PhilHibbs

Protective Circle will replicate spell affects on everyone already within a circle, and apply any "attack" spell to anyone entering the circle. This also applies to spirit and rune spells, but the duration is not extended by the circle. So any Rune spell would need lots of Extension, and spirit magic very limited. So how can we abuse it?

Flight. Anyone in the circle can fly! Only within the circle though...

Sword Trance. All our swordsmen are masters!

Shamans. Cast a spirit spell using your Spell Extension power! A spirit spell, maintained on everyone inside, for as long as you want. Fanaticism. Glamour. Protection. Strength. Take your pick. Bladesharp? Not sure... it's cast on a sword, and the spell says "anyone", not "anything".

Crack. All weapons and armour brought into the circle are shattered. But that's instant, I have an open question on the Q&A just now about that.

Bless Pregnancy. Now we're talking! You have to stay in the circle for the entire year, but you could have a dozen pregnant mothers crammed in, all blessed up.

Become (Other Shape). The possibilities are endless. (Ah, damit, that's "self" only, as is Remove (Body Part)...)

Bless Champion. We're all champions in here!

Invisibility.

Maybe Bless Pregnancy and Champion are optimistic, as they are ritual spells. And the Champion one needs a specific kind of ritual... not everyone's into that with multiple participants...

...but I suppose since the circle covers everyone inside with defensive spells, is it supposed to cover everyone that enters with attack spells? Maybe. That's super powerful! A room that befuddles everyone that goes in, boosted with 30 MP... depends how duration works... ah, the Q&A makes it clear that the circle's duration does not affect the stacked spell's duration, so two minutes later you've got no Befuddle spell. Rune spells with lots of extension, then!

33 minutes ago, whitelaughter said:

You're certainly quoting the text correctly, but how is an instant spell is meant to wait? Besides, anyone or anything is a valid target for Disruption.

I wouldn't have a problem with the spell keeping the disruption on hold for the first valid target, then it's gone.

Also, casting Disruption on your own Protective Circle is fine, as attack spells only affect people entering it. You're already in it.

Moving from another thread...

On 2/21/2023 at 4:17 AM, whitelaughter said:

Remember not to cast Disruption in your own Protective Circle. Having all of your own hit locations being valid targets for an attack spell may offend.... 😛

On 2/22/2023 at 11:15 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Disruption isn't a protective spell. Neither is Resurrection.

12 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

They don't have to be, quite unlike Bless Champion.

You're right... but I see attack spells cast on it as protecting the circle from invasion. It is a protective circle, after all, and the word has to have some meaning. Resurrection is a big stretch.

Also I suspect that it's only intended to work with sorcery spells, although it doesn't say that. And the "...attacks as if it were cast by a person with 1 POW" seems to fit more with non-sorcery magic, as sorcery predominantly (perhaps always?) uses the spell strength in place of the caster's POW. I feel an errata question coming on!

*Edit* Already covered. It does work with spirit and rune.

Moved to another thread...

12 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Just a thought, if this is going to be a thing - can the index be revised to show the main entry for each topic ? At present you just have a list of page numbers for every single mention of a topic, perhaps having one in bold for the main or core entry would be handy.
 

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/15637-improved-rqg-index

49 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I would play it that Second Sight gives you the senses to perceive covert possession, but that the ability to recognize it may require training, or Insight (human), etc.

Yes, covert possession would come under "a manifest spirit that is hiding" in my books.

Whether or not it is correct by the book, I run it as "POW in the middle world". So if a spirit has Visibility active, it can be seen with Second Sight. Also a fetch guarding the shaman whilst discorporate.

So it doesn't let you see anything that you couldn't already see, but it does reveal the POW that resides in it. It would reveal a manifest spirit that is hiding, in darkness, or has a stealth ability. I imagine that, like germs, disease spirits are not normally visible.

9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I'm warming to this idea. Yes, I can see that a two-volume Guide-sized whopper would put off casual players. A modest sized Storm Pantheon book would not.

I should have said "Lightbringers", I guess that's where Orlanth will be. I guess most Sartar players will want Lightbringers and Earth.

On 2/11/2023 at 10:03 AM, Brian Duguid said:

But as for contents: Mythology, Prosopaedia, Lightbringers, Earth; then (no particular order) Darkness, Water, Solar, Lunar, Chaos, Spirits/Beasts.

Is there a detailed list anywhere?

On 2/21/2023 at 4:17 AM, whitelaughter said:

Remember not to cast Disruption in your own Protective Circle. Having all of your own hit locations being valid targets for an attack spell may offend.... 😛

Disruption isn't a protective spell. Neither is Resurrection.

I'm warming to this idea. Yes, I can see that a two-volume Guide-sized whopper would put off casual players. A modest sized Storm Pantheon book would not.

Quote

• Those that have POW and a physical form are living beings
• Those without POW that have a physical form are undead
• Those without physical form that have POW are spirits

...which leaves some things like dryads with a transient physical form in a grey area. But that's fine, I like grey areas. Rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty, and all that.

21 hours ago, Eff said:

Let's go metatextual for a moment.

Sorry. I mis-read that word. Now it's going to be a while before I'm in the right frame of mind to read the rest of your post.

Splitting off from another thread...

RQG p.249:

Quote

The bound entities are bound to the physical world by
the life force of the binder. If the binder dies, all their bound
entities are immediately freed.

So, how do you bind something in a way that isn't released when you die?

I can see the argument that binding to the middle world needs to be done by a native middle world entity. So no using spirits to bind other spirits for ever.

I'm sure there are ways around it, but they aren't documented in the rules. You could presume from this that it isn't easy, there isn't a well-known technique for it. You have to figure out something creative if you want to bypass this limitation.

Splitting off to another thread as binding-release-on-death isn't related to user conditions...

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Get a spirit to cast the Binding. The binding spirit is essentially immortal.

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

While that may be the case, technically, there's been big arguments in other threads about whether someone can be forced to contribute POW to enchantments.

Binding doesn't take POW. Creating the enchantment takes POW, but binding something into it does not. You can also bind into a crystal which takes no POW.

Apologies for the topic drift.

9 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Part of this issue (bindings cease after death) is that it sort of removes one of the more standard concepts in RL mythology - the entity trapped for millennia, only to be discovered by a random person, and all sorts of hilarity ensues.

Normal bindings, created with just a couple of points of POW and no exotic procedures, release on death. Not all kinds of bindings have to. One of the scenarios in The Pegasus Plateau has an example.

1 hour ago, kr0p0s said:

I hope you find a way to remind them what happened the last time Krampus was bound. He wasn't very forgiving when released on the shamans death!

Normal enchantments do seem to expire on the binder's death, but I'm sure there's a way to prevent this from happening. Maybe you get an immortal or a spirit to perform the binding?

18 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

[tribe only] will result in the same problems as [creator only] with users being bound into the item as ghosts.

Scenario hook!

I doubt that this happens very often. I get it for "creator only" or any other unique individual, if it's a really powerful item, but a clan or tribe item can be far more safely traded away.

Wow. Part of me is shouting "this is fantastic", but a little bit of me is thinking "this is going to be a problem, logistically".

3 hours ago, Bren said:

Phil, you nicely laid out two alternate issues. I will need to think some more about which alternative I prefer the least. I hadn't considered this as, for some reason*, I was thinking spirit combat would be 1-on-1, but the rules clearly state,

Quote

If an entity is attacked by more than one spirit, they
must roll their Spirit Combat skill separately against each
attacking spirit. (RQ: RiG, top left column on p. 368)

Ah, I hadn't spotted (or had forgotten) that.

On 2/8/2023 at 8:40 PM, Erol of Backford said:

If a broo is illuminated, well groomed, fur trimmed nicely, bathed, scented of lavender, living in say Beast Valley and contributing to the betterment of the greater good therein, would Storm Bull's still want to kill them if they didn't register as chaotic?

What if they and their illuminated friends somehow joined Storm Bull and then went to Prax and visited the Block?

"That's clearly not a broo. He's just one of the beast-folk."

Cult-only will be the most common. Clan-only might also be popular.

Since multiple people can contribute to an enchantment, I can see this being useful for rewards.

"Thank you for your great service to the (clan/cult/tribe). As a reward, the priests will help you make an enchantment of your choice. They will contribute 3 POW towards it, but one of them will go into a usage restriction limiting it to the (clan/cult/tribe), and the (clan/cult/tribe) will claim it when you no longer have need of it."

Also, scenario hook to reclaim such an item that has fallen into the wrong hands.

6 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - certainly epic - but something to be considered before making the ruling.

I'm not aware of any such magic circle that can do that, but yes I accept the point in principle.

Either way requires creative extension of the rules-as-written. There is currently no provision for multiple opponents in spirit combat, the rules are silent either way.

• If you just allow it with no modifier, then one powerful individual can take on an army of spirits.
• If you allow it with -20% then one target can be dog-piled fairly easily.

Both of these have potentially negative consequences, but I prefer the second.

Judicious application of Spirit Block would be useful in either scenario. Vishi I think cast 7 or 8 points of it when fighting the Fiend.