More Spells?

[cerebrolator]

First off I just want to say that I love MRQII.

I'm pretty limited in time so I can't develop a lot of my own materials. I'm curious about how compatible the spells from the RuneQuest Spellbook (see http://www.amazon.com/RuneQuest-Spe...=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267901120&sr=1-7) are with RQII. I don't own the Spellbook but might be willing to purchase it if it would significantly expand the number of spells. If anyone out there has it, please tell me if it would add a lot of spells and how difficult it would be to convert them to RQII. Arigato in advance!

 

[Deleriad]

You would need to do a lot of work. Rune magic could *sort of* be used as common magic without much alteration. Indeed some of the spellbook spells are in RQII. There are two problems though. The zero MP cost spells need to be given a cost of 1 MP, pretty much rendering them useless. The "duplex" spells were previously limited by requiring two runes and may be over-powered for common magic.

Divine Magic has been massively overhauled. Some might be easy to port across but they'll tend to be underpowered compared to RQII Divine Magic. You will also need to decide rank to give each spell.

Sorcery. This probably requires massive changes as sorcery spells now have a set effect based on the caster's skill rather than an effect based on magnitude.

Basically, you would need quite a lot of time and need to put in quite a lot of work to convert over the spells. That's just my opinion however.

 

[Ultor]

Yes, I got the Spellbook because one of my sorcery-using characters was distinctly unimpressed by the offensive sorcerous spells in MRQ1, and I gave her Hellstrike which seemed to fit in with the Book of Arkat. That spell is broken now in the new system, so I'll probably change that to Wrack (Darkness). There are still some excellent spells in the Spellbook that would still work in the new system, but they're few and far between. However, you can pick the Spellbook up for a couple of dollars on eBay at the moment, so it's probably worth it if you can do that.

 

[cerebrolator]

The feedback is much appreciated!

 

[GoingDown]

Yes, I got the Spellbook because one of my sorcery-using characters was distinctly unimpressed by the offensive sorcerous spells in MRQ1, and I gave her Hellstrike which seemed to fit in with the Book of Arkat. That spell is broken now in the new system, so I'll probably change that to Wrack (Darkness).

What is wrong with Hellstrike, if you just rule that it fires as many hellsfires as the caster uses manipulation points to targets, ignoring armor? Of course Magnitude is not used at all.

This way caster needs to use at least one manipulation point to Range, and then rest to targets. Sorcerer with skill 65% will be able to cast maximum 5 hellfires to POW meters away. 5d4 damage doesn't sound so bad for 7 magic points (we have melee characters in our group with weapon damage 1d8+1 plus damage modifier 1d4 plus fireblade which does 1d6).

EDIT. I am currently going through Spellbook to see what spells can be easily converted for MRQ2 use on our campaign. It doesn't seem too hard

 

[Mongoose Pete]

This way caster needs to use at least one manipulation point to Range, and then rest to targets. Sorcerer with skill 65% will be able to cast maximum 5 hellfires to POW meters away. 5d4 damage doesn't sound so bad for 7 magic points

I think you have a couple of errors here. A sorcerer with 65% would get seven manipulation points, not six; since everything in RQ2 is round up. Also, you might have over priced the magic point cost too. Surely the cost is only 2 MP - 1 MP for Range and 1 MP for Targets?

Just a couple of things to bear in mind if you start wholesale spell conversions...

 

[GoingDown]

I think you have a couple of errors here. A sorcerer with 65% would get seven manipulation points, not six; since everything in RQ2 is round up. Also, you might have over priced the magic point cost too. Surely the cost is only 2 MP - 1 MP for Range and 1 MP for Targets?

I forgot that we will round it up. My bad.

Actually the cost should be three in that case, 1MP for spell ifself, and 2MP for manipulations (range and targets)?

I had an impression that each _level_ of manipulation costs 1MP. So I was wrong on that one.

EDIT. So the maximum is 7 manipulations - 6 for targets and at least 1 for range. So the spell makes 7d4 damage (7-28 point) to maximum of POW meters away, in 2 combat actions (or is it 3CA?, do you calculate time so that base spell takes 1CA, and then all manipulations add 1CA to it each?)

2 CA, 3 MP and 7-28 points of damage. Not bad at all. Damage can be evaded (individually for each 1d4 shot), but normal armour is not protecting against it... I think it is still manageable.

 

[Deleriad]

I think you have a couple of errors here. A sorcerer with 65% would get seven manipulation points, not six; since everything in RQ2 is round up. Also, you might have over priced the magic point cost too. Surely the cost is only 2 MP - 1 MP for Range and 1 MP for Targets?

I forgot that we will round it up. My bad.

Actually the cost should be three in that case, 1MP for spell ifself, and 2MP for manipulations (range and targets)?

I had an impression that each _level_ of manipulation costs 1MP. So I was wrong on that one.

Bad, wrong things removed....

 

[GoingDown]

Not quite. The cost for a sorcery spell is 1MP per Manipulation to a minimum of 1. There is no cost for the spell itself, however the minimum cost is 1MP so casting an unmanipulated spell costs 1MP. E.g.

Spell with no manipulations, cost =1MP
Spell with 1 manipulation, cost =1 MP
2 manipulation, cost 2MP
3 manipulations cost 3MP and so on.

Is it so? I checked the Rulebook (page 130):

"Sorcery spells cost 1 Magic Point plus as many Magic Points as the number of Manipulation effects applied to it."

I am quite sure I am applying two manipulation effects - range and targets.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

"Sorcery spells cost 1 Magic Point plus as many Magic Points as the number of Manipulation effects applied to it."

You're right, Deleraid and I were misremembering the Casting Time rather than the MP cost.

 

[GoingDown]

I was all the time thinking that each manipulation level costs 1MP. So I think I need to be little bit more careful with my spell conversions so that I am not creating too powerful spells

But, anyway it seems that it doesn't seem too hard to convert at least some spells from MRQ1 spellbook. I think I will do it anyway because there is some spells my players really like.

So the casting time is equal to manipulations applied? That was bit unclear to me, and on our first session we used it so that

1CA = normal spell, or spell with 1 manipulation
2CA = spell with 2 manipulations
3CA = spell with 3 manipulations
etc...

so that is correct?

 

[Deleriad]

"Sorcery spells cost 1 Magic Point plus as many Magic Points as the number of Manipulation effects applied to it."

You're right, Deleraid and I were misremembering the Casting Time rather than the MP cost.

Oops. Sorry for the confusion. Will edit the post to prevent any confusion.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

2 CA, 3 MP and 7-28 points of damage. Not bad at all. Damage can be evaded (individually for each 1d4 shot), but normal armour is not protecting against it... I think it is still manageable.

I think it'll need a little more tweaking to work, since if you look very carefully at Sorcery, you'll notice that there are no Instant spells any more.

Sorcerous effects can continue to be applied throughout the duration, if you are willing to spend the CA, concentration, etc to apply it again. Of course the effect is still limited to the spell's original target(s), but technically you could teleport about a battlefield round-to-round, or have your wounds continuously sealing up during breaks in combat, until the spell finally expires.

This adds another dimension to Sorcery, but does make it a bit more complicated to convert over the one-shot flash bang spells. :wink:

 

[Mongoose Pete]

1CA = normal spell, or spell with 1 manipulation
2CA = spell with 2 manipulations
3CA = spell with 3 manipulations
etc...

so that is correct?

Yes.

 

[Deleriad]

[ Of course the effect is still limited to the spell's original target(s), but technically you could teleport about a battlefield round-to-round, or have your wounds continuously sealing up during breaks in combat, until the spell finally expires.

Even more fun, you can teleport an opponent all round the battlefield for as long as you want. The amount of bad-wrong-fun you can have doing that doesn't bear thinking about.

Does lead to the question: for concentration spells that can be resisted does the opponent get to resist each time or only the initial casting?

 

[Mongoose Pete]

Does lead to the question: for concentration spells that can be resisted does the opponent get to resist each time or only the initial casting?

Initial casting. After which you have to take out the sorcerer or his spell.

 

[GoingDown]

I think it'll need a little more tweaking to work, since if you look very carefully at Sorcery, you'll notice that there are no Instant spells any more.

That is true, but it is quite easy to fix by just using spell as "one-shot". But I am not sure if I want to do that - it makes it to feel little bit too "generic".

So, either one-shot or then some kind of other restrictions, like lot shorter time. Or something else, I am sure I figure out something nice.

 

[dbhoward]

Liking this topic and the discussion here. I agree, though, the spell list in the main RQ2 book is pretty thin and I am disappointed at the amount of conversion I am having to do with the Spellbook.

Any chance there will be S&P articles or anything that will correct this?

 

[Zaron]

I had an idea on those spells. Perhaps they can only be used by the rune touched (by the appropriate rune, of course). Of course, now that runes aren't laying around in dungeons (or troll camps, or shrines or ...) anymore, it would be difficult to find someone to teach you once you actually become rune touched. Perhaps two hero quests are needed, one to become runetouched and one to learn the spell.

 

[Denalor]

Of course the effect is still limited to the spell's original target(s), but technically you could teleport about a battlefield round-to-round, or have your wounds continuously sealing up during breaks in combat, until the spell finally expires.

Even more fun, you can teleport an opponent all round the battlefield for as long as you want

Deleriad wrote:
Does lead to the question: for concentration spells that can be resisted does the opponent get to resist each time or only the initial casting?

Initial casting. After which you have to take out the sorcerer or his spell.

:shock: You know, things like that sometimes make me wonder about my reasoning capabilities... to be blunt: I just hadn't seen that... and all I can say right now is AWESOME !

I'm wondering about page 130, though:
Once focus is dropped, the spell's effect ceases or remains static until concentration can be resumed
So, let's suppose we have that sorcerer who casts Teleport on a couple of foes.
In the first round he teleports them all away from his companions who are aremd with missile weapons.
In the second round he is hit by an arrow or whatever, so he drops his concentration (failing his persistence roll).
In the third round he can resume his concentration... umm... does he need to cast the teleport again or may he just continue with the hopping around ?
Well, the same applies for Wrack or some other spell. Does it all come down to common sense or indiviula GM-ruling whether ceases applies or remains static ?
Or am I just being plain dumb right now ?