Subject: The Zine without a Cause, Volume 2, Number 7
This issue:
RQ spell power? (Adrian Joseph)
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Subject: RQ spell power?
From: ajoseph@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK (Adrian Joseph)
I have recently read a number of comments about the power (no
pun) of RQ offensive spells? Someone went as far as to say that
the spells became more useful in combat than weapons skills. I
find myself more than a little puzzled at this. I have been
playing RQ for a number of years, and my old characters are
probably capable of hero questing (if only I had a good idea of
what hero questing was all about); however, despite this it
still seems to us that offensive magic is mostly useful against
large numbers of lower powered opponents, and in this case
mainly befuddle to reduce the numbers. So, firstly I'm
interested in what offensive magic makes the difference and
why, also I'll explain the way we run things which may show up
why your magic is/'seems to be' more powerful than ours.
Right, to start with, let's define what I mean by
offensive magic. In our games the actual amount of rune magic
around is not very large, the character with the largest amount
has about 30 points worth of rune magic. Most rune magic is not
offensive and in any case the cost of rune magic and its
slowness of recovery doesn't make it general purpose offensive
magic in our games. Also since we play mostly in a modified
RQII world there is very little sorcery, basically no PC's know
any. So, all that's left is battle (spirit) magic. Now there are
a number of offensive battle magic spells, and these roughly divide
into two classes; those you cast on yourself/items, and those
you cast on your opponents. In the first class are such things
as strength and bladesharp in the second class things like
befuddle and disruption. Right, let's deal with each class.
Enhancement spells form the group of spells which can
be cast on yourself or items such spells improve on a basic
ability; so the better you start, the better you get. Okay, one
very important point about battle magic (all magic I think) is
that it's visible (at least) when cast. Another important point
about battle magic is that it doesn't last very long. So, in
general, unless you set up an ambush you will be casting spells
either in battle or just before, thus your opponents will get a
chance to see what you do. At this point enter another useful
general purpose battle magic spell 'dispel magic'. If your
opponents see you casting bladesharp, and don't like it they
can try to dispel it, especially if they see you hit someone
with your sword and not stop your swing! There are, however,
two other options open to your opponents: they can also cast
the offensive spells, or they can cast defensive spells such as
protection or shimmer. So, there exists a balance between
offensive battle magic and defensive battle magic, assuming an
equal distribution of each type, it simply becomes a power
struggle and whoever has the most power or most spell levels ie
bladesharp 5 vs dispel 4 wins out, but the point is that
unless you're always challenging weaker (spell and powerwise)
opponents overall it won't make much difference.
At this point I'd like to go into a quick aside about
magic in general. As I've said the most common form
of magic used in our campaign is battle magic, and probably
the most important use of battle magic is healing. In our
campaign power storage crystals are RARE, and binding spirits
is DANGEROUS, one character trying to bind a spirit got hold of
an old heroquester with 30+ power and a score to settle,
eventually he/she/it gave the body back with a few
modifications, some good, some bad and the emnity of light
cults. [I would point out that we assume most cults have a
supply of cult spirits willing to try their luck in spirit
battle, and when a cult member (ONLY) wants he can request the
priest (yup, this is a temple only job) to summon a spirit (we
roll on the old RQII spirit encounter table which has
everything from total wimps to your favourite deity) and the
character and spirit will then engage in spirit combat. The
character is on his own; as it's an agreed combat, no one may help
in any way once the combat has started, although we do allow
others to cast spirit shield prior to the start of combat (we
use a modified spirit shield spell which simply increases the
characters effective defensive power 3pts per spell pt), the
combat continues until either one or other is bound or the
spirit runs away (this often happens and increases the cost of
the binding since the priests charge to summon spirits) or
either of the combatants is reduced to less than four power.
This is so that neither will be destroyed; remember both are
members of the same cult. If the character wins and
successfully binds the spirit he is charged with is protection
and may not destroy it by draining all its power.]
We tend to try and conserve power from habit and
experience. Its no good blasting the 10 bandits with your
bladesharp 10, strength and protection 5, if they run away and
then the remaing 20 attack you after your magic has worn off.
Yes folks in a world in which the major magic lasts two minutes
you can bet there are many tactics to get your opponents to
shoot their lot too soon, or to make fights last longer, wall
of light/darkness and run away, speed etc. Another good point
is that casting magic takes time the more powerful the spell
and the greater the number of spells the more time it takes,
well I don't know about you, but when we see somone casting a
nice long powerful spell they have a tendency to get high up on
the hit list and finishing the spell can become a real problem.
Another point about magic (and this is a very important and
subtle point) is that there are three general methods of
attack in RQ: physical, magical and spiritual. The way RQ
magic is set up it is generally only possible to defend against
two of the three at any one time (rune magic can help cover
the gaps, but still). Now one thing you can be sure of is that
any site of major importance is likely (depending on the cult /
social situation) to have spirits to protect it. So, often in
attacking situations magical protection is overstretched, and
the only physical protection you get is your armour and skill,
after all if a spirit gets you you're gone for good (RQII).
Well the upshot of all this is that in general most
magic is cast in an ambush situation, during combats most magic
tends to be healing, and if we are outnumbered we often try to
befuddle some of the opponents if their armour is very good. We
may use bladesharp or fireblade to increase our cutting edge,
and when fighting things that do too much physical damage, such
as giants, we use shimmer. I forgot that if we think our
opponents are likely to be magic using then countermagic is the
order of the day (whats the good of being a Rune Lord/Priest
with 120% sword skill if they befuddle you and you end up
dribbling over your toes).
Anyway this has been a very long and winding comment on
magic as we use it, I would be very interested to hear how
magic is used in other RQ campaigns.
Yours
Adrian
Name: Adrian Joseph Email: ajoseph@uk.ac.ucl.cs
(Americans try ajoseph@cs.ucl.ac.uk)
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