bonus and +20 Em bonus, then he gets +15 stat bonus vs. the Sorcerer's spell. I found no reference concerning racial RR bonuses.
- RMSS Spell Law also states that the stat bonuses get averaged, but the Standard Rules book says the realm stats of the affected realms get added. Here a character with e.g. +4 In bonus and +4 Em bonus gets +8 against a Sorcerer's spells. Please note that this character would get +4x3 = +12 against pure Channeling spells and also +4x3 +12 against Pure Essence spells. Again no reference concerning the racial bonuses.

For RM2 it seems relatively clear to me, that, with stat bonuses getting averaged, racial bonuses also should.

For RMSS/RMFRP it looks a little more complicated, at least at first sight:
The notion of stat bonuses getting added seems to imply that racial bonuses also should simply get added instead of getting averaged. But this adding the bonuses is a bit misleading. It should be noted that against a single realm the realm stat gets added three times (kind of three stats get added)! For simplification (and only for simplification I dare say, not with the intention of changing a rule) the RMSS authors avoided averaging the stats, which would lead to Marc's formula (Emx3)+(Inx3)/2, and instead simply added the two stats involved. This leads to a bit lower (!) bonus vs. Hybrid Spell Users on average than against the single realms (see my example above, where the bonus vs. the single realms is +12, while the bonus against the Sorcerer's spells is only +8, despite of the two realm stats being the same).

So what's happening in RMSS/RMFRP, where you almost always have three stats added for skills and RRs, when looking from a RM2 perspective of how stat bonuses get handled, is that against Hybrid spells a third (!) of each of the two affected realm stats gets added and applied to the RR. Then coming to the conclusion that the full (!) value of the racial bonuses should get added seems very strange to me.

Therefore IMO the most coherent solution for RMSS/RMFRP would be to average the Racial bonuses of the affected realms. So against a Sorcerer's spells the RR bonus would be In + Em + (Racial Essence RR bonus + Racial Channeling RR bonus) / 2. This is the simplified formula following RAW. Personally I prefer the more "accurate" formula, that Marc stated above, and will continue using (In * 3 + Racial Essence RR bonus + Em * 3 + Racial Channeling RR bonus) / 2.

Just my 2 cents