Powers: extension and improvements

[Zit]

Please tell me if I understood well:

Improving means augmenting the power attributes except duration, even if the attributes are not manipulate

Extending means augmenting the effect duration

If I want to only improve a power, I need to win a Conflict vs. value

If I want to only extend a power, I just need to pre-activate it and multiply the cost (Life Points or whatever the system requires) by the Time Scale.

When extending + improving, only a conflict (improvement with possible consequences) is required with the value multiplied by the time scale. No pre-activation is required, leaving the channeling free.

Question about Extending Blessings, p. 199 : "With Narrator approval, you can use Ritual casting to extend and improve a Blessing". Even if only extending it ? This would contradict the side note on page 176, where pre-activation should be used when only extending a power.

[RosenMcStern]

Improving means doing something on a different scale with the power, not just improving the attributes. The best example of this is the mages in Red Moon Rising. An air mage can shoot lightning in combat. Outside combat, when using ritual casting for his powers, he can make storms. Sure, the magic is improved in range, but its scope is altered, too: from a mere weapon to manipulating the environment. Please note that there are no ritual/environmental powers in Rd100: players create their environmental effects in game - like in 13th Age - by freeforming their combat spells. This is also a solution to the "but no one will sacrifice for Bless Crops or Cloud Call" problem. There is no Bless Crops spell, you just ritualise a Fertility spell like Healing Touch and use it in a freeform conflict to improve crop yield. Similarly, using Project Lightning on a scale of several kilometres around you can cause a thunderstorm.

Extending means increasing the effect duration to a higher time scale, and requires pre-casting, not a conflict. You do not expend extra Life Points in this case, because you do this outside Combat and Life Points simply do not exist outside combat. You just get a Consequence if you pre-cast stuff equal to your Channelling.

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When extending + improving, only a conflict (improvement with possible consequences) is required with the value multiplied by the time scale. No pre-activation is required, leaving the channeling free.

Correct.

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Question about Extending Blessings, p. 199 : "With Narrator approval, you can use Ritual casting to extend and improve a Blessing". Even if only extending it ? This would contradict the side note on page 176, where pre-activation should be used when only extending a power.

Both these paragraphs hint at the fact that the Narrator will probably need to make a ruling on the spot. In the case of Divine Blessing, the above only applies to a character willing to cast a Blessing in Narrative Time for duration purposes only, and this should be determined on a case-by-case basis, the default being "not recommended". If not enforcing the "ritual required" rule for divine magic in Narrative Time, it would become much more powerful than arcane magic, which has the advantage of being eminently extensible. If trying to extend any effect to Downtime, the magician is in fact Enchanting, and this will require a ritual (Improved casting) in any case.

[Zit]

So how do you find the Value of the improved power for the Conflict setting if freeforming ? You still need to refer to the attributes, don't you ?

 

1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

You just get a Consequence if you pre-cast stuff equal to your Channelling.

?? I haven't seen this. And I don't see the point here

 

p.176, extended range: "...when a skilled power user unleashes his or her paranormal abilities
with an extended Activation procedure, this line of sight limitation is broken"

What is this "extended Activation" ? Pre-activation or ritual casting (conflict) ? If I extend the duration using pre-activation, does it extend the range ?

Edited June 15, 2017 by Zit

[RosenMcStern]

13 hours ago, Zit said:

So how do you find the Value of the improved power for the Conflict setting if freeforming ? You still need to refer to the attributes, don't you ?

Yes. You have to count Range for sure if you are enlarging the area or range of effect. And you have at least 1 point of Might, sometimes more when the base power has more than 1 point of base Might (for example a Confusion cantrip, or Invisibility). After which you multiply the value by 3 or 4 for the time scale. So imagine you want to enchant a forest to confound the senses of anyone crossing it. You want to leverage your Mass Confusion blessing, which is 2 points base Might, plus one point to add a close Radius of WIL x10, which is enough to cover a medium sized forest. In this case, the GM may want to force the caster to add the Target attribute, too, which is 7 for Mass Confusion, meaning the forest can affect up to 7 targets at a time. That would be 10 points of Value (2+1+7), which becomes 40 for a permanent effect. Stuff that would take Galadriel to perform.

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? I haven't seen this. And I don't see the point here

P.175, "costs of pre-activation" sidebar. The rule is actually optional, but recommended when players use a lot of tactical pre-activation before combat. The advantage here is that if you enter Advanced Combat after using all of your resources for spellcasting you immediately know that you have -10 to Life Points, whereas if you enter Basic Combat or another kind of conflict you have one standard Consequence, which is already covered by standard Conflict rules. It really cannot be simpler than that: you pre-activate up to Channelling - 1, all ok; you pre-activate up to Channelling, -10 to LP or one Consequence for next combat/conflict. The Narrator might even wish to keep the Consequence as a Consequence even in Advanced Combat, as in this way it would make the character more vulnerable to offensive powers.

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p.176, extended range: "...when a skilled power user unleashes his or her paranormal abilities
with an extended Activation procedure, this line of sight limitation is broken"

What is this "extended Activation" ? Pre-activation or ritual casting (conflict) ? If I extend the duration using pre-activation, does it extend the range ?

Typo. It should be "improved activation". Unfortunately, I could not use the term "ritual casting" because it would be inappropriate to psionics, although it is immensely clearer to understand when you are talking about magic. I could not find a better term than "improved activation", which sometimes invites confusion with "extended activation".

[Zit]

7 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

 Radius of WIL x10, which is enough to cover a medium sized forest.

I think you mean 10km, which is close range for Narrative Time and Downtime.

According to the chart on page 178 "power duration summary", the extended range comes with the extended duration only if the power has been ritually extended, that is with a conflict: "If ritually cast, range may increase to kilometres.". This would mean that when extended with the pre-activation procedure (no ritual), the range remains in meters. Right ?

Edited June 16, 2017 by Zit

[RosenMcStern]

Yes, 10 km. If you extend a power with the pre-activation procedure range remains in zones/metres, and it is hardly relevant because in most cases you will cast an enhancement spell on a character. Only when you pre-cast some detection magic (rare but possible) is range relevant, and in this case it is the same you would apply in combat.

[Zit]

p.175 : "Normally, each pre-activated power occupies
Channelling points equal to the number of Life Points it would cost in Advanced
Combat, but the relevant Power System description may include specific rules,
instead"

p. 198: "The invocation of a Blessing in Combat takes one Concentration action, and costs
no Life Points" (and p. 173: "Some powers like Divine Blessings do not require
an Activation roll or the expenditure of Life Points")

p. 199: "With Narrator approval, you can use Ritual casting to extend and improve a Blessing,"

So I suppose that extending a Blessing can only be done with a ritual, not with pre-activating otherwise it would cost no channeling.

But p. 196: "As already explained, Holiness has the same function as Channelling, that is it
limits the number of multi-use powers that a believer can pre-activate or sustain
with extended duration."

Shall this sentence be removed ? Or does Or did I miss a point ?

[RosenMcStern]

33 minutes ago, Zit said:

So I suppose that extending a Blessing can only be done with a ritual, not with pre-activating otherwise it would cost no channeling.

Correct.

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But p. 196: "As already explained, Holiness has the same function as Channelling, that is it
limits the number of multi-use powers that a believer can pre-activate or sustain
with extended duration."

Shall this sentence be removed ? Or does Or did I miss a point ?

The term "multi-use powers" hints at the fact that this sentence applies to Cantrips. not Blessings. Pre-activation of Cantrips is an important tactical choice if you are expecting trouble.

Divine magic in Revolution can take many forms. Some cults have only Blessings (see Merrie England), others have a mixture of cantrips and blessings in classic RQ style. Others yet are spirit cults, like the cult of Ragana in the examples, and provide only cantrips (in a more advanced campaign they would probably use your own rules for shamanism).

In the version of Buddhism that I used in my own Sengoku campaign (quite different from Runeblogger's one for Mythras, which he has just released on his blog), Zen and Mikkyo schools teach only cantrips, not Blessings. And it worked quite well, cantrips decided the course of a battle more often than not and we did not feel the lack of Blessings at all.

In all of these context, "Holiness", that is the character's ability to focus his mind and meditate upon the nature of the Spirit World, or the teachings of the Buddhas, acts like Channelling does for arcane magicians or psychichs: it allows him to keep cantrips "on" in preparation for combat.

Edited June 19, 2017 by RosenMcStern