RuneQuest Companion - Preview!

[MongooseMatt]

The first of a set of previews for the RuneQuest Companion is now up on our web site - you can download it from http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/series.php?qsSeries=39

Over the next few weeks, we will be doing more previews of the Companion, and will also be offering the first glimpses of Glorantha!

 

[Malakor]

Mr. Sprange,

Are release dates for the main book still on track for first week of August?

And what are we looking at for the other stuff?

Thanks

 

[MongooseMatt]

Unless US Customs decides to stick their oar in, yes! As for the other release dates, you can find them on our web site under each item.

 

[Mac V]

Thanks for the preview! These books look awsome! I've got a question on Divine magic. It says to learn the spell, you must pray and be a member of the appropriate cult. Then you must make a skill roll to cast the spell. After you cast the spell you forget it. Does that mean you have to pray again to cast the same spell in the same day, or you pray the number of times you wish to cast that spell?

 

[Malakor]

Thank you very much (I looked at those after I asked the question, It's still early here and my brain isn't functioning fullly yet )

I've already emailed my FLGS and told them to get me the Companion and the GM Screen as well as the rulebook.

I look forward to using RQ with my Leshan campaign world.

 

[atgxtg]

THanks for the preview.

 

[homerjsinnott]

Divine magic, "lost from memory". Now where have I heard that before?


Hmmmm.


Can't think.


Now I've got it.























Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

 

[Adept]

The prices are insane!

A silver (penny?) is serious money. One should expect to live a day on a penny in most cases, and what do I see? The lowes level divine spell, for an initiate of the religion, costs fifty pennies to learn. Not only that, but it's a one use thing.

Harsh. Then again I'm guessing that the prices are D&D stoopid anyway, and silver is next to worthless, and everybody has heaps of gold coins... blech.

 

[SteveMND]

"Divine magic,lost from memory. Now where have I heard that before?

How about previous versions of RQ?

You sacrifice the POW, the ability to use the spell is granted to you by the deity... when you cast it, it's done, and you can't cast it again (runepriests and runelords of course can get them as reussable spells, not just one-time use).

Different terminology, but I see absolutely no difference here in the preview than in other RQ divine magic.

The prices are insane!

Well, as you mentioned, they probably 'tweaked' the coinage to be more liberal, as opposed to the old "1 silver = 1 day" standard.

That said, you know, for divine magic -- the ability to command a miracle in your gods name -- i don't really think the price is all that outrageous (at least for the mag 1 spell).

After all, these aren't spells distributed to just priests and lords, these can be given out to to even novice inititates. I don't think "two-month's salary" is that out of touch to wield your god's power. For the 'lesser' magic, they can still use the plain old battle/spirit/rune/whateverit'snowcalled magic, which, I suspect, will b a bit more economical

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

Divine magic, "lost from memory". Now where have I heard that before?


Hmmmm.


Can't think.


Now I've got it.

Previous editions of RQ, dude?

 

[Adept]

Divine magic, "lost from memory". Now where have I heard that before?
Hmmmm.
Can't think.
Now I've got it.

Previous editions of RQ, dude?

That's pretty much how it worked in previous RQ games.

Many people (me included) changed things so that a character knew the spells he/she knew, and had Rune Points with which to cast the spells. The rune spells would be recovered slowly for an initiate

[One week of prayer&sacrifice / point, or at the high holy day ceremonies of the cult.]

or faster by an acolyte/priest/runelord

[One day of prayer&sacrifice per point, or holding a large religious ceremony for many participants]

So a character could, for instance, have a six runepoint powerpool, and know the spells/feats of:

Shield 2 RP
Wind Words 1 RP
Lightning 1-3 RP


After casting a two point lightning and the Wind Words spell, the cultist would know all those divine spells, and have three points left in his six point rune power pool. 6/3, or some such. For an initiate, a week of prayer (or sacrificing a sheep) would get him/her a runepoint back, so the pool would be 6/4.

One could increase the runepool by sacrificing POW, or as I later ran it, by getting an increase for great deeds of one point per three years in the cult.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

An intriguing little home rule, that. I like it a lot.

 

[waiwode]

And how hard is it to alter rules slightly?

An appropriate donation to the temple to first learn the spell ... and then the number of days of fasting/partying and prayer to relearn it each time, with no monetary cost. Voila.

Doug.

 

[RMS]

Interesting, that Divine magic apparenlty requires prayer and a monetary sacrifice (much more reasonable than the dirt cheap magic of RQ3 IMO), but says nothing of POW sacrifice. I'm curious to see how this plays out, but other than that the Divine magic looks almost identical to RQ2/3 Divine magic, which would be good. It was an excellent system before, so no reason to tweak it.

Sorcery reads like RQ3 sorcery, which is perfectly fine in concept and took only a little tweaking to make a great system. I'm curious to see how the rest of it works. It sounds like it's still the most difficult of the two magic systems since it requires an individual skill for each spell, while all divine magic is tied to one skill. (I don't recall any of the details on the rune based magic off the top of my head.)

Did anyone else notice references to skill improvement rolls? That's a positive sign that I don't recall seeing in previous previews. (Some of you have gone over the previews with a much finer comb than me, so maybe it was there and I just hand't noted it until now! )

 

[Mac V]

So, never having played RQ, it looks to me like Divine magic would be used in addition to Rune magic? It seems to me from the rules that you wouldn't be able to keep casting Divine magic as easily as a D&D cleric would? It seems like you would use it to gain special spells.

 

[waiwode]

So, never having played RQ, it looks to me like Divine magic would be used in addition to Rune magic? It seems to me from the rules that you wouldn't be able to keep casting Divine magic as easily as a D&D cleric would? It seems like you would use it to gain special spells.

Yes, used in addition would be the way to go, if we follow the example of earlier RQs.

Essentially, Rune Magic was the "common special effects" of the religions/cults. Everyone in a cult could be expected to know some of them. Divine Magic were the "dee-luxe special effects," and outside the hands of a Priest (a lot rarer than D&D clerics) or a Rune Lord were one-shots, carefully hoarded and possessed by few.

Of course, as has been mentioned upthread, Divine Magic used to require the sacrifice of POW, so even those who could learn Divinve Magic didn't always chose to do so.

Doug.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

So, never having played RQ, it looks to me like Divine magic would be used in addition to Rune magic? It seems to me from the rules that you wouldn't be able to keep casting Divine magic as easily as a D&D cleric would? It seems like you would use it to gain special spells.

That's pretty much it. Initiates and Priests commonly had a stock of both Divine and Rune (to use the MRQ terms) magic. The Divine stuff was really powerful, and Initiates only got one use of each spell. That's it, gone.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Interesting, that Divine magic apparenlty requires prayer and a monetary sacrifice (much more reasonable than the dirt cheap magic of RQ3 IMO), but says nothing of POW sacrifice.

I'll wait and see what page 11 says for that, I think.

 

[Mac V]

So, it's almost like a Divine favor. Cool. So, do all the different forms of magic share a common pool of spells?

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

So, it's almost like a Divine favor. Cool. So, do all the different forms of magic share a common pool of spells?

Nope. Different spells all the way.

Rune Magic should be low-powered "augmentation" stuff, Divine should be high powered with the precise spells available depending on which god you worship, Sorcery should be effects and influences.