Desing Spells

[cjfodel]

Any advice in Desiging Spells for runes? umm RQ designers

Charles

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Fireball
Casting Time 3, magniture 5, Trigger
Runes: Fire

A fantasy RPG classic, this spell forms a ball of flame in the caster's hand which she can then throw at a target. it will explode upon contact with any object other than the caster's hand, dealing 2D8 points of magical fire damage and igniting flammable objects it touches. even if t does not hit the intended target, ti will do its damage to anything it does hit, even the floor.

(Adjust costs as neccesary)

 

[Adept]

A bit heavy for rune-magic, isn't it?

 

[simonh]

A bit heavy for rune-magic, isn't it?

This scale of effect was traditionaly reserved for Divine and Sorcery magic in previous versons of RQ. Spirit Magic (the predecessor of Rune Magic) was very easy to learn compared to these, and was limited. For example Bladesharp was limited to 4 points maximum (+20% attack and +4 damage for 4 Magic Points cost).

Spirit Magic tended to provide marginal but useful enhancements to existing attack modes (Bladesharp, Fire Arrow, Fire Blade, Bludgeon, etc), or relatively weak direct magical atacks - Disruption was realy the only one and it did a flat 1D3 damage.

Rune Magic is a bit harder to learn and use than Spirit Magic was, so perhaps it's reasonable to loosen the restrictions a little but I'd be very cautious about the extent to which I'd recommend that.

One of the main limiting factors for Spirit Magic was that you could only know as many points of Spirit Magic, in total, as your INT. Magic Items that could be used to store extra points of spells were uncommon and very hard and expensive to make. The whole dynamic of this may change with MRQ.

It's very difficult at this stage to estimate how diferent the play ballance will be in MRQ. We'll know more when the Companion comes out.


Simon Hibbs

 

[Lakritsploppen]

me for example would use the disruption spell as as an base and then change the "tappings" for the effect.

Example: Electric bolt

Casting time: 1, instant, magnitude 1, ranged, resist (dodge)
Runes: Air
A small bolt of lightning flies from the casters hand.

Target suffers 1d3 points of electric damage to a random location
metal armour -1 ap, organic armour (leater cloth) +1 ap.

:wink: :wink:

 

[cjfodel]

With the fireball spell above, wouldnt it be better to cast the firearroe (pg73) and have the effect of 1d10 fireballs for a cast time of 1 mag 2, and use everother round, byt using throuing skill with a dart. and not cast as much as the fireball?

But How do you go about building a balacend spell, say an Ice blade spell using cold.

Just Modifie the Fireblade, and change the rune or go from scratch?

Charles

PS I am talking about just using the core book, for the companion is not out yet (POUT) and I have it pree ordered.

 

[Lakritsploppen]

Dang forgot to tell ya the spell i used as "blueprint" for "electric bolt"it was disrupt.. but it would be easy to do similar effects with fire for example..
hmm a new one..
Earth shock (needs a better name)

casting time 1,instant magnitude 1 ranged resist (acrobatics, dodge)

The earth beneath the caster moves like a wave against the target.

The target must succeed using a acrobatics or dodge, or else he will fall over and be counting as prone.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Well that Fireball is pretty similar to Sunspear, so I'd call it a 1 point Divine if it affects one location or a 3 point Divine if it affects all locations. Not reusable, and probably coming from Lodril (volcano god).

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Well, when I came up with that Fireball I tried to make its utility somewhat limited, Unlike a firearrow, the caster has to physically throw the ball of exploding fire, making it roughly equivalent to a magical grenade. And like a grenade, once it leaves your hand Mr. Fireball is no longer your friend. If you drop it, it will go off at your feet and YOU will take the full force of the damage.

Clearly this is not a spell for when subtlety is required, as the loud bang it makes and its tendency to ignite things will garner attention.

Speaking of subtlety: is there a rune spell conceivable that would enable one to make one's movements silent, or to make the weapons one is carrying less noticeable?