Jump to content

Glorion

Member
  • Posts

    246
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Glorion

  1. Is that your idea, or something that is in one of the drafts for GoG? If it is, that's not *precisely* what I've been suggesting, but amounts more or less to the same thing. I'd be quite happy with that.
  2. It's not a "special ability." If you have a fetch, part of you is already on the spirit plane. "Discorporation" for shamans is merely switching places with your fetch, and is not in fact "discorporation" at all. If you want to call that an ability, fine, as long as it's clear that it isn't an Ability. Perhaps it should require a successful Meditation roll, that would make sense. Which unless there is a fumble, only determines how long it takes for the shaman to switch places with the fetch.
  3. The ritual doesn't really begin until *after* they discorporate, technically. Actually I agree with you, as opposed to all the posters here who think that a Discorporation runespell or hazia or something is necessary. I'm simply giving a technical reason for no further description in the rules for precisionists. Phil, if you don't think that's necessary, just read over this thread. Worse yet, there are claims here that Chaosium agrees with them and that when GoG comes out, assistant shamans will be required to learn an otherwise totally useless runespell. I hope that is not true.
  4. Which still leaves the problem of how they can manage to become full shamans. I cannot imagine the ritual to become a shaman taking less than a day. Basically the idea that assistant shamans get by on discorporating by rune spells, an idea not mentioned *at all* in the RQG rules, is a rules crutch to be avoided that would annoy players. If the big books when they come out throw that in, I suspect most GMs and players will quietly ignore them and chalk that up to Chaosium incompetence. Likewise, as it clearly states in the RQG rules that shamans because they are shamans can discorporate without difficulty, making that an Ability or requiring die rolls is a rules complication that GMs and players would dislike and ignore. Much better to use an idea such as mine, namely that due to the assistant bond shamans have the natural ability to bring *bonded apprentices* along when they travel to the spirit plane, and that assistant shamans after at least a year of training "*might,* if they are sufficiently powerful and charismatic, be able to get onto the spirit plane themselves after days of prayer and meditation, and due to the apprentice bond, their shamans will know whether they can or not. This concept has the tremendous advantage of precisely modeling the shamanism rules in the RQG book *as written,* without having to change anything.
  5. Seems to me, an assistant shaman strong in the Spirit Rune who knows the right sorcery spell to Discorporate, and I refuse to believe that the Godlearners and/or the Lunars never created one, would have a huge advantage, by far the best way to go from assistant shaman to real shaman if you assume, as the RQG rules in the book *do not* assume, that you have to do something special to enable assistant shamans to discorporate for learning purposes. Ick. The whole spirit of the rules as written is that it just isn't a problem, nothing to worry about. I've provided I think the best explanation for that. Inventing a new shamanic ability, which every shaman who plans to ever have an apprentice would *have* to take despite it being highly unimportant otherwise, is just making the life of the players more difficult, not MGF. And a PC shaman who refused to take it for powergaming reasons would lose a lot of respect from the community. Yeah, there are spirit cults that have rune spells, but do any have Extension? Even forgetting how much of a drain on POW that would be, it may be simply impossible. And giving them Extension is the worst crutch of all, it really makes no sense for spirit cults to get Extension, except as a bad crutch to patch a hole in the rules in a way that makes no Gloranthan sense.. And no, a week adventuring is one sixth of a season not 10%, and few serious adventures take less than a week. Multiweek adventures are pretty common, I've run several. The way I get around that in our campaign with the trickster shaman I'm creating is that the shaman is sending the apprentice on a mission with the party, including contacting trickster spirits, and has arranged for some shamans in Prax where the party is headed to give him a bit of training. But he is going to get a whole lot less training than he would otherwise. Fortunately as rolled up he is almost qualified to take the test right away, but the new GM objects to the idea of instant shamanhood and sees no reason why said shaman would go off to Prax and abandon all other responsibilities just to train an apprentice, shamans do have more important things to do. And he is right.
  6. Being as it it very difficult for an assistant shaman even to adventure at all, should be spending 90% of time with the shaman, being an assistant for many years is problematic if intended as a PC not an NPC. What's more, a low powered shaman who manages to make the rolls is going to end up with a remarkably dimunitive and loseable fetch. In practical play, any PC assistant shaman is going to have to avoid sac'ing for rune points at all costs, seems to me. I see no reason to have to subject players to that, definitely not MGF, especially since the idea that to become a shaman you have to be a divine magician too doesn't feel right anyway. Or hey, maybe there's a sorcery spell that discorporates you, then the duration problem goes away... That the assistant shaman has to sacrifice some 3-4 points of POW just to get Extension for extended learning expeditions to the spirit plane is downright cruel. Much better just to assume that due to the apprentice bond, the shaman can take the assistant along on trips to the spirit plane for teaching purposes.
  7. Its shamans, not assistant shamans, who get expanded CHA. An assistant shaman who buys 7 rune points is very unlikely to pass the test the first year.
  8. Once you attain shamanhood, then POW is easy to get and joining various spirit cults is a good move. An assistant shaman has to conserve POW to be able to meet the test, if she joins more than her original cult, besides that being expensive due to double tithing, that reduces her chance of passing the test. A Wind Child will be an initiate of Orlanth. She could certainly be an initiate of Kolat as well, but that costs an extra point of POW as well as the double tithing. If she wants to control and dismiss elementals, makes more sense at her level to just learn the spirit spells. I see nothing in the RQG rules or published materials that means you get two for the price of one. Kolat is a brother of Orlanth, not an aspect.
  9. That's not a "ruling," it says so in the rules quite clearly and unambiguously. If you want to remove that rule through your own house rule, I'd be the last to object, but it confuses matters when you don't say so. After your campaign has been going on for years, yes, people are probably going to sac for more rune points even though that doesn't get them any spells, if they have nothing better to use the spare POW for. Or just keep the POW, especially if they want to get up to POW 18 and stay there to be god talkers or whatever. Given that POW determines luck rolls, the most important characteristic roll applicable to almost everything, as well as resistance to magic, sac'ing for a rune spell and point is always a big decision. I have my players make luck rolls all the time, and they are usually more important than any other, for obvious reasons. My campaign has been going on for a year and none of the players are even near filling out their CHA.
  10. And, of course, you can't go through the whole becoming a shaman ritual in 15 minutes, unless another rules crutch is invented to get around that.
  11. Either they can do it after a year's training and days of meditation or they can't. Their shaman will know. So the roll is the POW+CHA. If the apprentice can do it, then the shaman is convinced the apprentice is ready, if not not. The apprentice is not convincing the shaman, not seducing or orating or fast talking the shaman. Rather the shaman either thinks the apprentice is ready or isn't. This BTW fits perfectly with the actual wording in the RQG rules, without unnecessary doodads like runespells or Hazia or new Abilities to get in return for a taboo to annoy the players with. For a full shaman, yes it is automatic and should be. A shaman *is* someone who has a fetch, has an ongoing presence on the spirit plane, and therefore can send his soul there with no difficulty. If the apprentice succeeds in the POW+CHA roll, presumably she *will* become a full shaman, the ritual as written really can't fail, the question is how powerful is the shaman who comes out of it.
  12. So not even the Horned Man? The shaman joins any ol' spirit cult. and get Discorporate and nothing else. A pure, clumsy rule crutch to annoy players with, reduce MGF, and add nothing whatsoever to the game. Rune spells, rune points, picky picky, amounts to the same thing. You are just saying what I said with different wording.
  13. After a week? No. After a year of intensive training, an assistant shaman *may* be able to discorporate after days and days of fasting, meditation and prayer. Or may not be, might need another year or more of training (modeled by that POW+CHA roll). Nobody who isn't a shaman or an apprentice shaman ready to meet the Horned Man should be able to discorporate self without dangerous artificial aids like hazia. Discorporate Others as another Ability a full shaman can pay a taboo for would be something else altogether, totally separate and a good idea. IMHO a shaman with that Ability who is training an apprentice *would not* use that Ability to get the shaman in training onto the heroplane to meet the Horned Man, as that is something the would be shaman needs to accomplish though his/her own spiritual abilities. Getting our assistant shaman onto the spirit plane in this fashion is not as bad an idea as doing it with a Rune spell, but still not a good idea. Getting onto the spirit plane to meet the Horned Man is to be struggled for, not handed to you on a silver platter by either a deity or your mentor.
  14. David, I hope not, because that would create another hole in the rules requiring another clumsy fix. Discorporate is *not* a common rune spell! So either they'd have to make it one, highly problematic indeed just plain wrong, or the apprentice would have to join Horned Man or some such to be able to get it, having to sacrifice two points of POW not one. Definitely not MGF. Especially since probably most actual played shamans, like the Wind Child shaman in my campaign, are Orlanthi shamans due to most of the material published so far being Sartarite. And Orlanth definitely doesn't have Discorporate, and shouldn't. Also, there definitely is a limit on rune spells, though a pretty generous one for full shamans. Your CHA, plus your fetch's CHA.
  15. Yeah, I don't like the idea of shamans just randomly bringing *anybody* along. Given the profound intensity of the apprentice bond, that they can bring their apprentice (and I don't think a shaman can ever have more than one apprentice) with them to the spirit plane makes sense to me. Handing out runespells to shamans and their apprentices merely to fix a hole in the rules I find distasteful. And the ability to discorporate should not be simply a gift to the apprentice, whether or not sac'ing a point of POW is necessary. It needs to be struggled for, and a year of training followed by days of fasting, meditation and prayer in a cave definitely has the right Gloranthan feel.
  16. True, which is why I saw a hole in said detailed rules system and came up with what I think is a nice plug.
  17. Ability to discorporate after the cave is exactly what I'm suggesting. I see no need to add a whole new Discorporate Others ability for this purpose. It is simpler to just assume that the apprentice bond enables the shaman to bring his apprentice along with him to the spirit plane. The ability to discorporate others *in general,* not just the shaman's solitary apprentice whom he spends so much of his time and effort training and to whose soul he is intimately connected, could indeed be a special Discorporate Others ability, which some shamans might perhaps want to accept a taboo for.
  18. Eh. I'm an old guard RQ'er and me and everyone in my group have been playing since the '80s. Every last one of my players is a rules lawyer who will argue anything and everything at the drop of the hat. But anyway, YCWV (do I have to spell that out)? BTW, if my interpretation is adopted, GMs whose players are not veteran rules lawyers like mine who know the whole corpus and every word of the official rules forwards and backwards can simply disregard the whole issue, not required annoyed wannabe shamans to sacrifice for a spell they don't want to sacrifice for and have no use for, and simply never even mention the whole issue to them at all, ever. Now, isn't that MGF?
  19. Well sure, but large numbers of both GMs and players are rules mongers who are not satisfied with anything if it doesn't work according to the rules. Even on this thread, half of the posters seem to think that assistant shamans need to learn the Discorporate rune spell, and now you have posters inventing a brand new shamanic ability to gain a taboo for. I have provided a reassuring practical justification to satisfy those of us (self included) who are not satisfied with something that looks like a glitch in the rules and want it to be just part of the ritual (the first part, the days long cave meditation) in a way that works ruleswise, while avoiding unnecessary annoying complications that just make life harder for the players and don't feel shamanic anyway.
  20. The idea that it's a skill learned a lot earlier is possible. I prefer the idea that your shaman can Discorporate you due to the apprentice bond, and takes you to the Spirit Plane to train you. However, that it's an ability the Bad Man or the Horned Man gives you doesn't work, as you have to Discorporate to meet them on your spirit quest for shamanism first.
  21. YGMV of course. If you really want to require all shamans in your Glorantha to be initiates of a divine cult go for it. If you want all shamans to be hazia addicts, go for that too. This is my house rule in my campaign.
  22. Discorporation for the shaman doesn't cost a rune point, the shaman just does it. It's not a spell, it's something all shamans know how to do. Indeed, just go ahead and do it and don't worry about the technical rules details is, in practice, what I suggest. It does *not* thank goodness say anywhere in the rules that an assistant shaman needs to know the Discorporation rune spell. I merely gave a "proper" rules justification for not needing it, namely that the ability to discorporate oneself after days and days of fasting and meditation is something that it is possible to gain after a year of thorough training in the ways of the shaman--though not certain, your shaman will know if you have attained that (that POW+CHA roll). The idea that a shaman, who isn't necessarily even a worshipper or initiate of a deity, needs to get a rune point from a deity of some sort in order to become a shaman in the first place is sad and totally against the spirit of the rules, whether or not it matches the technical details in the RQG book.
  23. Actually, the idea that assistant shamans can use the Discorporation spell to meet the Horned Man and go through the ritual to become a shaman is simply wrong. Why? Because it only lasts 15 minutes. Q.E.D. Hazia, that works more or less. The Discorporation spell does not.
  24. For shamans to use of all things divine magic to discorporate just plain doesn't feel right to me. What if a shaman simply isn't in a divine cult at all? Using the Discorporation runespell for this key task is a crutch used to cover a hole in the rules, and a bad one. Shamans are not professsors, and their assistant are not college students. If it is explicitly stated somewhere that this is how it's done, as far as I know it hasn't beem, that was a minor mistake on Chaosium's part, to be ignored. Not the only one.
  25. Clearly, they have to be taken on a Spirit Journey. Verbal explanations of Spirit Travel are worthless, you have to feel it in your soul. Which means that the shaman has to be able to take an assistant with him onto the spirit plane if he discorporates. The deep spiritual assistant bond is what makes that possible, which otherwise it is not. However, the shaman is not going to do that for the assistant when it is time for the assistant to meet the Horned Man, the assistant must be able to discorporate his/her self. After a year of training and being taken on Spirit Journeys and days of meditation, fasting and prayer, the assistant can do this, if the shaman knows the assistant is ready (measured by that POW+CHA roll).
×
×
  • Create New...