womble

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

@PhilHibbs & @womble, I’m specifically talking about those that aren’t part of cults. The sorcerer in my game although from the Lunar empire, chose not be an initiate of a cult. He didn’t hold with “that god stuff”. “The Shadow Path needs no gods, only a willingness to send those who’s time it is to their fate”

Sounds pretty much like the second half of my post. Only he'd be using Tap, prolly. And twirling those mustaches

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

So you go down to 0 POW, the spell kicks in and gives you 1 POW, and after 15 minutes (even though it's an instant spell...) it goes away and your soul is still destroyed. Not much use, really!

We're back to our old friend Extension, I guess. So you'd better have a few RP available when your POW gets tapped to zero, so you can a) cast the Earthpower, b) stack the Earthpower and get a few POW to work with, and c) Extend it until you can get either a POW gain roll (which you'd better make...) or reach someone who can restore your lost Characteristics with a Restore Health.

6 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

...you may [not] know this but Earthpower properties had already been clarified for the Quickstart...

Please can you link to where these clarifications are? I am aware of the Errata thread, but that's closed and empty.

The rest of your comments, I can't tell what's your interpretation and what's referred to in authoritative sources.

Or Lhankor Mhy? Or has the context become specifically Godless Meldeks?  Rune Magic doesn't interfere with Free INT and you don't need any Sprit Magic to become a Priest. Sure, Atheist Sorcerors don't get POW gains from Worshipping on Holy Days, but the godless heathens probably have plenty of targets for Domination to get a POW gain roll from 'at will'.

I've made 5 parries in 12 seconds when line fighting, parrying with shield and sword. Didn't do much attacking though (that's for the guys with polearms to do from the second rank).

The reason to make it Temporal for the magic point use case is so that the POW goes away. Having a one use, three point spell rescue you from dropping to 0 magic points regardless of circumstance seems a bit punitive to me. Not all lost spirit combats will even result in Possession, and desperate last-ditch Heal spells (for an example I've seen in play in previous versions) certainly don't merit permanent Rune Point loss. Making the Instant, POW-to-zero, use case one use pretty much squelches any abuse, and rescuing you from annihilation is pretty good, but it seems too easy to 'lose' it for the negation of a non-existential (or even non-existent) threat. At 3 points, it should be comparable to Resurrection and Seal Soul in power and utility, without inappropriate 'trivial use' downsides.

Deliberately burning 3 (or more) RP (even reusable ones) for 1d8 magic points is a desperation measure, sure, but burning that many one use RP for the gain? Not a game-fair return for the player.

Personally, I'd be very leery of having that sort of mixmash of spells. Just linking a couple of enchantments emphatically doesn't make a new spell. It makes two existing spells go off at once. Since Orlanth doesn't commonly dole out Truesword or Fireblade, it's just a bit of a stretch for my Glorantha to have a lightning-y fireblade. I'd suggest it'd be some sort of quest to find a different spirit teacher to learn a spirit spell that's like Fireblade but uses lightning. That might not be a Hero quest, but it's probably most likely to be a Spirit quest and best undertaken by some sort of Kolating. It's not beyond reasonable that Orlanth, with his association with death and swords, might be associated with some sort of lightning-y Truesword spell, but as I said above, that's Heroquest territory for sure.

IMGAL (in my Glorantha, at least)

I can sort of see where the "God looking after their powerful worshippers" might motivate them to let Earthpower make up for rolling exactly the wrong number, it does seem a bit of a cheese to have no risk of "final death", just because you've got access to a 3 point spell. Less so if the spell is one-use. A wicked mind might make the spell auto-cast when you hit zero POW and expend all your remaining Rune Points up to 20 (to get you back up to POW 18 and maintain your status as Priest, presuming you've still got 5 Rune Points left because of your Extended Charisma spell that you cast  )

How about:

[suggestion]

Earthpower

3 points

Self, Temporal or Instant, Stackable, may be one-use

This spell enables the caster to draw upon the strength of the earth to save them in a time of mortal or existential peril. They must be physically in contact with the earth  for this effect to happen. The spell does not have to have been actively cast before it is needed; it takes effect when the caster has 3 or more unused Rune Points and either the caster's magic points reach zero, or the caster's POW reaches zero.

If the caster’s magic points fall to 0, Earthpower enables them to draw both 1 point of POW and 1D8 magic points directly from the earth, preventing unconsciousness. The caster may choose to stack more Rune Points with the spell when it activates. Each additional Rune point added to the Earthpower spell returns an additional 1 POW and 1D8 magic points. The spell is of Temporal duration and Rune Points expended return as usual. All benefits of this version of the spell are temporary: POW granted by the spell disappears at the end of the spell (as do any effects for which that POW was sacrificed); any magic points in excess of the caster’s magic point total are lost when spent, and do not regenerate.

If the caster's POW falls to zero, the situation is dire. Earthpower enables the character to draw 1 point of permanent POW and 1D8 magic points from the earth, preventing destruction of the soul and final and permanent death-without-afterlife. The spell is instant and Rune Points expended are permanently gone, as this version of the spell is a one-use magic. The existential nature of the threat which this spell aims to protect from means that the spell draws upon all Rune Points of the character so far unexpended to add an additional point of permanent POW and an additional 1d8 magic points per Rune Point so (permanently) expended. The maximum POW attained by this expenditure is 18 ( so the most additional Rune Points that it will expend is 17, for a total of 20). Any magic points in excess of the new maximum magic point total based on the generated POW are temporary and are lost when spent (and are spent first), not regenerating. This version of the spell will activate if POW and magic points both reach zero simultaneously.

It is possible for the activation of this spell to cause a Priest (or Rune Lord-Priest) to fall below the thresholds required by their Cult for their status. How that situation is dealt with will vary by Cult, but most will grant a leave of absence for a Priest to regain the requisite number of Rune Points and level of POW, during which they would have the (lower) status of God Talker within the Cult. A High Priest would lose their status over other Priests and may have to regain their position from their successor once they've regained the base requirements for being Priest and any additional qualifications that made the position theirs in the first place.

[/suggestion]

I think:

• Making it one-use for standing you up at 0 POW seems a bit draconian. Having it one-use for surviving annihilation seems pretty reasonable.
• The suggestion above clarifies how the spell is meant to work: it's an automatic self-recovery mechanism.
• It clarifies the benefits and means that it cannot be farmed for POW to sacrifice.
• Each version addresses the issue it's having to deal with at an appropriate level.
• The instinctive drawing on Rune Points to regain POW seems like a reasonable 'side effect'. If the POW loss is temporary and can be cured, the character can resacrifice POW to get their Rune Points back, but there's potential for net loss there if the returned POW plus their new POW exceed racial maxima before they have a chance to prepare by sacrificing some of the new POW for Rune Points to make that not the case.
• The suggestion doesn't address the issue of what the God does if the 'dropping to zero POW' version is activated by a Divine Intervention rolling exactly the wrong number.

Whaddaya think?

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Realistically you could get a POW gain roll every season, however that's not my experience in actual play.

Once you're a Priest, if you're in one of the Big Cults with weekly Holy days, it's going to be trivial to get a POW gain roll as often as the GM allows (so, at least once a Season unless the GM is a big meanie  ). With a 35% chance of increase if your POW is 18 (cos Priests get +20% on their chance to gain, and they've got plenty  to do with any gains, so going higher is probably unnecessary). Plus the Sacred Time one. So six a year if there are no other (probably adventuring-based) "interstitial" chances to increase POW granted by the GM. So a Priest's 'resting' POW gain averages about 2 per year (compared to an Initiate's 1).

42 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Could you make a 'new' spell by combining something like a Matrix for Truesword and a Matrix for Thunderbolt with a trigger when you shout 'by the power of Orlanth' and thrust the sword in the air? The desire is a lightning sword. I dunno what needs to be combined. Or does one HQ for something like that?

I reckon if you got your Truesword off of Orlanth, you'd have crackling lightning running up and down the blade when you cast it, and so would anyone who used a Matrix you made. But just having a linked Matrix would just lightning bolt someone and make your sword all glowy (and very, very sharp).

A new rune spell would, I think, be fodder for a Heroquest, and it'd have to have some sort of basis in your God's actions (are there any 'reliable' stories about Orlanth having a lightning-bladed sword in your Glorantha?). It'd be something that only you could use, and probably not something given to anyone else unless it led to the foundation of a sub-cult or you Ascended and became the focus of a Hero Cult of some kind.

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

No, you gain 1 POW and 1D8 MP.

p327

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Each additional Rune point added to the Earthpower spell returns an additional 1 POW and 1D8 magic points

 

So 3 points for the first and an additional 2 makes 5 Rune Points. 3 POW, 3d8 MP

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't think this spell could be used as a matrix. You have to have the spell yourself, I think, and it automatically triggers.

Temporary (for the spell's duration) POW is not much use to anyone, and permanent is an exploit for a reusable spell so I think it has to be one-use, and I'd have it give 2 or 3 POW personally.

It really isn't clear how it works. If it's required to be pre-cast to activate when you hit whichever zero triggers the effect, it has to be Temporal. If you're to get any use out of the temporary POW, it has to have a duration, too. If you don't have a handy Restore Health, you'd better have enough Extension to make the effect last til you can find one, or the end of the Season when you'll probably succeed on your POW gain roll. It sorta makes sense as one-use, since it's a kind of Resurrection.

I'd assume it won't trigger if you hit zero POW because of Divine Intervention directed at the God who's providing the Earthpower.

You can't make the POW gain permanent. It's a reusable spell. A Stackable reusable spell.

I have 5 Rune Points. My POW is 18.

I cast Earthpower, stacked with all my RP.

I cast MP til I pass out while standing on Earth.

I get 3 permanent POW, taking my score to 21.

I sacrifice those for more RP.

I pray at the next opportunity and get my RP back.

If the POW gain was to be permanent you'd have to make it a one-use spell, so that it's not an escalator to a CHA-full of RP and a treasury full of Enchantments (including a Matrix of Earthpower stacked so anyone I like can use it). If the POW goes away at the end of the spell, so would any results of sacrificing that POW, and since it's 'at the end of the spell', even Extension can't make that permanent, because even overwriting the Earthpower early wouldn't stop the first spell ending and the POW disappearing.

6 hours ago, Zozotroll said:

Rather than CHA I have been thinking of a Troll cruising around with Crush on his weapon full time.  Or true sword.    Or did I miss something?  I dont like PDF, I do better with dead trees.

Aye. It works for all Temporal spells. But, as I noted above, with the Extension hotfix, it's not so unreasonable, as you're committing a lot of sacrificed POW to it, as if you'd used them in Enchantments, only the effects are dispellable. Sorcery is still, probably, superior for long term effects; that same POW into an Inscription would make a lot of +2d6 week-long Boon of Kargan Tor, given sufficient magic points.

The cheese with CHA is that your higher RP store lets you make bigger Rune Magic Matrices, requiring even more sacrificed POW, for arguably niche applications. But it shows what, say, a Great Temple of Ernalda in Nochet could put together without even HeroQuesting.

Above in this thread, it seems to me that this is what was being implied, and I think that the chain of logic goes:

1. Increased Intensity costs MP
2. 1 point of each parameter is included in the first point of Intensity "...at no extra cost...". [This sets the 'base' (absent Inscribed spell)].
3. A POW-boosted Inscribed spell makes the base [attributes] higher "...without requiring manipulation..."

Therefore using the increased [attributes] of the Grimoire-copy of the spell doesn't require MP.

If the Inscription didn't say "...the base [attributes]...", it'd need to say something about increasing the limit of manipulation by adding to the effective/available Free INT. But since the base parameters are free, and the Inscription increases that base...

Thanks for pointing out (to those of us who hadn't noticed) that the Inscription increases the base  attributes of the spell, so the additional Intensity doesn't require further MP to power it.

p384

Quote

A sorcerer may manipulate spells...

All sorcery spells have an automatic intensity of 1 in each of these parameters, at no additional cost.

The intensity of a spell can be increased with additional magic points. For each increase in the intensity of the spell, the caster can increase one of these categories by 1 level.

p390

Quote

For each point of POW added to the inscription, the base strength, range, or duration of the spell is increased by 1, without requiring any manipulation by the sorcerer...

(my emphasis).

My reading of that initially also inferred that the decision as to which parameter of the spell is boosted would be made at the time of committing the POW to the Inscription (and I'm still inclined that way because if it was assigned to the paramaters ad hoc it would just say "...the base Intensity..."), but I can see how it can be read as permitting the 'Intensity' in the book to be used for any parameter on an ad hoc basis when casting.

I noticed something a bit odd about Earthpower, so I did a little search and couldn't find any mention of this oddity.

It's Self, Instant, Stackable. It returns 1d8 MP for the first 3 points and an additional d8 MP per extra stacked Rune Point; these remain until they are used. I assume always that any one-use points of stuff are used up first. That's straightforward enough.

It also provides 1 point of POW (for base 3, plus 1 per stacked additional RP) which 'disappear at the end of the spell's duration'. Which, given it's 'Instant', is 'immediately'. So not very useful. Should it be a Temporal spell? I think it should, since I imagine it needs to have been cast before you're rendered unconscious by 0 MP (or dead by 0 POW).

I can see that the intent might be that it's an automatically-cast 'last resort' spell which doesn't have to be 'running' to save your bacon, but still, it needs a duration longer than Instant for the POW element as described to be any more than a "Yay I didn't die! Oh, no, wait, it's gone again. Urk [expires]" moment.

Another question: do the additional points of POW allow you to exceed your racial maximum if it's '0 MP' that's triggered the spell?

Assuming the Extension hotfix (RP used in Extension and the Extended spell do not return until the Extended spell ends), and you cast an Extended (for whatever period, depending on how often you think you'll get RP back) spell that you renew (with a different parcel of Rune Points) just before the first one ends), you're effectively commiting Rune Points (i.e. sacrificed POW) to a permanent thing, in a similar way to your standard Enchantment. It's more vulnerable than an Enchantment, and effectively requires you have double the necessary RP pool, to maintain it consistently (though you could muck around with a shorter Extension if you know you're going to get enough RP back soon (or refill your matrix) to tide you over until you cast the long one). If you use Matrices to do the trick, you're effectively creating an Enchantment by proxy.

I'm not sure this is necessarily a Bad Thing. The hotfix for Extension seems to tone it down nicely to reflect the resources (sacrificed POW) committed.

I don't think Extension needs to be in a linked enchantment; by its nature, it's cast alongside the target spell anyway. You could have (if you had a ready supply of saccable POW) several Extension 5 matrices and use them to 'quasi-permanentise' a variety of Temporal Rune Spells, whether they were cast using native Rune Points or from Rune Spell Matrices, wherever sourced.

20 hours ago, jajagappa said:

My vote is for a variant of #4.  If you need to use, you do as one-use.  But it's gone at that point if you do.  If you don't use and CHA returns then fully reusable once more.

In my lexicon, that's just a different form of words, rather than a variant. 

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Basically your god is saying "I expect you to be my leader.  You failed to maintain that, and yet you drew upon my powers anyway.  Now you have to sacrifice to me again to prove your dedication."

 

The risk of losing CHA is present for all Initiates, not just the leader/Rune Lord types. With 2 POW gain rolls per year, your average (10-11) POW Orlanthi farmer could have a full CHA of RP by age 30, easy. I don't see the CHA limit as God-imposed, but a 'personal' limit based on "strength of personality".

36 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

 

Well, in the first instance you are casting a 1 point rune spell on someone who is protected by Countermagic 2. Countermagic says that in that case, both spells go down. But Shield Countermagic does not go down like the spirit spell, so the first spell simply cancels the second. Simple. Shield 2 beats Countermagic 2, so it replaces the Shield 1.

The hole in this logic is that Shield stacks with Countermagic, so clearly Countermagic 2 is NOT removed by Shield 1. So maybe Shield 1 should ignore and replace the existing Countermagic effect of the first Shield 1.

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."

"Wait til I get going!"

So: overwriting Temporal spells in general... ?

9 minutes ago, Crel said:

I know it was being discussed around on the boards, and I'm pretty sure it was included in "Rune Fixes" (in the Dropbox of preview documents). A hotfix was suggested and implemented that when Extension is stacked with a spell, all RP associated with the spell cannot come back until the full duration is up, or it is dispelled, etc. Sort of a "the energy is still in effect" was how I understood it lore-wise. So, if you cast an Extension 5, Shield 3 with all 8 of your RP, you wouldn't get those points back until the spell ended (and so would have Shield for a year, but also wouldn't have RP...).

Making a Linked matrix of Extension and a spell sort of gets around this, because you're not using your own RP. Of course, you still need to amass all the POW to make the matrix in the first place, but with the new rule letting others contribute POW that's less difficult (though still not easy in an actual game environment).

You mean the Steal Breath cheese?

Thanks for the explanation.

RE: Sorcery: No, not as such, more that I've not done a dive into Sorcery yet, really, but I'm aware that very flexible systems are more likely to be bendy enough to have unforseen impacts on game play.

On 8/25/2018 at 4:50 PM, Crel said:

Though, that matrix does kind of get around the Extension hotfix; if you make an Extension 5, Shield 3 matrix (8 POW, so a lot, but maybe not completely ridiculous) you could get a year-long Shield 3 without having your personal RP empty until the spell ended. I believe you wouldn't be able to refill the matrix until the spell was dismissed/dispelled or naturally ended, but in the long run that seems a pretty small cost if you can work up the POW among 4-5 members of an adventuring party, or sacrifice for it over a few seasons, since it lets you have a great defense and the flexibility of RP.

Extension hotfix? I am unaware, please enlighten?!

Maybe it's the hotfix, but the inability to refill matrix until its contained spell ends is also not how I read RAW.

Extension, and, by extension Extension matrices are the biggest POWergaming hole I've seen in the magic system (outside of Sorcery  ) so far.

Sorry, double post.

Sorry, double post.

On 8/25/2018 at 1:24 PM, jajagappa said:

So you've just spent 6 Rune Points to double your CHA for a year.  Now you are down 6 rune points until they can be replenished - probably a seasonal holy day as that will give you 2d6 points back (typically 7) with a successful Worship.

It's only really 2 points, cos if you're munching on the mechanics like this, you'd have an Extension 5 Matrix. So just the 1 point for Charisma; the Matrix will get recharged at the next Worship. If you're a Priest of a Big God you've probably got weekly chances to regain Rune Points.

Quote

You can no longer hold all the extra Spirit Magic you've acquired.  I think it follows along the lines of p.254 "An adventurer can voluntarily give up knowing a spirit magic spell to make room for different new spells."  If you've lost the CHA to hold the Spirit Magic, then you must give up knowing X number of spirit magic spells.

Yes, that's what I thought was probably the case.

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I don't believe you can overwrite the spell.  You could dismiss it, then cast again, but that will initiate some hiatus.

Totally agree that dismissing it would make a gap. I have wooly recollections that incompatible spells can't be used cheaply as a Dismiss Magic on their incompatible partner (using a Protection 1 to drop a Countermagic 4, for example) and I wonder whether giving the replacement spell a MP boost to make it 'stronger' could be a way round it. Also, while I'm entirely clear that casting two Shield 1 spells on the same target doesn't give a Shield 2, I'm not sure what it does get. My first instinct would be that the second-cast would overwrite the first, staving off the endpoint of the spell. Or perhaps they'd both exist together, so that both would have to be dismissed to get rid of the armour/magical protection. But would casting Shield 2 on someone with Shield 1 overwrite the spell? Or casting Shield 1 with a 6MP boost on a target that already has a Shield 2?

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Your rune points are limited by CHA.  If you increase naturally, that goes up, so should with an Extended Charisma spell too.  

If your CHA goes down then I'd say the rune points aren't lost until cast, but cannot be regained/restored.  If you subsequently go up again, then you must spend POW to get additional rune points.  You can get around this by having rune points with another cult (which are managed separately).

 

So, you'd say (for a concrete and non-munchkinny example) that if a Priest with 15CHA and 15RP with one Cult who somehow lost a point of CHA (aging?) and then regained it (training?) before having cast any more Rune Magic would have 14RP and 1 RP that... No, I'm confused. I'm pretty sure the RP-in-excess-of-CHA are one of:

1. Gone for good
2. Inaccessible until CHA is restored, then available as normal
3. Inaccessible until CHA is restored, then available as one-use
4. Available as one-use until CHA is restored, then fully reusable thereafter
5. Available as one-use, and still available, but still only one-use, after CHA is restored

I'm not a fan of 1) because your God is supposed to be keen for you to get on in the world and just saying "Oh, you weren't using it so I took it away" seems contrary to the spirit of the deal for most Cults.

I'd tend to slide towards 4), or 2).

Or are you saying that RP accumulated above and beyond 'natural' CHA are always considered 'one-use'? Given that a POW sacrificed to the deity is 1POW whether it's a magically-enhanced strength of personality allowing the Initiate to have more than usual or not, that seems to me to be contrary to the usual tone of the Initiate-God relationship.

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Similar considerations on binding spirits (limited by CHA/3).  As it notes on p.250 "After losing points of CHA, an adventurer must be very careful when dealing with their spirits. Trying to keep more spirits than the adventurer’s CHA characteristic allows gets the adventurer in trouble the first time they try to use one for anything. The spirit rebels unless the adventurer manages to roll CHA×5 or less on a D100."

 

That's an excellent parallel. If a Charisma abuser spent their year building up their menagerie of bound spirits, the hiatus between the end of the first year and the recast for the second year would have, typically, zero repercussions, since even if someone ambushes you at the moment your first spell runs out, it's only a round to raise it up again, so you probably never need to call on your 'excess' spirits on your 'bad hair day'.

On 8/25/2018 at 1:19 PM, PhilHibbs said:

I'd file that under "egregious munchkinnery". It isn't permanent, and those are workarounds to make its benefits effectively permanent.

Agreed, it's stretching the rules and 'synergies'... I'd argue that the problem lies with Extension being so easy to get to year-duration. All sorts of Temporal Rune Magic becomes 'effectively' permanent when 5 RP Extension matrices are so accessible.

So I just read the Charisma rune spell properly and it sank in: it doubles your CHA. And increases your Spirit Magic learnt-cap. While it notes that the limited duration of a Temporal spell

might make this latter increase somewhat academic, the ease of Extending the spell up to a year's duration prompts two questions:

1. What happens when the extra CHA goes away? Do you just forget the Spirit Magic? Can you overwrite your Charisma before its anniversary to avoid there being any hiatus in your improved score?
2. Does this improvement also increase your limit of Rune Points per Cult? I guess that's asking for an interpretation as to whether the text simply omits mentioning Rune Points as an oversight. And that leads to a followup question: if your Charisma spell does increase your potential pool of Rune Points, what happens to those points greater than your natural CHA if your spell lapses somehow (is dispelled or you just can't get it re-cast in time)? Do they vanish for good, or just become unusable until your CHA goes back up? This same question applies to normal CHA loss; I couldn't find anywhere that mentioned it.

As a GM with liberal tendencies I'd be inclined to allow the increased CHA to do whatever natural CHA would do, thus permitting increased Rune Point pools, and I'd have the character's Deity hold any surplus Rune Points generated by CHA loss (for whatever reason) 'in trust' until CHA increased again. Spirit Magic would be forgotten though; that seems pretty clear, though I would allow overwriting up to the anniversary day too, in order to preserve the benefits.

On 8/24/2018 at 11:59 AM, womble said:

As a Linked spell Shenanigan, consider a matrix of a variable Temporal Spirit Magic of high strength, which someone went out of their way to learn specifically, then forgot the big version once it was made. Then add a linked Extension-5. Every day there's a successful Worship, someone can have that spell cast on them/cast it on themselves for a year...

Oops. Missed a thing: Extension only works on Rune spells. 

The Issaries Priests I've seen have no need of the trivial booty that would eventuate from the Uroxi's irascibility... They're already stinking rich.