Topic: Spell Mastery uses?

[Justin]

What have been some of your uses of Spell Mastery? Especially outside of elemental spells.

If your experience is with RMC Spell Mastery, please educate me about any difference between RM2 and RMC Spell Mastery.

[Peter R]

I have used both RM2 and RMC spell mastery and to my experience there is no difference unless you choose to apply additional optional rules (10.2, 15.1 &15.2) to it.

In practice RMC characters have less skills than RM2 characters, assuming RoCoII is in play which means that RMC spell users may end up with more spells they have mastery in. As a GM my players know that I 'expect' them to have some spell mastery skills if they 'expect' me to rule in their favour when they ask 'can I use this spell to...'. The answer is almost always to roll a spell mastery.

Some of the uses in actual play have been to put a slight curve on spell effects that would otherwise be staight line. As in' bend it like Beckam with a fireball'.
There is a spell that gives +5OB and +5DB (warrior mage base I beleive) that has shifted to give more OB than DB.
It was used to give a slight delay in detonation on a fireball, just enough time for someone else to slam a door closed.
It was used to move a circle of flame.
When summoning it is used to get a greater chance of summoning a specific species.
Dodge (Evasions, Monk Base) it was used to get more DB.
Life Giving it was used to reduce the recovery period but that was an NPC and I wanted the PC back up and in the game sooner rather than later.

[choc]

SM is very useful for haste spells. double/triple time.
We also use SM for self-to-touch, double targets etc

[Peter R]

SM is very useful for haste spells. double/triple time.
We also use SM for self-to-touch, double targets etc

As a GM, in my game, I would not allow you to increase the duration of haste spells using Spell Mastery. That would cross the line IMO into turning a lower level spell into a higher level spell. Turning Haste I into Haste II or Haste II into Haste IV.

If a player wanted to double the number of people effected by a spell then there would be a compensating reduction either in range or duration as I saw fit. Spell Mastery, again in my opinion, does not create any more magic it just  uses the caster's skill to craft it more to the caster's needs.

[Spectre771]

I have to agree with PeterR.  SM wasn't intended to make "more" out of "given amount."  That's been our interpretation across all the GMs we had for RM.  There are conventions and specific rules for "Increase duration", "Increase # of targets", etc. and the challenges/penalties can be pretty steep.

Spell Mastery, as we saw it, was to "have the fireball curve around an obstacle to hit the target", or "use the ball or darkness to obscure the light of a moving torch", "use a gust of wind to get the paper on the desk to blow out the window to the waiting person below", "make the fireball pause 3 seconds before exploding." It was just minor tweaks to basic mechanics to make something a little trickier occur.

We had one player who used to use SM to create a giant, "frightening" show of summoning the holy powers of the heavens so scare of hordes of goblins or simple peasant folk.  The fiery, scary light show did nothing to enhance the attack spell, but it made those watching it tend to break morale and to flee.  The better the SM roll, the more showy and believable it was and therefore the more difficult on the RR to not flee.

[Marrethiel]

In a very high level campaign my character was attacked and got a crit that was something like "twists 180 degrees, spine is broken." Seeing as I had no back up and needed something straight away I asked the GM if I could cast a forcefield spell and wrap it tight around me... He paused, and gave me a large minus to my spell mastery roll which I made. I effectively used the spell as an exoskeleton and said to my attacker (another player, it was one of those types of games), "You [male child born out of wedlock], that's going to take me at least ten minutes to heal!" He freaked and ran away...

[Peter R]

Now that is the sort of thing I would encourage people to do with spell mastery.

[Ynglaur]

In a very high level campaign my character was attacked and got a crit that was something like "twists 180 degrees, spine is broken." Seeing as I had no back up and needed something straight away I asked the GM if I could cast a forcefield spell and wrap it tight around me... He paused, and gave me a large minus to my spell mastery roll which I made. I effectively used the spell as an exoskeleton and said to my attacker (another player, it was one of those types of games), "You [male child born out of wedlock], that's going to take me at least ten minutes to heal!" He freaked and ran away...

That has Glen Cook written all over it.

[Marrethiel]

That has Glen Cook written all over it.

I'll have to see if I can find one of his books, they look interesting. Thanks