From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #10 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Monday, January 18 1999 Volume 02 : Number 010 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits [RQ-RULES] Why Sorcerers Build Magic Point Matrices Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits [RQ-RULES] Sorcerery rules Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. 4. No anonymous posting, please. Don't say something unless you're ready to stand by it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 14:55:47 +0000 From: Simon Hibbs Subject: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits Richard Ohlson : > ...... If sorcerers use spirits a lot also, >is there any good reason why sorcerers don't commonly have Heal 2 or >Heal 4? I've never needed to enfoce it, but my rule of thumb is that every point of spirit magic a sorcerer knows is a cumulative -5% on their chance of success with any sorcery spell or skill. Spirit magic and sorcery have completely different and incompatible philosophies. Each requires a contradictory kind of 'faith'. It's also blasphemy for a malkioni, of course. > ....Now, in some games I've played in (but not the >one I run) it's been ruled that a two point matrix is a two point >matrix, not specifically an INT spirit matrix or a MAGIC spirit matrix. I've played it both ways, it's a matter of taste IMHO. It doesn't make the characters more powerfull per se, just more flexible. Rich Allen : > A question: is there some kind of "index" on the web that lists >rules expansions/updates/errata in each of the published >suppliments and modules for RQ3? This would help myself, and >probably others, in deciding what needs to be purchased in order to >have the major errata, etc. There is the MIG, the Meintz Index to Glorantha which is published by Reaching Moon Megacorp. It's very thorough, heavily illustrated and a fascinating read. Contact RMM for details, but a new edition is due out soon. The errata are at the back of the Avalon Hill 'big book' version of Deluxe RQ3. The UK Games Workshop edition of the rules had most of the errata made directly to the text. The modified passages are in bold print. You may be able to get a copy of the erata from Chaosium. > I can even imagine that a really powerful spirit will show >up, when forcefully summoned, with other powerful spirits in tow as >retinue and/or body guard. I can find nothing that says a >summoned spirit must show up alone and defenseless other than >with it's own abilities, but again, if I've missed something, please let >me know! IMHO it's only the spell cast by the magician that allows the spirit to transfer from the spirit plane to the mundane world. For other spirits to come too I think they'd either have to be included in the summons (e.g. via multispell), or have their own way to travell to the mundane plane. As a side note, the stats for extra powerfull versions of spirits can be found in the various spirit plane encounter tables. > .....a sorcerer MUST use a number of extra MP in >the summoning ritual equal to or exceeding the MP of the >summoned creature or the spell fails automatically. Now then, >since POW=MP, does the POW spirit have MP equal to it's POW? > According the the Creature Book, it DOES have MP, so we are >back to the catch-22 of wanting to create a binding for more MP, >but needing more MP to create the binding. I don't follow you. What has the number of MPs needed to summon a creature got to do with binding? POW does not 'equal MPs' as such. A creature will regenerate spent MPs back up the a level equal to their POW, but MPs and POW are not the same thing. Binding enchantments are not made using MPs, they are made using points of POW. > .........And no RQ sorcerer I >have ever heard of or read about would pump an extra 100 MP into >the summon spell on the off chance a 100 POW spirit is >summoned, or would even be capable of doing so. So what? It's still theoreticaly possible. Remember that in any half-realistic or reasonable world most sorcerers will not act solely alone. It's already implicit in the rules that many sorcerers have apprentices. In glorantha we know that wizards are part of their church hierarchy. Surely it's reasonable to assume that they might gather together and pool resources to summon realy large spirits, should they choose to do so? Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 15:50:31 -0000 From: Ashley Munday Subject: [RQ-RULES] Why Sorcerers Build Magic Point Matrices I've only had experience with one Adventurer sorcerer - and that was as GM rather than playing him and not in Glorantha either. However, having said that, as soon as the Adventurer became an apprentice he learnt magic point matrix enchantment and started enchanting a 10 point magic point matrix. With this magnum opus completed (that took a fair chunk of 1 years play - about 3 game years) he learnt Binding Enchantment, Control POW spirit and Summon POW spirit. He immediately blew 1 POW on making a POW spirit binding enchantment, summoned a weak POW spirit, spent as many of his magic points on controlling it as his Free INT allowed and stuffed it into his self knitted binding enchantment. Another thing to note: The Adventurer commonly used 6 spells, 7 with his magic point matrix enchantment. This left him a Free INT of 10, so by the time he'd learnt Binding Enchantment, Control POW spirit and Summon POW spirit he only had 7 left. Even after summoning he could only manage an Intensity 8 Control POW spirit so he was fairly lucky to manage it first time. Even allowing for the Petersonfuhrer's sorcery rules (and other people's variants) reducing the importance of Free INT and the Multispell erratum allowing the combination of the Summon and Control spell with the same intensity for a smaller magic point cost, there is still a reason to produce magic point matrices. To summon and control his or her first POW spirit, a sorcerer would probably use a magic point matrix - whether home grown, purchased from someone that wants cash more than POW or, in Glorantha, dug out the ground. Optimally, a patient or paranoid sorcerer would attempt to maximise his or her Free INT before doing the Summon / Control (if it mattered). Ash *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 11:47:22 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits Simon Hibbs wrote: > > I've never needed to enfoce it, but my rule of thumb is that every point > of spirit magic a sorcerer knows is a cumulative -5% on their chance of > success with any sorcery spell or skill. Spirit magic and sorcery have > completely different and incompatible philosophies. Each requires a > contradictory kind of 'faith'. It's also blasphemy for a malkioni, of > course. In the Greyhawk writeups I've been doing, nearly every pantheon has has at least one deity tied to the Magic rune, who supplies/teaches sorcery instead of spirit magic. Of course, a sorcerer in such a cult is free to learn such magic from associate gods, but it's a waste of good Free INT IMO. Anybody can bind a magic spirit that knows the spell, of course. > I've played it both ways, it's a matter of taste IMHO. It doesn't make > the characters more powerfull per se, just more flexible. I've done this too - depends on the players more than anything. I have one guy that I dare not hand any easy outs, as he's a die hard min-maxer, and left on his own quickly becomes ridiculous. > You may be able to get a copy of the erata from Chaosium. Was on the web, too. Lemme search my disk. - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:00:13 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerery rules I now have a complete copy of the RQ3 errata, thanks for suggesting that it might be on the web somewhere. Too bad for all of the people who play RQ3 but aren't on the web, huh? (Sorry, got a little sarcastic there :) I stand by my statement that a sorcerer cannot cast Damage Resist 20, Damage Boosting 20, and Spell Resist 20 in any useful period of time. Even using the errata verion of Multispell, this combination would require 21 Free INT (19 Intensity, and 2 for Multispell) and would only last 10 minutes. A human has a maximum INT of 18, and that would be dropped to 15 if he only knew these three spells. Where do the extra Free INT come from? Can't be from a familiar, since the rules state that "the INT of the familiar cannot be used to manipulate sorcery spells." Even assuming the sorcerer is only storing knowledge of spells in his familiar, he still only has a maximum of 18 Free INT to use in casting spells. If you don't use the Free INT limitation, then we're not talking about the same game, so that arguement doesn't apply. The only possible way to accomplish this would be to have an item (or items) enchanted with these spells at high levels of intensity, each of which requires sacrificing lots of POW to produce. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 19:03:03 +0100 From: "Terje Tollisen" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits > You may be able to get a copy of the erata from Chaosium. I found a copy, but I'm nut sure how old it is, if it it the right noe and stuff like that. It's at http://www.iu.hioslo.no/~tollist/rqerata.html - -Terje Tollisen "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." -Tanenbaum ********************* Terje Tollisen Kjelsaasveien 99 0491 OSLO Norway ********************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:14:35 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits > starting characters. Ok, you can have a familiar, but their main use is > for secondary free INT. If you're going to make it arnbitrarily more Not possible under the rules, errata or not. > difficult for sorcerers to get external storage devices then you're > effectively blocking sorcerer characters from becoming worth playing. I don't make it difficult to obtain or even create external MP sources. Most of our characters, in both games have one MPME with about 6-12 points of storage. The point is that only very powerful sorcerers can afford to make MPMEs, due to the number of POW that must be sacrificed. These items are very rarely sold, due to the high price a sorcerer would place on his own POW. > Power spirit binding enchantments are more efficient in POW, but for a > sorcerer they are much more difficult to make. To make an MPME you only > need to know the enchant spell and Enchant skill. To make a Power spirit > binding enchantment and put a spirit in it you need to know : The binding > enchantment spell, the Enchant skill, The Summon Power Spirit spell/skill, > the Dominate Power Spirit spell/skill. In other words you need to learn > three times as many skills, which is an awfull lot of skill points. Granted. And in light of the errata, I can see that spirit summoning sorcerers should be more common than we have in our games. > The rules do not specify that the matrix must be powered by the same > character, so making such a distinction is unjustified unless you are > explicitly making a change to the rules for your own game. The rules doo not specify the opposite, either, so how are we changing rules? In fact, the rule states that "the user of the item" can move his MP's into the item. We choose to interpret that as the person attuned to the crystal. You don't. Both are correct, as far as the rules go. > That's not a personal attack, merely a statelemnt of fact. Don't you > thing it's reasonable to expect someone proposing rules changes to know > what the orriginal rules are? What rules have I proposed changing? We have created rules to fill in gaps that weren't covered in the published rule books. > On the other hand, you've made repeated sly comments about such as : > Again, you're making a clear criticism of a style of play which you say > yourself you have no experience of playing. Most of my games nowadays have > village, or walked around destroying things. By and large they've got much > better things to do with their time and I resent your unjustified and > spurious aspersions. With the exception of my first comment that a sorcerer cannot cast Damage Boost 20, Damage Resist 20, and Spell Resist 20 all at the same time, I have not ever made a comment intended to say that anyone's _interpretation_ of the rules were wrong. I stand by my statement on the three spells above, however, see my previous post. The statements you quoted were my opinion, and each clearly stated that although my style of play was not the same, both were valid. If you choose to read into them that I was making a sly comment, that's your choice, but I deny the intention. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:29:22 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits > You may be able to get a copy of the erata from Chaosium. I found a copy at > > I can even imagine that a really powerful spirit will show > >up, when forcefully summoned, with other powerful spirits in tow as > >retinue and/or body guard. I can find nothing that says a > >summoned spirit must show up alone and defenseless other than > >with it's own abilities, but again, if I've missed something, please > let > >me know! > > IMHO it's only the spell cast by the magician that allows the spirit to > transfer from the spirit plane to the mundane world. For other spirits to > come too I think they'd either have to be included in the summons (e.g. > via multispell), or have their own way to travell to the mundane plane. The descriptions in the sorcery section state that a powerful spirit would be sufficiently upset at being summoned that it would attempt to summon it's own minions to help it out. I take that to mean that these unique versions of the spirits have more abilities than the more common varieties. > As a side note, the stats for extra powerfull versions of spirits can be > found in the various spirit plane encounter tables. Where are these tables? The encounter table for the "Inner Region" of the spirit plane only adds 1d6 to the POW of a POW Spirit. > I don't follow you. What has the number of MPs needed to summon a > creature got to do with binding? The creature must be summoned before it can be bound, and the summoning requires lots of MPs. > So what? It's still theoreticaly possible. Remember that in any > half-realistic or reasonable world most sorcerers will not act solely > alone. It's already implicit in the rules that many sorcerers have > apprentices. In glorantha we know that wizards are part of their church > hierarchy. Surely it's reasonable to assume that they might gather > together and pool resources to summon realy large spirits, should they > choose to do so? You're absolutely right, it's possible to gather together a bunch of various magic using individuals and to make just about anything. We were talking about individuals, casting a normal summon POW spirit spell, though. Say have the Free INT necessary to add 15 MP to the casting cost of the summon ritual; you are covered for any type of mundane POW spirit you may summon. But say your particular ritual summons one of the more powerful spirits instead, say one with 35 POW. Since you only pumped an additional 15 points into the spell, the summoning spell will automatically fail, you lose some MP, and you have to start all over. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:32:06 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits > Was on the web, too. Lemme search my disk. Sorry, my previous post left out the URL where I found the errata. Here it is: http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/Rolegame/errata-rq3.html Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:44:00 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorcerers and spirits > > starting characters. Ok, you can have a familiar, but their main use is > > for secondary free INT. If you're going to make it arnbitrarily more > > Not possible under the rules, errata or not. To clarify my own statement... The Free INT of a familiar can only be used to learn spells, it cannot be used as additional Free INT when determining the limitations of manipulating sorcerery spells. If you have 10 Free INT, and your familiar has 5 Free INT, you only have 10 Free INT for use with Intensity, Duration, etc, not 15. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #10 ************************************ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.