Return To Old Style Divine Magic

[CharlieMonster]

I have been re-reading the companion and being a bit thick. But as I read it now, by making divine enchantments, you can pretty much replicate RQ3 divine magic, it costs POW to build the enchantment but you cast the spell into the item and free up the POW "dedicated" to the spell. The item can then be recharged at the temple after use. It won't be as quick as RQ3 'cos of the reduced improvement, but it is the same.

The down side is that if the GM doesn't remind them that these are sacred items meant to be restricted to the Cult/Personal-use-in-the-service-of-god, I can see Priests evolving a "CCG" culture trading the damn things with each other. :shock: :lol: :lol:

 

[Rurik]

Enchantments also have the advantage that the spell goes off automatically without having to roll against Theology.

It is very similar cost wise to old Divine Magic.

The enchanted item has to be recharged with the same spell each time, and can be physically taken away, but it certainly seems like a good way to go.

 

[soltakss]

Except that you're stuck with the spell. One of the advantages of the new Divine Magic Rules is that you are not limited to just the spells that you have taken. You have the flexibility to be able to change spells as and when you need them.

Enchanting spells into enchantments stops this.

Also, if you have a Shield 3 enchantment, say, and you wanted to use your personal Shield 2 to cast a Shield 5, you can't because each chunk must be cast by itself.

But, yes, I see your point. If I played an Orlanth Priest and needed a Fly or Teleport spell in case of emergeny, I'd enchant it into something personal so that I needn't have a chance of failure in the event of my falling off a cliff or facing a dragon.

 

[CharlieMonster]

The enchanted item has to be recharged with the same spell each time, and can be physically taken away, but it certainly seems like a good way to go.

Although recharging it only takes time, it doesn't require any more cash or Dedicated POW and at 1 point of Magnitude per day I do feel it's a viable option.

I also noticed one of the suggested typical enchantments is Tattooing onto a creature, which presumably includes the Priest himself. thus reducing the risk of theft. I say reducing, because there is alway fun to be had with an unconcious priest and a sharp implement of some sort!

Still enough of my personal life...

 

[Exubae]

How would true stone work under the new rules?

 

[Halfbat]

Enchantments also have the advantage that the spell goes off automatically without having to roll against Theology. [...] The enchanted item has to be recharged with the same spell each time

Yeah - it's a good way of replicating the old magic items which had Divine Magic in them. And I see tattoo's gaining importance (now we know why the shaman had so many!).

As said, though, it's fixed but given loads of charms a priest _could_ stack himself up like in the old system and still have POW left for Rune Magic.

Truestone...? variable spell storage but otherwise identical?

 

[Vadrus]

I can see an enterprising Issaries merchant mass producing a bandoler style set of pouch for quick access to the vast numbers of runes and enchanted items that adventurers are likely to end up carrying round.

Of course if you're an evil GM you can always make them make luck rolls to find the correct rune/enchantment/storage crystal/etc if they're underpressure/in combat, etc, if they insist in carrying them in a single bag or stuffed in random pockets.

I wonder how much all these things would rattle? Penalties to stealth? :twisted:


Vadrus

 

[soltakss]

How would true stone work under the new rules?

At a guess, you would put the spells into the Truestone as normal, so the Truestone would get all the Divine Spells you have and those spells cannot be changed but have to be refilled by a Priest.

The tricky question is: Do you get the Dedicated POW back?

In the case of Truestone, I would say you would not get the Dedicated POW back - it has been used to set the Truestone.

Here's how I see it working:

If you get a set Truestone, i.e. one which has been used before, then you can put the Divine Spells set in the Truestone into the Truestone and you would get the Dedicated POW back once those spells have been cast.

So, Soltak Stormspear gets a blank Truestone and fills it with Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4. He loses those spells and does not get the Dedicated POW back. He uses the spells over time and empties the Truestone and again does not get back the Dedicated POW. Since the Truestone has been set, he cannot add different spells to it, it is set as "Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4".

Then he needs to go on a mission and asks another Rune Priest of Orlanth to charge the Truestone with Teleport. When Soltak casts the Teleport, the other Priest gets the Dedicated POW back.

Hmmm, maybe one for Mr Qwiki.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Then he needs to go on a mission and asks another Rune Priest of Orlanth to charge the Truestone with Teleport. When Soltak casts the Teleport, the other Priest gets the Dedicated POW back.

.

I suspect Issaries Spell trading would work the same way. The Issaries priest dedicates POW for the Spell Trading spell and for his own spells (eg "Create Market") - When he casts Spell Trading - to trade his Create Market for the Orlanthi's Teleport he gets the POW for the Spell trading back, but not for the Create Market. When he casts the Teleport he gets no POW back, but when the Orlanthi casts the "Create Market" the Issaries Priest gets the Pow back he had (originally) dedicated to this spell.


Hmm, What happens if the Orlanthi is killed before casting the traded spell. Does the Dedicated POW return or not...

 

[soltakss]

I was going to say exactly that, but you beat me to it.

When the Issaries Priest casts Teleport the Orlanthi gets the Dedicated POW back and when the Orlanthi casts Create Market the Issaries Priest gets the Dedicated POW back. In the original description, it said you could track the progress of the people who had traded with you by which spells you got back.

I would say that if either party is killed before casting the spell then the Dedicated POW is returned. Possibly after the person can no longer be resurrected, but probably immediately, so if they are Resurrected then they have lost the traded spells.

 

[simonh]

So, Soltak Stormspear gets a blank Truestone and fills it with Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4. He loses those spells and does not get the Dedicated POW back. He uses the spells over time and empties the Truestone and again does not get back the Dedicated POW. Since the Truestone has been set, he cannot add different spells to it, it is set as "Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4".

That can't be right. According to this, Soltak will never get the dedicated POW back under any circumstances. His POW is now 9 points lower than it was before for all purposes, and effectively his species maximum has been reduced to 12, forever. putting the spells into the truestone has crippled him permanently.

 

[soltakss]

Well, certainly he shouldn't get POW back for filling a Truestone - previously, casting spells into a Truestone meant that you lost them - full stop (period). Casting spells into a Truestone does cripple your character as you lose them. This is bad for a priest.

But, your species max POW shouldn't go down either.

If Soltak has POW 19 and gets Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4 (assuming the costs are the same as RQ3) he has Dedicated 11 POW, reducing his POW to 8.

If he casts them into a Truestone, his POW is still 8 (POW doesn't come back) but he has no Dedicated POW. Since he has no Dedicated POW, his POW is raw 8, not 8 with 11 Dedicated POW.

So, his Species Maximum POW hasn't been reduced, since it was never reduced even with Dedicated POW.

Actually, that's an interesting point. Someone with Dedicated POW does not have a reduced Species Maximum POW, it just looks that way.

Soltak has 21 Species Maximum POW, he Dedicates 11 POW, so his Species Max POW is still 21, but his POW is 8 (19). He has only a 10% chance of increasing POW. If he loses the Deciated POW, he has POW 8 and a 65% chance of increasing POW.

If Soltak gets a POW Gain Roll and increases POW by 3, his POW would go up to 11 (22) which is over Species Max. You could play that his POW is limited to 21, in which case he only gets 2 POW, or that he gets a point of phantom POW which can be Dedicated to gain Divine Magic.

Wow, things were simpler in the bad old days .....

 

[simonh]

Well, certainly he shouldn't get POW back for filling a Truestone - previously, casting spells into a Truestone meant that you lost them - full stop (period). Casting spells into a Truestone does cripple your character as you lose them. This is bad for a priest.

But, your species max POW shouldn't go down either.

I said it effectively goes down.

In RQ3 if you touched a truestone you lost the spells (actualy you didn't, they ere just in the Truestone), but your POW was still the same and you could increase it back up to 21 as normal. Only your ability to cast the spells was taken away. In your system Soltkas can never again raise his POW above 10 for the rest of his life. That's hugely worse than RQ3.

 

[Rurik]

Heh. I was just reading about Truestone in Elder Secrets last night.

I am planning on a Hard(-40) Persistence test or dump all your magic in into the stone.

I was planning on letting the character who filled the stone to relearn his spells normally and not lose any permanent POW. Costing permanent POW is just way more expensive in MRQ than RQ2/3. Losing 7 POW will stunt your character's development for many sessions to come. Say it takes 10 POW improvement rolls to get your 7 points back (which is a low estimate) - that is 30 :!: improvement points. At 3-4 an adventure I hope you are comfortable with your skills where they are for a while.

 

[RosenMcStern]

I suspect Mongoose is planning to publish rules for Truestone, Adamant and runic metals at some point. A -40 persistence test seems like a good idea, though.

I have never thought that blank Truestones can suck your divine magic away permanently. I do not have Elder Secrets at hand, but I remember that the divine spells are cast into the stone, although you may be forced to do so by a blank one. If they are simply cast, a Reusable spell can be regained at the usual conditions, a One-use one is gone for good. The same goes for recharging it: you just cast your spell into the stone, without performing any ritual.

If the spells are just cast into the stone, in MRQ terms there is no reason why the POW should not be regained.

I remember that ES stated that upon finding a blank Truestone the whole temple stuff attempted to touch it at one time. If this involved losing all priest spells to the Truestone, maybe it is not a good idea to have exactly all priests do that. Remember Strangers in Prax and Nose Ring chewing his thumb off to avoid casting his magic into a blank truestone? As a Danfive Xaron cultist, he surely did not fear losing personal POW or magic for a higher purpose, it was just that he wanted to take the stone to a 7M temple to have a real bunch of spell formed into it.

 

[simonh]

I have never thought that blank Truestones can suck your divine magic away permanently. I do not have Elder Secrets at hand, but I remember that the divine spells are cast into the stone, although you may be forced to do so by a blank one. If they are simply cast, a Reusable spell can be regained at the usual conditions, a One-use one is gone for good. The same goes for recharging it: you just cast your spell into the stone, without performing any ritual.

If the spells are just cast into the stone, in MRQ terms there is no reason why the POW should not be regained.

In previous editions, you lost the spells completely. All the knowledge of the spells, including the ability to regain them at a temple, went to the stone.

I remember that ES stated that upon finding a blank Truestone the whole temple stuff attempted to touch it at one time. If this involved losing all priest spells to the Truestone, maybe it is not a good idea to have exactly all priests do that.

I believe the priests would have to be all chained together in Mindling to make that work.

One situation in which you might do this is when you have a whole bunch of elderly priests ready to retire, each with something like 30 to 50 points of Divine Magic. Mindlink a few of the old codgers together and you could burn 100+ points of Divine Magic into it in one go.

Otherwise it (1) depends on how selfless the priests are prepared to be, or (2) how good they are at taking orders.

 

[Rurik]

The priests all have to be able to touch the stone - so bigger pieces=more priests.

It says the person touching the stone is filled with an urge to fill it, but those strong enough to resist could bring it back to their temple. It does not give any mechanic for resisting the urge (I decided on a -40% Persistence in my games).

This is all based on AH Elder Secrets.

 

[soltakss]

In RQ3 if you touched a truestone you lost the spells (actualy you didn't, they ere just in the Truestone), but your POW was still the same and you could increase it back up to 21 as normal. Only your ability to cast the spells was taken away. In your system Soltkas can never again raise his POW above 10 for the rest of his life. That's hugely worse than RQ3.

Sorry, being a bit thick here.

Why can't someone not raise POW past v10 if their Dedicated POW is no longer Dedicated?

I really don't understand.

 

[simonh]

Why can't someone not raise POW past v10 if their Dedicated POW is no longer Dedicated?

How does he get his dedicated POW back though? You said:

So, Soltak Stormspear gets a blank Truestone and fills it with Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4. He loses those spells and does not get the Dedicated POW back. He uses the spells over time and empties the Truestone and again does not get back the Dedicated POW. Since the Truestone has been set, he cannot add different spells to it, it is set as "Teleport, Lightning 4 and Shield 4".

I don't see a mechanism to un-dedicate it.

 

[soltakss]

Simply because that's what Truestone would do. You transfer the spells to the Truestone and doing so frees up the Dedicated POW.

If you like, transferring the spells frees up the Dedicated POW, but immediately costs the POW as an enchantment. So, in the example, Soltak has 11 POW Dedicated in spells, he puts those spells in the Truestone which costs him 11 POW as an Enchantment, but he fuels this using the Dedicated POW.

I am sure that Mongoose can come up with a different mechanism, but this reflects exactly what Truestone did in previous RQ editions and is pretty compatible with RQM.