Losing and Regaining Lost Permanent Magic Points

[alex_greene]

I had a thought about this.

Arms of Legend posits that you can dedicate Magic Points to running an enchantment. I leave you to go and look up the book for the details of the hows and the wherefores.

Now it says that if you have an enchantment you've dedicated Magic Points to, you can't get them back as if they were dedicated POW for a Pact. So if he has 16 POW and he uses three Magic Points off the top dedicated to the enchantment, he can only recover up to 13 of those Magic Points.

If the sorcerer breaks up the object himself, he releases the dedicated Magic Points, he gets them all back. If he breaks up his magic cane, he gets back his Magic Points and he can recover up to 16 Magic Points again.

If, however, someone else breaks up the enchantment, the sorcerer loses those dedicated Magic Points permanently. In this case, he can only regain up to 13 Magic Points even though his POW, base chances and magical skills remain the same.

Now I don't hold to that "lost forever" stuff, so I figured: what could one do about it?

And I came up with the idea: the character makes Improvement Rolls to rebuild the dead POW as if buying the full POW. The POW stays the same: you're just buying the capacity to hold a Magic Point in each point of POW you recover.

Thoughts?

 

[Simulacrum]

Arms of Legend enchantment is a magic-point dedicating economy, and to that extent consistent with divine magic pacting rules. While I do think the sorcerer should lose invested points if he is careless enough to have his device fall into the wrong hands and get broken, there's a logic problem - the MPs are gone but he still has his POW.

I'm the meaner sort - so I'd reduce his POW rather than hand back the MPs... :twisted:

 

[alex_greene]

It still pays better to keep POW and INT, and Tap one's own STR, CON, DEX, SIZ and CHA for the Magic Points to use in the enchantment, then to use Restoration to bring back those lost points.

 

[PhilHibbs]

It still pays better to keep POW and INT, and Tap one's own STR, CON, DEX, SIZ and CHA for the Magic Points to use in the enchantment, then to use Restoration to bring back those lost points.

Yes, it seems daft that tapping your own POW first and then getting it restored is the safe option...

 

[alex_greene]

It leaves your character feeling as weak as a kitten, but your character can surround himself with armed loyal guards who'll stand over your character on the outside of your character Warding while your character uses the Restoration matrix enchanted in a ring or pendant to automatically begin recovery.

 

[Fonso]

I would use a Restoration sorcery spell to recover these lost MP.

Technically isn't "characteristic damage", but is very similar.

 

[alex_greene]

I would use a Restoration sorcery spell to recover these lost MP.

Technically isn't "characteristic damage", but is very similar.

:shock:

Not quite what they'd intended when they came up with the rules. You're right, nonetheless. Restoration cures "characteristic damage." POW points that cannot hold Magic Points are a "damaged characteristic." No specific rule against it, is there?

 

[Marrethiel]

It still pays better to keep POW and INT, and Tap one's own STR, CON, DEX, SIZ and CHA for the Magic Points to use in the enchantment, then to use Restoration to bring back those lost points.

Yes, it seems daft that tapping your own POW first and then getting it restored is the safe option...

If you were to allow this as a GM you may as well remove the idea of putting stats in an item. Just increase the time buy 10 or 100 times and be done with it.
You could interpret it that the casters maximum unadusted MP's are reduced... then Tapping or any other dodginess no longer matters.
If your item was destroyed, then I think it would be quite reasonable to have the MP's come back over time. Maybe one year and a day or three nights meditation on a full moon with an appropriate skill check.

 

[PhilHibbs]

It still pays better to keep POW and INT, and Tap one's own STR, CON, DEX, SIZ and CHA for the Magic Points to use in the enchantment, then to use Restoration to bring back those lost points.

If you were to allow this as a GM you may as well remove the idea of putting stats in an item. Just increase the time buy 10 or 100 times and be done with it.
You could interpret it that the casters maximum unadusted MP's are reduced... then Tapping or any other dodginess no longer matters.

The rules explicitly state that tapping is a way to get boosted MPs to create enchantments without losing personal MPs. Getting access to both Tap and Restoration is difficult, but you could get another sorcerer to do it.
I've given magical loot with conditions - I think one was in a scenario - and I allowed the players to give the item to a sorcerer who Taps the enchantment to get a few MPs and create a small MP storage matrix with.

 

[Marrethiel]

The rules explicitly state that tapping is a way to get boosted MPs to create enchantments without losing personal MPs. Getting access to both Tap and Restoration is difficult, but you could get another sorcerer to do it.
I've given magical loot with conditions - I think one was in a scenario - and I allowed the players to give the item to a sorcerer who Taps the enchantment to get a few MPs and create a small MP storage matrix with.

I guess it is one of the stregths of Legend, you can do what you want to the rules. I think I'd probably allow it but have items made with stolen MPs slightly tainted some how.

 

[alex_greene]

Tainted, perhaps - or if the sorcerer has to use stolen Magic Points to make up an item he has to make up for it by sacrificing one or more of his Manipulation points to offset the one or more Conditions that will automatically form in the enchantment.

Negative Conditions (or perhaps the missing Limitations) imposed on the sorcerer himself such as -

Cursed - the item brings down bad luck upon the sorcerer who created it; each time he uses the cursed device, his next skill roll result gets marked down one level, from Critical Success to Success, or from Success to Failure, or from Failure to Fumble. A natural result of Fumble remains a Fumble.

Trouble Magnet - the item increases the likelihood that the caster will have an encounter anywhere by 10%, regardless of where the item is at the time, and increases the likelihood that the encounter will be hostile by 40%.

Power Vacuum - some sort of a void has been ripped in the fabric of reality, centered about the enchanter. Every time he spends Magic Points, he ends up having to spend one extra Magic Point. He gains no benefit from that Magic Point; it is lost to the void, though it can be recovered normally. He also no longer gains the benefit of a critical success in either Sorcery or Enchanting - he always has to spend the full Magic Points, no matter how good his spellcasting efforts turn out.

Witchmarks - something physically warps the caster's body and soul. The caster loses a permanent point from each of his characteristics which cannot be restored with Restoration. This includes POW; any dedicated Magic Points or permanent Magic Points dedicated to an enchantment remain, unaffected by this change in the POW (e.g. an enchanter with POW 15 has dedicated 1 POW to the Artificer Deity, and has 2 permanent Magic Points in an enchantment. He can only recover 12 Magic Points. He loses 1 characteristic point off everything, including POW, which drops to 14; he now can only recover 11 Magic Points).

Haunted - something of the personality of the victim seems to remain. It's a subtle presence, at least at first - a scent, a voice, cold breath on the shoulder, a glimpse of an accusing face looking over the shoulder in the mirror or last thing at night, looming over the bed, just before the enchanter closes his eyes - but if the same victim is drained multiple times, or drained once of a lot of his life force, all of that stolen life manifests as increasingly stronger apparitions, glowering accusingly at the enchanter. No particular game effect or reduction of dice rolls, but these apparitions are clearly visible to spells that detect magic - and those in the know who see them understand that they are the sign of an enchanter who has the Tap spell (as well as clearly identifying the victims, if they know them). On a critical success with their spells of magic detection, other spell users can distinguish what type of Tap spells the enchanter knows, or has used.

If the enchantment is removed by the sorcerer, and suitable reparations made - accepting a heroic quest set by the victim, paying a sizable sum of money, whatever - the Limitation can be lifted with an Improvement Roll. If the enchantment is broken by anyone else, including the victim or those who swore to avenge him, the Limitations are permanent and cannot be erased from the sorcerer; they form part of his pattern, as if he'd had them since the day he was born.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Sounds fine, if that fits the style of the game world. In Glorantha, some cultures consider Tapping to be evil, but some don't, and the rules didn't come down on either side as to whether Tapped magic points carried any taint. There are some hints that the Magic Points that Borist sorcerors got from tapping chaotic creatures carried the taint of chaos, and that makes sense. They probably thought they were doing a good thing, by destroying chaos. Oops. You know what they say, tha paths of the damned are lined with souls of good intent.