Topic: Spell list picks instead of individual spell development in RMSS

[mibsweden]

I recently changed to RMSS, and we like it alot. We removed a few redundant skills and now it is working perfectly.

One thing our group did not like was individual spell development.

So we decided that a normal person in RMC has 55 average stat, meaning 5 development points per level. Plus 25% extra for the secondary skills. That is 31.25 DP per level.

An average person in RMSS has 55 DPs per level. The difference here is 76%. So we decided that spell list picks should be 76% more expensive than the RMC values presented in the RMC Spell Law book. Alternatively you could go with twice the cost, but we chose to use 76%, calculated after all spell list DPs are spent, rounded of to the nearest whole number.

[Arioch]

One thing our group did not like was individual spell development.

Hmmm... in RMSS there's no individual spell development: characters develop whole spell lists as skills.

[markc]

 mibssweeden,
 I think mibssweeden is saying that he uses the RM2/C spell aquisition system instead of buying spells 1 rank at a time.

 This is one of the things I really like a bout RM. Manny groups can essentially play the same game but have different house rules.

MDC

[mibsweden]

mibssweeden,
 I think mibssweeden is saying that he uses the RM2/C spell aquisition system instead of buying spells 1 rank at a time.

 This is one of the things I really like a bout RM. Manny groups can essentially play the same game but have different house rules.

MDC

Yes! That is what I am saying

[Cormac Doyle]

I gotta laugh ... the original RM spell acquisition only **barely** managed to survive into RMC - we only found one person who had ever used it!

[Balhirath]

I gotta laugh ... the original RM spell acquisition only **barely** managed to survive into RMC - we only found one person who had ever used it!

Hmm I use it too and I know at least 2 other GM's that use it as well

[pastaav]

Strange...why is that you prefer spell picks?

I always found the spell picks horrible in pratice since they played havoc on cost-benefit-ratio.

[mibsweden]

I gotta laugh ... the original RM spell acquisition only **barely** managed to survive into RMC - we only found one person who had ever used it!

I gotta laugh ... the original RM spell acquisition only **barely** managed to survive into RMC - we only found one person who had ever used it!

The reason why we wanted to keep the old system are:

The cost for non-spell users to develop spells is extremely high. Our old RM2 Rogue has six spell lists to level 5, only using 6 picks, and with stat bonus he has them all at level 20. With our optional rule to practise 1 skill rank each half level that was not so bad for him cost-wise. Under the RMSS/RMFRP system such a diverse character simply is not possible. The RMSS/RMFRP system just makes characters more tightly keyed to their primary role, with less room for development of areas that makes your character unique or special, at least not without spending way to many development points in those areas. Also the fact that your realm stat not matters at all when you develop spells is something that we do not like.

But I am happy I made you laugh.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Are you saying that he made ALL his spell gain rolls with only one rank in each pick (plus stat bonus from what you said)?

The way that the spell pick rules are supposed to work are that you buy ranks in a list, and then roll, adding the bonus (+5 for each rank purchased for that list) from those ranks to the roll, and if you get 100 or better, you learn that portion.

6 picks (I presume you mean ranks here) to get 6 lists would means that he rolled 95+ every single time that he tried to learn a list.

Purchasing 1 rank does not automatically give access to a whole section of spells. But that is what it seems that you are saying.

[Arioch]

mibssweeden,
 I think mibssweeden is saying that he uses the RM2/C spell aquisition system instead of buying spells 1 rank at a time.

 This is one of the things I really like a bout RM. Manny groups can essentially play the same game but have different house rules.

MDC

Yes! That is what I am saying

Oh, OK!

The reason why we wanted to keep the old system are:

The cost for non-spell users to develop spells is extremely high. Our old RM2 Rogue has six spell lists to level 5, only using 6 picks, and with stat bonus he has them all at level 20. With our optional rule to practise 1 skill rank each half level that was not so bad for him cost-wise. Under the RMSS/RMFRP system such a diverse character simply is not possible. The RMSS/RMFRP system just makes characters more tightly keyed to their primary role, with less room for development of areas that makes your character unique or special, at least not without spending way to many development points in those areas. Also the fact that your realm stat not matters at all when you develop spells is something that we do not like.

But I am happy I made you laugh.

There are simplier solutions to this problem:
- Use talents like "Power"  to give character "free" ranks in spell lists, or other Talents which make possible learing spell lists at reduced cost.
- Use TP to give character access to spell lists at reduced cost.
- Reduce the cost of spell lists for all non-spell users (Warning: potentially unbalancing!).
- Change the profession of the Thief character, maybe in a semi-spell user, like a Dabbler, which might better fit the character's concept.

Under the RMSS/RMFRP system such a diverse character simply is not possible.

Actually is quite possible, it's just that the rules are a bit different than RMC ones (and professions are a little more balanced IMHO). You just need the right combination of Talents and TPs and you can have any character you want  

[mibsweden]

Are you saying that he made ALL his spell gain rolls with only one rank in each pick (plus stat bonus from what you said)?

The way that the spell pick rules are supposed to work are that you buy ranks in a list, and then roll, adding the bonus (+5 for each rank purchased for that list) from those ranks to the roll, and if you get 100 or better, you learn that portion.

6 picks (I presume you mean ranks here) to get 6 lists would means that he rolled 95+ every single time that he tried to learn a list.

Purchasing 1 rank does not automatically give access to a whole section of spells. But that is what it seems that you are saying.

Ah sorry, we are also using the optional rule to get your realm stat bonus to spell list acquisition. And he is a charming bugger - and has Mentalism realm.

[Arioch]

Which spell lists did this character have?

[markc]

 I have tened to see GM's and players who roll very well for charater gen. to like the spell aq better than the DP per rank method. And of course the people who roll poorly like the other way better.

 As long as the GM is consistant it is good but if a GM is a lucky roller and the PC's are not it can really skew the bad guys spell selection and power vs the PC's.
MDC

[Ecthelion]

Personally I think it is a step backward to use the old RM2 way of developing spells. The Individual Spell Development rules are IMO a major improvement from RM2 to RMSS. I agree that, with very high spell stat bonuses and the optional rule to use the spell stat bonus to improve the chances of learning a spell list, some RM2 non-spell users could learn a spell list once every few levels with considerably little effort. If your rule helps you to simulate this, then use it, but I will certainly stick to the standard RMSS way of developing spells for characters.

I also think that it is easily possible to create RMSS non-spells users which have access to a bunch of spells. If you look e.g. at the character Malagant in the Character Gallery on my homepage, then you will see a RMSS Rogue that has learned 15 spells on 7 different lists. This is certainly not the same amount of spells that your above example Rogue has (6x5 = 30 spells), but with the individual selection of spells the RMSS Rogue probably has the same number of spells that he can actually use regularly (sometimes you had to learn a RM2 list to 5th level or so for just one useful spell). So in the end I think the changes you made are not even really needed.

Just my 2 cents

[vroomfogle]

For me the main problem with the old acquisition method is it causes havoc with what levels signify.   Levels should be a good estimate to approximate power level of a PC or creature.  Random SLA introduces another random variable here (along with stat gains and variable DP's which already create 'noise' in this estimate).   Now, depending on the SLA rolls a level 5 could be closer to an average level 2 or closer to an average level 8 quite easily.

[Dark Schneider]

An average person in RMSS has 55 DPs per level

I have 95 DPs, yes, I sacrifice skill-bonus stats and I put my greater rolls in DP-stats (but QU), I think for a spell-user that needs to develop many spells DPs are more important.
But in any case I think combining (not using high rolls only for skill-bonus stats) you easily can have about 65-70 DPs for non-spell users (our fighter has that amount) and about 80 DPs for spell users. More magical characters IMO needs more DPs, so spread your rolls wisely.
We use potential rolls for DP purpose since level 1 as it needs less book-kepping , and is in low levels when you need more the DPs!.

Individual spell dev. is 1 of the best ideas in RMFRP as it allows to develop any list exactly at the limit you want. So I strongly recommend not to change it.