Jujitsudave said:
I'd rather they simply scrap the current magic systems and develop a new one. This is the one aspect of Runequest / Legend that I don't really like. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad system, but it seems rather Glorantha-centric and highly powerful and focused on cult organizations.
Totally agree!
Jujitsudave said:
In particular, I'm talking about sorcery which can be a real game breaker. Other elements are ok like Divine and Common Magic, but Spirit Magic is vague and the role of runes is unclear as well.
In rather substantial disagreement, yeah the runic part is vague at best. But Spirit magic is pretty simple cut, you can ask for a number of spirits to help you, and they grant different bonuses depending on the thing you ask of them, you need spirit walking to find them, and spirit binding to bind them into you contract. Once you have more spirits, you can use those to help you bind more spirits. And so on and so forth.
Also, I find Spirit Magic MUCH more powerful than sorcery, and I find most creative uses of Divine Magic far overshades sorcery. Where sorcery might be cheap, divine magic is game-breaking in its potency. If you have like 45% in pact (easily attainable for a starting character), you can cast amplify, and then multi-missile to use one day on making a bunch of arrows split into 6 arrows.
Imo Sorcery is weaker, but much more versatile from a single spell than Divine Magic is, divine magic pretty much have a few buttons that are I win in a single situation, you just need to prepare the right one (aphrodisiac and summon elemental are good examples of this).
For a high-magic setting it's good enough, but when you compare it with the sheer excellence of the skill and advancement system and even moreso the unparallelled quality of the combat system, "good enough" isn't good enough. Trying to run a low fantasy setting or even mid fantasy setting is frustrating with this magic system as a character with the right Grimoires (partially the DMs fault I know) can break many entertaining and challenging encounters. The result is to try to match the character's magic skills in a kind of magical "arms race" which can lead to easily changing the magic level of the game.
In total agreement, although, I believe that the other magic systems are even worse than sorcery. Even without the right grimoire, a Spirit Magician can from the get go Bind (in his fetch ofc) a spirit of a predatorial animal, such as a bear, and have it grant himself 2 increases to his damage modifier (making a +0 into +1d4 is quite great, but it doesn't stop here). When combat ensues, he can have his spirit discorporate someone, and without magic to protect them they are pretty much screwed. This calls for even more high magic campaigns, and can't be stopped without removing spirit magic altogether.
I notice that even other settings like Vikings as different magic systems and Deus Vult barely touches upon it, leading me to believe that these styles of campaigns don't really match with these magic rules well.
I haven't read Deus Vult, so I'm only commenting on Vikings. While it seems much more appropriate to the setting, and doesn't have that flashy high magic feel. Viking magicians are also only really opposed by viking magicians. There's a spell that makes you almost impervious to Iron weapons if you write it on a tablet and carry it with you, and the spirit magic in there is also pretty potent.
I have already undertaken by myself a more streamlined magic system that can be used with any setting and focuses on balance, playbility and creativity. The characters can still use magic to bypass situations easily, but not without cost so that magic doesn't become somthing abused or negate the usefulness of other, non magic party members.
I have already attempted to make a conversion of the Ars Magica game which I have scrapped. This one is a system that retains a few concepts of Ars Magica but is it's own MRQ2 stand-alone magic system that I am about 70% done with. Hit me up if interested.
I'm VERY interested. I don't know the Ars Magica, but it seems great.
Ars Magica is the gold standard of RPG magic systems. A RQ version is doable but would take much more time and care than I have available!
I think the power of sorcery in RQ can be moderate by limiting Grimoires. I have a maximum of 5 spells per Grimoire. The Tomes themselves are also learned texts which, when read allow 1 improvement roll in a related skill per spell. I'll have to wait and see how it pads out in the long run.
The idea of having the entire 'Abiding Book' as a Grimoire is pretty monstrous! Remember you can also limit magic points. If magic point storage is extremely difficult to come by in the game world your sorce.or is limited to their personal magic points. This will greatly increase their reluctance to cast spells.
My current sorcerer is doing quite fine with 12 magic points and 10 spells split over 2 grimoires. Although Atm, he is very much a one trick pony (if it weren't for the fact that I recently discovered a new use of the wall spell). He can easily last for around 3-4 encounters in one 12 hour time frame, but he rarely needs to.
