gochie

p. 248 under Variable/Nonvariable Spell: "An adventurer can know a powerful variable spell and cast a weaker version of that spell."

I'm talking about his system, where the D20 determines crits and specials, while the D100 determines a hit or miss.

This makes the most sense imo. You can't actively resist anything when you're unconscious. You're at anyone's mercy, much like a bound spirit 😉.

But how crappy is it to roll a 01 normal hit? 💩 I just know the table by heart 😊, or at least can figure it out very quickly if I know every 20% of skill is 1% crit and 4% special.

Not quite. You're allowed to use lower versions of the spell. That said, here's my take on this... The way I see it RAW should answer all your questions. You will need Summon (entity) 10 to Summon an entity with 10 MP. You can choose to cast Summon entity 1 (or anything less than 10), which is what is meant by "choose how many mps you use". This obviously greatly limits how powerful the entities you can summon are, and makes powerful summoning magic extremely difficult to obtain. A summoned creature can't be dispelled, because it's here now, permanently . The summoning itself is the spell, which acts like an instant spell but takes time to cast. Once the creature is here there is no more magic in play, and your "active" spellcasting ends. You can now barter, spirit combat, whatever, freely. Hope this helps, and I agree that the whole "choose how many mps you spend" bit is worded VERY badly.

It doesn't need to get through, it literally targets the Shield/Countermagic itself . You're right in that to pierce through the countermagic it needs an extra point, but not to dispel it.

Any except dispelling spells. Dispelling spells explicitly work when they match or surpass the points of the targeted spell.

It's a nice start, but wouldn't fire/lightning/any magic used with the intent to kill also become a weapon, and thus "Death"?

I think the spell is supposed to be obvious, and is intended to protect against traditional "physical" attacks, like weapons. The complications stem from the world that is Glorantha, having everything made of unique runes, and other existing spells defending vs specific runes. At what point does a weapon become something else, or something else becomes a weapon?

It indicates that the fire acts like natural fire. So protection vs magic won't help, but physical protection will. If you have a spell that protects vs spells in general it won't work, but magic that protects vs fire will.

Agreed. The purpose of Dispel and co. is to… Dispel. It's their entire purpose. Dispelling needs 1 less point than piercing. So, Dispel 10 dispels Shield 5, while Dispel 11 pierces Shield 5, and has the potential to dispel an even greater defensive spell if there is one (otherwise it dispels the Shield, with 1 more point than necessary).

The wraith section is definitely a bad copy/paste. Maybe make it deal 1D3 physical damage anytime it deals spiritual damage to the adventurer. If you want to be real hardcore, make it deal the same amount of physical damage as spiritual damage (probably 1D6+1 or something, which isn't far off of the original numbers).

Fair enough, but then you have to figure out how all the layers interact with eachother, and how each spell works on a deeper level. IE. Is a spell like Invisibility (or other spells that affect enemies) an exterior/defensive layer? What about Bear's Skin; it's defensive but that's certainly directly on your body. As I said, too much gray and headache to be worth it (just my opinion of course).

I mean, is it abuse though? I don't really see the point in discerning between both to begin with (it is/can be a grey area after all). Just let dispel remove the highest spell it can, end of. The spell doesn't know the difference.

Ahhh sorry, didn't understand your emphasis was on the defensive aspect, not the cost. … And then I would munchkinly tell my GM that Sword Trance is also Defensive because "parry".

There's a popular DM on Twitch/YouTube that made his own DnD world and plays with several different groups. Everything takes place at the same (or similar) time, and changes to the world affects what other groups are able to see/do/etc. Pretty cool stuff.

If non-targeted, Dispel removes the highest possible defensive spell first, not lowest.

So many rules could be added/changed… Crits damaging armor (especially crushing), melee weapon ranges, having a different SR for first hits and subsequent hits… I'm thinking of toying with the SR thing, but one could easily get a little too deep into the rabbit hole.

Nope. Only Slashing and Impaling damage get a damage bonus on crits, RAW.

It's clear that it has to surpass the Shield's 10 pts of Countermagic to take effect. The real question is, once the Dispel surpasses the Countermagic, which spell gets dispelled? Not Bladesharp, since that's on the weapon... And we do know that defensive spells get dispelled fist, but one could (munchkinly) argue that Sword Trance is defensive (parry anyone?). Edit: Actually it dispels the most powerful defensive spell, so definitely Shield in this example. The question remains, what constitutes a defensive spell?

Agreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed. This is RQ! People have magic, weapons break, undefended attack specials/crits will happen. Even if it's a 1-on-1 duel with unbreakable weapons and both opponents are out of MP/magic… That's what those 2-day-long epic hero battles are made of!

Huh? RAW crushing special hits deal Weapon damage + STR bonus + max STR bonus… Which is really strange, especially paired with the fact that critical hits don't deal anymore damage (just ignore armor). Thus why I shared my fix above--slightly lower STR bonus on special hits and higher STR bonus on crits.

It says that because some spells can be boosted for other reasons. Sword Trance can be boosted for increased %, Axis Mundi can be boosted to make it last longer, Safe can be boosted to overcome POW, Harmony and Inviolable can be boosted to overcome other emotion-affecting spells like Berserk, Arouse Passion, etc. In each of these cases, the spell is not better at resisting dispelling. Boosting to make the spell pierce Counterspell/Shield/etc is a tool available for any (most?) spell, and those MP are gone/useless as soon as the spell takes effect.

Yes I know what the book says, I'm sharing what I think it SHOULD say (house-ruled).

I was talking about Special successes specifically, not crits. By following the recipe of Specials get double damage rolls and Crits get max double damage rolls: Crushing specials would be Weapon damage + STR bonus + STR bonus, and; Crushing crits would be Weapon damage + max STR bonus + max STR bonus