Subject: RQ Discussions 20 First Distribution: July 8, 1991 ====================================================================== From: Subject: RQ Discussion 19; by the way, Byz Pack was very amusing Re: The Raw and the Cooked or: Andrew's open question in RQ Discussion 19 >User/Target conditions: The description says that a target >condition requires that the target be in a clearly defined >group. It seems to me that this makes it fairly easy to create >the ultimate inquisition device ... What do you think the >limits on the detective power of enchantments to determine such >things should be? A terminology problem I noted: the Magic Book describes target and user restrictions as defining who the item will NOT affect or who can NOT use an item. I have tended to ignore this, and so have the people I game with. Because any group can be described as the exclusion of its opposite, I tend to write "limited to Henotheist Adepts" rather than "barred to all who are not Henotheist Adepts." Only a lawyer would worry about such distinctions. I don't think you will see many magic items that "cast a light on any worshiper of a Chaos cult," because to do that, you need: * a Light matrix, MP matrix, and link condition; or a Light magic/spell spirit * a target condition, AND * an attack condition. To be effective at range, you also need an area-effect condition. Why not save POW and just put a target condition on the item? On the down side, you have to individually target the spell. However, when you consider the hurt feelings that result when one casts spells on most any being, it doesn't make much difference whether the item or its holder cast the spell. The bigger disadvantage, which is what I think Andrew was getting at, is that somehow the deluxe target/attack condition item knows only to target spells at beings who do not fit the target condition. One can handle this in two ways: 1) The item targets against all who touch it or enter its area of effect. The spell fails against those who fit its target condition, as well as those whose MP it fails to overcome. Thus, no one knows why the spell failed. Also, the item tends to run out of MP quickly. This option avoids the problem. 2) The item does not target its spell against those who fit its target condition. This ignores the problem, but some GMs may not object to the existence of inquisitorial items. I would adopt option 1) and also the following limitations. I could also see how someone could adopt option 2) and the following limitations. That would be the middle course between almost no inquisition and full inquisition. First, the caster should only be able to impose a restriction based on a distinction which clearly divides all beings. This knocks out philosophical beliefs for which some people will have no opinion, like "those who believe Illumination is evil," or "those who would like to see the power of the Red Moon Goddess destroyed." By contrast, all beings are either chaotic or non- chaotic, Malkioni or non-Malkioni, and Orlanthi or non-Orlanthi. The hard cases include shamanistic v. non-shamanistic, humanist v. non-humanist, and the various pantheon boundaries (are the Caladralanders "Yelmic"?). Second, the restriction would have to be something apparent from the caster's aura. This type of restriction includes, but is not limited to, ancestry, runic affinity, and cult status (i.e., initiate, rune lord, or priest). Within cults, some divisions will be runic, while others are non-runic. Individualism and Henotheism are runic. Lhankor Mhy factions are non-runic. Hard cases include the various sects of Malkioni other than the Henotheists. Rokari are not very different, mystically speaking, from Hrestoli. Third, certain magical protections can conceal the target's aura so that the item cannot tell if the target is included or not. In such a case, the item will not cast the spell. This rule should apply for one reason: if the caster wanted to protect certain persons from the spell's harm, or bar certain people from the spell's benefits, he or she would err on the safe side. It should be possible for experienced enchanters to override the default setting. In the other setting, an item targeted at a magically protected being will always try to affect it. Neither setting gives any information about whether the target satisfies the target condition. In the default setting, one gets many false negatives, and in the other, false positives. Just like urine sampling. Spell Resistance conceals the target's aura if the intensity of the item's spell does not overcome the intensity of the Spell Resistance. Countermagic and Shield/Reflection/Absorption work if the intensity of the item's spell is less than the intensity of the defensive spell. With attack conditions, the item looks to the target's magical protections once when the target touches the item or moves within its area of effect. It "looks" again when the target is again touched or again moves within the area of effect. Players should not know what kind of restrictions are possible. If they find an item with a restriction and can find out what the restriction is, they know that that restriction is possible. They may have heard or read about various restrictions with various levels of accuracy in reporting. If a PC tries to create a novel user restriction, the GM should: * tell the player what the PC thinks of the restriction's viability * decide independently whether the restriction is viable, & * if the restriction is not viable, decide whether * the restriction is void and the POW is wasted * the restriction is present but ineffective and the POW is wasted * the restriction is void or ineffective but a similar viable restriction comes into being (I prefer this one) * the restriction is void and the PC does not lose the POW used (a wimpy option) ====================================================================== From: mad@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Ken McKinney cleverly disguised as Michael Derry) Subject: rq digest submission Several people wrote some great comments on my sorcery system, which is still in a great deal of flux. I've got some general clarifications to make and then some comments on their comments. First of all, I wrote this system because I don't think the current one works, especially for beginner GM's who try to run sorcerers in their games. There's no real middle ground for a sorcerer; Either he's godlike or he sucks. Let's look at sorcerers with say, 10 years previous experience. This would be pretty typical in my game for sorcerers adventuring with good initiates (plenty of skills in the 50-70 range, looking at becoming acolytes soon). 1 ) They can't cast their spells reliably. Since there is no variability in the difficulty of the spells there's no way they can choose to learn spells which are easy to cast. 2) Their spells take forever to cast. Coupled with (1) this makes a dead sorcerer. 3) Their spells take tons of magic points. The only reasonable spell for a sorcerer of low level to cast is Palsy, and it takes 6 magic points to cast generally, as opposed to 2 for a befuddle or demoralize spirit spell. So a sorcerer is only going to be able to get in one spell per encounter. 4) They've had to waste lots of skill points in their sorcery skills and spells, while the spirit/divine magic worshippers got to spend theirs in things like attack, parry, dodge, hide, sneak, track, orate, etc. In my game I try to start characters with roughly equal points so the sorcerers get screwed. Note that this also holds true with my system, but at least the sorcerers will have some magic which they can cast reliably. Okay, now let's look at the high end sorcerers in the current runequest system. I consider an adept in the current system to be a very good sorcerer. He probably has all of his INT free, by keeping his spells in a familiar, matrices, or bound INT spirits. He also has at least 20 or so magic points available to him besides his own and those of his familiars (in mp enchantments or POW spirits; He probably made Enchant his ritual or lore at 75%, since it is by far the most useful, and it gives him something to do with his POW (In my game, Malkioni sorcerers can also get patron saints and sacrifice POW to them for special abilities, but I'm drawing on unpublished stuff by Stafford that most GM's don't have access to). He probably has a fair reportoire of spells; which ones are you going to give him? Damage Boosting - the number one campaign destroying spell. Makes trolls superflourous (I mean, who cares if you have a damage bonus if you have damage boost 15 on your weapon). DB 17 is the equivalent of a 5d6 damage bonus. I find it hard to believe that this was ever playtested. But what's worse is that your pc's will probably settle for DB 5-7 on ALL of their weapons ALL of the time. Since 10 duration gets you a week this isn't at all out of reach. Mystic Vision - Instant identification of magic items, including a mental picture of who made them. Why bother going to the Lankhor Mhy temple? I think Mystic vision is too powerful, and have broken it up into several spells in my system. Fly - Put a Wind Lord to shame. If you cast Diminish SIZ on yourself first, you can have it on all the time. How many suspenseful scenarios can be messed up with a Fly spell? At least the Orlanthi can only do it for 15 minutes. Vision Projection - check out the whole castle/tower/cave/ruin before you go in it. Cast spells at anyone; unless their actively looking for you they probably aren't looking at the ceiling (when was the last time YOU looked at the ceiling?) Tap -the grossest spell of them all. Makes a sorcerer immune to the magic of others, and lets his spells overcome the POW of anyone but a shaman 95% of the time. The only other real purpose of the spell is to totally ruin a player character. In Glorantha, many Malkioni sects allow tapping. The Borists regard it as a sacred duty, so how do you tell a Borist PC that he/she can't have the Tap spell? Anyway, there are lots of imbalanced sorcery spells and they aren't any harder to cast once you know them than say, a glow spell. My rules build restrictions on powerful spells into the rules, rather than forcing GM's to rationalize why their PC's can't know them. Another point: There are far too few spells in the current RuneQuest sorcery system. In the writeup on Arkat in Troll Gods, it states that troll sorcerers are experts with darkness magic. But what darkness magic is there? All I can think of is boost elemental, darksense projection, and form/set & animate darkness. So you can't really create a sorcerer around a certain specialty, like darkness or fire or ice and make it fly. What my system tries to do is smooth out the sorcerer power curve. I have some spells of low difficulty (demoralize, for instance) that have effects comparable to spirit magic and take only slightly fewer magic points to cast. Likewise I've made an attempt to tone down really imbalancing spells like Damage boost. Lets say one sorcerer has Damage boost at 60%, 14 Free INT, and Intensity at 60%, and the other has a Disorder/Earth/Fire spell (difficulty 40, does 1d6 extra damage per 5 Law points), and Law skill at 60%, all associated runes at 40%, and the spell at 60%. The guy in my system is a whole lot less effective. He can only cast a 12 point spell where the other can cast a 14 point spell, he only does +2d6 damage (avg 7) while the other guy does +14 damage. His chance to cast is the same (but he needed 3 other skills at 40% for it to be that way). My system makes a player define the sorcerer's specialty and the scope of his abilities. You have to decide whether to be good at healing magic or attack magic with an element or spells which affect the mind or spells which affect magic, for instance. I think this gives sorcerers more flavor and makes them more fun to play, without imbalancing them in relation to the rest of the party. A medium crossbow still blows away a firebolt when it comes to doing damage and it's owner can fire it without spending magic points or worrying about encumberance. It's true that a sorcerer has a lot of options available to him in terms of what spells he learns and what he can do, but one has to decide on strengths and weaknesses; It's possible to be a jack of all trades (cast easy spells in many areas) or a narrow specialist (only cast fire spells, for instance) but each choice has definite drawbacks and the person who chooses to specialize is still limited by his Law skill and his available magic points. So sorcerers can compete without 2-3 POW spirits and and INT spirit. (My system also does away with Free INT). This also takes the heat off the GM to dish out lots of magic, since sorcerers no longer need it to be viable. says about my sorcery system: > Comments on part two of your magic system: If your players >want a flash-bang sorcery system, give it to them. If that's not >what your players want, or if it detracts from some players' >enjoyment (i.e., those who aren't sorcerers), then you'll have to >rethink. I guess I'm not sure what you mean by a flash-bang sorcery system. It's true that there are a lot more spells in my system and that they have better special effects, but I've tried to design the spells so that they don't make sorcerers better than the other classes. That's why I put difficulty numbers into the system. Sure, Fireball is an awesome spell, but it's difficulty 100, which means that if you had your spell at 75%, the fire rune at 75%, and the mastery rune at 75% your chance to cast would only be 50% - Enc. Because of the way the experience system works a sorcerer has a real incentive to go out and study another rune rather than raising these skills any further up. Also, Fireball does 1d6/8 Law points. You're going to need 2d6 to affect armoured targets, so you need a minimum of 16 Law points, which means that your Law skill needs to be 80%, or more if you want to increase the spells area of effect. Also, the spell takes 1.6 rounds to cast, and blows 16 magic points. It's easy to see that a sorcerer who has these skills at this level is the equivalent of a rune lord in terms of experience, and if he's allotted his training this way he probably can't cast other useful spells, like healing, magic detection, spell screen, etc. If I had a choice of playing this character or say, an Orlanthi Wind Lord, I think I'd take the Wind Lord. >It does not seem to >me, however, that the Staffordian world-view, which I knock in >the last paragraph of this message, includes wizards creating >rings of fire, beasts out of thin air, etc., except at very high >levels of personal power. Orathorn. Arolanit Zzaburi. Mistress >Race Arkati. You know the type. I wish I knew more about the Staffordian world-view concerning sorcerers. I mean, if you read the Genertela book it's obvious that there are a lot of powerful spells which aren't in the sorcery rules. The Brithini routinely ressurect anyone who dies in their society. According to the Gloranthan Bestiary, the sorcerers of Kimos fight an ongoing battle against the Gorgers using weather-manipulation. Looking at the stats of the Gorgers, it seems pretty obvious we're talking something a little more deadly than say, form/set clouds. Then there are the big guys: Delecti and his Zombie Horde, ZZzabur who closes the seas as an "accidental byproduct" of one of his spells, etc. There's a mile-high tower in Sog City, if I remember correctly. How did it get built? I guess you can explain away all of these powers as HeroQuest abilities, but I prefer a spell system which can incorporate them, but only for characters with godlike skills. What's wrong with having, in my system, a 200 -difficulty ressurection spell that takes 40 Law points to cast? The pc's will never cast it, that's for sure, and it makes Brithini society a little more believable without introducing the game balance implications of just slapping a ressurection spell into the current sorcery system. Another reason I put the really powerful spells into my system was to set guidelines for people who invent their own spells. By setting the difficulty of Fireball at 100, I forestall some player convincing a GM to let him design a Fireball spell with a difficulty of 50, which wound be imbalancing to the game. Because my system is intended to allow design of spells by players (with GM approval) it needs spells at a wide variety of power levels to provide a framework for fitting other spells in. > I agree with Andrew's comments about Illusion. I think the >other runes can achieve equally flashy and powerful effects >without creating things. Are you saying that you think my system would fit Stafford's world view if I got rid of the Infinity rune and all of its associated spells? I'm not fundamentally opposed to this. I run a Gloranthan game and try to be as true to the world as I can. > For example: Disorder can confuse and >distract beings, weaken things, and destroy information. How >about a powerful Disorder spell at a cross-roads, making >travellers take the wrong way? It seems like the Illusion rune would do these things as well. I saw a lot of similarity between the two, so I made an arbitrary division and said that disorder was for changing things and Illusion was for concealing them. Do you think, for example, that disorder is more appropriate for the crossroads spell than illusion? If so, why? >As for summoning things quickly, >one can either summon and bind them, or craft some sort of >specialist who trades off flexibility for quick response. >Shamans can summon easily in an Axis Mundi, so it's not >ridiculous. What you need is a player with imagination and a >good working knowledge of the runes and their inner meanings. I wish I had knowledge of the "inner meanings" of runes. I can only guess at a lot of things about them. About summoning: I haven't really figured out how to do ritual magic in conjunction with this system, and have thought about designing a separate enchanting/summoning system for sorcerers. But I've put it off because I feel like I need to get what I've got working and well defined before I tackle anything else. If anyone has any ideas on this I'd love to hear them. About Ethilrist: I'm thinking he's a Brithini Knight who went renegade. He has a shrine to Arkat at Muse Roost, so I at least know he uses sorcery. I may say that Black Horse Country is run using a kind of degenerate feudal caste system, kindof like the Rokari except that Ethilrist is the only Talar and he's also a bigtime sorcerer and Ethilrist's will, rather than lineage, determines what caste a person is in. Since he's Arkati there should also be shrines to appropriate warrior gods (Humakt, Orlanth, possibly Yanafal Tarnils). >From: malcolm.smith@alcatel.no (Malcolm Smith) >First, can someone explain where a sorcerer gets his Law >and Chaos percentages from, and how do they increase? >Secondly, for spells such as Create Basilisk and Create Man > there is a reference to a number of Chaos and Law Points. > Exactly what is this reference? > Thirdly, would I be correct in assuming that if one casts > a spell correctly then the caster can make an experience roll > on the Runes associated? > Fourthly, with the Forever step on the timescale, would > this make Immortality a possibility, or would only be > immortal within 10 metres of the casting site unless one > spends more Points on widening the radius of the spell/area? Okay, Sorcerers learn Law (and possibly chaos) just like every other rune: They study it from a book or learn it from another sorcerer. I would think that most sorcerers learn Law as part of their early training, much like they would learn Intensity in regular RQ sorcery. Chaos would be learned by chaotic types, or by really good sorcerers who felt they could handle it, or by religious types like the Borists who learn it because of religious needs. (The borists feel that Tapping chaotic beings is a religious duty. I made Tap a chaotic spell because Sense Chaos will register a sorcerer who knows the Tap spell in glorantha. All spells are powered with Law or Chaos points, which roughly replace Intensity and Duration in the old rules. You can only put as many Law points into your spell as your Law skill divided by 5. You can put twice as many chaos points into your spell as your chaos skill divided by 5 but if you fail your roll you have to roll on the fumble table, which is very deadly for chaotic spellcasters. Some spells have variable effects and the number of Law points (and it also takes 1 magic point per law point) you put into the spell determines how powerful it is. Other spells, like create man (which wasn't intended to be a spell a pc would cast, but only to be an illustrative example for determining spell difficulties) have a fixed effect so they require a fixed number of Law points. Thus to cast the Create Man spell one must have a Law skill of 200% and 40 magic points to blow. You'll also need the associated runes at ridiculously high levels to cast the spell. Note that you also need Law points to increase a temporal spell's duration, so you have to make a tradeoff between duration and effect. Re: experience rolls on runes: I'm going to say at the moment that you only get experience rolls on spells, and that the runic skills only go up through research and training. That's the way the sorcery skills work in RuneQuest now. Of course, none of this is playtested, so it may turn out that I made a poor decision. What do you think is better? >From: Andrew Bell (bell@cs.unc.edu) >Subject: Conditions on enchantments >User/Target conditions: The description says that a target condition >requires that the target be in a clearly defined group. It seems to me >that this makes it fairly easy to create the ultimate inquisition >device -- say, have a condition of "casts a light on any worshiper of >a Chaos cult" or "anyone who would like the Red Moon Goddess and the >Lunar armies defeated" or something of that nature, so you just go around >touching people with the object or have an area-effect they have to pass >through. What do you think the limits on the detective power of >enchantments to determine such things should be? We've never used target conditions in my game so the question never came up. I'd say that unlike the user conditions, which can detect all sorts of things, target conditions can only be based on something that is clearly visible and apparent. I know this sounds stupid, but treat the enchantment as if it was a person with eyes but no specific knowledge. If it can look at the target and determine whether the conditions are met, then the target condition is ok (example: only works against trolls). Otherwise you could rule that a matrix for the appropriate detection spell was neccesary on the enchantment and that it had to be linked with a mp source and the other enchantment. Sorry this is so long, but I had a lot to say. I'm glad you guys are reading my sorcery system! Ken McKinney ====================================================================== The RuneQuest(tm) mailing list is a courtesy of Andrew Bell. All opinions and material above are the responsibility of the originator, and copyrights are held by them. 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