Spirit Rant

[Rurik]

I hate to do this but here we go again. This is really a rant that started with the Companion.

Cults 2 seems great so far - I have no problems with the Shamanism per se. It is spirit combat that bugs me.

A shaman's most important skill is a big ass weapon. Really.

Most things a shaman does requires combating spirits. Now to do this he needs a magically enhanced (or Iron) weapon. If he does not have one he cannot damage the spirit and will lose.

So any shaman worth his salt is going to have a spell to enhance a weapon. Lets look at the likely candidates. Bladesharp, not so hot. 1 damage per magnitude. Fireblade, does 1d10 for 4 MP. Not bad. Of course, there is always Spirit Bane. That is after all the spell introduced in the chapter on spirit combat so it seems to be a logical choice. 3 MP and any weapon does its normal damage to spirits. Great swords, great hammers, and great axes are all, well, great. They all do an average of 9 damage. The sword has a higher max, but also a lower min. Either way any spirit is going down fast. Bad Man on the average is going down with four hits. Add in a damage bonus or 3 points of bladesharp and he's down in 3.

Keep in mind that spirits have only 1 hit location with POW in HP, so they do not benefit from having multiple locations like a human. And even a tough spirit does about 1d6 damage - most do much less.

So yes, shamans become better shamans by mastering combat with big ass weapons. It just don't seem right to me. It is kind of nice for the shaman when he has to combat mundane foes too, though.

I am planning on houseruling asap and will post for those interested.

 

[Rurik]

Rant Part Two:

All of the spirit derived stats are completely wrong in Cults 2. Mostly for strile rank, but there are others. It appears the same is true for most spirits in Monsters.

Spirit Strile Rank is supposed to based on INT+CHA and NOT halved - they are fast. Says so in the Companion. All the spirits in the Companion have the correct Strike Rank listed. All ther spirits in Monsters have their SR based on INT+CHA/2 except for the disease spirit - though its stats were probably just copied straight from the Companion.

Cults 2 the strike ranks are all messed up. About half seem to have calculated incorrectly by halving INT+CHA and half of them bear no relation to the listed stats at all. Combat Actions are wrong for Ancestor and Thanatari spirits. Bad Man should do 1d12 damage (1d6 is listed) - maybe his damage was arbitrarily lowered to give shamans a chance - but against their greatswords he could use the d12. Plus his CHA is listed as a fixed 20, but it's average is only 11 - but there I'm just being nitpicky.

Long story short - don't trust the spirits stats in either Monsters or Cults 2.

[/Rant]

 

[EricJ]

I think MRQ should provide some examples of how characters gain charms or fetishes, or allies, or spells. I know the combat example in the original rulebook was out-of-date before publication, but they should be able to do better. Something like:

Rudo the Short, an Impala-rider, has impressed his shaman on a recent raid on a Sable clan; he managed to stampede the herd, captured 2 sables, and recovered a rare albino impala. The chieftain gifted him with both sables.

Now, Rudo wants to advance in the Waha tradition; he is already a lay member in the tribe's practice, but he has no spells or charms yet. He offers one of the sables to the tribal shaman. [That his mother is an unacknowledged daughter of the chieftain also helps.] The shaman agrees to help; he burns some salted meat as a sacrifice to an Impala Spirit with the Beast Rune, tattoos Rudo with an impala, casts "Create [Beast] Rune Charm 1 [and why is that spell progressive anyway?] and summons an impala spirit to enter the charm. He's a competant shaman; he makes the Enchant and Summon rolls easily.

The shaman tells Rudo to fast the next day and at sundown to run as far and fast as he can, thinking only of impalas. Rudo does this, and as he collapses into the dirt in exhaustion, the charm spirit takes some of Rudo's power from him [1 POW], and he gains the Beast Rune power. This required no spirit combat, so this episode is done.

Rudo remains an exemplar of his tribe, and a year later, the shaman is persuaded to make him a practitioner, and he decides to make his first fetish. But that would be another story.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Nice!

 

[gamesmeister]

So any shaman worth his salt is going to have a spell to enhance a weapon. Lets look at the likely candidates. Bladesharp, not so hot. 1 damage per magnitude. Fireblade, does 1d10 for 4 MP. Not bad. Of course, there is always Spirit Bane. That is after all the spell introduced in the chapter on spirit combat so it seems to be a logical choice. 3 MP and any weapon does its normal damage to spirits. Great swords, great hammers, and great axes are all, well, great. They all do an average of 9 damage. The sword has a higher max, but also a lower min. Either way any spirit is going down fast. Bad Man on the average is going down with four hits. Add in a damage bonus or 3 points of bladesharp and he's down in 3.

Isn't your whole point somewhat contradictory though? On the one hand you're saying Shamans need to master a big ass weapon in order to take spirits down, and on the other you're saying that spirits, even the big ones, go down like a sack of spuds when hit with magic enhanced weapons. As shamans can cast any rune magic, they have access to all of the common spells such as Bladesharp or Fireblade, so even with mediocre weapons skills should be able to take down most spirits pretty fast.

I see Summoning as their most important skill, with Enchanting and Weapon skills secondary in importance.

 

[Trifletraxor]

So any shaman worth his salt is going to have a spell to enhance a weapon. Lets look at the likely candidates. Bladesharp, not so hot. 1 damage per magnitude. Fireblade, does 1d10 for 4 MP. Not bad. Of course, there is always Spirit Bane. That is after all the spell introduced in the chapter on spirit combat so it seems to be a logical choice. 3 MP and any weapon does its normal damage to spirits. Great swords, great hammers, and great axes are all, well, great. They all do an average of 9 damage. The sword has a higher max, but also a lower min. Either way any spirit is going down fast. Bad Man on the average is going down with four hits. Add in a damage bonus or 3 points of bladesharp and he's down in 3.

Isn't your whole point contradictory though? On the one hand you're saying Shamans need to master a big ass weapon in order to take spirits down, and on the other you're saying that spirits, even the big ones, go down like a sack of spuds when hit with magic enhanced weapons. As shamans can cast any rune magic, they have access to all of the common spells such as Bladesharp or Fireblade, so even with mediocre weapons skills should be able to take down most spirits pretty fast.

I see Summoning as their most important skill, with Enchanting and Weapon skills second in importance.

It's still stupid though. Shamans HAVE to focus on weapon enhancing magic and weapon skills to survive encounters with hostile spirits. All shamans will be WARRIOR-shamans. Doesn't sit well with me.

SGL.

 

[GianniVacca]

It's still stupid though. Shamans HAVE to focus on weapon enhancing magic and weapon skills to survive encounters with hostile spirits. All shamans will be WARRIOR-shamans. Doesn't sit well with me.

Agreed. There are several kinds of RW shamans. Some are indeed warrior-shamans (like the shamans of the Wu state in ancient China, and possibly some Western African or American Indian witch doctors), but I guess the vast majority of RW shamans are more 'trance' oriented (Central and Southern America, Mongolia, Siberia) and I cannot picture them with 'big ass' weapons!

 

[homerjsinnott]

Is there anything that is well thought out in this system?

Answers on a postcard please.



Or you can just post them here.

 

[Exubae]

You can't realy blame the rules they do work in context of a vanilla rpg, but...
Gloranthan Spirit combat has lost something from RQ3 to MRQ, it loses the sense of danger for a start... my players don't like it either (and it works in their favour as written).

So we started house ruling...
In the end we're running with variation of the 'Persistance vs Persistance and damage to Magic Points suggestion' on the wiki - which works well, though we use a base damage of 1d3 for sprit damage + bonus... It beefs up the spirits a little as they get 1d3 + 'Spirit damage'.

The only hic-up has been dedicated POW, in the end we've taken a seperate approach giving each character Spirit Points (Work as Hp) thta are equal to POW.
But this doesn't feel right either... and the players have begun mumbling about Divine magic and that we should use RQ2/3's POW sacrifice approach for Divine Magic...

But the more you change the more the rest of the system seems to unravel and present more issues...

 

[gamesmeister]

It's still stupid though. Shamans HAVE to focus on weapon enhancing magic and weapon skills to survive encounters with hostile spirits. All shamans will be WARRIOR-shamans. Doesn't sit well with me.

SGL.

But they don't...

Before a Shaman summons any spirit, he's going to cast Spirit Screen, so he's now immune to possession (I think it's a fair assumption that SS is one of the first spells he will learn as an apprentice). He then has a choice of several weapon spells to cast - the obvious ones are either Fireblade (even on a dagger it's D10 damage) or Spirit Bane on a larger weapon. Bladesharp has the advantage of improving his chance to hit, but that may not be necessary.

Intellect Spirits, Power Spirits, and Magic Spirits are immediately screwed, because their only form of attack is possession. Spirit Screen prevents that, so they'll just slowly get beaten down until they run out of hit points. Disease Spirits, Healing Spirits, and Pain Spirits do 1D2 damage, so if the SS is cast with a magnitude of 2 (not too much to ask), they're screwed too. As long as the shaman can maintain the SS, he will eventually defeat all these spirits without taking a scratch.

Does the shaman need weapon skills? Sure he does, but 50% is more than adequate against most spirits given the above. He'll probably need higher against the Bad Man, but that's not surprising, and even then as long as he can cast a decent magnitude SS he'll be pretty safe.

 

[gamesmeister]

You can't realy blame the rules they do work in context of a vanilla rpg, but...
Gloranthan Spirit combat has lost something from RQ3 to MRQ, it loses the sense of danger for a start... my players don't like it either (and it works in their favour as written).

In some ways it's more dangerous i.e. Possession. An attacking spirit no longer has to beat down your MPs before it can possess you - it just has to win an opposed roll. You could certainly argue that's taking something away from the system as a whole, and I tend to agree with that, but spirit combat is extremely deadly for the unprepared.

I'm not sure whether I prefer the old rules or the new as yet, but I'm definitely warming to the MRQ method... :?

 

[Magistus]

The following is a change that Lord Twig made, thought I would share.

Corporeal Characters versus Spirits

• Spirits are usually invisible to corporeal creatures and make no sound, though many of them have a distinct smell or sensation that accompanies their manifestation.As such, corporeal opponents unable to pierce this invisibility will take a –40% penalty to their attacks if they attempt it before a spirit becomes visible.
  
  Corporeal creatures strike back at a spirit in exactly the same way as a spirit attacks them, using their Spiritual Attack skill (CHA+10) to hit and dealing magic point damage based on their Spiritual Damage Modifier.
  
  Spells that cause magic point damage, or spells specifically designed to attack spirits, may also harm spirits.However, if the spell requires a target, the spellcaster must be able to see the spirit.Spells with the Touch trait will not work against spirits, unless the character is currently engaged in spirit combat with the target.

 

[homerjsinnott]

It's still stupid though. Shamans HAVE to focus on weapon enhancing magic and weapon skills to survive encounters with hostile spirits. All shamans will be WARRIOR-shamans. Doesn't sit well with me.

SGL.

But they don't...

Before a Shaman summons any spirit, he's going to cast Spirit Screen, so he's now immune to possession (I think it's a fair assumption that SS is one of the first spells he will learn as an apprentice). He then has a choice of several weapon spells to cast - the obvious ones are either Fireblade (even on a dagger it's D10 damage) or Spirit Bane on a larger weapon. Bladesharp has the advantage of improving his chance to hit, but that may not be necessary.

Intellect Spirits, Power Spirits, and Magic Spirits are immediately screwed, because their only form of attack is possession. Spirit Screen prevents that, so they'll just slowly get beaten down until they run out of hit points. Disease Spirits, Healing Spirits, and Pain Spirits do 1D2 damage, so if the SS is cast with a magnitude of 2 (not too much to ask), they're screwed too. As long as the shaman can maintain the SS, he will eventually defeat all these spirits without taking a scratch.

Does the shaman need weapon skills? Sure he does, but 50% is more than adequate against most spirits given the above. He'll probably need higher against the Bad Man, but that's not surprising, and even then as long as he can cast a decent magnitude SS he'll be pretty safe.

You seem to be missing the thrust (sic) of your own words.

A shaman with 50% in any weapon skill should be the exception not the rule. 50% should be more than enough but when it is the most efficient way of dealing with spirits why bother with anything else? You have already said that Spirit screen 2 negates most of the problems with spirit combat why bother with other methods when whacking them with a weapon is the best attack?

 

[gamesmeister]

You seem to be missing the thrust (sic) of your own words.

A shaman with 50% in any weapon skill should be the exception not the rule. 50% should be more than enough but when it is the most efficient way of dealing with spirits why bother with anything else? You have already said that Spirit screen 2 negates most of the problems with spirit combat why bother with other methods when whacking them with a weapon is the best attack?

My point is simply that a shaman does not have to be a warrior shaman - he does not have to have excessively high combat skills, as the OP suggested.

IMO, what he needs is a very good Summoning skill (to make sure his SS is cast successfully), good Persistence in case it doesn't, and then a range of other skills including a weapon.

 

[RosenMcStern]

I think the rules for Spirit Combat were designed to give fighter-type characters an opportunity to battle spirits with magical weapons. The unpleasant side-effect is that shamans may become less effective than fighters at battling spirits, unless they are also combat-oriented.

My idea is that Spirit Bane should be made more powerful adn not dependent on original weapon damage (i.e. 2d10 vs. spirits only). This way the shaman has a greater edge than a fighter versus a spirit encounter, and he has no disadvantage if he wishes to use a dagger or staff to battle spirits, which might be the case if the shaman is not very strong.

Another option would be to use Persistence as the attack value in Spirit Combat instead of the Weapon Skill. Our average fighter with an Iron Greatsword is still able to defeat the spirit due to the great magical damage he can deliver and his high Dodge, but it will give him a very hard time since his usual 100% to hit is downgraded to a mere 20% or so. Of course the Shaman would have no trouble, instead.

 

[gamesmeister]

I think the rules for Spirit Combat were designed to give fighter-type characters an opportunity to battle spirits with magical weapons. The unpleasant side-effect is that shamans may become less effective than fighters at battling spirits, unless they are also combat-oriented.

This is true to an extent, but again it assumes the fighter type has access to the right spells. For example, while most cult members will have access to Spirit Bane (via the Earth Rune), allowing them to fight a spirit, very few will have access to Spirit Screen as very cults have access to that spell. This means the fighter is extremely vulnerable to possession unless he has a high Persistence skill.

Nor do many have access to either Second Sight (also Spirit), and while almost all cults give access to Soul Sight, is it a spell the fighter will carry all the time? Perhaps now he will I guess...

 

[Rurik]

I have barely scratched the surface of this books and it has me on a 30 second manic/depressive cycle already.

There are so many cool ideas but then also so many problems. I do not think all parties involved in bringing this book out were on the same page.

Spirit magic is cool. Way cool. I think that is my answer to the cult spells/cult runes problem that has been being tossed around since Cults I. Cults have cult spirits/daimones that provide access to cult spells. Problem solved.

But the spirit combat it is no secret I dislike.

True, summoning can be seen as the primary spell for shamans. But once you summon a spirit you typically have to beat it. Since MRQ uses actual combat to beat spirits, the weapon skill becomes as important. I still think more important though - if you fail a summoning you can just try again. If you succeed, you better have some way of dealing with the spirit you summoned, because if you can't your career as an animist will be short.

Now I am convinced that most of the practices and cults were written with 'traditional' RQ spirit combat in mind, not the 'new' MRQ spirit combat. I put new in quotes as it is not rally new at all. Look at RQ 3 and Wraiths. MRQ spirit combat is pretty much exactly how Wraiths were fought before. When they did away with the resistance table they just used the Wraith combat for all spirit combat.

But I digress. So a shaman needs access to magical damage to fight spirits. Fair enough. But viddy this my droogs:

Many Practices have no access to spells that can be used to damage spirits.

Now Storm Bull has all kinds of spells good for bashing in spirits incorporeal heads, but a follower of Eritha is out of luck unless they have a magic weapon.

So war practices are all set. But every Practice that follows a peaceful god requires every practitioner to have a magic weapon. Good thing those God Learners are mass producing them.

There are more things that bug me so far, but I have started my campaign material and would rather spend the time on that.

I am just a bit frustrated. In some ways this is my favorite Glorantha release so far (or at least up there with GtSA), in others it is the most disappointing.

[/rant suspended for the moment]

 

[Rurik]

OK. Next Up. Learning a spirit spell. Summon the Magic Spirit. Defeat it in spirit combat, learn spell. Cool.

Things might not be as bad for the shaman as I earlier indicated. Magic Spirits, as well as may others listed in Cults 2, have no attacks and do no damage.

So defeating them is a pretty safe bet. Unless of course the summoner has no magical damage capable weapons. Maybe they just stare at eachother forever wondering what to do next.

It also says if the student fails to defeat the spirit it possesses him, leaving him in a vegative state until the spirit is exorcised. Two questions: First, isn't the student dead if he loses the spirit combat because spirit combat now damages HP not MP? Second, how can he lose against a spirit with no way of fighting in spirit combat?

 

[Exubae]

OK. Next Up. Learning a spirit spell. Summon the Magic Spirit. Defeat it in spirit combat, learn spell. Cool.

Isn't the learning spirit magic spells (Aka Rune magic) limited to Shaman, of which they may only learn a magnitude max up to POW?
Any practioner can bind spirits in to fetishes or charms of course.

 

[gamesmeister]

I have barely scratched the surface of this books and it has me on a 30 second manic/depressive cycle already.

Ok, here goes...<cracks knuckles> :wink:

There are so many cool ideas but then also so many problems. I do not think all parties involved in bringing this book out were on the same page.

First off, I agree with this, in fact it's endemic thoughout MRQ. There are many many great ideas which ultimately have suffered problems in their implementation. I agree with Exubae on another thread - while I love having the books at such a fast pace, the timescales leave little room for testing the internal consistency of the rules. The devil really is in the details...

But I digress. So a shaman needs access to magical damage to fight spirits. Fair enough. But viddy this my droogs:

Many Practices have no access to spells that can be used to damage spirits.

Now Storm Bull has all kinds of spells good for bashing in spirits incorporeal heads, but a follower of Eritha is out of luck unless they have a magic weapon.

No, not so. A Practice has access to the charms available to any other Practice within its tradition. So Eritha shamanesses have access to the same Charms as Storm Bull. That means they have access to the same magic as Storm Bull, and more importantly Daka Fal (i.e. Spirit Charms).