Extended Dissertation on Magic Resolution

[Rurik]

The whole point of this post is to compare the 'old' way of resolving magic resistance (unopposed rolls) to the new way in the Players Update (opposed rolls), as there is a major difference in the way the two play (as well as many minor ones). I am not saying one is better than the other, just that they are different. Most of the following observations are a direct result of my having run a number of high powered magic duels in attempting to come up with rules to use opposed resistance rolls rather than the original system. In doing so I realized I actually liked the original system (I thought I didn't upon reading it - amazing what actually playing the system can do).

In summary the original system uses unopposed rolls - the caster rolls against his skill for a simple success/failure result, and if he succeeds the target rolls against his appropriate resist skill (dodge, persistence, or resilience depending on the spell he is resisting) in a simple unopposed test. A person with a high resist is going to be very hard to affect without overcharging spells.

The new system involves resolving the casting as an opposed roll between the casters skill and the targets resist. Basically the attacker rolls and the defender then tries to beat the attackers roll in an opposed test if it was successful.

Whew. Finally, on to the major difference. Duels between moderate skilled (50%-60%) opponents play pretty similar between the two systems. The differences occur when casters have high skills. For the examples coming assume all participants have 95% in all relevant skills (casting, resist, etc).

In the old system in a high powered duel the participants NEED to overcharge. Casting a 2 point befuddle has almost no chance of working without overcharging, so the casters have to start throwing 5-6 point befuddles around. Overcharging by four gives the target -40%, so he will have to overcharge to get his resist back up (it will take 8 points to get back to 95%). A whole kind of bidding game with MP is involved (how many points to overcharge while still having a good enough chance of success). Often the contest will come down to he who loses his stores of MP first loses. I find it has very epic feel, with powerful magicians throwing huge amounts of magical energy at each other in spectacular fashion.

In the new system the befuddle is opposed, so if both magicians are of equal skill (say 95%) the casting has a 50/50 chance of succeeding or failing without any overcharging. This is actually more similar to earlier RQ editions, where spell resistance was a POW vs POW roll on the resistance table - if both participants had a POW of 18 a base spell would have a 50% chance of taking effect. Actually, also using the Players Update rule the resist failing the opposed test but still being a simple success casing all overcharge effects to be lost makes overcharging likely to be a waste of points against a high resist (unless you overcharge a LOT) - it works better against low resist targets.

So that is the major difference: in the old way high level casting requires a lot of MP, in the new way it doesn't. It is a matter of taste really. They both work, and there is a logic to both systems. I find the old way a bit simpler in execution, but the new way is by no means too complicated - my only concern is that the target should have to declare how many points they are overcharging before seeing the casters roll.

Some people have proposed using opposed rolls and doing away with overcharging all together - this can work as well though requires also coming up with alternative ways of dealing with counter magic and dispel magic.

I am going to move on to the more subtle differences in another post as this one is long already.

 

[Rurik]

OK, continuing...

Many people felt that the rules as written had a problem with being able to get 'spell' immunity through a high resist. It actually requires 3 very high skills, Dodge, Persistence, and Resistance. Gaining a 90%+ in all resist skills is not easy, especially if you are trying to also improve things like your casting or combat skills. Any offensive spell caster worth his salt should diversify his offensive spells to make sure he has all three bases covered as a priority. Direct spells (that require a dodge resist) also require a reaction available. So say two of your Orlanthi parties Weapon Thanes can gang up on that Yelmalio Runelord and flurry him to use up his reactions early in the round so the Wind Lord can Skybolt his ass when he has none left (note I do not actually endorse treating Yelmalio Runelords this way!).

Diversification is a solid practice no matter which magic rules you use, but I would say it is slightly more important in the old (unopposed) way because finding the targets weakness is a big benefit in the whole 'deplete the Magic Point' meta-game.

On to Sorcery. Sorcery at high skill levels is easily the most powerful magic system (It has always been this way - hardest to learn but the greatest potential). A 95% intensity means all spells are going to have a base Magnitude of 10 for 1 MP. Experience tells us that by the time characters reach "Rune Level" in RQ they often have some pretty obscene amount of stored MP available. Since all sorcery spells cost 1 MP per Manipulation trait used a powerful sorcerer has almost unlimited spell casting potential. Forcing them to overcharge causes them to spend their MP. If they don't have to overcharge, they become that much more powerful relative to the other magic systems (while Divine Magic costs no MP how many points can be stored is very limited).

I hope if anyone made it this far this has been useful to them. I have no real agenda other than sharing what I have found - indeed I made all these observations in trying out house-rules to use opposed rolls for spell resistance before the Players Update was released. I found the old rules were not at all broken as many (myself included) seemed to think on first reading, and that I actually liked the feel of high level duels using them. On the other hand there is a certain logic to using opposed rolls, and it is definitely more similar to how past versions of RQ have handled spell resistance.

Mahalo.

 

[weasel_fierce]

And in a few hours someone will come by, stating how its just like D&D


Thanks for the dissection though. Its very handy

 

[RosenMcStern]

Actually, the "old" system was more like D&D, with Persistence/Resilience/Dodge being the equivalent of the five figures used in The Other Game, and Overcharging being the equivalent of the "Save vs. Spell at -4" that are so common in the Player's manual. Like Rurik, however, I did not dislike the old rules. I think they were changed to be more in line with all the other game mechanics. In fact, it is even possible that Loz changed them because they were too D&D-ish :roll:

I have and important question for Loz & Pete, however. Are all the Overcharging rules still in effect as written in the basic manual? Because there are magic items that are very easy to create and provide an automatic Overcharge to all spells cast. Does this mean that the target rolls his resistance at reduced percentile, and it is still an opposed roll?

 

[gamesmeister]

Actually, also using the Players Update rule the resist failing the opposed test but still being a simple success casing all overcharge effects to be lost makes overcharging likely to be a waste of points against a high resist (unless you overcharge a LOT) - it works better against low resist targets.

Not sure I follow your logic on this one. Previously, you had to overcharge to have a chance of your spell working against a high resist. In many ways, that's still the case: overcharging gives you a much greater chance of winning the opposed roll, and therefore getting your spell to work, due to the reduction in your opponent's Resist skill. Ultimately, any benefits of an overcharged spell are gravy - it's getting the spell to work in the first place that's the most important thing.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

I think they were changed to be more in line with all the other game mechanics.

Yes, that was indeed the case. Both Resilience and Persistence rolls have been updated in the optional rules section of the GM's Guide so that they are used as Opposed Tests for magic or wound levels for example.

This solves the problem with very high resistance skills which can still easily approach or even exceed 100% if the base characteristic is 20+, as is the case with some creatures, or indeed your PC's if they decided to train their characteristics up!

I have and important question for Loz & Pete, however. Are all the Overcharging rules still in effect as written in the basic manual? Because there are magic items that are very easy to create and provide an automatic Overcharge to all spells cast. Does this mean that the target rolls his resistance at reduced percentile, and it is still an opposed roll?

That is a very good question, and something which was overlooked when the player update was revised.

Whilst I personally prefer to ignore Overcharging entirely, Rurik does have a valid point that some GM's want their players the option of blowing through a defensive spell, if their offensive spells aren't known at a sufficient magnitude.

I think the best option is to remove the "If the spell possesses the Resist trait, the target’s Resist test suffers a –10% penalty." option completely from Overcharging. This should apply to the 'Spell Enhancer Enchantment' too.

Thus you can still empower your spell with enough extra MP to break through a magical defense, but will not have any effect on the target's resistance test.

It is the simplest fix.

 

[Rurik]

Actually, also using the Players Update rule the resist failing the opposed test but still being a simple success casing all overcharge effects to be lost makes overcharging likely to be a waste of points against a high resist (unless you overcharge a LOT) - it works better against low resist targets.

Not sure I follow your logic on this one. Previously, you had to overcharge to have a chance of your spell working against a high resist. In many ways, that's still the case: overcharging gives you a much greater chance of winning the opposed roll, and therefore getting your spell to work, due to the reduction in your opponent's Resist skill. Ultimately, any benefits of an overcharged spell are gravy - it's getting the spell to work in the first place that's the most important thing.

What I am referring to is the following section from the Players Update:

Overcharging Spells
If a spell has been overcharged, and the target also succeeds in the opposed test, but has the lower roll, the spell takes effect only at its base value; the additional Magnitude of the spell is successfully resisted.

Say you have an 85% casting and overcharge 2 points against someone with a high (95%) resist. The target will likely make his resist roll even if he loses the opposed roll, so all benefit of overcharging (duration and harder to dispel) will be lost. Keep in mind he may well overcharge himself to negate some of the resistance loss from your overcharge.

Now look at overcharging 2 points against some one with a 50% resist. His skill goes down to 30%, he has to spend 4 points just to get it back to 50%, and is still much less likely to resist the overcharged spell.

So in the new system overcharging is less effective against high resistance targets, and more effective against lower skilled targets. That was the point I was getting at.

 

[gamesmeister]

Yes, I understood that, it was just the bit where you said it was a waste of MPs. Overcharging a spell by 2 MPs still reduces the chance of a successful resist by 20%, which seems pretty good to me.

Anyway, good post.

 

[Deleriad]

I think the best option is to remove the "If the spell possesses the Resist trait, the target’s Resist test suffers a –10% penalty." option completely from Overcharging. This should apply to the 'Spell Enhancer Enchantment' too.

Thus you can still empower your spell with enough extra MP to break through a magical defense, but will not have any effect on the target's resistance test.

I'm not quite sure that I follow the point here. Overcharging is meant to make the spell harder to resist. In the original rules it simulated the POWvsPOW resistance test through burning MPs. If you take away the resistance modifier then against high resistance targets, overcharging has precisely no effect because either:
a) target successfully resists so spell doesn't take effect anyway
b) target resists but rolls lower so all over-charging effects are ignored.
This means that overcharging only affects people who fail their resistance roll.
I actually like tactical options and feel of overcharging RAW. It gives an epic feel and gives non-magic users something to do with their MPs; I presume if you're removing the resistance effect from overcharging that you're not letting targets use their MPs to boost their resistance roll.

There is an argument that you need to keep the overcharging amount secret until resolution but it should still be obvious that a spell-caster is overcharging.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

I'm not quite sure that I follow the point here. Overcharging is meant to make the spell harder to resist.

The point I was trying to make is that now that you use opposed rolls to resist magic, there is no real need to reduce your opponent's Resist skill.

However, there is a requirement (in some games) for a method to overcome the potency of any defensive magic. Thus Overcharging is now primarily needed to act as a spell penetrator... rather than to reduce the effectiveness of unopposed resistance skills of high value.

My suggestion is a step which simplifies the mechanics of resisting magic, breaking it into two separate parts. Overcharging->Potency, and Casting Skill->Resist Skill.

 

[gamesmeister]

I'm not quite sure that I follow the point here. Overcharging is meant to make the spell harder to resist.

The point I was trying to make is that now that you use opposed rolls to resist magic, there is no real need to reduce your opponent's Resist skill.

Sure there is - reducing your opponent's resist skill makes it that much harder for him to succeed with his resist roll, and therefore more likely that you'll win the opposed roll.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

Sure there is - reducing your opponent's resist skill makes it that much harder for him to succeed with his resist roll, and therefore more likely that you'll win the opposed roll.

I'm not saying that you can't use it if you really want to... just that its no longer necessary.

Using the opposed test rule, atop the now official limits of Resist skills being capped at Characteristic x 5%, theres no real need to bias the roll even more in favour of the caster.

[Of course your games might vary. But I prefer both my NPCs and PCs to have a reasonable chance of saving against magic. I dislike it when PCs (ab)use a rule like this to effectively squash any chance of an opponent saving to zero percent. It becomes a system loophole which can lead to a disruption of game balance.]

 

[Deleriad]

Sure there is - reducing your opponent's resist skill makes it that much harder for him to succeed with his resist roll, and therefore more likely that you'll win the opposed roll.

I'm not saying that you can't use it if you really want to... just that its no longer necessary.

Using the opposed test rule, atop the now official limits of Resist skills being capped at Characteristic x 5%, theres no real need to bias the roll even more in favour of the caster.

[Of course your games might vary. But I prefer both my NPCs and PCs to have a reasonable chance of saving against magic. I dislike it when PCs (ab)use a rule like this to effectively squash any chance of an opponent saving to zero percent. It becomes a system loophole which can lead to a disruption of game balance.]

Well there is still the ability to increase by resistance skill by spending MPs. Given that magic in RQ is rarer now, non-magic users and other mooks will burn through their MPs to resist magic. E.g. if an average mook has 10 MPs and no spells (i.e. no need to spend MPs), then, as GM I would simply add 45% to their resistance skill. If you play with the Hawkmoon rules where an average starting character has about 50% resistance then, suddenly, every mook potentially has 95% resistance.