A Question on Experience Packages

[OriginalLadders]

Hello all,

I was gifted the Rivers of London RPG book, being a known fan of the novels, this christmas just gone. I've never played any D100 system before but so far I'm loving the system.

My question is on the experience packages in the advanced character creation rules; specifically the spellcaster experience package and the number of spells a character taking it starts with.

My interpretation is that, where a character starting with the magical advantage starts with three spells (one mastered), a character with the spellcaster experience package would start with five spells (two mastered). Essentially that the package gives two extra spells and one mastery, as well as the increase in the magic skill.

I have seen a different interpretation on another forum and I wanted to query it here. In essence this interpretation is that the five spells (two mastered) are in addition to the three spells (one mastered) granted by the magical advantage, therefore starting with a total of eight spells (three mastered).

I tried to figure this out myself by comparing to the other experience packages, which all seem to boil down to giving the character six development points to use at the start of the game, with specific restrictions on them, but neither interpretation of the spellcaster experience package matches up with this.

My interpretation has the package being worth four development points (two for spells, one for a mastery, and one for increasing the magic skill), besides the obvious problem of this making the package comparatively weaker than the others, it also violates the rule that you must master two spells of one order before mastering a spell in the order above, as this interpretation gives you one first order spell mastered and one second order spell mastered.

The other interpretation has the package being worth eight development points (five for spells, two for masteries, and one for increasing the magic skill), while this interpretation doesn't violate the rule about mastering spells, it does overcorrect in the other direction by making the package comparatively stronger than the others.

Is there any official ruling or clarification on this that I've missed?

[Lynne H]

It's definitely that you start with FIVE spells in total, two of them mastered.

If you'd rather not have the slight rules bend of a first and a second order spell mastered with that package, you could make it so that your players' two mastered spells are both first order.

 

Edited January 22 by Lynne H

[g33k]

19 hours ago, OriginalLadders said:

...

I tried to figure this out myself by comparing to the other experience packages, which all seem to boil down to giving the character six development points to use at the start of the game, with specific restrictions on them...

My interpretation has the package being worth four development points (two for spells, one for a mastery, and one for increasing the magic skill), besides the obvious problem of this making the package comparatively weaker than the others, it also violates the rule that you must master two spells of one order before mastering a spell in the order above, as this interpretation gives you one first order spell mastered and one second order spell mastered...

1 hour ago, Lynne H said:

It's definitely that you start with FIVE spells in total, two of them mastered.

If you'd rather not have the slight rules bend of a first and a second order spell mastered with that package, you could make it so that your players' two mastered spells are both first order.

@OriginalLadders you could also consider that the higher-level mastery (beyond what the basic rules permit) is equivalent to getting an extra development-point.

That is, rather than being a collection of randomly-discrepant exceptions, it's a suite of curated, balanced exceptions...  😁

[OriginalLadders]

7 hours ago, Lynne H said:

It's definitely that you start with FIVE spells in total, two of them mastered.

If you'd rather not have the slight rules bend of a first and a second order spell mastered with that package, you could make it so that your players' two mastered spells are both first order.

 

Thanks for confirming. I thought the eight spell interpretation was dubious, but it's always good to get clarification from an authority.

5 hours ago, g33k said:

@OriginalLadders you could also consider that the higher-level mastery (beyond what the basic rules permit) is equivalent to getting an extra development-point.

That is, rather than being a collection of randomly-discrepant exceptions, it's a suite of curated, balanced exceptions...  😁

That certainly makes sense, bending the rules a bit at the start is certainly better balanced than allowing someone to start with six spells and half of them mastered.

Lore-wise it also makes sense that someone who learnt a lot of magic outside the strict tuition of the Folly might have rushed the fundamentals.