PhilHibbs

The rules say that Shield can be cast on top of Countermagic. Countermagic 1 then Shield 2 gives Countermagic 5, with the subtle difference that the Countermagic 1 can be dispelled separately. The other way around is unclear. You may be right that that way around needs a high enough Countermagic, 2 points more than the Shield x2. I would not rule that way.

I don't understand. What do you mean by "a high enough level", and what other mechanics?

Shield is stackable on top of Countermagic, and always has been. This is explicitly stated in RQ3 and RQG.

He didn't have any Remove spells. He had Become Pair of Smoking Boots, but he'd already used that in the obligatory farcical chase scene when someone cast Disruption on him.

I agree, and bear in mind that I'm recalling an incident from 30 years ago, I was probably a different kind of gamer back then.

My experience is that once a door is opened, people will try to squeeze all sorts of crap through it. Sometimes it's best to just not open it, that's why I came down on the side of just not allowing it to be cast on objects. Saying "No you can't do that", or coming up with a reason why it doesn't do what they wanted it to do, was just becoming a drag.

it is, of course, impossible to cast a self-only spell on someone else by Mindlinking to them. But impossibility is a mere inconvenience to a proper trickster. There should be a "Cheat" spell that allows the caster to ignore one rule per point.

Not all cool ideas stand up to playtesting. They often end up with undesirable consequences. I can't remember what the problem was with Protection/Shield on objects. It might have been something like, "I cast Protection 6 on this suit of chainmail, then Protection 6 on myself, then I put on the chainmail". Maybe you can lawyer your way around that by saying that Protection does not increase the HP of the armour, and the HP is what protects you, not AP.

A limit that is based on a relevant characteristic is not arbitrary. It's pretty much the definition of "not arbitrary".

Murderer is not the only kind of trickster. There are plenty of other kinds of sociopath.

I think there are problems with casting protective spells on items. I remember once someone wanted to cast Protection on the cloth canopy of their wagon, to protect the whole party against arrows.

Feel free to tell us about your best (or worst) ever trickster! For me, it's like walking a tightrope. Fall off in one direction, and you disrupt the game, alienate the other players, and people don't have fun. Or even worse, everyone has fun except for one player who is deeply upset about something, sometimes something trivial like their character being eaten. Fall off in the other direction, and the character becomes a harmless jester, an occasional source of amusement, but without the frisson of danger. The trick is to walk that line between being a dangerous sociopath and a fun character to have in the game. In the end, the ideal is for everyone to say "yes, it was an interesting experience, sometimes nerve-wracking, sometimes annoying, sometimes hilarious, but overall, looking back, I'd say it was enjoyable." And, when it comes to an end, why not make it spectacular, with a farcical chase scene, a dramatic showdown, histrionics, and brutality. If I post an example, it will probably be about Gribble, my most successful and notorious trickster character. Favourite Use For A Lie Spell: "I killed the Crimson Bat, three times!" - this just made the predicament worse, and directly led to being beheaded for serial murder. Second Favourite Use For A Lie Spell: "He was an assassin, I saw a poisoned dagger hidden in his cloak", after pushing an innocent beggar down a well. Actually I have no idea if he was innocent, we'd only just met him. He might have been a vital plot NPC, I never did ask.

Yeah, tricksters are... tricky. Difficult to play, difficult to GM, and difficult for other players to cope with. I've only really done it once satisfactorily, and he ended up being beheaded for serial murder. Oh how we laughed!

Strike and Fumble are a great combination, RQG doesn't have the latter unfortunately.

There isn't really anything. Visibility is sometimes seen as the inverse counterpart to Second Sight, but it isn't really, it's quite different. And the bound spirit is not in the Spirit World, it's in the binding. Since it's fairly niche, in that adventurers would never really have the need to learn the spell themselves, I guess you could just say that some spirits have a spell that lets them do it. Go find a spirit that has that spell, put it in an item, and bingo you have a bound spirit that can perceive the mundane world and cast spells. It's a fairly powerful ability though, and as I've said before, I'm reluctant to allow it without carefully considering the consequences. As a general rule, don't give the players toys that you later have to take away from them.

That one snuck past me too.

In RQ3, there were different spirits each with an individual capability. Intellect Spirits: You can store spells in them and cast the spell yourself. POW Spirits: You can use their MPs to power your spells. Spell Spirits: They can cast their one spell for you. Magic Spirits: Can know and cast several spells for you, some might even know divine or sorcery. RQG Bound Spirits seem to have the capabilities of all of these in one.

You-said-he-said-but-nobody-cares. Picking away at posts in detail is not a great idea. I came close to that trap with Kloster at the top of this page, I hope I didn't come across as overly nitpicky and if so I apologise.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with how easy it is to get a bound spirit that casts Healing on you on demand, as well as being able to draw on its MPs and cast its spells yourself.

I don't think that RQG says that a bound spirit can cast, or be commanded to cast, the spells that it has. I suppose you could release it with the command to cast the spell once, or command it, and release it to cast its spell many times and return to the binding. It would have to be physically manifest (with Visibility, for example) to target corporeal entities, though. If you wanted a spirit that would cast its spells on demand, there should be some trade-off like there is with the different types of spirit in RQ3. An all-singing-all-dancing spirit that can provide MPs, provide access to spells, and cast the spells itself might be obtainable but is not the norm.

If you meant "the possibility to transfer the knowledge of a spell to a spirit which can then cast it", I don't think that's ever been an option.

Which RQ2 dwarves are you comparing to?

They don't extend available INT, they have their own INT and you can transfer the knowledge of a spell into it. It's a small distinction, but taking your post literally, it is the latter, not the former. I just checked, and you can't do that with Magic Spirits or Spell Spirits. Of course there is no such distinction in RQG, and it doesn't seem possible to do this with the rules that we currently have. A summoned and bound spirit might already know spells that you can command it to cast. It doesn't say that you can do this (transfer spells) with an Allied Spirit either, but I'd allow it. It's just a convenient shortcut for teaching the Allied Spirit the spell (you're a Rune Master, it's an Initiate) and then forgetting it yourself.

This was the purpose of Intellect Spirits in RQ3.

Yes, there is something hypnotic about a limit that draws people up to it. I suspect that if RQ3 had a hard limit of Bladesharp to 6, I would have seen Bladesharp 6 a lot more frequently. As it is, I think the highest I ever legitimately had was 5, other than that one Dorastor campaign where we all created Rune level characters from the outset.