Subject: HeroQuestions, Volume 3, Number 12 First Distribution: January 9, 1990 This issue: Another spell (Andrew Bell) New Magic Items (Doug Crabill) overcoming MP's of friendly targets (Doug Crabill) Yes, this is the first new thing I've sent out since last August, and the first new issue since June 15, 1989. Hopefully it will inspire more postings from the rest of you... As far as I know, everyone has received any and all back issues they have requested. If you still need something, send me mail. --- From: Andrew Bell (bell@cs.unc.edu) Subject: Another Spell Obviously, I haven't learned my lesson...:-) Sorcery spell: Reduce Damage ranged, passive, temporal This spell is cast on an opponent's weapon. For every point of intensity in the spell, it reduces the amount of damage the weapon does by one point of intensity. It does not cancel out any other spells on the weapon. This spell does not work on natural weapons. A weapon cannot do less than zero points of damage. While I've seen fanaticism used as an offensive spell more often than dullblade, a sorcerous version of this spell might prove more popular. It's most useful against single, powerful foes. --- Subject: New magic items From: dgc@cs.purdue.edu The lack of magic items contained in the RQ rules has (of course) led me to create some of my own. The obvious ones were putting spell matrices and spell point matrices into common items (rings, wands, bracelets, swords, etc.). I won't bother listing any of those, as they are easy to come up with. What I did was take the "magic crystals" mentioned in the Glorantha Book one step furthur. Instead of just letting them store magic points like a magic point matrix enchantment, I let them have various magical properties. The crystals come in widely varying shapes and colors. They are normally activated by placing magic points into them, but there are exceptions. I'm somewhat new to RuneQuest (I'm the GM -- my players are also new to RuneQuest) and have not completely figured out my economy yet... After about 30 hours of play time, most of my players just now have enough money to buy horses, so they are somewhat poor. Anyway, I've included suggested prices for the crystals metioned here, but you may want to alter the pricing for your economy. Prices given are in pennies. 500 5 point magic crystal - useless once the 5 points are used 1200 5 point magic crystal - can be recharged at 1 pt per 2 pts used 2000 5 point magic crystal - can be recharged at 1 pt per point used 700 Exploding crystal - explodes if magically charged in a 3 meter radius doing 1D4 + points / 2 damage plus stun. It takes one full round before it explodes. 700 Continual light crystal - gives light in 10M radius forever 1200 Light crystal - lights 10M/point used - each point lasts 4 hours. Explodes as above if made to light > 50M 1500 Detect magic crystal - continuous detect magic in 2M radius - starts glowing when magic is within 2M 400 Crystal lighter - makes a small flame whenever held - no magic point cost 1700 Crystal heat generator - each point used lasts 1 hr, heat depends on points used - 1 = lantern, 2 = torch, 3 = small campfire, 4 = medium campfire, 5 = large campfire, 6 = bonfire, 7 or more and it explodes as above. 1300 Crystal lens - gives magnification of 2^N power, where N = the points used. Each point lasts 1 hour. The crystal must be held up to the eye. 1400 Crystal to see in dark - allows person looking through it to see 5M per point used, up to a max of 30M. Each point lasts 1 hr. I'm interested in comments on the items and on the prices given. I'm intersted in the magic items others have made too!!! Doug --- Subject: overcoming MP's of friendly targets From: dgc@cs.purdue.edu I was wondering how others have handled casting spells (upon willing recipients) which require that magic points must be overcome to succeed. For instance, say Bill the sorcerer knows "shapechange human to eagle" and wants to cast it on his friend Joe who wants to get to the next town in a hurry. This requires that the intensity of the shapechange be greater than Joe's MP's, PLUS, Bill has to overcome Joe's MP's. So do you allow Bill to cast it with an intensity of one and ignore overcoming Joe's magic points since Joe is a willing recipient? If not, then the most efficent solution (for the sorcerer) is to have Joe spend all but one of his magic points on useless spells, so it will be very easy for Bill to overcome his magic points. But if this *is* the case, then how can Bill ever cast the shapechange on himself??? He has to use an intensity greater than the magic points he has! [One can do this via stored magic points of some sort -Ed.] While I'm on the subject, have others interpreted the shapechange spell to only effect living tissue (i.e, arms and armor don't shapechange also if they were being worn at the time the spell was cast)? How have you all handled this? Doug --- The RuneQuest(tm) mailing list is a courtesy of Andrew Bell. All opinions and material above are the responsibility of the originators, and copyrights are held by them. RuneQuest is a trademark of Chaosium, Inc. Send submissions, mailing list changes, requests for old article lists, etc. to: bell@cs.unc.edu ...!mcnc!unc!bell Request old articles by volume number and issue number.