Topic: Learning spell lists

[Draeck]

Having been not playing RM for over a decade, I'm taking my time to try and thoroughly relearn the game. Am I reading the rules correctly that a Magician who spends 45 DP a level at 10th level would know their 6 base lists + their 4 bonus lists ( from character creation) to 10th level?
 And that would be all that they knew in the way of spells unless they spent more DP/level or learned less in some of base lists so that they could learn other lists?
I don't remember it being so hard to learn  spell lists, but I want to make sure I am reading this correctly.

Draeck

[Kristen Mork]

Base lists cost 3/3/3, so 45 DP per level allows a caster to learn 3 ranks of 5 lists every level.  Doing this for 10 levels = 30 ranks of 5 lists, or 15 ranks of 10 lists.  So, the 10th level Magician will know all of his base lists (6+4) to level 15.

[yammahoper]

It goes like this:

45 dev is five base list three levels.
Next level, five other base list three levels is 45 additional dev.
Next level, 60 dev is a mix of five additional open or closed list three levels.

So at third level, the mage has 15 list to level 3.

Keeping this pattern of development, the mage will have 15 list to his level.

At level 21 our mage has 15 list to level 21.  Well, probably 10 base to 21 and any closed list will stop being developed at that point due to cost, while the open may or may not continue.  At this point, the mage may wish to develop new list.

A friendly GM might allow a level 20 PC to develop a new list the allowed 15 levels in one level at 4/4/4, this being roughly the same as five list at cost.  Some GM's might want to use skills such as teaching for intensive learning, time requirements, etc.  This would allow the mage at each level of advancement to learn a new spell list available 15 levels, mastering to his level a list in two levels of advancement.  If allowed, a restriction of one list being uber advanced a level sounds reasonable...unless you think high level sell users should be able to qickly learn list.  HARP has simular rules I understand.

[Draeck]

Is there Errata for learning spell lists? Or is this process RM2 or RMC?

In RMFRP (core rules), pp. 33-lower right hand side "Known Spells": " 'knows' all spells on a spell list that have a level less than or equal to his "SKILL RANK" for that spell list. (emphasis by me) This passage is repeated on pp. 127 and pp. 152.

Where are the different rules written?

[Draeck]

I am assuming that pure magic users  want to do a few things besisdes learn spells each level, so that's why I'm assuming only 45 Dp's spent per level on spell points.
It costs 45 DP to learn all 10 of your base lists to level 1. For 2nd level another 45 DP would learn all 10 lists to 2nd level and so on to 10th level.
As this appears to be written a pure magic user will find it hard to learn  more than about 10 lists ( learned to his actual level) unless he choose to not be as strong in his preferred lists so as to learn a little bit in a greater number of lists.

I seem to remember being able to learn more spell lists and the higher parts of the lists much easier than this.

[Kristen Mork]

It only costs 30 DP to learn all 10 base lists to level 1.  Nobody in their right mind pays the x2 cost to learn all 10 spell lists at the same time.  At level 1 you can spend 30 DP to learn 5 lists to level 2.  At level 2 you spend 30 more DP to learn the other 5 lists to level 2.  Voila, at level 2 you have all 10 spell lists to level 2 for only 30 DP per level.

(Personally, I find the DP cost multipliers for learning more than 5 spell lists to be silly, and certainly not worth the hassle of tracking.)

[mocking bird]

Is there Errata for learning spell lists? Or is this process RM2 or RMC?

In RMFRP (core rules), pp. 33-lower right hand side "Known Spells": " 'knows' all spells on a spell list that have a level less than or equal to his "SKILL RANK" for that spell list. (emphasis by me) This passage is repeated on pp. 127 and pp. 152.

Where are the different rules written?

You can have greater ranks in a spell list than your level.  Overcasting or casting without prep, ie not automatically casting, greatly affects your scsm however.  In general we have found that having greater ranks in healing spells can be very beneficial where you have the time to prep for multiple rounds before casting.

[Marc R]

I never quite got the meta game logic here, I'd think that as GM I'd prefer my pure casters to go after as many lists as possible, and stick close to their level, rather than this system, which discourages excessive spreading and encourages you to buy in large blocks of ranks. . .which leads to a lot of overcasting. (I have it 5 ranks over level, might as well use it!)

[markc]

I never quite got the meta game logic here, I'd think that as GM I'd prefer my pure casters to go after as many lists as possible, and stick close to their level, rather than this system, which discourages excessive spreading and encourages you to buy in large blocks of ranks. . .which leads to a lot of overcasting. (I have it 5 ranks over level, might as well use it!)

 IMHO I think they are trying to replicate that learning a spell that has a direct impact on another spell is easier to do than to learn a whole bunch of spells that use different methods to achieve their results.
  Also IMHO the level has very little impact on the game but the # of ranks in a list does. Some people even use the # of ranks in a list as the spell casters level in the list with all that entails for spell lower or equal to their level. There are still penalties for casting spells higher than their level but IMHO the benefits far out way the drawbacks.


MDC

[Rigby]

(Personally, I find the DP cost multipliers for learning more than 5 spell lists to be silly, and certainly not worth the hassle of tracking.)

Agreed. I ignore this rule in my games. Also Talent Law provides options for PC's to begin with more spell ranks.

[Old Man]

I never quite got the meta game logic here, I'd think that as GM I'd prefer my pure casters to go after as many lists as possible, and stick close to their level, rather than this system, which discourages excessive spreading and encourages you to buy in large blocks of ranks. . .which leads to a lot of overcasting. (I have it 5 ranks over level, might as well use it!)

RM2-wise, I did such. Casters can attempt up to their base PP (1, 2, 3 or 4) in Lists per level. I use the Prime stat adds to the roll option. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[Ynglaur]

I like the idea of separating knowledge from skill, and using Skill Rank as the latter, ignoring character level entirely.  If you have 5 ranks in List ABC, you cast that List as 5th level.  Maybe you stole some spells from the master's grimoire and know an 8th level spell from the list.  That would be overcasting.

[markc]

I like the idea of separating knowledge from skill, and using Skill Rank as the latter, ignoring character level entirely.  If you have 5 ranks in List ABC, you cast that List as 5th level.  Maybe you stole some spells from the master's grimoire and know an 8th level spell from the list.  That would be overcasting.

 IMHO this works very well when I have seen it used in RM games.
MDC