If only because it has a lower base, Divine Pact skills seem to be a little lower on average than Sorcery Grimoire skills. This means that sorcerors have a big advantage over Divine casters, in that a Spell Resistance makes the sorceror completely immune to the divine caster. For instance, last night the sorceror in my group covered the ship in Protective Wards of Spell Resistance (Hrestoli Liturgies grimoire 86%), and the NPC divine caster only had 45% in his Pact. Is there anything the divine caster could do, given that he didn't have Dismiss Magic? Well, there wasn't much he could do since he got taken out by a Befuddle on the first round, but in theory... I guess he could have just gone inside the ward.
Immunity from Divine
- Thread starter PhilHibbs
- Start date
Deleriad
Mongoose
I must admit that I reckon one of the first spells almost every divine caster sacrifices for is (or should be) Dismiss Magic. I think of it as the "protect me from evil" spell. That said, it's a one shot and the sorcerer can simply recast the spell. You just have to hope that it's bought you enough time. Other than that, the sorcerer has more tools at their disposal than the divine caster. Also, if you have someone with a Pact of 45% facing up to a sorcerer with skill of 89% then you should no more expect the 45% er to prevail than you would if you have two people hitting each other with swords at 89% vs 45%.
I actually got it badly wrong in the game - I thought that the Magnitude of the spell was the number of points the caster had, and I doubled it, so the Lightning 5 became a 10 point spell which worked. After the session, I realised it was the caster's Pact of 45% that gave the spell a Magnitude of 5 (and I couldn't find any rule which said that divine counts double against other forms) which was nowhere near enough.daxos232 said:
Deleriad
Mongoose
The balance is roughly this.
In Divine Magic both the Magnitude and the effect of the spell scale with Pact. So a person with a Pact of 45% has an effect of '5' and a Magnitude of 5.
In sorcery a person with Grimoire of 45% has an effect of '5' but only a Magnitude of 1. In order to get a Magnitude of 5 they have to use a separate skill to manipulate it. So it costs 2 Magic Points to get a spell with effect 5 and Magnitude of 5 compared with 1 Dedicated POW for a divine user to get an effect 5, magnitude 5 spell.
This is not to say that the traditions are balanced (nor that there is any attempt to balance them as RQ doesn't work that way) as sorcery is generally more flexible than Divine Magic. That said, a priest with 18 Dedicated POW and 95% Pact can cast 18 spells at Magnitude 10. A sorcerer with 18 POW and 95% Manipulation can only cast 9 spells at Magnitude 10 so it's not totally one-sided.
In Divine Magic both the Magnitude and the effect of the spell scale with Pact. So a person with a Pact of 45% has an effect of '5' and a Magnitude of 5.
In sorcery a person with Grimoire of 45% has an effect of '5' but only a Magnitude of 1. In order to get a Magnitude of 5 they have to use a separate skill to manipulate it. So it costs 2 Magic Points to get a spell with effect 5 and Magnitude of 5 compared with 1 Dedicated POW for a divine user to get an effect 5, magnitude 5 spell.
This is not to say that the traditions are balanced (nor that there is any attempt to balance them as RQ doesn't work that way) as sorcery is generally more flexible than Divine Magic. That said, a priest with 18 Dedicated POW and 95% Pact can cast 18 spells at Magnitude 10. A sorcerer with 18 POW and 95% Manipulation can only cast 9 spells at Magnitude 10 so it's not totally one-sided.
No starting sorceror will have their Grimoire as low as 45%. Even with average stats, they will have 56% in it, 62% with an INT of 16. Pacts start at 11% + DP, so that gives a maximum of around 45% with average stats, or 48% if he's got 3 above average on his magical stats. And Spell Resistance needs no manipulation to get the 7 points of protection, that's automatic from the Grimoire skill level. Protective Ward and Spell Resistance combined just need 1MP.Deleriad said:
