Purchasing Clarification

Split from the thread here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12419

Quote from: lightcastle

I don't want to wander too far backwards, but something you said, mike, intrigued me.

It really is that whenever you learn a new common magic thing, it starts at the level of your keyword? Automatically?

This doesn't apply to other magics, though, right?

That's absolutely correct. And something that's not very clear, but that can be deduced from looking at the rules in parts. There are several different cases here. I'm posting here the clarifications on this subject that I recently got from the Issiaries staff.

There are, as I understand it, basically several sorts of abilities with respect to how they relate to keywords. No nomenclature exists to cover these, so for clarity here and discussion, I'm going to create some.

[*]Intrinsic - these are abilities that the player and narrator agree "were in the keyword all along." Most mundane abilities fall into this category. For instance, if you argue that a warrior would have "Maintain Weapon," the idea is not that he just learned that, but that as a warrior he always knew how to do this. As such, the player can roll against the keyword level in question at any time without expenditure for things that this ability would affect. From another POV, the keyword is a broad ability that includes this ability at the keyword level. If you spend a HP, therefore, on such an ability, it goes immediately to keyword +1. So if I have Warrior 17, then my Maintain Weapon goes to 18 when I spend one HP on it.
[*]Optional - these abilites are agreed to pertain to the keyword, but some have them, and some do not. How you enumerate them depends on whether or not the character gets them at chargen. If they get them at chargen, the idea is that they've had the optional ability so long that it was more or less purchased when the character "started" in the keyword, and, as such, he gets it at the keyword level. Basically, this explains the listings on p18 of HQ that say that magic abilities start at keywored level. But this happens only at chargen. After play starts, purchase of an optional ability occurs at 13 - they keyword at this point only serves to open the gate to the ability. Again, this principle is most visible with magic abilities, but this is also the case with followers and relationships (so this pertains to spirit magic as well). If a follower is deemed to be somebody that could have been during the character's career, or as part of any other keyword, he starts at 17 during chargen. If they are not part of a keyword, or if they are purchased after chargen, they start at 13 - representing the newness of the relationship. One could imagine allowing a relationship to start at 17 under the notion that they had known the character all along.
[*]Common Magic - this is essentially an exception to the other rules. When one purchases a common magic ability, it becomes part of the common magic keyword. Meaning that it becomes like case one above where the ability is part of the keyword where it wasn't before. Essentially, being magic, all common magic is optional, but apparently facility with common magic overall means that learned common magic starts at the keyword level. These abilities can then be increased as normal as if they were intrinsic abilities.
[*]Feats, etc. - another exception. I won't go into details. The point is that common magic isn't such an exception in being an exception - each form of magic has some exceptions as to how they work in terms of purchasing abilities. In fact, this is precisely what makes them unique.[/list:u]
Again, this is all in the rules, in disparate places, though all summed up on the overall ability cost chart. For example (and I missed this the first dozen times I read it), for 2 HP, or 1 if concetrated, the player can purchase a new common magic ability to go into the keyword. It doesn't mention an ability level, because you don't get one. The ability is merely part of the keyword now, and therefore uses the keyword level - until such time as it might be elevated above the keyword level. All Magic abilities are listed as starting at 13 - this is not because the listing indicates the "base" level, which is then modified by the keyword rule, but in fact because that's the actual level at which it will begin no matter what. There's no way to purchase magic at keyword level once play has begun, and that's what the chart reflects.

I'm still tracking down some of the ramifications of all of this, and invite discussion.

For example, this gives common magic a substantial boost in potence (over the perception that abilites start at 13). A concentrated user can gain abilities at a relatively high level at a startling rate. That is, for 12 HP, a concentrated common magic user can get 12 abilities at 17, whereas the concentrated Theism user would get a new affinity and raise it to only 16 (to say nothing of feats).

Mike