TomeWyrm seems to go a LOT farther afield when it comes to mods, so his pack probably looks pretty drastically different than mine.
That's an understatement
The only thing I don't do is zealously follow the What's New In Modded Minecraft thread (and all the various whosits and whirlymagjigs it spawned), but I have two different modlist/update trackers and I watch people that like playing with (and test) new mods, like Direwolf20 on Forgecraft and KirinDave for Resonant Rise.
I likes me novel ways to do things, and I'm not a fan of the common balance concerns. I don't play my game to grind a billionty years through false content, I simply don't have the time for that. I also see the problems with MC's engine and the ways that we players push its limits, so I tend to go for "OP" farming methods that work as "magic boxes" so that I don't have to deal with MC choking on a kajillion TE's, worse yet item entities, or the positively dreadful mobs. This means things like Bees, Steve's Factory Manager, Project E, and the like. Things that are simply the most powerful in their class, with other options in case you don't like them, or want to try something else (MFR, TC golems, Progressive Automation, RotaryCraft; Well there's no comparison to EE2/PE honestly, EE3 is nice, but Pahimar doesn't have the time to devote to making it the mod it honestly should be. I kinda want to build a Project E on top of the engine Pahimar made for ee3, but I have neither the time NOR the coding skill
; SFM has some lesser competition in the realms of Thermal Dynamics, Refined Relocation, Buildcraft, Drones from Pneumaticraft, golems, and a few other options... and that's just for item transfer, there's liquids (most of the same mods), energy, and state detection, autocrafting and more!)
I haven't used RFTools, whereas I have used Mystcract, but to use RFTools I'm assuming I'd need certain tech mods to generate RF?
Nope, it'll generate its own... you'll probably want another mod to generate RF, but it CAN be done with pure RFTools
Magic I think I'll pick 2 and go from there, probably Thaumcraft and something else.
Botania. I will never stop recommending people this mod. I don't care if you don't like magic much, it's not like the rest of the magic mods... and it's the single most awesomest tech build companion out there. Vaz designed it like Elo designed RedPower: It's there to extend the capabilities of vanilla and modded play. It makes SO MANY neat builds possible and has a kajillionty unique toys. CAN NOT RECOMMEND HIGHLY ENOUGH!
I love the minimap's, can't remember which one, but I seem to abuse the waypoint teleportation system a little, so I want to get a mod that has teleportation, with a small cost involved, that's not too high tech so I can get it early on. Mainly for teleporting between Outliers and home.
*cough* RFTools *cough*
Almost every other TP system is free, except IC2 and EWWWWWWW @ IC2 anymore. IC2 Classic or the Uncomplicated addon for EXP make it look almost appealing again, but at this point despite it being my first mod ever? I think I'm done with it permanently. Thanks Greg for giving Player ideas. Ruining one of my oldest favorites for me *grumble*
Personally I use Warp Book... OH! You could use Xeno's Reliquary and/or Witchery, they both have cost-based teleports to locations. But both are magic, so... yeah. Xenos is more Alchemy/crafting/guns than normal magic tho.