Random thoughts about MRQ...

[gamesmeister]

Allright, I dont understand it.

Why is dedicated POW bad ?

The way I figure it, if I want to learn 10 points of spells in RQ3, my POW drops from 18 to 8. For good.

In MRQ, it drops temporarily untill I cast those spells off. And my POW doesnt actually impact my ability to resist magic.

What am I missing ?

The problem isn't with dedicated POW. As a concept, dedicated POW works fine, because as you rightly point out, in MRQ you can temporarily lose POW to cast powerful spells, whereas in earlier versions you would have lost that POW permanently.

The problem lies in the fact that no provision is made for Acolytes or Rune Priests. I'm a bit of an old school dinosaur, so I tended not to use Acolytes in my games, but as a HQ player you'll know that Rune Priests are direct manifestations of their god on the material plane, and should be disproportionately more powerful when it comes to magic. In MRQ, they're not, not at all. A beginning initiate with POW 18 can sacrifice for just as many Divine spells as an experienced priest with POW 18. The priest has no way of permanently learning the spells granted to him by his god.

Because there is no concept of sacrificing POW, a Rune Priest's POW will cap at species maximum. If they sacrifice for Divine Magic (as they surely must), they will have very few MPs remaining, which means they have nothing to use to overcharge their spells, nothing to use in the defense against Possession, etc etc.

In MRQ, you can achieve Rune Lord status and then go on from there, taking your character to a higher level. As a Rune Priest however, using the dedicated POW rule, the number of spells you have access to at any one time will never increase. You will hit an artificial ceiling and can go no further.

That's what's wrong with dedicated POW

 

[RosenMcStern]

Exactly. The only advantage a priest has is a higher skill at casting divine magic. No advantage in number or power of spells, although high casting skills means also that you easily win the target's resistance in the new rules. The only way to "go up" in power is by storing spells in enchantments, which admittedly is easier in MRQ.

Priests would become competitive again if they had a "Dedicated POW pool" that is no longer connected to their personal POW. Something similar to Presence in Sandy Petersen's sorcery system. But maybe this rule is too complex to fit into MRQ.

Loz, is there any solution to this limit in the GM guide?

 

[Halfbat]

Priests would become competitive again if they had a "Dedicated POW pool" that is no longer connected to their personal POW. Something similar to Presence in Sandy Petersen's sorcery system. But maybe this rule is too complex to fit into MRQ.

I quite like the idea (it's been raised before) - and, in practice, I don't think that it _is_ difficult to resolve. It can be a separate pool that has no effect on MP and normal POW, and can only be used to store Divine Magic for a specific cult or god.

::shrugs:: But then I'm an old-timer, too.

 

[Loz]

Exactly. The only advantage a priest has is a higher skill at casting divine magic. No advantage in number or power of spells, although high casting skills means also that you easily win the target's resistance in the new rules. The only way to "go up" in power is by storing spells in enchantments, which admittedly is easier in MRQ.

Priests would become competitive again if they had a "Dedicated POW pool" that is no longer connected to their personal POW. Something similar to Presence in Sandy Petersen's sorcery system. But maybe this rule is too complex to fit into MRQ.

Loz, is there any solution to this limit in the GM guide?

No, I haven't addressed that issue. A personal POW pool is a good idea though, and could be attached to the cult. There's something similar in 'Elric' although it works very differently and for different reasons.

I'd see a POW pool as both a generic concept and something that varies between cults, too. Different cults might have different pool limits depending on type, function, power of the god, etc. In that case, it would need to be defined more on a cult-by-cult basis. Still a good idea though. One for S&P perhaps, Paolo?

 

[gamesmeister]

The solution is simple - allow characters who have achieved the status of Rune Priest to permanently sacrifice POW they have in excess of 18 for the use of a Divine Magic on a re-usable basis, just as it was in previous versions. They'd still need to renew the spells at a temple, but the spell would not be subtracted from their temporary POW pool.

I have no idea why this wasn't done as part of the Rune Priest Legendary Ability - perhaps it was an oversight, rather than a deliberate change.

There is an issue where in the past certain Divine Magic was not reusable, so theoretically these spells should be excluded from the list of those that can be sacrificed for. There again, with all the changes to Divine Magic already, perhaps that's not necessary any more.

 

[RosenMcStern]

I do not see the POW pool as something limited that is linked to your status. I would rather let it start at 10 pts. for priests and grow when permanent POW points (or, much better, Hero Points) are put into it. I agree with you about the priest being able to put only magic from his own deity into the pool, using initiate-like Dedicated POW for spells from associate gods. Then again, associate cults are a Gloranthan concept.

I could elaborate the idea for S&P, but not immediately because I have other stuff in the pipeline. Maybe next month.

 

[Deleriad]

I use "Grace" in my house rules. Grace is basically a personal POW pool. You increase Grace by sacrificing POW but can also do it through leading the High Holy Day Ceremony at a major temple, sacrificing runes to your God and other such activities.

You can dedicate your Grace to Divine Magic (e.g. if you have 5 Grace you could dedicate 3 points of Shield into it). Once the spell has gone, if you are an acolyte or priest (or better) you can regain grace at your temple. Initiates can't regain Grace, they have to resacrifice for it.

You also use your Grace as the way of holding your cults rune spells: e.g. if your cult teaches Bladesharp you could dedicate 2 Grace to holding Bladesharp 2. Using Rune Magic this way does not mean you have to regain Grace. Any rune magic in your Grace is cast using Lore (MyGod).

One use divine magic comes back in this system. Initiates can't cast cast it but members of a faith who can normally regain grace can sacrifice their Grace to cast one use Divine Magic.

However, reducing your grace to 0 through sacrificing it makes you apostate so don't do it or their spirits of retribution will be after you.

Excommunication from your religion removes your Grace.

I like the system because it gets a progressive element back. Using Dedicated POW means that an initiate very rich parents can basically buy the whole of the cult's divine once he joins at 15. Given that regaining Divine Magic is simply a matter of paying lots of money then one could argue that the Dedicated POW system is basically a satire on the Catholic church rather than a rpg system...

(edited to finish)

 

[weasel_fierce]

I like the idea of sacrificing POW over 18 for reusable spells.

 

[RMS]

The idea of sacrificing POW in excess of 18 into a pool or for specific spellls seems like the best, simplest solution from what I can see.

I have to say that the above idea of Grace really strikes me as an interesting take on magic and would fit very well in some game worlds. Consider that concept stolen!

 

[atgxtg]

The idea of sacrificing POW in excess of 18 into a pool or for specific spellls seems like the best, simplest solution from what I can see.

That was the big limit of Rune Priests in RQ2. Of course it was aolso why it was a bit difficult to qaalify for RunePriest, since you have to acquire all that Rune (Divine) Magic.

Of course, since most of the DDivine spell users also used Battle Magic (or Sorcery) with the Divine Magic, it left The Divine stuff for the more powerful effects.

But POW just does't go up in the same way. In RQ2 is wasn'T a fight unless you got a POW vs POW roll in. Not that I miss the refiuring of the category modifiers when someone made a POW gain roll.

 

[RMS]

The idea of sacrificing POW in excess of 18 into a pool or for specific spellls seems like the best, simplest solution from what I can see.

That was the big limit of Rune Priests in RQ2. Of course it was aolso why it was a bit difficult to qaalify for RunePriest, since you have to acquire all that Rune (Divine) Magic.

Of course, since most of the DDivine spell users also used Battle Magic (or Sorcery) with the Divine Magic, it left The Divine stuff for the more powerful effects.

But POW just does't go up in the same way. In RQ2 is wasn'T a fight unless you got a POW vs POW roll in. Not that I miss the refiuring of the category modifiers when someone made a POW gain roll.

The priest had to maintain an 18 POW to keep access to his divine magic, but he also got his species maximum POW moved from 21 to 25, so the odds of increasing from 18 to gain more divine magic was pretty good. By contrast, in RQ3 his maximum POW was still 21, like all other humans, but he could let his POW go down and still have access to all his divine magic. Plus, in RQ3, rune lords got access to significant reuseable divine magic and neither had any kind of skill restrictions (as per Gods of Glorantha).

Yeah, in both RQ2 and RQ3 our characters get a POW gain check every session from either magic slinging or the various spirits that are omnipresent. That's probably why Spirit Block is one of the two first divine spells for everyone (along with Heal Wounds).

In RQ3, any POW change shifted a bunch of skill bonuses since every point of a stat counts. In RQ2 it you had some chance of POW going up or down and not shifting bonuses. I actually found that my players generally try to keep their POW at the same spot and just spend POW gains on new divine magic. Some of that is in character, but much of it was to avoid fiddling with all the skill bonuses.

 

[atgxtg]

The priest had to maintain an 18 POW to keep access to his divine magic, but he also got his species maximum POW moved from 21 to 25, so the odds of increasing from 18 to gain more divine magic was pretty good. By contrast, in RQ3 his maximum POW was still 21, like all other humans, but he could let his POW go down and still have access to all his divine magic. Plus, in RQ3, rune lords got access to significant reuseable divine magic and neither had any kind of skill restrictions (as per Gods of Glorantha).

The skill restriction thing was optional, as it was an artifical way to reflect time requirements for duties. I always felt bad for RQ2 Rune-Lord Priests, since they couldn't use the Rune Lord DI and take the hit to POW.

In RQ3, any POW change shifted a bunch of skill bonuses since every point of a stat counts. In RQ2 it you had some chance of POW going up or down and not shifting bonuses. I actually found that my players generally try to keep their POW at the same spot and just spend POW gains on new divine magic. Some of that is in character, but much of it was to avoid fiddling with all the skill bonuses.

I found RQ3 was better than RQ2 in terms of shifting bonuses. While RQ3 did use a 1 per 1 bonus system, RQ2 used POW for a lot more cat mods, so hitting a bracket meant raising practically everything by 5%. We went through (literally) more character sheets that way.