Some Magic questions

[Deleriad]

Been finally working my way through The Gloranthan Magic books and I have various issues.

One thing that's very noteworthy is that a lot of spells which used to be Divine Magic are now Rune Magic. For example, The Atyar spell "Devour Book" is now rune magic but there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to this. for example, Devour Book is listed as being the spell that is taught at shrines, indicating that it is a divine spell, yet it is written as a rune spell. I would love to know why some spells were converted to Rune Spells especially as we still have absolutely no idea how you cast a "Cult Rune Spell" - do you still have to integrate the appropriate rune and use runecasting?

Relatedly, many of the western churches teach rune magic. What is the Gloranthan explanation for this because it seems to go against everything I thought I knew about the relationship between western culture and magic systems where magic other than sorcery or folk magic was considered to be idolatrous.

On the rules side, is Blinding really right? For the low low cost of 1 MP I can give someone -75% to all his skills for 15 minutes and, basically, kill him at my leisure or I could give him a carpet burn with a Disruption. Admittedly neither are any good against a Cave Troll. Heck, it's even Progressive so for 3 MPs I can give someone trying to defend against Blinding -50% to their Resilience.

Also some spells (e.g. Axis Mundi) read "all" in their list of runes. This actually doesn't mean anything because it doesn't tell me which rune to use in runecasting and implies that I must hold every rune in order to cast it; seems rather unlikely to me.

 

[Rurik]

Cults 2 is the biggest rules mess Mongoose has released so far. There are many inconsistencies and downright contradictions in the actual rules sections - which is really too bad as the other content is great - I love the cults/practices/orders in that book.

From what the author (Jeff Kyer - aka Voriof on this forum) posted all the Divine Spells in Cults 2 were converted to Spirit Spells (which are functionally identical to Rune Spells) by the editors. There was somewhere made a decision that only Divine Spells would go in Cults 1 and only Spirit and Sorcery Spells would go in Cults 2. As a result all the Divine Spells attached to Cults in Cults 2 got converted to Spirit/Rune Spells - often with no other balancing (which is totally borked as Divine Spells are supposed to be twice as powerful per magnitude and one use).

Jeff was working on a big errata for the Cults books but I don't know where that stands now - he hasn't posted here for quite some time now.

 

[Deleriad]

From what the author (Jeff Kyer - aka Voriof on this forum) posted all the Divine Spells in Cults 2 were converted to Spirit Spells (which are functionally identical to Rune Spells) by the editors.

Ah, that makes sense. As you say, the content is great (bar the oddity of rune spells turning up in Wizardry) but there's some madness somewhere up there in Mongoose Towers.

I started off really impressed with MRQ but I find myself gradually losing faith because I'm hitting the stage where my usual enjoyment of tweaking a game for house rules is becoming a chore because there are so many mistakes. The mistakes aren't from the authors - as far as I can see - they're from editors who appear to have been possessed by boggles.

I suspect I'll simply use use my RQ3 stuff to re-engineer stuff back into the form it is supposed to be in.

Oh well.

 

[simonh]

I suspect I'll simply use use my RQ3 stuff to re-engineer stuff back into the form it is supposed to be in.

I've already come to that conclusion. The combat system is fixable because it's a single set of mechanics. A few pages of errata seems to have resolved the problems.

In the case of magic the mechanics are fine, it's the spells that are the problem. If it was just the mechanics a page of errata would be enough, but as it is pretty much the entire corpus of spells needs to be completely reworked from the ground up to form a balanced, usable system and that's just not practical. The only alternative I can see is to substitute a complete RQ compatible magic system that we know works - the RQ3 system - which frankly I prefer anyway.


Simon Hibbs

 

[smiorgan]

Cults 2 is the biggest rules mess Mongoose has released so far. There are many inconsistencies and downright contradictions in the actual rules sections - which is really too bad as the other content is great - I love the cults/practices/orders in that book.

Agreed. I have read the Spirit Magic section several times and I still have not understood how the spirit magic was intended to work.

Practice charms are supposed to be "like integrated Runes". But how do I cast spells with charms? Do I get the runic power? Do I gain a runecasting skill? Or, I need to use the summoning skill, instead? (What if in my practice summoning is not taught to practitioners? - which is often the case.)
What does it mean that there is no magic point cost to use a charm (p. 10)? Does it mean that with a charm I can cast Bladesharp 10 at no MP cost?

Not that I cannot come out with my own tentative interpretation, but as a rulebook it's a mess.