Concerning the new player's update...

[durulz]

Mmm, with all these mumbles and concerns about the update it leaves me thinking only one thing...
...the update needs updating.

 

[Rurik]

Going back to the Opposed test situation, if someone successfully resists a successfully cast, overcharged spell, and gets the better success, it shouldn’t, in my view, completely negate the spells effects, but should be able to diminish them. Hence the rule to reduce the additional effects of overcharging.

Agreed, and on the surface the change seems like a good idea. However...

Clearly it’s dependent on the spell, but take a Disruption spell, for instance. A spellcaster could overcharge it to cause multiples of 1D3 damage for each point of Magnitude; useful against big, tough, opponents resistant to mundane attacks.

See above. An overcharged Disruption will still only do 1D3 damage, but it's just harder to counter.

Therefore this rule change will have virtually no effect. You need to counter the spell before you attempt to resist it - when you counter it, it will still be at full strength, but when you resist it, it makes little difference whether the overcharge is applied or not, other than the duration. This obviously can make a difference, but it's not generally that important. If you're befuddled for 5 minutes, an extra minute or two won't usually make much difference...

While I agree with you regarding disruption the new rule does have more effect than just duration - the overcharge also affects how hard it is to dispel a spell once cast. While a Disruption can't be dispelled something like a Befuddle can, and so if the target loses the opposed test but rolls under his skill, the Befuddle can be dispelled at it's base value of 2, rather than its overcharged value.

 

[Twigman]

Whew! I'm back. I have been lurking for a long time. Saw this and wanted to post my support. Couldn't get my old account to work though, so created a new one.

I think that the changes are just what MRQ needed. Only thing that seems to be a sticking point with the new rules is the attempt to incorporate the Opposed Roll rule. While I agree that it is pretty elegant by itself, it creates some oddities when used in the matrix. Just drop that part and it works fine though!

I have a ton of house rules and modifications that I have done on my own, now I will most likely go back and un-do some of it to take into account the new rules.

Overall, very well done!

 

[Deleriad]

One last thing to address: Spell Overcharging. Looking at page 66/67 of RQ, each MP of overcharge improves spell Magnitude AND lowers the Resist Trait, AND increases the Duration trait. Going back to the Opposed test situation, if someone successfully resists a successfully cast, overcharged spell, and gets the better success, it shouldn’t, in my view, completely negate the spells effects, but should be able to diminish them. Hence the rule to reduce the additional effects of overcharging. Clearly it’s dependent on the spell, but take a Disruption spell, for instance. A spellcaster could overcharge it to cause multiples of 1D3 damage for each point of Magnitude; useful against big, tough, opponents resistant to mundane attacks. In the RAW, failing to resist it with Resilience exposes the target to fatality, especially if overcharged by 2 or 3 points (which isn’t unlikely). This is still true in an Opposed resistance if you fail in your Resilience opposed roll. If you succeed with the better success, then you’ll resist the Disruption fully. If you succeed but don’t win, you’ll take the spell’s effect, but at a Magnitude of 1. This reflects the partial success of the resister, and the expertise of the caster, by negating some, but not all, of the overcharged spell.

Thanks for this; I'm busy catching up at the mo. However, the quote above is wrong and that explains why I have been scratching my head.

Rune Spell overcharging copied and pasted straight from the SRD:
• The spell’s Magnitude is considered to be one higher for the purposes of countering it with spells such as Countermagic or Dispel Magic.
• If the spell possesses the Resist trait, the target’s Resist test suffers a –10% penalty.
• If the spell possesses the Duration trait, its duration is increased by +1.

i.e. overcharging DOES NOT INCREASE its magnitude; it makes it harder to counter or dispel. For example overcharging Disruption by 4 points does NOT cause you to do 4D3 damage. If this was the case then no one would ever buy Bladesharp 6 when they could overcharge Bladesharp 1 by 5 points to have the same effect.

That said, I like having persistence/resilience being opposed rolls. What I would suggest is that if we use the term "partial success" to refer to making your resistance roll but rolling lower than the spell caster then:
Resist: normal or critical success - spell does not take effect
Resist: partial success: If spell is progressive, it takes effect at magnitude 1 and if spell has duration trait, it is reduced to duration 1 and any damage dice rolled for the spell automatically roll their minimum score.

Individual spells may override this.

Alternately you could simply say that if a spell is partially resisted then the caster must spend twice the normal amount of MPs or else the spell fails. In cases where the spell does not have a MP cost, the caster must spend an additional 3 MPs or else it fails.