Divine Magic and POW...
- Thread starter iamtim
- Start date
iamtim said:
Well, that's all I have. Remember, I don't have the Companion yet, and am just trying to understand how things work. (Mine is shipped and on the way.) Am I supposed to just sit on the sideline while "y'll jabber on 'bout the new fangled magic or am I allowed to participate too?"
Seriously, I'm sure that there's more to come for specific Glorantha applications, but until those are here, this is all we have. Right now, it appears that Divine magic is much weaker than before (for a priest or rune lord) and that's significant. It's not right or wrong necessarily, but is significant.
I think Rurik might have the right idea about bring divine magic down so as to make room for the more powerful 2nd Age magics. Also, for a generic lower magic world, I'm sure the divine is about right. When I ran Fantasy Earth in RQ3, typical priests would only have 10-15 points of spells and most of those are ceremonial spells like Worship, Sanctify, Divination, etc. OTOH, most Gloranthan priests would have similar amounts of magic...it's only rare heros that get up beyond that. (A couple of my PCs have ~40 points of magic each in my longterm campaign.)
CharlieMonster
Mongoose
To be fair although I started this thread as by comparing to the way things used be, the thread is more about whether or not Divine Magic is detrimental to priests and discussing an interpretation of the rules.
I agree we can't keep looking at the system through "RQ3 tinted glasses" any more than you can dismiss any discussion / issues by saying that we are doing so. If you produce a game on the back of an established name some level of comparison is inevitable.
On the whole I am pretty happy with the way the system works but I feel this is a sticking point regardless of what happens before, because it appears, and note I am being careful here and saying "appears" that Divine magic as I interpret it does seem to hamstring priests who wish to use divine magic. Until I actually start running or playing I will reserve judgement, but I'm not about to stop discussing it.
CharlieMonster
Mongoose
Revisiting the Sorcery Rules, potentially they do in fact appear to rock. They are potentially very poky when you get good at them, especially given it only costs 1 MP per manipulation used to cast. They have put quite sensible limits on duration too this time around.
If you see a Hero or Legendary sorceror run for the hills.
Err unless of course he is in the hills in which case run away from the hills!
If you see a Hero or Legendary sorceror run for the hills.
Err unless of course he is in the hills in which case run away from the hills!
CharlieMonster
Mongoose
Sorry Dude, my bad. I got it confused with the other thread on Divine Magic, but I stand by the rest of my post.
I've done some number-crunching and assuming an above average POW of say 17, with a reasonably basic amount of divine magic say Heal Wound 2, Shield 2 and a misc 3 points of speciality spells. This leaves about 10MP to play with and a 10% chance of DI, with -7% to all POW based skills. I just think that a Runepriest should be capable of being a little bit more impressive than that. If that was the best my god could offer, I'd probably be an Atheist.
1.Rune Magic, is about on par with the old Spirit-magic, perhaps having an edge with the powers from integrated Runes.
2.It seems Rune Magic is being used to take up the slack on 'God magic', but it feels like the cult has been devalued
- If they had kept the old RQ3 model for divine magic, with the new experience system gaining divine magic is would to be slow anyway with potential for greater power if the character wanted to sink all his HP into gaining POW/Divine spells.
- The whole divine magic change seems over complecated and doesn't really add anything to the game, though the Theology skill is a nice touch a faith score may have been more apt.
3. Sorcery, Cool - A fixed version of RQ3.
The only magic that has suffered is Divine, its not become useless but there are better things to spend your HP on than priest hood and gaining POW- with advent of legendary skills divine magic feels like its had its feet cut from under it. When you take the big picture of Character progress Divine magic is a low gain for building a character in that direction.
On the face of It POW gain and Theology are fairly good restrictions on Divine magic, without limiting divine magic further.
The dedication of POW seems just a way of side stepping the limitation of POW increases in the new system, but the loss of MPS and the limit set by the Maximum POW are far to restrictive)
Other than spirit combat, the divine magic adjustments are the biggest drain on game time from bickering. So after three weeks of playing we've moved back to the RQ3 model for Divine magic keeping Theology{diety} (also using a bastardised version of spirit combat - damage as MRQ but effects MPs, with the change back to old style Divine magic it works well).
However, I can see development of old style RQ3 magic being cripplingly slow - as it may only raised through HP.
I did have one thought about side stepping Divine Magic's limitations;
A legendary Ability -
God Blessed
5 HP(Must be an acolyte, priest or Lord, Theology 90%, POW 15+)
May be attained multple times, each level of 'God Blessed' creates a pool 5 points of False POW which may only be used for dedicating spells and Divine intervention, it has no effect on magic points or Skills.
The pool is dedicated to only one 'God' - excommunication causes the loss of this pool.
Cheesy, but it grants Divine magic a bit more scope and keeps the whole thing within the flavour of the rules.
A legendary Ability -
God Blessed
5 HP(Must be an acolyte, priest or Lord, Theology 90%, POW 15+)
May be attained multple times, each level of 'God Blessed' creates a pool 5 points of False POW which may only be used for dedicating spells and Divine intervention, it has no effect on magic points or Skills.
The pool is dedicated to only one 'God' - excommunication causes the loss of this pool.
Cheesy, but it grants Divine magic a bit more scope and keeps the whole thing within the flavour of the rules.
iamtim said:
For those of us who like the idea that cults' powers are based on the powers of the deity not just the deity's runes, Divine Magic is always going to be more important than Rune Magic.
At the moment, the game is set up so that priests are not really differentiated from anyone else. So they get a few points of Divine Magic, whoopdy-do. A healer priest can have a Resurrect spell (magnitude 5), and a couple of Heal Bodies/Heal Wounds and she uses all her POW up.
Imagine a Priestess with POW 18 who gets a Resurrect, Heal Body, Heal Wound, Regrow Limb and a couple of Cure (Disease) spells (assuming they will still be included in healing cults), she is going to use a hell of a lot of POW up on those spells. Now, the nature of healers being what it is, they are unlikely to be using those spells all the while, so they tend to store the spells up until someone comes in with a severed arm, bad cough or deceased friend. So, the POW 18 healer priestess is reduced to POW 6, say, until she is called on for help. If she is using Runes as well, then she is reducing her POW further with no real means of increasing it.
iamtim said:
I don't particularly like balancing features anyway.
However, I do enjoy playing high powered characters and running high powered games. In RQ3 I could do this very easily, in RQM I don't think I can. A powerful priest in RQM might have 10 points of Dedicated POW, a powerful priest in RQ3 might have 70 or 80 points of divine magic. The two just don't equate at all.
Yes, they are two different games, different times, different settings, I've heard it all before .... But, I would expect to be able to run similar types of games using both systems, especially in Glorantha which is a mature world, no matter what the games system used to model the world.
I'm still waiting to hear the "But Second Age Glorantha uses different magic to Third Age" argument, so that I can scream.
There was a great article in an issue of Tales of the Reaching Moon about a rule change for Divine spells. The article when along the lines of illustrating some of the draw backs of how Divine magic worked.
The example showed an Initiate of Ernalda (Earth Goddess) having Bless Crops 3, coming home to find here child laying dieing after being attacked while she was in the fields. If she had Heal Body and not Bless Crops she would be able to save her child, but she hasn't and it dies.
Not very fair on the good initiate who has scarified to god and done all the right things. The article proposed instead of sacrificing or "learning" an individual spell that you had a pool of Divine magic do with as you please. So that the initiate of Ernalda would have Ernalda 3 rather than Heal Body or Bless Crops 3 etc
So if the Ernalda initiate comes back to find her child dieing she could cast Heal Body. But if all was well, when the right time came along she could cast Bless Crops.
Using this approach with MRQ Divine magic would rebalance things someway and makes some spell useable again Divine users. Especially when you look at the magnitude that you need to cast some of the spell to make the effective. Look at Spirit Block, unless you have it at 4 or more its pretty useless.
This was how I ended up running all my RQ games after reading it. I'm "working" at the moment so I don't have access to the article here but it was very good. Look it up.
The example showed an Initiate of Ernalda (Earth Goddess) having Bless Crops 3, coming home to find here child laying dieing after being attacked while she was in the fields. If she had Heal Body and not Bless Crops she would be able to save her child, but she hasn't and it dies.
Not very fair on the good initiate who has scarified to god and done all the right things. The article proposed instead of sacrificing or "learning" an individual spell that you had a pool of Divine magic do with as you please. So that the initiate of Ernalda would have Ernalda 3 rather than Heal Body or Bless Crops 3 etc
So if the Ernalda initiate comes back to find her child dieing she could cast Heal Body. But if all was well, when the right time came along she could cast Bless Crops.
Using this approach with MRQ Divine magic would rebalance things someway and makes some spell useable again Divine users. Especially when you look at the magnitude that you need to cast some of the spell to make the effective. Look at Spirit Block, unless you have it at 4 or more its pretty useless.
This was how I ended up running all my RQ games after reading it. I'm "working" at the moment so I don't have access to the article here but it was very good. Look it up.
RosenMcStern
Mongoose
Personally, I do like this approach to Divine Magic much more than the RQ2/RQ3 stuff. In that game mechanics, gaining a point of DM lowered one's Spirit Magic casting skill by 6%, and magic resistance by 5%, and the loss was permanent until POW was raised. In MRQ, when you get a DM spell both your Runecasting and your Persistence scores go down by 1%, which is acceptable, and the loss is temporary.
I think the rationale between these rules is "No Divine Magic in excess of POW" and "No Sorcery in excess of INT". Well, the new Sorcery works better than DM, but divine magic is still fine. The fact that the POW comes back will encourage most players to take some divine spell at least.
As for the RL/RP stuff, the idea is that Initiates are now what Acolytes were in the old RQ: divine magicians who can reuse their spells. A Runelevel in MRQ is a ranking member in the cult, and has no real advantage over an initiate other than its hyerarchical position. The real advantage is that a priest is the keeper of the temple magic treasury, i.e. magic items. This is the way a priest can have access to 50-100 points of divine spells in the new rules. Also note that enchanting a divine spell into a matrix (Spellcharge) now costs half the POW it used to cost, since you get back the dedicated POW, and a failed roll costs no POW. So divine Spellcharges should be a part of any temple's treasuries.
I think the rationale between these rules is "No Divine Magic in excess of POW" and "No Sorcery in excess of INT". Well, the new Sorcery works better than DM, but divine magic is still fine. The fact that the POW comes back will encourage most players to take some divine spell at least.
As for the RL/RP stuff, the idea is that Initiates are now what Acolytes were in the old RQ: divine magicians who can reuse their spells. A Runelevel in MRQ is a ranking member in the cult, and has no real advantage over an initiate other than its hyerarchical position. The real advantage is that a priest is the keeper of the temple magic treasury, i.e. magic items. This is the way a priest can have access to 50-100 points of divine spells in the new rules. Also note that enchanting a divine spell into a matrix (Spellcharge) now costs half the POW it used to cost, since you get back the dedicated POW, and a failed roll costs no POW. So divine Spellcharges should be a part of any temple's treasuries.
CharlieMonster
Mongoose
I hadn't clicked on spellcharges, that does kind of correct the balance a bit, with magic built on artifacts & relics rather than divine spells. That would of course allow RPs to reward favoured followers (hey a Holy Pyramid selling scheme! :lol: )*
Nice one, Centurion, like it, like it!
* As opposed to the original Holy Pyramid selling scheme, which was pretty much selling Pyramids.**
** Ancient Egyptians: weird, still it takes all sorts.***
*** Aren't Footnotes annoying?****
**** But sometimes informative*****
***** Granted these ones aren't though!
