Ardenas Barehand:
As things stand now, just getting a Staff spell cast on a stick will cost you $500 -- since Staff is an enchantment and there's no more Q&D.
Eh... actually, Staff is the one (and only one) Enchantment still at 1$ per point in DFRPG.
Becuase DFRPG doesn't tell you the points, just the costs, and an Staff Enchanted with Staff is 100$.
I know, I know...
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Gandalf used a sword, too -- unless someone's going to try to tell me Glamdring was actually a staff.
Nothing stopping Wizards in DF from learning Swording skills.
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The Gray Mouser was a perfectly capable sorcerer when he could get hold of a spell, but he was far better known for his skill with lockpicks and with his rapier and dagger (Needle and Cat's Claw).
No he wasn't. He was a garbage mage. Sure, give him a scroll and he'd muddle along from it, but I'd at best give him Thaumatology of no better than 10 in GURPS standards. He'd have it at Default with the Dabbler Perk most likely.
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I am interested in learning how RPM and its offshoots (Sorcery, for instance) work, because I very much like the idea of different kinds of magic that work differently (big fan of Lawrence Watt-Evans), but they seem to be based on rules from Powers that never made any sense to me, and I'm not at all sure they're balanced against Magic (Powers certainly isn't).
RPM is Energy Accumulation. You have Thaumatology and a set of magic Path Skills that determine your capacity at putting together ritual magic. With the right Advantages you can whip up spells in about 10-30 seconds (every 'time unit'* you make a Gathering Energy roll and either eventually gather the energy needed to cast the spell or fail or fail spectacularly), faster with pre-cast 'hung' spells stored as Charms (which are single cast use objects). It's really no more exp expensive than Spells as Skills (Basic Magic).
* Once per five minutes without the Ritual Adept Advantage, once per 5 seconds with it. Both type (Adepts and non-Adepts) can speed this up by taking penalties, down to 1 roll per second. So if you're really skilled, and casting a really cheap spell, you can cast it in 1 sec. this however is not the norm as, for instance, a 3d Fireball spell is 18 energy.
Advantages: It's a very flexible magic system, allowing ritualists to develop new rituals on the fly.
Disadvantages: It's a very flexible magic system, allowing ritualists to develop new rituals on the fly.
Incantations are... ahhh... Time Accumulation Rituals. You build the ritual the same as with RPM, but instead of determining how much Energy it takes, you determine how much time it
takes. The average 3d Fireball is 5 minutes to cast. Period. Incanters get around these long cast times by preparing their spells in advance... as Spell Slots, just like f-ing D&D Wizards, which I find... repelling. They can also store them as Infusions (potions) and Scripts (scrolls). Also not really any more exp heavy than standard Magic.
Advantage/Disadvantage: See above, but less likely to have a an Incanter trying out new rituals in the midst of combat.
Sorcery is straight up Powers/Advantages as Spells. Want a Fireball spell? It's built as Innate Attack. Sorcery is bloody handed exp expensive. The average starting DF Sorcery is probably packing around 10-15 spells. However, it's fast and FP cheap.
Ads: Fast to cast, FP cheap.
Disad: Exp expensive, narrow spellcasting choices in the beginning (not a broad range of spells on the sheet).
Chye Isuel:
aragorn was a ranger above third level, so he had access to druid spells, including cure light wounds xD
What? No.
He obviously had Herbalism at 76% or higher and had Healing Arts spells. As per the proper system to run Middle Earth in... MERP.