>Magic as I see it in RQ3 is devided in three groups. Sorcery looks like
>it is knowledge and skill oriented, which I like and can understand.
>However I have my problems with divine and spirit magic. I cannot
>understand the how the spirit magic works and why it is based on POW
and
>what MP are. The same does apply for divine magic. Having written quite
>a lot of Telmori stories I came to the point that RQ3 magic (not
>including sorcery) isn't Gloranthan. It feels so wrong (at least to me)
>when someone who has cast his Bladesharp and failed goes for it in the
>>next round again. I think Divine Magic aswell as Spirit Magic are not
>thought to be skills by the people who use it. I think that they are
>more like blessing granted when the need arises or sometimes denied.
I don't think that anyone could get the idea from the rules that rune spells are anything like skills. They clearly are a kind of divine blessing, and are almost automatic (95% chance).
Spirit magic is different. I can see that the POWx5% chance to cast could give that impression, but I think that the impression is false. It's simply a game mechanic and nothing more. You can't extrapolate from it to find out how things work in Glorantha. In RQ2 spirit spells had a 95% chance to work just like divine magic, so you could always go back to that in your games. The fact that the chance of casting spirit magic is a fixed chance shows that it is nothing to do with skill, or knowledge. You can't practice casting spirit spells, it's purely down to your own innate psychic talent.
If you prefer, don't think of consecutive attempts to cast a spell as being discrete. Instead, think of it as the character spending a period of time trying to achieve the correct state of mind to invoke the power. It's just that sometimes it takes longer to achieve than others and on average, people with a higher POW can do it more quickly. You could give a cumulative increase in chance of 10% per round if you're that keen.
Magic Points are purely a game mechanic. You can't extrapolate anything about Gloranthan magic from the MP rules. They're simply a way of simulating the fact that characters can't keep on casting magic without some form of fatigue.
Simon Hibbs
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