I add my vote to recommending Sandy Petersen's sorcery rules, but would voice one objection. [warning, intensive rule bit. Anyone likely to be offended, use the Page DOwn button, you all know where it is] The sorceror's created in Sandy's system come out _way_ too powerful. Having run a RuneQuest campaign for the last year and a half or so with the new rules, and running it in Ralios in a campaign where ALL the characters are sorcery users (with a bit of Divine Magic thrown in, they are Henotheists after all) I think sorcerors as portrayed in the rules as they stand are overpowered.
It came about by my own misinterpretation, after reading the rules I had a subconsious assumption that the Arts were still represented by skills, and that spellcasting was limited by Arts/10, so someone with Intensity 56 could cast a maximum of an Intensity 6 spell. I would like to say that when I found out my mistake, I never considered turning back.
Imagine a basic sorceror. On average, a Henotheistic sorceror in my campaign, aged 7 years with average stats, with a magic bonus of, let's say, +11, and four simple spells to start with, will have about 30% in each spell. And 37% Ceremony, allowing them to cast Intensity 5-7 spells from the word go. That might seem quite weak, but consider the spell being Boost Damage. If we look at the higher end of the average sorceror (I daren't consider powerful beginning sorcerors!) then they can cast an Intensity 7 Boost Damage, allowing their bogstandard weapon to cut through chainmail like butter. Allowing them to change a stone into a lethal weapon. Meanwhile we have Joe Bloggs the barbarian running around with his 1d8+1+1d4 dmg from his broadsword. If he hits. Which ain't likely (ever notice it's the guy next to you who gets 90% Sword attack to begin with and you're always the 17 year old farmer....). If players combined their skills, then this gets even worse. That self same sorceror can multispell a Bless Sword and Boost Damage Intensity 5, giving him a hefty attack percentage and a weapon that cuts through ringmail like it wasn't there......
Before I continue, remember that sorcerors spells increase quickly. Not only do they increase for being held up, but they're actually easier to increase via training and research. Within a little while, everyone will want to be a sorceror. Even if it means they don't get their Humakti gift/geases.... (assuming of course that you're playing a campaign with power gamers, but then this is only an example!). Also, consider specialist sorcerors. They become _very_ powerful - imagine begin able to knock off a Boost STR 10 to begin with! And for one point of POW you can make it permanent and the average Metamorph gets Boost STR 5 without the need to devote more than 1 presence to it!!
The new revision of the rules went someway to deal with this, mainly dealing with Hold and Permanence. I believe, however, my solution (also presented in a slightly different format for Eastern Sorcerors on Philip Hibb's webpage) is better all round. Firstly, it's more RQ-ish. My players would, I'm usre, be confounded if I removed the Intensity skill! Secondly, reinstall the previous rules concerning Summon - using Summon allows you to add to the maximum amount of Arts in a spell, allowing sorcerors greater freedom. Thirdly, it solves a few abberations. In the current system, untrained sorcerors, for some unknown reason, can cast spells that last 10 minutes and need no Presence to maintain! This is a bit of a cheat IMO. Giving the characters skills makes it easier. Think about it. A Farmer Caste sorcery user can only cast an intensity 1 spell anyhow as he doesn't have access to the Intensity Art, and only has one Presence. So he's out. A Warrior Caste with Intensity skill now has access to the High Vow, giving him Presence to hold his spells, but the warrior will still be very weak as his spells will be quite low, but more importantly, his Intensity will more than likely not even reach 40%, limiting him to Intensity 4 spells - quite small. There is one small point I should mention, I do play that the Art skills can be increased by experience, as to play it otherwise limits sorcerors too greatly.
Hopefully people will consider what I've said, and I have to admit that some problems might have occured in my campaign because of the alternative rules I use for generating characters, but I think that this applies anyhow. I know this list mightn't be the best place for the discussion, but as soon as Tal Meta's rules list is in full working order, I'll move any future debate to there.
Nikk E.
Nikk Effingham
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/7556/
"If absolute power corrupts absolutely,
where does that leave God?"
-- George Daacon
------------------------------
Powered by hypermail