Akhôrahil

It's been clarified that you get the POW not from defeating Disease Spirits in general, but from being possessed by one and managing to evict it.

Ernalda with all associated cults and the full set of husband-protectors has a ridiculous amount of spells! Perhaps the only god who has both Cloud Call and Cloud Clear, for one thing!

Oh yeah, factor 2-3 was completely normal. 0.9 seems like you should just get out of the grain business, though - it means a steady loss.

I have this vague notion that sufficiently good sorcerers are going to be massively abusable, but neither me nor any player has bothered to truly read up on them.

While outside the spirit of Egregious Munchkinnery, I would probably make it really hard to convince Humakti to part with a Sever Spirit to anyone not thoroughly trusted. But your point stands.

Perhaps the biggest deal is when the Shaman manages to pick up offensive Rune Magic from some Spirit Cult, and then auto-overcomes POW with the spell.

I’m fairly certain that most GMs will house-rule against this once they see it in action a higher power-levels. My big question is whether to keep it for defence or not.

It’s semi-supported by the rules (edit: fully supported, just didn’t find it at first), but this could as easily be a case of poor rules editing. Above all, it is bonkers, which is a good argument against it.

It’s basically a number you made up. We have no idea whether NPCs get POW gain rolls (in fact, the world as presented wouldn’t make sense If they did - who the heck would keep to just 3 rune points under these circumstances?), and even then, if they would get more than two such rolls per year.

Wait, really? Can you expound on this? I can see the argument for a single year, but surely this isn’t sustainable?

I think "voluntary" can reasonably be argued about even in that case, but you can make modifications to it. "Here you go, I bought you and now I freed you. A donation of POW would be welcome, though." Now we're in the territory of gift-debt (or even actual gratitude!) instead of coercion.

Not the case. You do the ritual, and then other people can put POW into it. (You have to put in one POW, though.)

The Red Moon is her egg. When it hatches, the world will wail.

They key term is "voluntary". I don't think being mind-controlled satisifies that precondition.

This would seem to be a major candidate for Spell Trading, too, as the kind of conditional spell that you don't need often but is crucial when you do need it.

Because of the power of the Morale spell and how long it takes to cast, I would urge people to stack a lot of defensive boosting MPs in it. Otherwise, it will be a cheap and easy target for dispelling, almost certainly going away in the first round of combat, and can then not be replenished.

It's crucial not to forget about the Allied Spirit - it all but doubles your Rune Point cap, and is a really big deal in general these days. Still, the cap is still there, just later. (You can milk some more out of being an initiate in multiple cults, but even then, it's just a matter of time before you run out of space for new rune points. Except perhaps barring illumination, at which point you can go wild with cults.) By the point you're up to 40 Rune Points or so, the GM Book should be out with Hero Level abilities, too. That will remove much of the cap.

This just part of a wider problem - can you buy slaves and force them to sacrifice POW for your project through a mix of punishments and rewards? Slaves aren't that expensive, and it's a pretty solid deal for a slave to be offered his or her freedom for a sacrifice of, say, 5 POW (for optimization, buy the cheapest slaves you can find - you don't care about their ability to work, after all). (And this is the kind of munchkinnery that this thread is about!)

I think I will go with the RQ3 version (IIRC) - fetch’s POW added to defense but not offense. And on top of that, include some restriction to the classical Sleep & Slit Throats, either by Chalana Arroy being unhappy about it or by Sleep inherently containing a geas that you don’t get to hurt the victim afterwards. Befuddle at least includes a balancing element, while Sleep is an “I Win” button. (Honestly, Sleep should be a Rune spell in the new system. With shamans being able to easily learn any Spirit Magic and then teach it, the idea of secret cult-specific Spirit Magic is risible)

Although on the other hand: ”Spells cast by the fetch have the POW and magic points of the fetch behind them instead of the POW and magic points of the shaman.” Which might point in the other direction.

I agree about this interpretation, but it’s pretty obscenely powerful and I strongly doubt it was playtested at any higher power level. One unexpected thing about it - shamans will routinely have 95% to win POW vs. POW, which means they don’t get a check. They will have to pick up the checks in other ways, such as Spirit Combat.

I’m very concerned about stuff like Sleep spells with virtually always 95% chance of success in the future, when a PC qualifies for shaman.

Plate armor isn't a thing in Glorantha, but Roman legionnaires surely marched in their armor, while being about as armored as you get in Glorantha?

Fatigue is at least exemplary easy not to use! 🙂

Girls' magic, ew! Gives you cooties!