Rune Magic

[Quintus]

Player finds Rune. Player intergrates rune. Player asks for spell. I say "Go to your local Temple". He asks - what temple. I say...uhh...your a God Learner...you don't worship those gods. Go where the Barbarians live, find yourself a Priest (Heathen, Deamon etc) and learn from him...

OK - thats not gona work. How do you guys handle finding and terching spells, especially outside of a coven (or religious affiliation, cult etc)?

Also, how do players that play a Priest like the fact that they have to go back to town and pray after each casting? How do they like sacrificing POW for those spells?

 

[Deleted_Account]

           Physical
Shadow                Holy
     Elemental  Nature

With the arrangement mattering -- a player cannot know two opposing sources.

Then tack on hybird magic.

Physical+Shadow: Stealth etc.
Shadow: Illusion etc.
Shadow+Elemental: Necromatic etc.
Elemental: Fireballs etc.
Elemental+Nature: Storm etc.
Nature: Animals, Plants etc.
Nature+Holy: Charm etc.
Holy: Healing etc.
Holy+Physical: Blessings etc.
Physical: Enhancement etc.

A second source costs 3x as much as your first, as the incompatable magic resists you.

Hybrid sources require knowing at least one primary source they draw from. They have the restrictions of both Primary sources.

You can know two Hybrid sources, say (Physical+Shadow) and (Holy+Physical). The second Hybrid costs 2x as much as the first.

Your "second" primary and hybrid source is the lower of your two sources.

...

Now, for each rune, have a spell for each of the above sources.

Having a rune would give you the runecasting skill at POW. This can be trained up by yourself.

Being able to cast a spell requires knowledge of the source, and of the rune you are casting it with.

The Rune of Fire might do the following:

Physical+Shadow: Invisible Flame (A flame whose light can only be seen by those who touch it)
Shadow: Illusionary Flame (make an existing flame appear to move and attack)
Shadow+Elemental: Darkflame (turns a flame into Darkflame, which does cold damage)
Elemental: Flame Arrow (bolt of fire at your target)
Elemental+Nature: Heat metal (does 1 damage for every 2 points of metal armor)
Nature: Firewood (make wood burn 10 times longer and 10 times hotter)
Nature+Holy: Hypnotic Flame (dazes people)
Holy: Heal burns (efficient)
Holy+Physical: Aura of Flame (damages people who attack)
Physical: Sword of Flame (sets your sword on fire)

I'd amit it requires a completely different set of runes, and developing 10 spells for every rune. So it is a work in progress.

 

[Quintus]

Man...run with it!!!!! An actual set of Rules that binds the workings of magic...!! Nice...

Q...

 

[weasel_fierce]

Player finds Rune. Player intergrates rune. Player asks for spell. I say "Go to your local Temple". He asks - what temple. I say...uhh...your a God Learner...you don't worship those gods. Go where the Barbarians live, find yourself a Priest (Heathen, Deamon etc) and learn from him...

No idea on the god learner stuff and nhow they handle runes. I understood that they simply have equivalent spells.
Otherwise, you need to belong to the appropriate cult to have it teach you.

OK - thats not gona work. How do you guys handle finding and terching spells, especially outside of a coven (or religious affiliation, cult etc)?

In older versions, it took a runepriest to teach any magic. This isnt the case currently, so you could figure that anyone with knowledge of a spell could ostensibly teach it.

Also, how do players that play a Priest like the fact that they have to go back to town and pray after each casting? How do they like sacrificing POW for those spells?

The POW comes back once the spell is cast. Its not sacrificed, only held up.
Your POW stat doesnt really make as much of a difference now, as in RQ2/3, so you are still fairly well off.
Most people I've played with have viewed divine spells as more a case of "when the shit hits the fan" than something to rely on regularly. Stock up on some rune spells as well, for more regular uses, is my recommendation to them.

 

[soltakss]

Player finds Rune. Player intergrates rune. Player asks for spell. I say "Go to your local Temple". He asks - what temple. I say...uhh...your a God Learner...you don't worship those gods. Go where the Barbarians live, find yourself a Priest (Heathen, Deamon etc) and learn from him...

You don't have to be a priest to teach Runic Magic. In older versions of RQ, Priests taught Spirit Magic, but so could shamans.

OK - thats not gona work. How do you guys handle finding and terching spells, especially outside of a coven (or religious affiliation, cult etc)?

Godlearners have Temples as well as theists. They just honour the Invisible God, his prophets and saints. They could just as well teach runic magic.

Also, individual magicians could teach runic magic, whether wandering priests, unaligned sorcerers, crazed holy men or whatever.

Looking at the SRD, I am surprised it doesn't say where Runic Magic can be learnt. It also doesn't say who can teach a spell. I would assume that you have to know a spell before you can teach it, but can anyone teach a spell? If so, what is the mechanism?

Also, how do players that play a Priest like the fact that they have to go back to town and pray after each casting? How do they like sacrificing POW for those spells?

They always did - that's been the case for a long, long time. It's no problem, really.

 

[Deleted_Account]

Practically, you can make Divine Magic nearly the same by having it dedicate MP to the spell instead of POW.

Ie, it lowers your max MP, but not your POW.

This saves on lots of skill bookkeeping.

 

[Rurik]

Practically, you can make Divine Magic nearly the same by having it dedicate MP to the spell instead of POW.

Ie, it lowers your max MP, but not your POW.

This saves on lots of skill bookkeeping.

Or just say you cannot hold more Divine Spell Points than your POW. Of course this makes Divine Magic very accessible to Initiates. I am toying with the Idea of something to the effect limiting the number of divine points a god will grant based on your Theology(that god) skill. Somrthing like for every 5 full points of skill you are allowed 1 point of Divine Magic.

The skill bookkeeping in the RAW for Dedicated Pow is just plain silly.

 

[Deleriad]

I'm thinking of modding Divine Magic by adding an attribute called Grace. Basically, when you join a cult as in initiate among other things you sacrifice a point of POW to gain a point of Grace. You then "dedicate" your Grace to divine magic; i.e just the same as dedicating POW.

You can gain grace by sacrificing pow, sacrificing appropriate runes, performing special cult tasks, using Improvement rolls and so on.

Once you cast a spell then you have to go to a temple and regain Grace; when you do so, the spell comes back as well.

However, when initiates spend Grace this way, they don't get the Grace back (it is sacrificed). As an extra piece of bad news, you have to keep at least one point of Grace in order to maintain your link to the deity so a deity will not let you cast magic that will sacrifice your last point of Grace.

It means you have to track a new attribute but you don't have to keep track of skill changes. It also allows for particularly powerful Divine Magic (I'm looking at you Sever Spirit) to become "one use" (i.e. requires Grace to be sacrificed in order to cast it and Initiates can't cast it) so it adds new options for creating divine magic. It also encourages players to act in accordance with their cult as there's the possibility that the deity may revoke some or all of their grace for misdeeds or grant additional Grace for being good little cultists.

I have tried the dedicated POW and it's a bit all or nothing for my tastes. Essentially the only issue with divine magic is throwing money at your cult each time you want to be able to cast more magic. Good for satire perhaps but a bit lacking in flavour.