RuneQuest Companion - Preview!
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
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No.*Mac V said:
There are common effects ... there are healing spells available in Rune Magic and Divine Magic (and Sorcery? I don't recall) for instance.
Divine Magic is sort of the big brother of Rune Magic.* Rune Magic had things like Bladesharp (that boosted your chance to hit), Divine Magic had spells like Truesword.
Searching the net we can find our-world mythological figures rendered as old RuneQuest god-cults:
Spirit Magic in old RQ seems pretty much Rune Magic in the new RQ.
Doug.
*Based on old RuneQuest
Actually, it says that in the very first paragraph. However, the specifics on said POW sacrifice and what it gets you, how it's handled, etc., aren't specificed in just the single page from the preview, though, so it's anyone guess right now.
My guess is probably that the POW requirements are listed with each individual spell.
Mac V said:The more I hear, the better it sounds. I like the fact that different types of magic work differently and cover different types of effects. That was always one of my problems with a more popular fantasy game....
Well, that is one of the reasons why a lot of us have been big RQ fans in the past. Rather than using one system and making ever spellcaster fit into it, RQ has multiple forms of spellcasting. In RQ, wizards, shamen, priests, dragons, and even Lunars are all useing different magic systems. If you look at all the various RQ products and spinoffs there are probably over a dozen different magic stystems for it.
THis makes it a lot easier to customize the game to a particular setting, since rather than fitting the setting to RQ, you customize RQ to fit the setting.
I was wondering, will Rune Magic be related to Sorcery? Or are they entirely separate entities? Anyone have any insight on this? I was earlier envisioning a magic system with a building block sort of structure. This looks like each magic type is entirely its own unique brand of magic, unrelated to each other. Not necessarily a bad thing, just trying to get a handle on it like everyone else. :?
GbajiTheDeceiver
Mongoose
Likewise.atgxtg said:
I'd tend to agree. i think they redid the "basic" magic system for RQ just so they could put the "Rune" into "Runequest."
Personally, I think I'd have prefered that they left battle/spirirt magic as it was for the most part, and instead integrated the mastery of Rune with the sorcery rules (which is what I did/am doing in my home campaign).
After all, the dry analytical "sorcery" as implied by the God Learners and such seems to be a better fit when becoming a "master" of a particular aspect of the cosmos, as opposed to something most commoners would have.
Maybe old-fashioned spirit magic may show up as another alternate magic system, but I don't we've seen evidence of that yet.
homerjsinnott
Mongoose
SteveMND said:
It's not just different terminology it's a different concept, a different way of thinking about magic why do you need to remember a miracle your god has granted you? And Runemagic was reusable for those who it was meant for, Priests and Runelords.
It sounds like a concession to D&D to me.
Try living for two months without any money (or credit cards) then.SteveMND said: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.
:? Also it's how much cash you have, not how devout you are, that gives you access to the magic? another sop to D&D.
This is going to need a lot of tweeking, is it going to be worth it?
Eh, I think it's looking for D&D influences when it's not there. All we have is a just a 1-page snippet, and even that's just the overview of the system.
And it is, so far, exactly how previous divine magic was done for in the previous RQ. You sacrifice POW, you get the spell imprinted in your brain, it's there until you cast it, and then it's gone.
If you're a runepriest or a runelord, some spells can become reusable. But aside from some differnet terminology, I don't see any real differences with RQ3 on that regard. Perhaps later, something might surface, but with but a single page to go off of? I'm not seeing any substantive difference at all so far.
I don't think anyone's expecting their initiates to go without food or shelter for two whole months straight when they say 50 silvers, just like I don't think the wedding ring industry is suggesting you go without food or lodging for two months straight either when they say an engagement ring should costs two months salary.
No, it's up to your GM and up to the sort of campaign he's running. The monetary donation is there just as a representation as to what sort of value is typically assigned to having access to that sort of power.
And how devout one was is as the only criteria, i think, is more of a nod to D&D than the other way around. For heavens sake, there was a divine spell that allowed you to swap divine spells with another person, and you got the use of that other spell, even if it didn't belong to your deity! Heck, IIRC, you got it even if it was from a violently opposed deity to yours!
That certainly seems to me to imply that the knowledge of how to do a specific miracle is treated in RQ as a 'self-contained' packet of spell energy, if you will. Your deity grants it to you, but what you do with it is up to you.
I think unrelated too. So now I'm thinking about ways to relate a couple of them, maybe Rune Magic and Sorcery. It looks to me like they are going for highly modular and easy to tweak to what the individual is looking for. Actually, I think I could do it with just the Rune Magic and maybe bits and pieces of the Sorcery. We shall see in three weeks or so now.
GbajiTheDeceiver
Mongoose
RQ3, softbound, single volume, p. 111:
kustenjaeger
Mongoose
Greetings
I am a firm believer in not jumping to conclusions. The previews are interesting but not - for me - sufficient to prejudge the system.
The key as regards the magic systems will be how they inter-relate.
Regards
I am a firm believer in not jumping to conclusions. The previews are interesting but not - for me - sufficient to prejudge the system.
The key as regards the magic systems will be how they inter-relate.
Regards
RosenMcStern
Mongoose
Hmm, I cannot see any actual reference to sacrificing POW to gain any individual spells in the preview. I think the idea is that you lose POW on initiation rituals and on acquiring special powers (feats?), not to get each spell. This also explains the outrageous prices.
This system works fine and allows also initiates to use some Divine Magic. Note also that a Runepriest has the advantage of not requiring a permission from the temple to make a Spell and of regaining Divine Magic while campaigning.
New Sorcery has split Multispell in Target and Combine skill, which is fine, but it does not use the new Sandy Petersen's rules. A pity, since they fit Glorantha better than this form of ruleset. But, well, since we are supposed to play this rules in the Second Age, i.e. with God Learner sorcerers, maybe this is the way yo go. :roll:
This system works fine and allows also initiates to use some Divine Magic. Note also that a Runepriest has the advantage of not requiring a permission from the temple to make a Spell and of regaining Divine Magic while campaigning.
New Sorcery has split Multispell in Target and Combine skill, which is fine, but it does not use the new Sandy Petersen's rules. A pity, since they fit Glorantha better than this form of ruleset. But, well, since we are supposed to play this rules in the Second Age, i.e. with God Learner sorcerers, maybe this is the way yo go. :roll:
RosenMcStern said:
I must say I wasn't impressed with Sandy's rules. Like everything by mr. Petersen his sorcery is very rule driven, and gamesy, in feel.
What I mean, is that they don't seem to model Gloranthan reality very well, but rather are a RQ game mechanics system built with game balance in mind.
They still have the core problem of RQ-3 sorcery, that if you can do an intensity six spell (six points of free int, Intensity 60+ for Sandy's version) it's just as easy for you to do a intensity six spell than it is to do an intensity one spell.
The way my group ran sorcery, was that you took a -5 to the skills for every level of manipulation you did. Intensify was removed, and that part came straight from the spell-skill.
So if you had something like Venom 63%, and range 50%:
You could do an intensity one venom spell (at the basic 10m range) by rolling 63 or less.
If you wanted to do a venom intensity six, at range +2 (up to fourty meters away), you'd roll:
Intensity:
63 - 5*5 = 38%
Range:
50 - 2*5 = 40%
So you'd have to roll 38 or less.
***
That worked pretty well, but the sorcery still lacked the rules for creating more spells, and it was very mechanistic and felt like an excercise in physics rather than in magic. Not that I realized the latter part at the time.
The point in our version was that low intensity spells were easier to do than high intensity spells. With ritual my young apprentice even managed to put together an intensity 10 mystic vision, even though his skill with it was something like 45% (with rituals parhaps 30).
//Taking a huge amount of time, I got the maximum bonus from rituals, getting my effective skill for the casting up to 75%. 75-45 (intensity 10) got me a skill 30 to roll against. With the way we played, it wouldn't have been pleasant to fumble with an intensity ten spell. I think the standard result would have been five points of general hit point damage (half the intensity) and something nasty and thematic from the GM relating to the nature of the Mystic Vision.
RosenMcStern
Mongoose
Adept said:
When you possess creativity and imagination like SP, you only need to write down the "gamesy" part of the whole picture. The GM is in charge of making the whole picture work well and provide amusement.
Adept said:
I have changed and tested every possible, official and home-brewn, version of RQ sorcery, and maybe the only variation I did not experiment is this one. Intentionally, since it has its own obvious advantages, of course.
But did you notice that Sandy's ruleset does in fact cover this area? If you know the art of Ease, you can cast an Intensified spell at reduced MP cost, but only if your skill is high enough to allow another Art. So it is not just a matter of "I can cast Mystic Vision 1 to 10 with the same percentile", if your skill is higher you'll be at a great advantage even when casting lower versions of the spell, because you can save a lot on MPs!
Durand Durand
Banded Mongoose
***
... your motley band struggles into town, stumbling on you last breath, you beseach the local preist to grant you the blessings of the gods.
"Who the hell are you?" He asks, "Prove your devotion with an appropriate gesture, and we may consider your request."
***
In our old games we always seemed to have greater costs for divine magic in areas where our PC's were not known* as heroes. Sure we could demonstrate we were intitiated, but outsiders often meant trouble, and the suspicious locals would try to get us to balk with unusual demands and quests to gain their favour, upping prices and serving us the worst food.
In our home areas we wouldn't need a lot of money to buy blessings and magic, the priestesses knew we were all good boys who came to temple for rituals, who gave a lot to the community even if we weren't always there, and always had gifts for the locals when we came home. But big quests often lead to strange places with strange people and strange practices.
What if some out-of-towner blew into your town and demanded your local priests performed a ritual to grant them magical power. As the stranger is not willing to wait for normal Holy Days, the head priest must abstain from his normal duties (what ever they are), to perform specialised rituals for the outsider. An appropriate donation is required for the inconvenience not just to the priest, but the the community, for the expenditure in time, in magical energy and in recompence for duties not fulfilled.
Crikey. Roleplay it.
DD
*Also, in some areas we were known we were not at all welcome.
... your motley band struggles into town, stumbling on you last breath, you beseach the local preist to grant you the blessings of the gods.
"Who the hell are you?" He asks, "Prove your devotion with an appropriate gesture, and we may consider your request."
***
In our old games we always seemed to have greater costs for divine magic in areas where our PC's were not known* as heroes. Sure we could demonstrate we were intitiated, but outsiders often meant trouble, and the suspicious locals would try to get us to balk with unusual demands and quests to gain their favour, upping prices and serving us the worst food.
In our home areas we wouldn't need a lot of money to buy blessings and magic, the priestesses knew we were all good boys who came to temple for rituals, who gave a lot to the community even if we weren't always there, and always had gifts for the locals when we came home. But big quests often lead to strange places with strange people and strange practices.
What if some out-of-towner blew into your town and demanded your local priests performed a ritual to grant them magical power. As the stranger is not willing to wait for normal Holy Days, the head priest must abstain from his normal duties (what ever they are), to perform specialised rituals for the outsider. An appropriate donation is required for the inconvenience not just to the priest, but the the community, for the expenditure in time, in magical energy and in recompence for duties not fulfilled.
Crikey. Roleplay it.
DD
*Also, in some areas we were known we were not at all welcome.
