Topic: definition of spell group?

[Yseulte Harper]

Since I'm a federal employee kept home by the snow here in Maryland, I was working with a gaming group member on his character for our first RM campaign. I was stumped by one of the Animist profession bonuses -- for a "spell group." I'm assuming that a spell group is more than a list, but less than a realm. Does a player get to define his own spell group? I was disappointed that the term was not defined in the base book's otherwise helpful list of definitions.

 

[yammahoper]

Catagories can be dscribed in groups, such as weapon, stealth and spell, which have more than one category.  So all categories in a group receive the bonus.  Every profession has one of these.  In Profession design (covered in the CHanneling Companion), it is recommended a profession rarely receive more than one Category Group to assign a Profession bonus too (of up to +20).

[gog]

Could also be the groups found in the back of Essence companion

[Tommi]

For Animist It means that in RMSS you got +5 to all spell lists (skills).
Example: animist (RMSS) baselists +10, opens +5 , closed +0, general +50, In bonus +8, Animist profession +5 to group:
Category bonus for spell casting : open lists 50 (general)+5 (open list) +8 (stat) +5 (profession bonus) = 68 ; closed 50+0+8+5 =63; base 50+10+8+5 =73

Most professions get several groups for profession bonuses e.g. fighter gets armor and weapon,  Thief gets awareness, subterfuge and weapon

 

[Yseulte Harper]

I appreciate all the attempts to help me. I must not have been clear in phrasing my question. I believe I understand how profession bonuses work in general. I just don't know how many or which spell lists would be included in a "spell group".  If giving  a bonus for the base lists, why not just say it applies to the base lists? Could a player define all the lists he knows as his "spell group" and take the bonus for all of them? I'd just like a definition of the term "spell group".

[rdanhenry]

The definition is on p.30 of the RMSR. If you are using RMFRP, I'm afraid I cannot help you locate it there, but I can quote it:

Certain skill categories are grouped together for the purpose of development point assignment during the character creation process (see Section 15.0) and for profession bonuses (see Section 11.2). Skill categories in the same group start with the same word followed by a bullet (i.e., a "•").

Thus the Animist gains a +5 bonus to his Spell Casting Static Maneuvers with all spells.

[Cory Magel]

Weapons Group = All Weapons Groups = All Weapons.  Same with Spells.

[MariusH]

Like Cory said: The "Spell group" is the group of skills that govern spells - in other words, all spell lists. +5 to all SCSM, in practice.

[Yseulte Harper]

 Thanks to you all, I've go it now. I never imagined it could be so simple.