Lordabdul

Duplicate post.

Well what I meant was that in all these cases, the boosting is only useful "on the spot", so to speak, as the MPs invested in the boost are taken into various accounts to figure out if it gets dispelled/dismissed/castback/reflected/etc. This is all resolved immediately at the table, and then you can forget about it -- you don't need to "track" the boost for subsequent rounds. True, although the boosting of Safe isn't so much "boosting" as it is increasing the spell's effects, much like Axe Trance, for example. Once again, the problem is that RQG has very poor terminology for various gameplay systems, and using the word "boosting" muddies things up. For instance, if a container or person had Countermagic active on it, and then you wanted to cast Safe or Axe Trance on them, I wouldn't make the "intrinsic" Safe/Axe Trance boosting MPs be able to pierce through Countermagic -- you'd have to spend some other MPs for specifically boosting penetration strength. Does that make sense?

I just checked RQ2 and was shocked to see that Extension 1/2/3 (they were separate spells back then) were not extending Rune magic -- they were extending battle magic! (which we now know as spirit magic). The extension scale was changed slightly from 1 hour/6 hours/1 week to 1 hour/1 day/1 week/1 season/1 year. Funnily enough, although the extension time scale was mostly taken from RQ2, the text of the spell (including the fact that it affects divine/Rune magic instead of battle/spirit magic) was taken almost verbatim from RQ3 to RQG. The RQ3 time scale doubled duration every point.

I don't think I would allow this either. IMHO the opponent can either target the sword (and therefore randomly attack any ongoing spell, with defensive spells first), or specifically call out a spell which was either guessed, or was identified somehow through magic or whatever. If the opponent names a spell that isn't running, they just wasted some RP/MP. Since I'm still on the fence about whether boosted spells only increase their penetration strength, or also increase their spell intensity (which would affect Dispel/Dismiss/Neutralize Magic), I did some more thinking about it. I've been going back and forth between both interpretations but one thing that makes me think @Joerg might be right is the problem of spell limits. Unless I'm mistaken, Dispel Magic must be learned at a specific level. So just like Bladesharp 4 takes up 4 points of your spell holding limit, Dispel Magic 4 would also take 4 points (the limit being your CHA). This means that, realistically speaking, you can't cast Dispel Magic very high -- it doesn't matter how many MPs you have in storage. At best you might have some bound spirit specializing in these types of spells, so you can, say, have a spirit with Dispel Magic 8 just so that you don't have to... but either way, it's not gonna get crazy. Countermagic is the same... the levels of Countermagic are not going to get very high. Shield is limited by Rune points, which also don't run very high and, more importantly, don't recharge very quickly. Boosting spells, however, can get crazy. You can throw all your storage at it. So boosting a spell to get through Countermagic has a bit of a pro/con economy, where you're wasting potentially a lot of MPs, and they evaporate right away. If boosting was also increasing the spell intensity (thus protecting it from Dispel/Dismiss/Neutralize Magic), it would somewhat fuck up the economy of Countermagic and Shield. Why would you waste precious RPs or spell holding CHA to be able to cast Countermagic/Shield at high levels when you can use these limited points to know and cast other spells, and you can instead carry around big storage crystals to just boost all your castings? This suddenly changes boosting spells from something with pros/cons to something that has a LOT more advantages than downsides... so yeah, I'm leaning towards boosting only affecting penetration at this point. I reserve the right to change my mind AGAIN in the near future

I think so too but... well, who knows. At this point I think I'm looking forward a LOT MORE to seeing a revised RQG rulebook than anything else, including CoG

I'm not so sure since nonstackable spells are explictly listed as nonstackable. Why would the authors go to the trouble of writing "nonstackable" on spells if, like, not writing anything would have worked? Plus, when the Q&A on this topic says "non stackable spells can't be extended", but does it mean "spells that don't have the 'stackable' attribute", or "spells that have the 'nonstackable' attribute". You see what I mean? It's hard to map a binary state on a ternary state ("ternary" in this case being "stackable/nonstackable/nothing specified")

Not quite -- Transform Self also doesn't specifically mention being stackable or non-stackable in the rules... so just like with Incarnate Ancestor, I'm not sure what to think. Plus, the fact that it explicitly stacks with nonstackable spells (Bear's Skin, Bear's Strength, etc.) means it's kind of an exception. I would probably rule that you can extend it, especially since there is narrative precedent in Glorantha for an Odayla Runelord spending several seasons in Bear form. The only problem there is the insane RP cost to cast it, something I discussed with potential house rules in this thread (although we haven't reached a very satisfying house rule yet IMHO). But when it comes to limited shape-shifting spells like, say, Bear Claws, then yeah you apparently can't extend those as per RAW.

Hard to say what Incarnate Ancestor is -- in both my copy physical book and in the PDF, that spell oddly misses any stackable specifier. I don't see any Rune Fix or Q&A article that specifies what that spell is either way.

Yes, but not when he manages to flee, was what I meant. Plus, in some rare cases the ransom negotiation might include some of his equipment, like unique weapons/armor that have special value.

Since like I said I was looking through the PDFs, I had actually written down some numbers, so I'm posting them here. These are the total number of crystals mentioned in each book, including from friendly NPCs... so most likely, on average (unless you killed absolutely everybody) you would have only gathered less than half those numbers (for example, all crystals mentioned in Apple Lane belong to the "good guys"). For sandbox adventures like Griffin Mountain, probably vastly less, unless you really roamed the land to get 100% completion. Also note that some crystals can be flawed or cursed, and that a few ones are embedded in a weapon. Finally, I didn't count the storage crystals that have a spirit currently bound in them, but in retrospect I should have (since when you kill that NPC, the spirit vacates the crystal and you can just pick it up). You can probably add between 8 and 12 more crystals in that respect for the last 3 books... but in reality, as I understand it, killing an NPC isn't supposed to be the "default" result of combat (instead, it's supposed to either be fleeing, or surrender/ransom). Ballastor's Barracks: 0 Apple Lane: 6 Snakepipe Hollow: 7 The Sea Cave: 0 Big Rubble: 24 Borderlands: 26 (plus some "found items" table with a 6% chance of getting a crystal) Griffin Mountain: 41

Awwwww thanks 😅 (let's go get a room) I did a big search through my RQ2 PDF collection (I have all the official ones) and I found that: The are five NPCs ever to have more than 1 POW storage crystal on them. Gringle in Apple Lane, Kzwmp in Snakepipe Hollow, the river elf and sea dragon in Big Rubble, and Boshbisil in Griffin Mountain each have a mere 2 crystals. Given the way crystals are listed in stat blocks, though, it could very well be that they just don't use the second one and have yet to bind a spirit in it (but that's pure speculation on my part). Based on some passing sentence in 2 of those books (for instance, Nuckelavee's 50 POW storage crystal in Big Rubble), I'm wondering if it's common for people to put some conditional enchantment on their crystals so that they're the only ones who can use it. I'm not sure if that's possible using RAW, though, that's just a thought I had. It would surely make crystals more rare, as you can't just pick them up from dead NPCs anymore. In Snakepipe Hollow there's a mention that a flawed storing crystal might give you a Chaotic feature when you attune with it. I assume this has to do with the "tentative attunement" that you do to figure out what kind of crystal it is, but that's another idea to limit crystals a bit more (cursed crystals!).

If you're talking about the old Plunders book, not very. There's a 1% chance of getting a storage crystal on the "gems & jewelry" table. There's 1 "Treasure" that doubles as a storage crystal. Since most of the treasure tables only give out money, and only occasionally a gem/jewelry or a special item, then nope, crystal were pretty rare. That plus, like I say, the fact that all NPCs from either RQ2's Runemasters/Griffin Mountain/Borderlands, or RQG's GM Adventures only have one POW storage crystal at most, tells me that something doesn't add up somewhere... (when they have more than 1 crystal, the other crystals are always either a bound spirit or a spell matrix). I think there are other options if you look into house rules. Now that I'm aware of this problem, my first thought was to use some simple rules to limit the accumulation of storage crystals over time (which is the actual problem, I think). So either they have a limited number of recharges (1d6+2 recharges?), or (and I'm leaning that way for now) you can only be "linked" to one POW storage crystal at a time and it takes, errr, say, 24 hours, or even a week, to "link" yourself to a new crystal (dropping the link to the previous one). This way, it explains why, as mentioned previously, all NPCs I've seen so far only have one such storage crystal: they just keep the biggest crystal they can find and sell/trade the rest. Still I'd be curious how the authors never ran into this problem.

No I actually played only a few one shots so far. That's why I'm asking

So I like the idea of removing the rule, since it means you can keep your pre-calculated Special/Critical success thresholds... but, errr, doesn't that make high powered combat completely ridiculous? Everybody always does special/critical success, even when 2 evenly matched opponents fight?

They way I read the rules, it seems that every time you replenish the crystal you have to sacrifice at least one point of POW (to get 1D10 magic points in the item). Since you can get that POW back only infrequently (on a seasonal cycle), it seems to me that you can't really refill those crystals so easily, otherwise you end up with a low POW. I mean, there's probably a reason why I can't find any NPC that has more than 1 or 2 crystals. Ah so after looting the bad guy, you need to spend 1 week trying to attuning the crystal you found to figure out what it is? And then you have a lame 1 point POW storage crystal as a result? And so you need to spend another point of POW to get 1d10 more in it? Gotta label those crystals correctly! Don't mix them up! You only get to roll it once per season though, so it's hard to abuse, no? Oh interesting, I didn't think about making group storage. Thanks! But that spirit will give you only a few MPs, right? And if they manage to trap a powerful spirit, well I guess that's a good reliable source of MPs (although probably not more than a dozen), and they should be able to do awesome things! Haha nice trick. Why not place a limit on Sword Trance? So you can only spend, say, enough MPs to double it, or 20 MPs at most, or your POW score at most, or whatever? That would still be a dozen MPs spent to cast it. If it was doubling your skill for a simple 1 RP cost, that feels way too cheap to me. What rule do you use instead?

Indeed. I always saw this as Ernalda being the one really in charge, pulling the strings... there's a reason Earth priestesses are known for being scheming masterminds. It strikes me as a clever move to keep the loud, reckless bearded guy in the front, taking all the hits for you, and getting all the attention away while you do some more scheming. It would probably be an interesting mental exercise to see what it would look like to re-invent Glorantha with a different original dynamic between Yelm/The Emperor, Ernalda, Orlanth, and the other main deities (maybe even gender-swapping a few of them in the process). Although I'm not sure it would make much difference beyond worldbuilding fun and scholar studies -- the PCs would probably end up having similar play experience.

Attunement is only for Powered Crystals, though -- there's nothing about attuning for normal spirit trapping/POW storing crystals. But I think you're right that this would use the spell matrix rules for recharging (the RQG GM Adventures is reaaaaally missing a few sentences to explain how to charge crystals). Thanks! This would mean that sucking MPs out of crystals is not a casual affair: Replenishing a 10 POW storage crystal could easily take up to a year, and would come at the price of not being able to sacrifice too much POW to your deities for Rune magic or other perks. Using crystals with trapped spirits is better (since the MPs recharge by the next day) but you can't suck those dry (otherwise the spirit is destroyed), they have to be built by the character (you can't find those as loot at the end of an adventure), which also sucks POW and takes a long time, and you're limited to CHA/3 spirits (3 crystals at most on average, maybe a couple more if you have a good score).

Your reasoning is sound, but: There is precedent to "wasteful boosting", for when you figure that it's better to boost a spell and hopefully punch through Countermagic/Shield, than to see it fail and have to cast it again (especially with Rune magic where your Rune points are scarce). It says it's "typically done to overcome magical defense"... but Dispell/Dismiss Magic aren't magical defense -- they're magical offense. I think Joerg's argument is that this boosting is done to pierce through active magical defenses, and then these extra magic points evaporate immediately (they don't stick around to keep the spell strong). I could see it work both ways (I don't think RAW ever clarify it one way or the other), but, mechanically speaking, I would agree that your interpretation seems to yield more interesting gameplay.

So much this. This to me would TOTALLY make it worth to see a RQG v1.5 released some day. Sadly I'm just stupid and/or senile.

Indeed! I forgot Or maybe I have a head cold. Might be a better excuse... How fast do spirit replenish their magic points? Full recovery after 24 hours just like humans? Another thought occured to me: time to cast. If you suck everything dry and spend, say, 60 magic points on Sword Trance or something. That takes 5 full rounds (+1 SR for each MP spent) so you can start fighting only on round 6, at which point the combat might already be over. I assume the Humakti is preparing that kind of stuff in advance? This can make a potentially important difference, for example, the house rule here: ...would have (with RAW) forced the character to skip a round in order to spend, say, 8 or 10 MPs to double their skill (assuming a Humakti has above 80% in Sword).

Maybe it's already there I just learned about your website on this thread, and haven't gone through it yet. I'll do that during the holidays!

I actually went back to check on some more NPCs... some can gather up ~40 magic points if they spend their crystals and suck their bound spirits dry... a couple can get into the 60 range, so I guess it's not so far out than I thought... I also realize that I might be mistaken about POW storage crystals -- I originally thought that you had to sacrifice POW into them (making their replenishing very slow), but it might actually be super quick (a few hours of pouring magic points in them and getting them back). I can't find the rules for recharging crystals?

What house rule did you use as a replacement? My initial (potentially naive?) reaction is that you are the one breaking the Glorantha ecosystem by allowing characters to walk around with 60+ magic points at their disposal with, seemingly, easy ways to refill them before the next combat/adventure. I might be missing something about RAW, but I would have never dreamed of having such power unless I'm playing some legendary figure. Is there any precedent for this? Even looking at Rune Lords in the old Runemasters book, they only typically have storage crystals for 10 to 20 POW. Am I missing something?

As a newcomer, I wouldn't say it has made it "canon" because, indeed, that's not how I perceive Glorantha from the lens of the newer material (RQG, GS) which coloured my mental view of slightly older material (GtG, S:KoH, SC). Although you could argue that I'm of course subject to my own biases... But the result is that I do really read Heortling society as a "balance" between Orlanth and Ernalda, with enough Earth priestesses, female warriors, LGBTQ Helerings, etc... to keep the male representation in check. The best example of an Heortling clan, the Red Cow, indeed has fairly good gender balance, on paper (~45% female NPCs in various important positions plus 1 Helering cross-dresser). I can totally imagine a female point of view when telling a variety of Heortling stories -- but sadly very few such stories have been told so far. That's what I hope/expect from material coming from @HeartQuintessence or @Jane if they ever publish something (unless they'd rather go with Esorlian stories or something else). I'd love to see, for instance, more adventures centered around Earth priestess activities, and some one-shot scenarios where the PCs are a couple of Vingan or Babeester Gor or Maran Gor characters with their entourage, out on some cult-appropriate mission.

I would say both 3 and 4 are Initiate. Leading a sacrifice is probably fairly common throughout Sartar if you consider things like a single family/household gathering around the house elder to sacrifice an animal in the barn and say a few prayers to a God/ancestor/family spirit/etc. We're talking about a ceremony that only involves a dozen people on average. Not everything has to be a fancy affair in a temple.