High Magnitude Spells

[Utgardloki]

So far, all the spells I've seen for Runequest have been in the magnitude range of about 1-8. This sounds reasonable. A magnitude 8 spell should mark one as a formidable wizard to not be trifled with.

BUT,

I also like the idea of thinking big. The sky's the limit, what would Mordru do, that kind of thing. In my thread about Druids, I suggested that they should be able to take a legendary ability that allows them to cast especially powerful magic. Other types of spellcasters could also have such an option.

And then there are the gods

Before making up any high magnitude spells (which I haven't done yet), I decided to sketch out a rough framework to determine how much power a spell of a given magnitude has, ranging from magnitude 9-10 (extra-powerful) up to magnitude 136 and beyond (metaphysical spells that can literally change the universe).

What I did was create spell "terraces" of three "tiers" each. Each "tier" consists of three "triads" and each "triad" consists of three spell levels. I came up with 5 terraces. Each terrace and tier is defined by the type of caster who can master these spell magnitudes. (The three triads of each tier are assumed to be "apprentice", "proficiency", and "mastery" levels.)

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[Utgardloki]

So, without further ado, this is the rough framework for defining high magnitude spells. I'll have to put defining the sample spells on my "to do" list. To keep this post a reasonable length, I'll describe these sample spells in a followup post.

First Terrace Mortal Wizardry

Level 1-9 Mortal Tier. These are the basic spells that "normal" spellcasters can cast.

Level 10-18 Lesser Genii Tier. These are primarily more powerful versions of the basic spells, or spells of somewhat greater effect than a "normal" spell can achieve. Sample spells: The Twelve Strikes of Christmas, Empowered Meteor Swarm, Prismatic Dome

Level 19-27 Greater Genii Tier. These are spells that can devastate an army or a large part of a city. The spells of the highest tiers can even affect an entire nation. Sample spells: Invoked Devastation (level 27), Rain of Colorless Fire

Second Terrace Demigods' Wizardry

Level 28-36 Least Immortal.
Level 37-45 Lesser Demigod.
Level 46-54 Greater Demigod.

Third Terrace Lesser and Intermediate Gods

Level 55-63 Minor God
Level 64-72 Lesser God
Level 73-81 Intermediate God

Fourth Terrace Greater God Spells

Level 82-90 Greater God. These spells can have an effect across an entire planet or solar system.

Level 91-99 Supreme God. These spells can destroy a solar system, or have effect over a noticable part of a galaxy, or strip even a greater god of his power.

Level 100-108 Pantheon Magic. Normally, it takes the power of an entire pantheon to cast this magic, but some particularly powerful deities may be able to muster the power for these spells. This magic is powerful enough to potentially affect an entire galaxy.

Fifth Terrace Minor Metaphysical Magic. Metaphysical magic can actually change the game rules over an area, permanently.

Level 109-117 Least Metaphysical. These spells can affect an entire planet, making minor changes to the rules.

Level 118-126 Minor Metaphysical. These spells can make minor changes to the rules over an entire solar system, or moderate changes to the rules over a planet or a small area.

Level 127-135 Lesser Metaphysical. These spells can affect an entire galaxy with minor effect, make moderate changes over an entire solar system, or major changes over an entire planet.

Sixth Tier -- Major Metaphysical Magic

These spells can change the entire rule system, even going so far as to switch Glorantha over to the D20 system, if anybody would be so evil :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Adept]

Do you really find this useful?

***

Personally I think there's something wrong with the way you are going about this.

A friend of mine runs an excellent campaign set in the Shadow World, and using Hârnmaster as a game system.

In the magic system of Hârnmaster, called Shek-Pvar, spells go pretty much like this:

1-3 circle = journeyman magic
4-6 circle = Adept level magic (serious wizard stuff)
7+ circle = the most powerful spell usually known

Shadow World is a high magic setting, with greek style gods that walk the earth, and powerful magicians who have lived for millenia. For this game we have defined the system further

7-9 circle = Magus level (a master magicians greatest spells)
10 - 12 = Epic / divine level magic. These are spells that can effect the whole world. They take decades or centuries to research, and are usually only cast once (pretty much when, or if, you make your research roll).

***

My point is that you should think logarithmic, not linear. A magnitude 66 spell doesn't really mean anything on the RuneQuest Mongoose scale, but a magnitude 9 does. Don't think that a magnitude 20 spell is twice as powerful as a magnitude 10 spell.

 

[Utgardloki]

At one time I had a list that had a lot fewer spell levels. But I think having more "slots" to put spells into could be useful, for distinguishing spells like "Rain of Colorless Fire" (perhaps the most powerful spell cast in the World of Greyhawk history, according to the WoG timeline), and spells like "Create Sun" (which does what it implies, creates a permanent ball of incandescent gas up to a million miles in diameter).

Also there is the question of paying for these spells. Not only does a 20 magnitude spell require a lot of Power to cast, it also requires a lot of manna. This is especially true in an alternate system I am devising where the manna cost for a spell is the square of the spell magnitude, but "normal" wizards can easily gain more "Magic Points" than in the standard system.

I don't think applying a logarithmic scale or any other mathematical scale to spells works very well. What is the scale of turning someone to stone vs creating a 10 meter diameter sphere of fire? If you think in terms of damage done, flesh to stone does less damage (takes out one opponent) than fireball, but if you think in terms of energy usage, flesh to stone uses a lot of energy compared to spells that simply move or blast things with energy.

If this were a superhero game like DC Universe, then spell power would probably be applied in terms of AP, where level 2 only affects one person, and level 50 affects the entire universe. But such a system does not seem to fit the Runequest game.

(BTW, I think I have the spell levels of "Invoked Devastation" and "Rain of Colorless Fire" way too low, since if you've read the World of Greyhawk history, these spells both destroyed entire nations.)

 

[weasel_fierce]

I like the idea of having stuff at "evil overlord" level, but honestly, from a practical purpose, evil overlords tends to have whatever magic they need, to make the adventure interesting and tough. Rules tend not to work to that end.

As far as deities, gods do whatever their mythology dictates they should do. I cant think of many situations where a player character can realistically oppose or interfere with a deity's abilities in any meaningfull way.

But maybe Im just being old fashioned about it

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I don't think applying a logarithmic scale or any other mathematical scale to spells works very well.

Well leaving aside that a linear progreassion is a mathematical scale, it is certainly true that at the normal levels, progression is not logarithmic - an Magnitude 2 Bladesharp is twice as good as an intensity one one, and an Magnitude 4 is 4 times as good. - But I'd assume that these sort of spells hit a "law of diminishing returns" of sorts, so "no one" learns a magnitude 20 Bladesharp, because there are better and cheaper ways to achieve the same ultimate aim...

(BTW, I think I have the spell levels of "Invoked Devastation" and "Rain of Colorless Fire" way too low, since if you've read the World of Greyhawk history, these spells both destroyed entire nations.)

Possibly unfortunately, World of Greyhawk was out of print for the whole period of my life when I would have been interested in reading it. However, as with Weasel_fierce, I'd question whether you really need rules to cover this sort of thing? Zzabur invoking the closing or hiding Brithos (both in the future for MRQ) are probably the most obvious use of power of Glorantha's greatest sorceror - but they aren't the sorts of spells that PC's are likely to use, at least not unless your PC's are ruling whole nations in a very high-power game, in which case the RQ rules are probably not the best for supporting your game... (IE, how often, in your game to PC magic users want/need to destroy whole nations? - and what do they/the other characters do the rest of the time?)

On the other hand if you are looking to use Zzabur as an opponent, then my feeling is that you shouldn't be going head to head with him in a spellcasting contest, but should rather be looking for an alternative solution - again reducing or removing the need to map out the exact magnitude of his spells.

But then my general feeling with a lot of Utgardloki's posts of this nature is that he is trying to replicate other rules sets using MRQ, which leaves me a bit baffled. Why worry about what level a spell is in D&D or Rolemaster unless you are playing those games? The rules and limitations on spells in their "house" settings are an artefact of the rules, and, if you are happy with those limits and rules, why are you trying to force them into RQ rather than using the originals - and if you're not happy then invoke the spirit of the setting rather than the mechanics and allow the RQ rules to deal with the situation.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

To clarify...

But then my general feeling with a lot of Utgardloki's posts of this nature is that he is trying to replicate other rules sets using MRQ, which leaves me a bit baffled. Why worry about what level a spell is in D&D or Rolemaster unless you are playing those games? The rules and limitations on spells in their "house" settings are an artefact of the rules, and, if you are happy with those limits and rules, why are you trying to force them into RQ rather than using the originals - and if you're not happy then invoke the spirit of the setting rather than the mechanics and allow the RQ rules to deal with the situation.

I'm not suggesting that what Utgardloki's doing is "wrong" per se, it's just not the way I would start to go about it

 

[soltakss]

Interstingly enough, there were some Demons published last Millenia, I think, that were high powered. They had things like Bladesharp = POW, Damage Resistance = POW and had POW of 30-60.

So, having high-powered spells is not a problem.

I'm not keen on the threshold magnitudes of spells, so you have to get a spell at Magnitude N to cast it. Doesn't sound very RQy to me.

Past a certain point, spells such as Bladesharp lose all meaning. Bladesharp 40 punches through pretty much any armour and adds 200%, so does Bladesharp 80, except it adds 400%. Either way, you kill most things you are fighting.

I've never been keen on artificial levels of any kind, in RQ, HQ or any other system. If you can learn Bladesharp 20 and have the MPs to cast it, then why not? It doesn't make you a demigod, it just gives you a really sharp sword, which is fine until you realise the dragon you are fighting is invulnerable to swords.

So, personally, I'd steer clear of anything that imposes levels.

 

[Utgardloki]

But then my general feeling with a lot of Utgardloki's posts of this nature is that he is trying to replicate other rules sets using MRQ, which leaves me a bit baffled. Why worry about what level a spell is in D&D or Rolemaster unless you are playing those games? The rules and limitations on spells in their "house" settings are an artefact of the rules, and, if you are happy with those limits and rules, why are you trying to force them into RQ rather than using the originals - and if you're not happy then invoke the spirit of the setting rather than the mechanics and allow the RQ rules to deal with the situation.

Well, what I like to have is a framework to work with. As GM, I reserve the right to do whatever I want -- if an inguene sorceress has a spell that will wipe out half the nation, so be it. But I like to have some sort of guideline.

For example, in an animated cartoon I saw someone invoke a "Twelve Strikes of Christmas" attack. That seems kind of cool, so it goes into the set of things I might want to put in a game someday. What kind of spellcaster could cast such as attack, and could a PC have that kind of power?

Or I might want to do a plot where some villians want to recreate a "Rain of Colorless Fire". What would they need to do? Perhaps they'd have to a) combine a number of spellcasters to achieve the required magnitude, b) make fearsome sacrifices through arcane rituals to gather and focus the manna. The PC's goal would be to stop them, but having a framework gives me an idea of what is needed. (Or there could just be a) a powerful artifact, or b) a special sacrifice, or c) a special alignment of planets), but that would make the scenario a lot different from one in which they just need 12 wizards with 7 virgin sacrifices, and they have 5 backup wizards and any number of virgins with enough total Charisma would do.

I also like to combine things eclectically -- in my mind, the Runequest game and the D&D game exist in the same "Omni-Cosmos" at some level. On the one hand, D&D analogs of Runequest worlds exist in the "Great Wheel Cosmology", and Runequest analogs of D&D worlds exist in the "Gloranthaverse". On the other hand, it is possible to travel between the "Great Wheel Cosmology" and the "Gloranthaverse". On the third hand, if differing game systems are regarded as aspects of quantum probabilities (e.g., a solid blow with a great-axe is more likely to kill a person in the Gloranthaverse than in the Great Wheel Cosmology), then it may be possible to impose one set of probabilities in another multiverse.

(I happen to be reading a book by Roger Penrose, and getting lots of ideas from it.)

Coming back down to earth, I am planning a game with Runequest analogs of D&D settings, specifically Iron Kingdoms and Drow Wars. I have no plans currently for high magnitude magics, but I kind of see it as like a door that I want to know what is behind.

Of course, if there is a door, then the players will want to know how they can access the spells behind the door. In the regard the tiers are very useful in giving PCs potential access to legendary spell "toys", while reserving the campaign-destroying stuff to those the GM feels deserves it.

Anyway, that's my motivation. I may be a minority of 1.

 

[Utgardloki]

I'm not keen on the threshold magnitudes of spells, so you have to get a spell at Magnitude N to cast it. Doesn't sound very RQy to me.

Your post has given me the idea that there could be lesser versions of the legendary spells like "Invoked Devastation" that could be in the reach of normal spellcasters. There could be "One Strike of Christmas", "Two Strikes of Christmas", "Three Strikes of Christmas", etc. The legends would speak of the most powerful known instances of the spell, so "Rain of Colorless Fire" would refer to a spell that can destroy an entire empire, but a normal spellcaster might cast a spell that does the same thing over a radius of a few meters.

But I do think there should be cutoffs. "Invoked Devastation" can't be very devastating if it is cast at Magnitude 1. (Although perhaps there is a spell with similar effect, that only works against creatures of Size 1. That could be devastating to a witch's familiar.) RQ analogs of the Prismatic series of spells should probably be at least Magnitude 7, so that anybody casting Prismatic anything has a reputation.

Also, someone noted that Bladesharp 40 is not very useful, given the amount of power required to cast the spell. Perhaps there can be a series of "Vorpal Blade" spells starting at Magnitude 10, that give 10 times the bonus of the equivalent Bladesharp spell. These would really only be useful against particularly dire threats, although I could see it as being useful when fighting dragons or Iron Kingdom warjacks.

(Note, most of my stuff is from D&D books, and I don't have many RQ books, so most of my ideas will tend to be D&D ideas converted to RQ. Maybe after I finish paying for my new car, that may change.)

(Also, note that I'd only actually use a "Twelve Strikes of Christmas" spell in a game with a humorous theme, such as my idea for a "Depravenloft" setting, where the PC's must retreive an artifact from "Umpire Castle". Or if I were to ever use an RQ analog of the Gamma World setting. -- Hmmmm, RQ Gamma World, that would be interesting; maybe the natives of that setting would have psionic shields that deflect damage until a few dozen points are taken and their own skin is put at risk. -- Characters in Glorantha are probably safe from any concerns regarding that particular spell.)

 

[Utgardloki]

I've never been keen on artificial levels of any kind, in RQ, HQ or any other system. If you can learn Bladesharp 20 and have the MPs to cast it, then why not? It doesn't make you a demigod, it just gives you a really sharp sword, which is fine until you realise the dragon you are fighting is invulnerable to swords.

I would have no problem with a character casting Bladesharp 20. That thought didn't even cross my mind as I was thinking about my concept of legendary spells, which do a lot more than a Bladesharp 20 could dream of doing. The only reason to forbid a PC from learning and casting Bladesharp 20 would be that the rules to limit access to legendary spells also prevent Bladesharp 20 from working, as if the spell were a 20 cent coin that just happened to be locked in a vault filled with treasures too valuable to risk to common burglaries.

But a PC with the key to the vault might need Bladesharp 20 against something like an Iron Kingdoms Warjack.

Alternatively, I could attach the label "Legendary" to the spell rather than to the magnitude, leaving Bladesharp 20 outside the vault, with Bladesharp 100, if anybody ever wanted to cast THAT spell. "Rain of Colorless Fire" and "Invoked Devastation" would be inside the vault, even if cast at magnitudes less than 10.

That would be a way to make my idea more accessible to GMs who do not share my philosophy on scaling.

 

[simonh]

There are mega-magics in Glorantha as has been pointed out. The various moon Burns that devastate entire forested regions in the 3rd age are another example.

I don't think magical effects such as these can possibly be modelled using the RQ rules as they stand, in any edition of RQ. IMHO they are the result of massive multi-participant rituals or heroquests.

I'd like to make an important point here. The game rules only simulate what a character actually does in the game world to a very superficial extent. Rather they are 'resolution' mechanics. The rules determine the results of the character's activities. For example, the rules on casting divine magic tell us nothing about the experience the caster has while invoking the magic. What is happening inside the character's head? What thoughts, words and acts of the imagination or religious experience actually create the magic? The rules don't say, all they do is present the externalities of the spell casting event. They tell us what an outsider would know about what happened - how long it took, the physical or verbal actions taken, the effects of the magic, etc.

My point is that these mega spells may well be actually cast using similar methods to Divine Magic, Rune Magic, Sorcery, etc from the point of view of the participants in the spells (though they will be harder, take longer, be more exhausting, etc), but that the game rules for resolving their effects may have to be very different.

 

[soltakss]

Yes.

If you have a magical unit, each member might have a Divine Spell that has a certain effect. Stack them in a unit with some special unit magic and those spells could probably work together. Give the unit a wyter or spirit to control it and you have a single spell effect.

So, you could have a unit that calls fire from the sky (stacked Sunspears), floods an area (stacked Rain or Raise Flood spells), calls craters from the Moon (Crater Makers - stacked meteor spells) or splits the earth (stacked Fissure or Shake Earth spells). I am sure that units of sorcerers or shamans/animists could get similar effects.

Individual deities are a bit harder to have rules for.

Cragspider is around in the Second Age, so she probably has her Firestorm ability. Is that her own ability or does she have a team of priests summoning fire? I would guess it is her own ability that she can call down on foes in certain situations.

Legendary DemiGods anyone?