Enchanted Weapons

[gamesmeister]

I've skimmed the rules for enchantments in the past, but recently I sat down to read them properly and noticed the following:

It is sooo easy to make a magic weapon. You take any weapon (but preferably a high quality one), and as long as you know at least one of the required spells (very likely, particularly if you're playing in Glorantha and have access to cult spells as standard), you can attempt to perform a WeaponBlessing enchantment. On average, without any experience in Enchanting, you'll have a 25% chance of success, and if you fail there is no penalty. Therefore if you go for a POW1 Enchanted weapon, you can retry every hour until you succeed. There is a 1% chance of losing the POW via a fumble, but that's pretty neglible in comparison.

My point is, who wouldn't do this? Once you succeed, as you surely will, you not only gain a permanent +5% to hit, and +1 damage on the weapon, but the weapon will also count thereafter as a magic weapon, and therefore capable of damaging spirits with its full damage bonus (as opposed to only the magic damage from rune magic).

The above applies for a more powerful enchantment too. There is very little reason not to go for a +2, +3, or even higher enchantment on a weapon, other than the cost in POW. Using the MRQ guidelines, 3 POW could be replaced in as little as 3 sessions. Of course, the GM could always 'arrange' for your weapon to be lost/damaged, but that seems a little unfair given that it's not bending the rules in any way to do this.

The above illustrates another problem with the rules as written - a beginner enchanter can create enormously powerful items with only the cost in POW to limit them. There's nothing to prevent a beginning enchanter creating a weapon with +50% to hit /+10 damage, which would be an incredibly powerful weapon, far far greater than anything seen before in RQ. Ok, so it costs 10 POW, but the value of such a weapon would see the enchanter sitting on a beach for the rest of his life!

Perhaps this is ok for generic RQ, but it should be modified for Glorantha (except for the Zistorites I guess).

I'd suggest that a failed Enchanting still loses 1 POW, and every POW spent above the first gives a -10% chance to the enchanting roll. Otherwise who would bother with unenchanted weapons?

 

[Magistus]

Actually everyone will, which is what I always liked about RQ, that you can literally go through your entire PC career with the same weapon and have it get just as powerful as you are as you get closer to being a legend in your own time.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I like the idea of being able to personalize your stuff, but yeah, there ought to be a bigger chance of loss or drawback.
My take will be raising the chance of POW loss to 96 or above, and if you fail the enchanting roll, it takes a week before "the stars are right" again

 

[gamesmeister]

Thinking about it, you can take 10 times as long to gain a +60% skill bonus, so taking 10 hours for a 1 POW enchanted weapon will give the rookie enchanter an 85% chance of success.

 

[simonh]

Thinking about it, you can take 10 times as long to gain a +60% skill bonus, so taking 10 hours for a 1 POW enchanted weapon will give the rookie enchanter an 85% chance of success.

So creating enchantments is easy as pie, takes relatively little time, is almost risk-free anyway and there are few big reasons to maintain a high POW level. I'm going to have to look into what a good strategy for a starting magician character are in terms of which are the best items to create.

Interesting stuff.

 

[weasel_fierce]

Glorantha abounds with magic. If you dont play in Glorantha, then you'll have to decide if you want enchanting to be much harder.

Remember though, POW also determines magic points. This may or may not be an issue, since un-augmented spells are unlikely to work against a tough opponent.

 

[gamesmeister]

Glorantha abounds with magic. If you dont play in Glorantha, then you'll have to decide if you want enchanting to be much harder.

It does, but not to the extent that virtually everyone has magic weapons. Because that's what the rules are encouraging.

Remember though, POW also determines magic points. This may or may not be an issue, since un-augmented spells are unlikely to work against a tough opponent.

Sure, but you don't have to enchant the weapon yourself. Why spend the POW yourself when you can get someone in your clan, or perhaps the local 'Enchanters R Us' to do it for you?

For example, in Gloranthan Orlanthi culture, as a general rule the men will go out to raid (when they're not farming) while the women will manage the stead. The latter will therefore have less need to augment spells, and so would naturally evolve as a family enchanter. What clan/tribe wouldn't do this, particularly knowing that their neighbours could?

It's Glorantha I'm concerned about - that level of enchanting is what the God Learners are about. I guess I'll have to house rule this one too.

 

[weasel_fierce]

well, that assumes that everyone makes the effort to learn the appropriate spells. Its a pity the luck roll disappeared. It nicely reflected the drawbacks of sacrificing your soul

 

[soltakss]

Thinking about it, you can take 10 times as long to gain a +60% skill bonus, so taking 10 hours for a 1 POW enchanted weapon will give the rookie enchanter an 85% chance of success.

I've houseruled for a long time that skills can be doubled at most by time/situation augments. So, someone with a starting Enchant of 25% can only increase it to 50% by taking his time. Magical effects can add to this, of course.

Only a houserule, though.

In any case, I fully support the right of any PC to throw away his POW on making enchantments. In fact, the more POW they use on many different things the better.

In RQ2/3, POW Gain Rolls were very common and POW could be regained fairly easily. In RQM, POW Gain Rolls are uncommon (is there even a mechanic for the old POW Gain Roll or its equivalent) so enchantments are going to be less likely as people just don't get the POW back.

Personally, I'd be in favour of having more POW Gain Rolls and more ways to dump POW.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I generally ignore the "spend more time to get a bonus" thing, which solves a lot of the issue, together with a somewhat increased chance of POW loss from enchanting (96+ seems fair to me)

 

[gamesmeister]

In RQ2/3, POW Gain Rolls were very common and POW could be regained fairly easily. In RQM, POW Gain Rolls are uncommon (is there even a mechanic for the old POW Gain Roll or its equivalent) so enchantments are going to be less likely as people just don't get the POW back.

Under the new improvement system, you can use three improvement rolls to increase a characteristic by 1, whereby you have to roll over the characteristic x 5%. With a recommended three rolls per adventure, that's potentially 1 point per week.

 

[ninthcouncil]

My two pence:

- I'd insist that any spell to be used in an enchantment must be known at 90% or above.
- I'd change the times from hours to days.
- I'd impose a penalty of -10% to the Enchanting roll for each point of POW invested above the first.
- I'd consider imposing a loss of 1 POW on any failure, and all the POW on a fumble, though this might be a bit too aggressive.

Yup, I think it's too easy. Enchantment is a job for professionals.

 

[Adept]

My two pence:

- I'd insist that any spell to be used in an enchantment must be known at 90% or above.
- I'd change the times from hours to days.
- I'd impose a penalty of -10% to the Enchanting roll for each point of POW invested above the first.
- I'd consider imposing a loss of 1 POW on any failure, and all the POW on a fumble, though this might be a bit too aggressive.

Yup, I think it's too easy. Enchantment is a job for professionals.

Everything but the last seems reasonable. Parhaps the 90% is a bit harsh though, since the skills start so low.

Everybody is talking about magic weapons, but what about other sorts of enchantments? Does it mean that it's really easy to make minor healing charms, magical lights, firestarters and other actually useful items?

I'm not very familiar with the new system, but I suspect the more everyday useful spells have mostly been left out (just like in the previous incarnations of RQ)

 

[ninthcouncil]

Everybody is talking about magic weapons, but what about other sorts of enchantments? Does it mean that it's really easy to make minor healing charms, magical lights, firestarters and other actually useful items?

I'm not very familiar with the new system, but I suspect the more everyday useful spells have mostly been left out (just like in the previous incarnations of RQ)

The Spellcharge Enhancement could be used with spells like Light, Ignite or Heal for such purposes. In fact, there's a considerable incentive, since the spell is automatically cast successfully. If you have Enchantment skill, a bit of time on your hands, and reasonable POW, why not learn a whole bunch of spells without bothering about getting any good at Runecasting, chuck them into objects, and never worry about a failed Runceasting roll again? Not only that, but it only takes 1 MP to cast the spell, even if it is magnitude 4. Now that your POW is reduced, use your advancement rolls to build it back up again. Rinse and repeat. Magic item factory. Who needs Zistorwal? For 4 POW, you get a Heal 4 wand which never fails and only costs 1 MP to use.

The only downside is that you can get your items stolen, but it's still a pretty attractive proposition.

Enchantment is so going to be house-ruled.

 

[simonh]

The only downside is that you can get your items stolen, but it's still a pretty attractive proposition.

IIRC in MRQ you get a free use condition on any items you make, but I may be miss-remembering.

 

[Adept]

Not only that, but it only takes 1 MP to cast the spell, even if it is magnitude 4. Now that your POW is reduced, use your advancement rolls to build it back up again. Rinse and repeat. Magic item factory. Who needs Zistorwal? For 4 POW, you get a Heal 4 wand which never fails and only costs 1 MP to use.

The reduced MP cost seems really bizarre. I wonder what the rationale is there?

 

[ninthcouncil]

The only downside is that you can get your items stolen, but it's still a pretty attractive proposition.

IIRC in MRQ you get a free use condition on any items you make, but I may be miss-remembering.

CHecking the SRD, User Condition is -20% to the roll, but yes, you can overcome this little problem easily enough.

 

[soltakss]

Well, the first and mostobvious houserule has to be that the cost in MPs must relate to the original Magnitude of the spell.

So, a Heal 4 should cost 4 MPs. That's a no-brainer, really.

Automatic casting is fine, as Matrices always used to be automatic-cast.

You could always do that anyway, as long as you had the Enchantment Spells.

I prefer having a specific Enchantment Spell to be able to make an enchantment, it's easier to understand (I want to make a Binding Enchantment so I need a Binding Enchantment spell) and makes enchantments rarer (you need the Binding Enchantment spell rather than Spirit Bane, Spirit Block, Spirit Screen, Spirit Resistance, Spiritual Journey or Spiritual Projection).

I would have to have a good look at how easy enchantments are to make - I certainly would make a Power Enchancer more difficult.

As I don't like artificial limits, I'd remove them entirely, so if someone wants to make a Power Enhancer 10 Enchantment then let them. I'd make it 5% more difficult to make these per extra POW point expended, though, so making the Power Enhancer 10 would be at -45% Enchant.

Since Spellcharged items cannot be overcharged, they are restricted to a certain extent.

One way of limiting the use of Enchantments is to say that you can't use enchantments together. So, you couldn't use a Spellcharged Heal 4 with a Power Enhancer 3 to get Heal 7. That might give you an incentive to have both the Spellcharged Item and the spell itself.

So, I don't think that Enchantments are particularly powerful. The rules are better than the ones in RQ3, for instance.

 

[ninthcouncil]

It's not the automatic casting per se that bothers me, it's that, as written, the Enchantment rules allow someone with a wretchedly incomplete understanding of a spell to produce- in their lunchbreak - an item that allows them to cast it faultlessly.

So I'll be hacking this one about a bit.

 

[soltakss]

In that case, why not have the chance of making an enchantment limited to the minimum of the Enchant and Relevant Runecasting skill?

So, an Orlanthi making a Skybolt spell, for instance, has Enchant 45% and Chaos Runecasting 20%, so he only has a 20% chance of making a Runecasting Spellcharged Item.