Multiple Sponsored Magic

[Blackmako]

Yeah the quote is messed up. I am low powered in the mysteries of how to use forum tools.

[Sanctaphrax]

I can fix it for you if you want.

[Wanderer]

That's actually one of the benefits of a raised floor!

At the normal PC levels, you'll basically never have to buy skills contrary to your concept. A full Submerged pyramid only includes 13-15 different skills, after all.

But if you've got 70 skill points and a Fantastic cap, the minimum number of different skills you can buy is 22. Going to 50 skill points with an Average floor and a Fantastic cap reduces that minimum number to 18. Makes for an overall more capable character, but one with fewer specific skill investments.

Your argument has merit. Nonetheless, in the case I decide to adopt your idea about a raised skill floor, I may need some more advice in how to organically insert it in my own revised power levels scale. Let's assume the following is my current tentative approach, after inserting your own suggestion about keeping the skill cap bolted to Fantastic (I'm going to omit anything below Submerged for simplicity, since the current topic is higher power levels, and to be honest I have very scarce interest in playing low-powered games regardless of system):

Submerged 10 35 Superb
Below the Surface 11 35 Superb
Bottom Of The Pool 12 40 Superb
Snorkeling 13 45 Superb
With The Fishes 14 45 Superb
SCUBA Diving 15 50 Fantastic
Big Fish, Bigger Ocean 16 50 Fantastic
Punched a Shark in the Nose 17 55 Fantastic
Wish I Had A Submarine 18 60 Fantastic
I Spy Atlantis 19 60 Fantastic
Swimming In Weeds 20 70 Fantastic
In A Submarine 21 70 Fantastic

Where you'd place the raised skill floor to Average (and the shift to Fantastic) in the scale, and how you'd change the skill pool progression? I'd like to extend the above scale a bit further as well, but I'm creatively challenged about it, and the New Power Levels thread offers little guidance. Unlike the scale in that thread, I going to keep Submerged as in canon, for the sake of familiarity. 

[blackstaff67]

"Rather depends on how many players he has, but I feel that Intellectus of War is a no-go for me; given the high Refresh level of the OP's campaign, not only will that PC have five (!) skills at a +7 or +8, that PC will be able to automatically place Aspects on things without so much as  die-roll.  If the group has only two or three other players, it might work, but in a larger group, I have found the character tends to steal the spotlight from other players. 

IoW was made before many other powers and stunts came about--before the Wikia Resource page, if memory serves--and it was made as an alternative to Sponsored Magic.
OTOH, it's a splendid power for an NPC Plot Device to have. "

Your mileage may vary with multiple sponsored magics. Judge your table and what they enjoy. It boils down to what is fun for the table and the GM together.

 The game Blackstaff referenced is still going strong and has grown into a 9 person game that breaks up into smaller groups for small missions and then meets as a large group as all the missions tie together. In fact it is now a multi-state Dresden group. As Blackstaff mentioned he stays with low level. The large sized party wanted a high refresh game.  As one of the four GMs that traded off running that group it no longer fit Blackstaff's vision. The group wanted an epic adventure.  The group did not want a dynamic where the GM is antagonistic to the players.

Three of the GMs wanted to take the Dresden stories and grow past them. Sometimes the players make low refresh characters for one off stories where their main PCs are distant NPCs. The story has been going strong for over four years now. So one answer is know your group and what they like. GMs at times need to flex to what the group wants. The resource page has been a gold mine of creative ideas.

As a GM its not all that hard to balance out a party that is high refresh. As the group scales high the conflict scales high. From experience with this group what challenges them the most is the relationships between party members and how their strongly held aspects run into plot. Within their area of expertise they reign supreme. They win, lose, and draw like rock, paper, and scissor. Concessions happen frequently as a scene may call upon something the character wont do. For instance an 18 refresh wizard has a couple of sponsored magics. One of his sponsored magics came from the resource page about the horseman of war. His character died (later was brought back a bit broken) not by violence but by sacrifice for another character in jeopardy to bring peace while a horseman of war. The whole game was built on the premise of greek tragedies and the hero having a tragic flaw that brings them down.

"But that's me and my table and my sad experience.  Maybe if the group is only 2-3 players and everyone's running on demigod status (the 20+ Refresh level of the OP), then it might work. 

Full disclosure: I prefer to run lower Refresh games and my attempt at a higher one ended in disaster; I hereby confess to a 'once bitten, twice shy' approach to some powers and that one in particular."

What this poster does not mention that it did not end in disaster for the group. Game still meets on a bi-weekly basis. The resources page as well as this forum serve as a gold mine of great ideas for the group. The group has now grown to six GMs taking turns. Its about making great collectively created stories as a group.

Your thinly veiled antagonism is duly noted.  For the information of others, 'mako and I were once in the same campaign.  There once a difference of opinion regarding his PC; there were irreconcilable differences and while there was no screaming and yelling, the parting (I chose to leave) was not amicable.  The wall o'text is thus explained. 
I still stand by the word 'disaster.'
For the record, I do not nor ever pursue this hostility though I question where it comes from, given that I try to act with courtesy and politeness.


But thank you for bringing up a very painful memory from my past.

[Sanctaphrax]

Blackmako, blackstaff67, please don't pursue this sub-discussion any further. It looks like it might get ugly, and even if it doesn't I can't see it being productive.

Your argument has merit. Nonetheless, in the case I decide to adopt your idea about a raised skill floor, I may need some more advice in how to organically insert it in my own revised power levels scale. Let's assume the following is my current tentative approach, after inserting your own suggestion about keeping the skill cap bolted to Fantastic (I'm going to omit anything below Submerged for simplicity, since the current topic is higher power levels, and to be honest I have very scarce interest in playing low-powered games regardless of system):

Submerged 10 35 Superb
Below the Surface 11 35 Superb
Bottom Of The Pool 12 40 Superb
Snorkeling 13 45 Superb
With The Fishes 14 45 Superb
SCUBA Diving 15 50 Fantastic
Big Fish, Bigger Ocean 16 50 Fantastic
Punched a Shark in the Nose 17 55 Fantastic
Wish I Had A Submarine 18 60 Fantastic
I Spy Atlantis 19 60 Fantastic
Swimming In Weeds 20 70 Fantastic
In A Submarine 21 70 Fantastic

Where you'd place the raised skill floor to Average (and the shift to Fantastic) in the scale, and how you'd change the skill pool progression? I'd like to extend the above scale a bit further as well, but I'm creatively challenged about it, and the New Power Levels thread offers little guidance. Unlike the scale in that thread, I going to keep Submerged as in canon, for the sake of familiarity.

There isn't really any wrong way to do it. My inclination would be to raise the floor whenever you raise the cap; I think a distance of 5 between the bottom and the top makes for nicer cleaner pyramids than a distance of 6. At least when working with point totals that are divisible by 5.

Here's my first thought:

Submerged 10 35 Superb
Below the Surface 11 35 Superb
Bottom Of The Pool 12 40 Superb
Snorkeling 13 45 Superb
With The Fishes 14 45 Superb
SCUBA Diving 15 30 Average-Fantastic
Big Fish, Bigger Ocean 16 35 Average-Fantastic
Punched a Shark in the Nose 17 35 Average-Fantastic
Wish I Had A Submarine 18 40 Average-Fantastic
I Spy Atlantis 19 40 Average-Fantastic
Swimming In Weeds 20 45 Average-Fantastic
In A Submarine 21 50 Average-Fantastic

As for going beyond the scale, I'd go up to Fair-Epic around 25 Refresh. Would probably have the skill growth relative to Refresh growth become slower over time.

Again, though, you can't really go very wrong. The worst case scenario is not very bad. There's no need to be too careful.

[Wanderer]

There isn't really any wrong way to do it. My inclination would be to raise the floor whenever you raise the cap; I think a distance of 5 between the bottom and the top makes for nicer cleaner pyramids than a distance of 6. At least when working with point totals that are divisible by 5.

Here's my first thought:

Submerged 10 35 Superb
Below the Surface 11 35 Superb
Bottom Of The Pool 12 40 Superb
Snorkeling 13 45 Superb
With The Fishes 14 45 Superb
SCUBA Diving 15 30 Average-Fantastic
Big Fish, Bigger Ocean 16 35 Average-Fantastic
Punched a Shark in the Nose 17 35 Average-Fantastic
Wish I Had A Submarine 18 40 Average-Fantastic
I Spy Atlantis 19 40 Average-Fantastic
Swimming In Weeds 20 45 Average-Fantastic
In A Submarine 21 50 Average-Fantastic

As for going beyond the scale, I'd go up to Fair-Epic around 25 Refresh. Would probably have the skill growth relative to Refresh growth become slower over time.

Again, though, you can't really go very wrong. The worst case scenario is not very bad. There's no need to be too careful.

Thanks for the answer. Your idea has value, but it helped me identify a serious problem I would have implementing it. You see, I often like creating different versions of the same character at different power levels, to help me define the concept in more detail and plot an outline for possible future developments. Your proposed scale does include a fairly sizable reduction of the skill pool at some point, to balance the raise of the skill floor. This would mean my multi-version characters would suffer abrupt, significant regression in several of their established skills when transitioning to a higher power level, for no justifiable in-character reason. It is just too awkward and troublesome for me to use. Can we modify the proposal so that no such loss would occur? Perhaps by delaying the onset of raised skill floor in the scale? If not, I fear your idea would be unworkable for me.

[Sanctaphrax]

There isn't actually any regression. If you have 45 skill points with a cap of Superb, you must have at least 15 skills. Raising the floor effectively adds one to each of your skills, so 30 points with a floor of Average can always give you the same or better pyramid than 45 skill points with a floor of Mediocre.

[potestas]

one of the things i have done is remove the magic skills from the tree. if you treat them differently you can have a lower skill cap and still have strong characters.

[g33k]

Since Denarian shadows are psychic constructs, and minds/brains are supposed to have some redundancy capability for memories, I suppose the right way to resurrect a destroyed one would be to use some high-level psychomancy ritual to rebuild a copy from the fragments still surviving in the depths of the host mind's unconscious. Kinda like a program to restore erased data.  Either that or going back in time to recover it before it got destroyed.

I think it depends how the Denarian Shadow got "destroyed."  For Lash in particular (from the novels), I would presume it to be impossible (there was actual organic damage).  I have always understood Denarian Shadows to exist in that part of the mind which handles that "redundancy capabilities for memories."  There isn't infinite recursion available.

If it was more a matter of getting deconstructed / disassociated, then presumably it could be re-constructed / reassociated.
 However, thpse shadows are created by beings far more powerful and skilled than any mortal practitioner; I'd be dubious (at best) about any attempt to re-create / re-construct a shadow !
 

[Sanctaphrax]

Not sure I follow. Which spells are you trying to get access to, exactly?

[g33k]

Hi.. Yeah would it be possible to get to a Drop Box instead as you have to pay for File Dropper, I would like to check these spells out to or if you have them Akroam could you make them available? Thxs

I presume you have crossed threads (or even fora) as this seems to reference stuff not-previously-referenced in this thread (and a user not registered here) ... ?

[Priscellie]

I presume you have crossed threads (or even fora) as this seems to reference stuff not-previously-referenced in this thread (and a user not registered here) ... ?

What we have here is a very sophisticated spammer.

[Sanctaphrax]

If that was a bot, I'm impressed.

If that was a person, I'm really not.