Spirits vs Divine Magic Practitoners

[Titus]

Background (skip this rabbling paragraph if you don't care where I am coming from):
I have recently picked up MRQ2 and mostly like what I see. I don't know how soon I can get one of my groups to try it out, but I am chomping at the bit. I ran RQ for about 20 years (RQ2 from Chaosium and RQ3 from Avalon Hill), a couple of Glorantha games and a couple of home-brewed worlds with lots borrowed from Glorantha. More recently I was running a PenDragon Pass game using David Dunham's Pendragon + RQ rules. It takes place early in the 3rd Age during the resettling of Dragon Pass (think King of Dragon Pass computer game). That game has been on hiatus for a about 18 months as I alternate GMing with a friend who is running a d20 game (After Ragnarok). I am thinking of converting their characters to MRQ2 and see if I can get them fired up about it again. (This will be the second conversion as I created a d20 Glorantha game to replace Pendragon because we were all playing d20 games and had a lot of trouble switching back to the Pendragon rules when we only played once every 4-6 weeks.)


Real start of thread:

I have some serious concerns with the spirit combat rules, particularly as they work with the Divine Magic Practitioners (DMP). It just FEELS wrong to me. A Rune Lord or Rune Priest with most of their POW dedicated to their god would be extremely vulnerable to spirit attacks, unless they go around with Extended Spirit Block on them all the time. Their strong relationship with their god should give them some advantage or help against attacks by spirits. They take a double whammy from probably having a low number of MPs and from only getting to fight in spirit combat with half their Persistence skill value.

I have been tinkering with some ideas to get back the feel that I want. Two ways to handle this have occurrd to me so far. In both cases, the defending DMP adds the number of dedicated POW to her current MPs as temporary MPs or phantom MPs or whatever we want to call them. These temporary MPs are lost before any of her real or personal MPs are lost.

The first and simplest way to represent the spirit combat strength of a DMP is to use the greater of his Pact(diety) skill or half his persistence skill. Pact(diety) represents the strength of his connection with his diety, so this works to give the feel of the diety's aiding the worshipper to fend off the hostile spirit.

Or instead of using Pact(Diety), the second option I am considering is adding "Dedicated POW times 5" to half her persistence skill for spirit combat. Her Dedicated POW is essentially her god's POW, so this too gives the feel of her god aiding her to fend off the hostile spirit.

Another "feels wrong thing" is being yanked out of your body to the spirit world to fight the spirit combat. This would be a *serious change* to the way the world works for my players. I will likely stick with the current system which has the embodied soul attacked by the spirit in the material world. The embodied soul has the option to fight back against the spirit or not. If they don't fight back, the spirit gets to make an unopposed attack roll. If they fight back it will cost a CA. If they ignore the spirit, they can do physical actions in the natural world like attack and parry. I would still require the spirit to have the discorporate skill to launch an attack, but I am not sure if I would require it to have to do an opposed check against persistance. The spirit is already at a disadvantage being in the material world instead of the spirit world. I will probably just use the discorporate skill to identify those spirits capable of initiating spirit combat in the material world.

If I actually start an MRQ2 game from scratch, I will leave the discorporate and fight in the spirit world rule as is to see how it actually plays.

Anyone see any serious problems with these options? (Other than breaking the "if you ain't tried it, don't knock it" rule. :wink: )
Any other rule conflicts I might encounter using these options?

Has anyone else come up with house rules they are willing to share in regards to Divine Magic Practitioners and spirit combat?

I am interested to see what others have come up with. There might be a third or fourth or fifth option out there I like better. Judging from some of the posts in other threads there seems to be a fair amount of discomfort with spirit combat as it exists in MRQ2.

 

[Loz]

YGWV

That goes without saying...

However, rather than using 'phantom' Magic Points (which seems a rather inelegant breaking of the whole idea of the Pact) why not make Spirit Block a standard spell for all cults in your game? The Spirit Block spell is by far the best defence against spirits because, even at a Magnitude of 3 or 4, you'll have excellent defence against a spirit of up to POW 17.

Another alternative would be to have your base Divine Magnitude (a tenth of your Pact) work as Spirit Armour points, functioning in exactly the same way as normal armour, but guarding against spirit damage. Activating this armour could be a simple Lore roll to cast it successfully, but it cannot be cast again unless one has been to a temple to thank the god for their protection.

On the subject of discorporate, the way spirits work is designed to mirror Greg's approach to spirits in Glorantha. Of course, though, if it suits your campaign far better to have attacks happen on the mundane plane, that's absolutely fine.

 

[simonh]

I agree about spirit combat, IMHO it's always been possible for a spirit to engage a corporate being in spirit combat. In RQ3 the spirit just needed Visibility to manifest and attack. I'll adopt the same approach as you- the discorporate skill becomes the streight chance of manifesting.

As for divine magic, I think I'll probably stick with RQ3 style divine magic, it will only require a few rules tweaks to fit MRQ2, but I like the new spirit magic and shamanism in general. Common magic is fine too.

Simon Hibbs

 

[kintire]

I'll probably stick with RQ3 style divine magic

WHAT!?!

Oh well, it takes all sorts I guess... have fun!

 

[Halbard]

I'll probably stick with RQ3 style divine magic

WHAT!?!

Oh well, it takes all sorts I guess... have fun!

Do you actually think MRQ (I or II) Divine Magic is better than RQ3?

The other forms might be, but when it comes to Divine Magic, I think I agree with Simon.
But then it is my curse to always find details that don't quiet fit my own ideas and then try to work out a solution ...
MRQ II has in the core only a few of these (A&E is an other matter that Moongoose have tryed to adress, but not to my satisfaction, oh well)

 

[Titus]

However, rather than using 'phantom' Magic Points (which seems a rather inelegant breaking of the whole idea of the Pact) why not make Spirit Block a standard spell for all cults in your game? The Spirit Block spell is by far the best defence against spirits because, even at a Magnitude of 3 or 4, you'll have excellent defence against a spirit of up to POW 17.

Another alternative would be to have your base Divine Magnitude (a tenth of your Pact) work as Spirit Armour points, functioning in exactly the same way as normal armour, but guarding against spirit damage. Activating this armour could be a simple Lore roll to cast it successfully, but it cannot be cast again unless one has been to a temple to thank the god for their protection.

Loz, Thanks! I really like the idea of the Spirit Armour. I didn't think of that. (I guess that's why you are the game designer and I am the one who buys your products. ) The reduction of MP damage alleviates my concerns about the DMPs having fewer MPs than non-DMPs. I will probably let them recover the spirit armour the same way they do divine spells.

In my Glorantha, Spirit Block is generally available to DMPs, either directly from their god or from another god in the pantheon.

The PCs, who are the Redbird clan's Ring of Explorers, will be heading east to explore the lands to the east of the Quivin mountains after the next planting. They may get as far as Prax, and hence my concerns about spirit magic and spirit combat. The praxians would be the first non-Orlanthi humans the PCs have met and the potential for serious trouble will be high.

The Redbird clan does have a Kolat shaman (Windy Barak) and his assistant shamans. The cult of Odayla as found in the Redbird clan has aspects of spirit magic in it. Two of the PCs are Master Hunters of Odayla. These characters may already have some spirit magic skills. I have to review my notes on the Odayla cult and the story so far to see how I want to work MRQ2 spirit magic into the story/game. But I definitely want to work it in somehow.

 

[Titus]

I agree about spirit combat, IMHO it's always been possible for a spirit to engage a corporate being in spirit combat. In RQ3 the spirit just needed Visibility to manifest and attack. I'll adopt the same approach as you- the discorporate skill becomes the streight chance of manifesting.

As for divine magic, I think I'll probably stick with RQ3 style divine magic, it will only require a few rules tweaks to fit MRQ2, but I like the new spirit magic and shamanism in general. Common magic is fine too.

Simon Hibbs

If I am able to talk one of my d20 groups into taking a break and trying MRQ2, I will probably run it as close to RAW/RAC/RAE as possible. I want to see how it works and how it feels.

Where I am having trouble is in an ongoing game which I would like to move to MRQ2. I need to keep the FEEL of the game and the world as consistent as possible. One of those things is that spirits come into the mundane world to attack a corporeal soul. That is what has happened in the past and it will still be that way.

For the cults and magic for my Redbird Clan game I started with David Dunham's PenDragon Pass mods to the RQ rules. Then over time, I blended in information from Issaries' Hero Wars and Hero Quest games, especially the Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe books. When I did a shift to a d20-ish system from Pendragon, I kept the magic systems intact with tweaks to a few spell descriptions to make them work the way I wanted them to in d20. The game and world still felt right to the players and they were happy with it.

So I may have my work cutout for me as I decide what to keep and what to replace (in either my game or MRQ2). Fortunately, the structure of RuneQuest allows for relatively easy swapping of magic systems. I may decide the simplest thing would be to move my existing magic system into MRQ2 as is. Since it started as an RQ magic system, much is the same.

The players have agreed to my switching the rules to MRQ2, but I have promised them a save game at this point in case I screw things up. So sometime late summer or early fall, I have to have it ready to go.

 

[Mugen]

I agree about spirit combat, IMHO it's always been possible for a spirit to engage a corporate being in spirit combat. In RQ3 the spirit just needed Visibility to manifest and attack. I'll adopt the same approach as you- the discorporate skill becomes the streight chance of manifesting.

As for divine magic, I think I'll probably stick with RQ3 style divine magic, it will only require a few rules tweaks to fit MRQ2, but I like the new spirit magic and shamanism in general. Common magic is fine too.

Simon Hibbs

In my view, the only problem with RQ3-style Divine Magic (and enchants, actually) is that POW is subject to the same experience rule as other stats...

A simple solution is to lower the cost of POW increases. If needed, a difference could be made between actual and optimal POW (set to original value at character creation) : when under optimal POW, POW increase may cost 1 Improvement roll. Increasing optimal POW would follow the same rules as other stats.

 

[simonh]

In my view, the only problem with RQ3-style Divine Magic (and enchants, actually) is that POW is subject to the same experience rule as other stats...

A simple solution is to lower the cost of POW increases. If needed, a difference could be made between actual and optimal POW (set to original value at character creation) : when under optimal POW, POW increase may cost 1 Improvement roll. Increasing optimal POW would follow the same rules as other stats.

My preliminary plan is to allow RQ3 style divine magic to be bought using increase rolls. Maybe 2 increases per point of DM? I think allowing POW to be raised rapidly old-school style would break too much else in MRQ.

Tales of the Reaching Moon published an idea for allowing limited amounts of one-use DM to be regained through participation in major worship ceremonies and such. I have used those rules and they work fine.

The new Divine Magic looks ok, it doesn't look broken, but I don't like the way it messes with Magic Points.

To me, MRQ2 is a great updating of the RuneQuest core rules system. The combat and character generation are much nicer, I like the opposed roll mechanic and the skills lists is better though out. However when it comes to magic, there was nothing wrong with the old Spirit Magic (now Common Magic), or Divine Magic. They were simple, balanced and worked fine so in the end I'll probably stick with the RQ3 versions of both of them. Sorcery and Shamanism (now Spirit Magic in MRQ2) are clearly vast improvements on the RQ3 versions though.

Another factor is that I already own pretty much every cult write-up for Glorantha ever published under the RQ3 rules. They are well thought out, generally errata free and thoroughly playtested.

As I said, there's nothing in MRQ that's particularly problematic, if someone was running a straight MRQ2 game at my local club I'd very happily play it, and even if my players all voted unanimously to use straight MRQ2 in a game I wanted to run, I'd be fine with it too.


Simon Hibbs

 

[Mugen]

My preliminary plan is to allow RQ3 style divine magic to be bought using increase rolls. Maybe 2 increases per point of DM?

Like the way it works in OpenQuest ?
I agree it is a great idea.

Another factor is that I already own pretty much every cult write-up for Glorantha ever published under the RQ3 rules. They are well thought out, generally errata free and thoroughly playtested.

I wonder if it is possible to use a supplement like "Gods of Glorantha" straight with MRQII. Of course, that means you'll need to do some conversion for cults specific spells. But apart from that, I'm not sure it would such a pain.

 

[simonh]

My preliminary plan is to allow RQ3 style divine magic to be bought using increase rolls. Maybe 2 increases per point of DM?

Like the way it works in OpenQuest ?
I agree it is a great idea.[/quit]

I have read some of OQ. I didn't think I'd read that idea there, but maybe my memory is decieving me. OQ does look like a lovely idea and a great platform for doing your own customised rules sets. I can see myself using it or variants of it as a toolkit for constructing custom games in the future, but I think MRQ2 is the true heir to the classic Runequest throne. It has that specific niche totally covered.

I wonder if it is possible to use a supplement like "Gods of Glorantha" straight with MRQII. Of course, that means you'll need to do some conversion for cults specific spells. But apart from that, I'm not sure it would such a pain.

I don't think much conversion should be necessery. Nothing springs to mind without actualy going through it.

Simon Hibbs

 

[kintire]

Do you actually think MRQ (I or II) Divine Magic is better than RQ3?

The other forms might be, but when it comes to Divine Magic, I think I agree with Simon.

Unequivocally yes.

I may be biased, because our RQ campaign was a slowish advancement. Some people seem to rocket straight to Rune Rank pretty much, but we spent much of the campaign as initiates. Divine magic was completely useless. I took a few points and deeply regretted it for the rest of the campaign.

You spent POW. Permanent Pow. Pow, the game's most important stat. The stat that determined your Magic points, your magic's effectiveness, your resistance to magic, your spirit combat effectiveness, your LUCK. And for what? d6 damage to a random location of one foe, once ever (if you overcame their Pow, which you are now less likely to do)? A couple of points of Countermagic and Protection... once ever? You'd have to be NUTS.

There were just a few that looked credibly worth it: the Desperate situation escape spells: Guided Teleport, Heal Body. Even then, they were very pricey for what you got.

Once I got reusable magic I acquired my 10 points for Rune Lord Status, and was overwhelmed by their adequacy, I guess. But I retain the firm belief that I would have been far better off with another 10 points of Pow. That's 10 MPs (FIVE Befuddles!), 50% Luck, and magic and spirit resistance up the wazoo!

The new Divine Magic looks ok, it doesn't look broken, but I don't like the way it messes with Magic Points

But sacrificing Permanent Pow messes with your magic points too...

 

[simonh]

A matter of taste I suppose. In RQ3 it was a rare session in which we didn't get a chance at a POW gain, which asusming POW of around 10 or 12 would get you a POW gain about every 2 or 3 sessions. Therefore you could use a point of DM about as often while maintaining an average POW.

Of course bang-for-buck is important but spells like Truesword, Heal Wound, Mindblast, etc were never lacking in that regard.

In later games I also used a variant rule which allowed initiates to regain a point of 'one use' DM every season by participating in a major religious festival, with a bonus point for doing so at a major religious site. This made the life of your average initiate a lot easier in this respect.

Simon Hibbs

Do you actually think MRQ (I or II) Divine Magic is better than RQ3?

The other forms might be, but when it comes to Divine Magic, I think I agree with Simon.

Unequivocally yes.

I may be biased, because our RQ campaign was a slowish advancement. Some people seem to rocket straight to Rune Rank pretty much, but we spent much of the campaign as initiates. Divine magic was completely useless. I took a few points and deeply regretted it for the rest of the campaign.

You spent POW. Permanent Pow. Pow, the game's most important stat. The stat that determined your Magic points, your magic's effectiveness, your resistance to magic, your spirit combat effectiveness, your LUCK. And for what? d6 damage to a random location of one foe, once ever (if you overcame their Pow, which you are now less likely to do)? A couple of points of Countermagic and Protection... once ever? You'd have to be NUTS.

There were just a few that looked credibly worth it: the Desperate situation escape spells: Guided Teleport, Heal Body. Even then, they were very pricey for what you got.

Once I got reusable magic I acquired my 10 points for Rune Lord Status, and was overwhelmed by their adequacy, I guess. But I retain the firm belief that I would have been far better off with another 10 points of Pow. That's 10 MPs (FIVE Befuddles!), 50% Luck, and magic and spirit resistance up the wazoo!

The new Divine Magic looks ok, it doesn't look broken, but I don't like the way it messes with Magic Points

But sacrificing Permanent Pow messes with your magic points too...

 

[kintire]

Therefore you could use a point of DM about as often while maintaining an average POW

In our game, unless the combat was a surprise to both sides, it opened with an exchange of the good old Spirit Magic Save-or-dies: Befuddle and Demoralise (well okay, not save or DIE, but save-or-become a mission kill). Average Pow equalled defeat: not enough MPs to Counter or punch through Counters, and not enough to resist once they got through. Unless you wanted to spend the entire fight dribbling or wimping out, Pow 16 was an absolute minimum (this is once we got to reasonable power levels of course senior initiate or so). Average Pow? Might as well stay at home polishing your "Befuddled fifty times and survived!" award.

This also led to a slightly odd observation: in RQ3 Spirit Magic is the best, bar none. Shamans rule the world. Access to Befuddle, Countermagic AND dispel magic at any magnitude they can defeat? Sign Me Up! Meanwhile, Divine cultists get access to a piddly list of spells, almost none of which have Dispel, few of which have both Befuddle (or demoralise) and Countermagic, and some of which, hilariously, have neither, while pretending to be warrior cults! I hope their cult teaches "Produce Ransom". Even better, many of those theist saps will have reduced their Pow voluntarily for divine "Magic" LOLZ!

This further led me to wonder why, since Shamanism is vastly superior, why does anyone follow deities? I guess it must be Bless Crops... But surely you could worship Ernalda and have your warriors as Kolatings? You'd be King of Sartar in five minutes.

This was, I felt, not quite how Glorantha was supposed to work...

 

[Deleriad]

In later games I also used a variant rule which allowed initiates to regain a point of 'one use' DM every season by participating in a major religious festival, with a bonus point for doing so at a major religious site. This made the life of your average initiate a lot easier in this respect.
Simon Hibbs

That's the thing though. I don't think anyone played RQ3 Divine Magic RAW unless they were either playing incredibly high level games with Rune Lords or low level games where they simply didn't get Divine Magic. Of course everyone has different experiences but of the 4 major lengthy campaigns I ran, only one was set in Glorantha and that was based in the west and focused on sorcerers. In two of the other three campaigns I used a "divine pool" system and in the other one magic was pretty much NPC only. Basically in over 10 years of running campaigns, I never ran Divine Magic by the book.

I wouldn't personally go back to any version of RQ3 style divine magic. RQII does have an issue with dedicated POW making priests more vulnerable to spirits than lay members are. I know this was raised as an issue during playtesting so it's not that the authors overlooked it: they decided that they were ok with it. Every system has its drawbacks after all.

The other issue, the conflict between dedicated POW and lack of MPs for common magic is a flavour issue I reckon. It makes sense in terms of Glorantha. There's a certain game balance to it:

sorcerers use the same resource to cast common magic and sorcery but can choose how to deploy it.

theists use the same resource to cast common magic or acquire divine magic and are stuck with the balance.

animists use different resources so can cast both common magic and draw upon spirits freely.

That said, depending on what happens next when I pick up my campaign I would like to expand the role of the Pact skill. Will probably allow it to be used to defend against spells instead of Persistence, be used in spirit combat but to do one step less damage. I might also allow it to be cashed in for magic points equal to its critical value. E.g. If you have a Pact of 63% you could release a Divine spell you know (as if casting it but to no effect) and gain MPs equal to your Pact/10 (7 MPs in this case). It might completely over-power priests, especially if Amplify is common in the world, but would suddenly make theists *very good* at casting common magic.