davecake

Sure. I'm not saying there aren't conceptual arguments either way, just that the rules don't support it explicitly. Making up your own rules because you find it works conceptually better for you is fine, just realise it when you do it. Literally Sword and Axe Trance are the only ambiguities here - and its not because of some conceptual concept of 'bigness', it's because the rules are ambiguous about whether the MPs stacked with it count as adding to the spells Intensity or not. The only other spell that normally stacks with magic points is Heal Wound, and thats not dispellable because its instant, so Trance spells are a case of their own - in the specific case of Axe/Sword Trance, you can disagree with my conclusion if you want (maybe you are really worried they aren't overpowered enough and really want to make them usually super hard to Dispel as well?), but if you disagree with the reasoning about Intensity vs total spell 'size', you've changed not just those spells but the rules of the whole magic system. The rules are not ambiguous, for example, on whether total magic points (or other magic) used in casting is how you normally work out if you can Dispel something (its not, as Extension and other sorcerous manipulation doesn't count), or if magic points used to boost a spell through Countermagic etc hang around to make it harder to Dispel. Do you think if someone casts a Demoralise and boosts it with 3 magic points to get through a Countermagic 2, that its now a 5 point spell that requires Dispel Magic 5? If yes, thats a change to the rules. If no, you are disagreeing with a specific conclusion not my general argument. And I'm going to keep my specific conclusion (that Trance spells MPs don't add to Intensity) just because I don't want the specific Trance spells to have even more advantages other spells don't, and that weren't intended by design. I'm seriously considering just house ruling that 'they double your skill like Arrow Trance, no MPs needed' which makes the spells consistent with Arrow Trance and Berserker, and solves SO many weird edge cases from these spells having no limit to the size of effect you can have as long as you have MPs, unlike every other spell in the Game (except Heal Wound which is self-limiting, and oddities like Lock). Maybe make it 2 points then? But Arrow Trance is 1 so maybe not necessary. (FWIW, the official Chaosium ruling, is that the MPs stacked with Heal Wound counts like boosting for getting through Countermagic, and I'm happy for that to apply to both Heal Wound and Trance spells as well - its only if they persist for Dispel purposes that is at issue here for me)

Things that aren't essential to me - a Multiverse or any explicit other physical planes. Though something like 'the spirit plane' is almost inevitable if your magic touches it in any way, that's more an aspect of the one physical universe. It can be fine if it fits, but it's often setting dominating if it does, and makes it hard to stick to something that doesn't have wildly varying technology without handwaving. - any particular tech level, I just hate it when a world is wildly inconsistent. Renaissance or medieval if you want, but don't then have stone age primitives the next county over (exception if somehow this ties into a core element of your theme somehow, I guess, like its a game setting all about colonialism) - any particular availability of magic level - worlds where a little magic is very common are OK, like everyone in RuneQuest having a little magic. - multiple player level races. Nothing against it either, just not essential. If it is there, it should definitely be a major setting element - other cultures should make a different, so races should be far more. Settings that make me think they would be fun to run using BRP gritty simulationist combat and skills, and so would make me think about Magic World rules as a starting point for a game inspired by it: - most historical settings, especially 'history plus myth' settings like the classic RQ Earth stuff. - Dragaera from the Steven Brust novels - a very high magic setting, but combat is usually still gritty and physical, detailed character capabilities too - the Black Company books by Glen Cook - Nehwon, obviously - the second Corum trilogy from Moorcock (the most pure magic and self contained, and least Multiversey Eternal Champion books)

1. Combat has to be always dangerous, and with a range of varied tactics. Or else I'd use a different game system. 2. Multiple forms of magic in the game world. 3. 'mortal' scale is the default. Beings significantly above human scale might exist but not dominate, playing as a skilled and magical mortal can be a significant player. 4. Set a base tech level and stick to it for major cultures, anything from renaissance to bronze age. 5. Moral ambiguity within the rules at least (and my personal style is heaps in the setting). If there are things like Law vs Chaos in the setting, neither should be objectively the 'good' one at least philosophically - but I'd mostly keep that for explicitly Moorcockian games or D&D, and just have factions and cultural beliefs.

There are a bunch of different ways we can go, sure. Some of them are more or less a stand off, some of them result in a mutual loss of resources, some in victory for one side of the other. But Sword Trance has disadvantages as well as advantages. On occasion, those disadvantages will get you killed/captured by a group of prepared opponents. On other occasions, they will help you avoid it. Sometimes, Sword Trance might be a huge disadvantage, but not a deadly one (you just needed to take down that one guy you couldn’t reach, but you couldn’t do anything at range, so the other side still got to escape/do the thing). Like Berserker, it’s a choice that might win you the battle, but in some situations might lose it for you. As a very significant tactical choice, make it carefully, because sometimes it’s the wrong choice, especially against opponents prepared for it. Thats all I’m saying. Your Sword of Humakt has a powerful option in Sword Trance. But if they use it every fight, especially if they don’t have backup to compensate for the weaknesses of the Trance, then eventually they will get their arse handed to them, possibly fatally. It’s almost always dishonourable. Even when they technically can, they will be unlikely to do so.

It starts as an assistant shaman, but if they become a shaman they continue to use the same profession. To become a shaman, you play out the shamanic initiation as described in the shaman chapter (or the equivalent for your shamanic tradition). Well, that’s one of the big bonuses of shamanism. And we don’t want to mess around with fighting spirits etc in character creation, plenty of time for that afterwards. What really happens is their shaman master arranges all that for them. An apprentice shaman can not enter the spirit world easily on their own, usually they rely on their master to help them (there are various methods to teach). They probably are not able to travel long distances in the spirit world, and it wouldn’t be safe for them to do that. They may know places in the mundane world where some spirits can be contacted though, but their choices will be limited.

There is spell intensity. I haven’t seen any evidence that ‘size of a spell’ for dispelling purposes differs from intensity. I do argue that - and I find it in the rules because all the rules that talk about Dispelling reference intensity of the spell (which has a clear, explicit, definition on page 247). And the rules for boosting are explicitly about penetration and nowhere mention anything else. The rules don’t say “and we want to be clear that we don’t mean this other concept that a guy named Akhõrahil will come up with”, but they are perfectly clear what they do mean. sure, it’s just not a concept that applies the way you think, or is as clear as you think, or has any specific meaning in the rules. A sorcery spell that has a lot of range and duration but a small intensity might be considered ‘big’ because it takes a heap of magic points to cast, but it’s still easy to resist and has a weak effect.

A trickster who does what he is asked, and always tries to help the community and make it harmonious, is likely one that is weak in the Disorder rune, and so not as powerful Trickster. They still get Illusion magic, though, so they can be a pretty good Jester. Tricksters that try to help their community can still create trouble for it. Committing frauds that the clan profits from, diverting trouble to others, covering up misdeeds that become much worse problems if they come out. Or doing weird and inconvenient things that they are sure are important, but may be deluded (or not!) - sometimes they are the Gloranthan equivalent of conspiracy theorists. It is in the nature of Trickster that even when they try to help, they often don’t.

There are two at least - the EWF began by changing the Orlanth cult as well. Except there is a third change - in that Alakoring also changed, well, at least the rites of about half the Orlanthi, to counter the EWF, and his changes succeeded. And that’s why we have the Orlanth Rex cult, and the chiefs get to boss the priests around. So it can be done, it’s just really really hard, and runs the chance of kicking off a continent sized war. Much easier to work the other side. The Daka Fal cult doesn’t really have coherent existence as a cult, in that they don’t care a lot about the activities of other branches of the cult - the cult is more like many largely independent family traditions. If the local ancestors and the family high priest can be convinced that their family is ok with Orlanth worship, easy. And to be honest, the Orlanth cult has no issue with ancestor worship per se - they just see no point in making a big deal of it separate to the clan rites. So if a bunch of Daka Fal from the same bloodline wanted to be initiated Orlanth, I don’t think that would be a huge problem.

Usually casual language to explain a rule doesn’t mean you can then extrapolate to new, not actually mentioned rules and insist they are there when they aren’t. Yes, but that’s an explicit rule about intensity. Sorcery is quite explicit that not all additional uses of magic points increase intensity or make it harder to dispel. It’s the opposite from what you are suggesting.

I think that rather than heroquesting to change the entire Orlanth cult (quite difficult, because it’s a huge religion, and somewhat resistant to outsiders trying to change it), why not heroquest to change the mind of your ancestors, which should be a lot more doable, and convince them that Orlanth is cool? And it’s a lot easier to manage - summon up an important ancestor with sufficient authority, and ask them what would need to happen to be convinced.

You made up this mechanic. There is no such concept as ‘spell size’ in the rules - there is intensity, and explicitly magic points (for example, sorcerous manipulation of range or duration) and Rune Points (such as Extension) can be cast as part of a spell casting but not increase intensity. And magic points can be cast to boost a spell to get through Countermagic - but it says nothing about dispelling there.

IIRC correctly each new Incarnation of Moonson repeats the Ten Tests ‘just to prove it’s him’.

I ran the first half of The Cradle on the weekend, adapting it to RQG stats and rules and adding and a changing a few spell e, and there was one entire regiment that were all attacking at over 100% due to Morale.

I consider that a feature, not a bug. Such monsters are still hard to defeat quickly (you may be having to do 30+ points to take down a location, so you’ll usually have to survive several attacks), and assuming that 5% will never hit is foolhardy - cool thing for a PC to do heroically, but not something you’d want to rely on very often. And if it does hit, a normal parry + armour probably won’t save the location. So something that allows a PC to realistically take on such huge monsters now and then at some significant risk is fine by me. Not that that will be enough to take on a dream dragon, of course - they have other tricks as well.

If you know someone is Tranced, good organised opponents can also use it against you. If they can stay out of melee range of you (even a Mobility spell, or being mounted, might be able to manage that) then they know you have no ability to dodge or cast any useful magic or attack them. If they do manage to seriously injure you, you can’t heal. Like Berserk, it’s a tactic that is very potent, but also opens up vulnerabilities, that can potentially be a problem if someone uses them intelligently against you to try to take you down. And smart opponents who know about Trance (eg Yanafals rune lords, Zorak Zoran, even Oranthi) will have thought about counter tactics.

Yes. Some sort of perception roll if you want to make it difficult. A skilled fighter can generally assess the ability of another (loosely, not exactly) pretty quickly if seeing them fight. Estimating how fast, strong, skilled your opponent is is a thing that is part of combat, you do it all the time to choose between micro-tactics. There are possible cases that are interesting there (someone trying deliberately to appear worse than they are, two people trying to look skilled by using a practiced routine, etc) but we also have skills like Act or Intimidate. We don’t need set rules, just it is certainly a thing that a skilled combatant might normally be able to tell, and we can improvise using other rules rest of the time.

I don’t think Jar-Eel in her warfare mode is going to be easy to hit with a missile weapon for sure. But maybe she has learnt how to parry missiles, maybe even spells? I wouldn’t be surprised if, in her collection of advanced mystic HeroQuest powers, she can do something like the dragonnewt power of Deflection using her Moonswords? Speculating about what JarEel can do, though, is fun but not that useful. She is an incarnation of a goddess. She has the Infinity Rune, and potentially total control of the magic around her. We slaughtering huge numbers of lesser opponents is something she regards as an easy task, and of minimal significance. I even have her sometimes appearing as an NPC in my current campaign from time to time - and I don’t need to really know her effectiveness in combat, beyond knowing there is only one other person who has any real chance of doing more than irritating her, and anyone so foolish as to initiate combat with her will be trivially defeated unless they are a Hero. We don’t yet have rules for heroquesting, and Jar-Eel is at least a couple of levels of magnitude beyond that, we don’t even have a good idea in what manner her core abilities would be expressed.

That’s an assumption - not an unreasonable one, but nowhere is it said that spells boosted for other effects also count as boosting for getting through Countermagic. It seems equally plausible that’s increasing Intensity directly, or that it is more like Extension or a sorcerous manipulation that improves the spell but without increasing Intensity for penetration purposes. I don’t this has ever been clarified.

Crush is awesome. While using Sword Trance can get to amazing levels of skill, Crush helps ZZ get to amazing levels of damage. Of course, the real winners on that comparison are Babeester Gor, with Axe Trance and Slash But even without ridiculous levels of Crush, a ZZ Death Lord big troll Often has a 2d6 damage bonus that they can push to 3d6 with magic armed with a maul, has a very low Strike rank (as they also have huge SIZ), so usually hits first loves to use the tactics Humakti won’t - like ambushes. And a few repeated hit and run attacks from the darkness works great with Seal Wound, because the ZZer heals between attacks runs but their opponents can’t. For huge monsters, they are very stealthy and sneaky. Zombies can really challenge opponents (like Humakti overconfident in the power of Truesword) who rely on taking down opponents fast, as they are hardly bothered by losing a limb. You can’t neglect magic defenses when fighting them either, because they have Fear, and maybe even Sever Spirit. Plus ghosts so you can’t neglect spirit defenses either. Of course Humakt is the same - the two cults are well matched. And don’t forget those shades. Has that lovely habit of softening up opponents by masses of trollkin skirmishers, hiding in the darkness with missile attacks. Profoundly irritating to people who rely on melee attacks..... ZZ really rock against Chaos too, obviously. Besides all the above, plus Berserker, it’s worth bearing in mind that many of them will also be members of Kygor Litor as well, so they are likely to have a Counter Chaos or two as an ace in the hole.

Indeed. i find the idea of stacking extra magic points to make something harder to dispel entirely absent from the rules.

I’d play it that a spell is a spell, whether it is Chaotic or not, but a power that increase the reverberation rate is ‘natural’ healing, even if it Chaotic and crazy fast. But it’s Chaotic and doesn’t even need to be consistent between two walktapi siblings. .

It's disappointing that its going to take a bit longer, but it sounds like its clearly the right decision for both parties, and I applaud Chaosium for acknowledging their limits and trying to the right thing by a creator, that I hope they work with again on other projects.

It’s a good question, and will vary (it will be more obvious to another Humakti, or to a Babeester Gor), but they don’t need to be 100% sure either. I think we have thoroughly debunked the ‘kill hundreds without opposition’ thought balloon. If it takes one Dismiss magic or a couple is much less significant. There will be some context for a specific situation.

We mostly call them Ascended Masters now - and it is more than just a terminology change. The Rokari do not believe that you offer them any form of reverence or prayer, so no orthodox Rokari is taking days off for them. The Hrestoli think they are important, but I think mostly for individual magical practice. Monastic Men-of-all in training meditating on the Ascended Mastersteach8ngs, or performing the spiritual exercises they recommend. But almost all Malkioni have social holidays as part of their religion, or days when there are traditional observances, or commemorations of specific events. Often these are, as suggested, pretty pleasant. There are chapters of the Abiding Book that are pretty much there to tell you to enjoy life. Of course there are some henotheists who treat them like gods. And then there are the Atroxic church of Sir Ethilrist. They are miserable bastards.

If worded that stupidly, sure. But in that case, they should just cast Ignite, because that’s a straw man argument. I would certainly allow that wording to target Fanaticism, Morale, Berserker even so. Only if people specify wrongly. Sword Trance puts people in a Trance, changing all their behaviour, so it’s fairly obvious, much more so than Bladesharp. And at very high levels, it should be more so.