MRQ - standard RuneQuest - Loss of POW affecting skills?

[Jed Clayton]

Hello Mongoose staff,

I was playing a quick RuneQuest game yesterday. In the game session, one player-character integrated a rune for the first time "in-game," and we played that strictly according to the core rules in RuneQuest, pg. 63.

According to the text there, whenever Rune Integration occurs, the character has to sacrifice 1 point of POW.

When that one point is gone, does the character also have to subtract 1 from all the Basic Skills into which the POW characteristic had been figured?

This would mean -1% to the Basic Skills of Driving, Perception, Persistence, Resilience and Riding.

Also, since the newly gained Runecasting skill from the Integration is based on POW+CHA, is the POW in that equation the old POW or the new POW after the Integration (old POW-1)?

 

[weasel_fierce]

Not a 'goose, but figured I'd pitch in.

Since skills are reconfigured when a stat goes up, it seems reasonable that the reverse is also true.

 

[Jed Clayton]

Not a 'goose, but figured I'd pitch in.

Since skills are reconfigured when a stat goes up, it seems reasonable that the reverse is also true.

Thank you. I understand. That is the way we've run it.

It's a bit penalizing, and fiddly with having to subtract 1% every time, but nothing I'd hate about the rules. Sacrificing POW to gain rune knowledge and various magical abilities has long been a staple of RQ ... It is a known feature of Divine Magic and Sorcery traditions, so Rune Magic should also have it somewhere.