Some sorcery questions

[Deleriad]

Quick one first: do people let their players use the "take extra time" modifiers when casting sorcery?

For example, take twice as long to get +20%, five times as long for +40%, ten times for +60%? It strikes me that providing that you have time to prepare you would never not use these.

For example, assume a beginning sorceror (INT 15, POW 15) with Duration, Intensity and Damage Boost all at 40%. Damage Boost takes 2 CAs to cast so take 20 CAs (probably 50 seconds) and the caster gets +60% to skill. Assuming he now succeeds (skill 100%) then he can cast Damage Boost 10 lasting 150 minutes for 2 MPs. Is this how people have been playing sorcery?

Relatedly, I've been trying to figure what it's like to play a sorceror at a relatively low level. E.g. say you make a sorceror using the 100 skill points then you can probably start with two arts and two spells. Now to qualify for a Rune Lord you need 5 skills at 80%+ basically. Therefore would a sorceror equivalent have just 5 sorcery skills at 80%? If so, that's a pretty poor sorceror. From a PC point of view it's also a pretty boring character who possibly can't cast more than 2-3 spells reliably even after a year or two of play. With Improvement rolls then there's a general encouragement for characters to specialise in no more than 6 or skills.

On the other hand, if you let characters take 10 times as long to cast a spell to get +60% then most smart sorcerors will have a raft of skills around 50% with Intensity and Targets and their main "save my life spell" at around 100% because that's the only thing they may need to cast without time to prepare. Indeed Persistence maybe more important than most sorcery skills.

This is a case where a seemingly simple aspect of the game system which appears to have nothing to do with a crucially determines how an experienced character looks.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has got far enough with sorceror characters playing them RAW to see how they look.

 

[Flaming Gummi Ork]

I figure if the system allows it then sure why not. I do tend to let the players decide on such things as I am more concerned with them having a good time. Most of my players are fairly intelligent, while each has his moment when it comes to min/maxing (not that they admit to it if they can) they also understand that anything they decide to use goes equally for my npc's. If they start taking extra time to cast a spell then so does the villians.

However, I would rule that the bonus from taking extra time would not increase the effects of their manipulation skills. That is hard wired in to their skill level, the extra time just increases their chances of doing it successfully. So extra time boosts chances of success but does not make it so they can boost the spell to magnitude 10 and lasting 150 minutes.

This is of course dependent on them being able to take that much extra time to cast.

FGO

 

[weasel_fierce]

to be honest, I completely ignore the "take extra time" modifier, for anything and everything.

 

[Rurik]

While the skill rules say you can take extra time for skills the spell rules do not say anything about extra casting times.

I suppose you could interpret it either way but I would not allow it.

Especially in the case of sorcery, as being able to combine effects becomes very powerful, and very easy with a +60.

Furthermore casting times are usually measured in Combat Actions. God Learner spells all have a casting time of 1 CA. So you could get +20% for just 1 extra CA, and +60% would take only 10 CA's total - not very long at all.

 

[Mugen]

I think the effects of the various sorcery skills should only be determined by your skill level, not your final success chance.

 

[Deleriad]

I think the effects of the various sorcery skills should only be determined by your skill level, not your final success chance.

Well you may well think that but the RQ Companion makes it crystal clear that that is not the case. 8) The examples it gives show how the various modifiers affect the final "power" of the spell as well as its cast chance

I'm not particularly worried about whether or not to play the game RAW but I am interested to know how anyone who has been playing sorcery as written has found that it turned out.

Thing is, it seems to me that for a sorceror to be an enjoyable character, a PC is going to want 5-8 pretty competent skills from an early stage or some means of incrementing low skills. Originally I thought that that was the reason for having the take longer to make things easier bonus in the skills system. That means though that any sorceror has effectively mastered his magic as soon as he learns it. So perhaps the author of the sorcery system never saw the skill ease modifiers.

You know although I've been enjoying MRQ it is starting to feel more like an alpha product which hasn't yet made it to the heady heights of beta. There are just too many things which don't seem to have been tested. I'm becoming more and more glad that I have mostly bought PDFs.