Sorcery as presented in The Smoking Ruins

[Joerg]

One (unexpected) feature of The Smoking Ruins is that we get our first glimpse at Sorcery in full action.

We get a look at a Rokari sorcerer who knows five runes and four techniques (why so many? they all can be inferred from one or two), and we get a short introductory description of the House of Black Arkat.

 

The description of the House of Black Arkat in The Smoking Ruins p.136 (sidebar) mentions that

Quote

Upon Initiation, Companions (of Arkat) may learn the elements of sorcery (starting with the Magic Rune and Command Technique)

I seem to have been under the wrong assumption that the Magic Rune in sorcery spells was a place holder for other runes as it is in divine rune magic. This makes it just another bloody point of INT above 11 blocked, making even an accomplished sorcerer like the one presented quite limited in his abilities - effectively almost as much as a priest of an alemental deity, although under a different paradigm.

I really need to produce a chart which allows to search for spells by runes and techniques (and applicable inferred runes or techniques replacing these).

The RQG pdf unfortunately doesn't support a text search for the runes. No idea if this functionality could be knit into the pdf, e.g. as an invisible hidden text behind all the graphics.

 

Spells using the Magic Rune include

Attract Magic (Magic, Command)

Castback (Magic, Stasis, Combine, Command)

Drain Soul (Magic, Dispel)

Identify Spell (Truth, Magic, Command)

Magic Point Enchantment (Magic, Command)

Neutralize Magic (Magic, Dispel)

Pierce Veil (Magic, Truth, Combine)

Protective Circle (Magic, Command)

 

That's actually a fairly big and important selection of the spell, and requires just two condition runes to be able to learn all of these.

 

Let's have a look at the sorcery rules portion in TSR.

Spoilers Ahead!

 

Runes and Techniques:

Urgantan's mastered runes are Fire, Illusion, Magic, Movement, and Spirit, which gives him also the inferred runes of Earth, Water, Truth and Stasis at doubled MP cost.

He has mastered (wastefully) four Techniques,

Command (inferring each of the Techniques),

Dispel and Summon (which only fail to infer Combine and Separate)

Combine (which only fails to infer Dispel and Summon)

While this wealth of techniques avoids a couple of MP cost doublings, I wouldn't let a sorcery-using character of mine be so spend-thrift with these rune/technique slots. Dropping either Summon or Dispel for the Air or Darkness rune would give access to all elements but moon.

I would probably sacrifice another technique (any but Command) for Fertility or Death, and it would be nifty to have the Man rune, too.

But then I am not entirely certain whether one can use a single mastered technique to infer a second technique in spells that require two techniques.

 

Spells:

Two of Urgantan's spells have been inscribed to his abode, Create Image 90% and Disappear 90%.

In a bending of the rules, the guardian spirit of the entrance is able to re-activate the created image, possibly with the use of the key.

RQ3 has a rule for enchantments that adds such conditions to trigger activation or deactivation, but I haven't seen this applied to a long-lasting sorcery spell.

Strictly speaking, it should be possible to design a spell allowing such added conditions, but that spell would need to have its own casting skill and memorization slot (or inscription), and it would probably add another rune and a combine technique to the basic Create Image runes.

 

Urgantan has memorized four spells

Create Hallucination (50%), 2 points [Illusion, Combine - no MP cost doubling]

Create Wall of Flames (50%), 2 points [Fire, Summon - no MP cost doubling]

Dominate Discorporate Spirit (50%), 2 points [Spirit, Command - no MP cost doubling] - Shouldn't this be specified for a specific type of spirit?

Dominate Fire Elemental (50%), 3 points [Spirit, Fire, Command - no MP cost doubling]

He knows a couple more spells but needs to recall these through meditation before being able to cast them:

Bind Elemental (25%), Ritual, 3 points POW [Spirit, Fire, Command - no MP cost doubling] (and possibly double cost for Earth and Water elementals, unless these have to be learned separately)

Bind Spirit (35%), Ritual, 2 points POW [Spirit, Command - no MP cost doubling]

Conflagration (25%), 2 points [Fire, Summon - no MP cost doubling]

Enhance INT (25%), 2 points [Fire, Summon - no MP cost doubling]

Logical Clarity (25%), 2 points [Illusion, Dispel - no MP cost doubling]

Summon Fire Elemental (35%), 3 points [Fire, Command, Summon - no MP cost doubling]

Summon Guardian Spirit (35%), 3 points [Spirit, Command, Summon - no MP cost doubling]

Identify Otherworld Entity (25%), 3 points doubled [Truth (inferred from Illusion), Spirit, Command - single MP cost doubling]

And he has a very own secret spell for which the runes aren't given (and frankly I wonder whether his assortment of runes should allow this spell)

Brew Unaging Potion 25%

 

Create Image (inscribed to the tower 90%) 3 points [Illusion, Fire, Combine - no MP cost doubling]

Disappear (inscribed to the tower 90%), 4 points [Illusion, Fire, Combine, Command - no MP cost doubling]

FInger of Fire (inscribed to a bracelet 70), 3 points [Fire, Movement, Combine - no MP cost doubling]

Neutralize Spirit Magic (inscribed to ring 75%), 2 points [Spirit, Dispel - no MP cost doubling]

Neutralize Magic (inscribed to ring 60%), 2 points [Magic, Dispel - no MP cost doubling]

Spirit Warding (inscribed to diadem 65%), 2 points [Spirit, Dispel - no MP cost doubling]

Protective Circle (inscribed to silvery ink pot 35% with 8 POW additional intensity), 2 points [Magic, Command - no MP cost doubling]

 

Looking up the runes for these spells took me about half an hour (ok, writing down the comments included). But it was necessary to note down the basic magic points the spell would need.

 

His magic items include

• a cheat item ("a special Teleportation spell matrix, allowing this spell to be cast for 6 magic points instead of 3 Rune points"),
• a POW storage crystal with capacity 17 (two above the 2D6+3 maximum of 15 that you can roll as per Adventure Book p.122),
• a  sorcery spell-strengthening crystal (+3 to spell strength)
• a 24 MP magic point matrix

I wonder: does a sorcery spell-strengthening crystal differ from any other spell-strengthening crystal?

 

One of the Arkati is an excommunicated (or, with the current terminology, Banned) Lhankor Mhy philosopher with a bit of sorcery.

Both sorcerers have the average INT (average for a somewhat playable sorcerer) of 20.

Yes, this is irksome. These characters are just one point of INT away from species maximum. Both have been optimized so that their sorcery doesn't incur double magic point cost (they still can manage maybe two big spells a day at most with their entirety of available MP, except that the excommunication probably was over the Arkati's knowledge of Tap Body which allows other means of collecting MP).

 

Zindaulo, the sorcerer among the Arkati, has Ward Against Weapons (Death, Dispel) but lacks the Death rune or the Fertility rune (to infer it at double MP cost). His runes are Magic, Man, Disorder and Truth, and he has a lavish three Techniques with Combine, Command, and Tap.

Let's have a look at his sorcery spells:

Bind Spirit (25%), Ritual, 2 points POW [Spirit, Command - no MP cost doubling] - wait, he doesn'T have the Spirit rune.

Castback (40%), 4 points [Magic, Stasis (inferred from Disorder), Combine, Command - doubled magic point cost]

Dominate Human (25%), 2 points [Man, Command]

Identify Spell (35%), 3 points [Truth, Magic, Command]

Magic Point Enchantment (50%), Ritual, 2 Points (plus variable amount of POW?) [Magic, Command]

Pierce Veil (20%), 3 points [Magic, Truth, Combine]

Tap Body (35%), 2 points [Man, Tap]

Ward Against Weapons (30%), 2 points [Death (which he cannot infer), Dispel]

This guy has 15 points of Spirit Magic (including an unnecessary duplicate of Magic Point Enchantment), which added to his sorcery spells puts him at -3 points of Free INT.

 

I will assume that my grasp of the rules is flawed, so please correct me if I am wrong anywhere here.

 

[Richard S.]

I haven't looked at the Smoking Ruins yet, but I'd heard from someone that the sorcerers in it had taken zzaburi caste restrictions. Don't sorcerous caste restrictions increase free INT in RQG? I seem to remember reading or hearing something about that.

[Joerg]

After stating the facts above, time for some grumbling.

 

Neither of the two sorcerers is anywhere "realistic" if you want to develop them in the course of play. They have almost the species max for their INT and are yet only middling effective. It looks like the RQG sorcery system is breeding either one-trick ponies or cheaters.

 

Zindaulo with his mix of spirit magic and sorcery has basically no sorcerous ability left, and he even knows a spell he lacks a rune for. (Which is easy to repair - he has enough storage space for 2 more runes or techniques).

Zindaulo's skill ratings in his spells are somewhat within what you would expect for a player character sorcerer. Urvantan's skill ratings are the fruit of his 90 years of job experience.

 

Urvantan has his caste taboos listed.

• Do not engage in physical combat;
• do not perform manual labor;
• do not negotiate or bargain with other castes or outsiders (he presents things as “take it or leave it” or as simple demands);
• be celibate;
• always appear as “Zzabur” (tall hat, long beard, heavy robes, etc.)

The first three taboos are the specialities of the other three castes (horal, dronar, talar).

Celibacy is a Rokari-specific taboo (Meriatan definitely was not celibate in the course of his career)

The last is a Rokari demand that is shared by other orthodox Malkioni sorcerers, although more liberally by some (e.g. the God Forgot advisor to Belinter in Prince of Sartar or the Nochet sorcerer performing geomancy or something similar for Vasana on p.380 of the RQG rules.)

We don't learn what advantages he draws from these restrictions, his Free INT isn't mentioned.

 

Zindaulo (the Arkati) doesn't list any caste or similar restrictions, but he is the character violating the INT requirements. His Illumination allows him to ignore all cult restrictions - but does this affect the Free INT rules?

[Crel]

@Joerg My hypothesis about the Magic Rune is that mastering it lets the sorcerer infer any one other Rune in spells; there's an off-hand comment about some Malkioni group mastering the Magic Rune as matter of course IIRC in RQG's sorcery chapter. Sort of a, everything has insight into Magic, Magic gives insight into everything. I also suspect that mastering it requires something unusual, like the Black Arkati's illumination.

Another element I found very interesting in "Urvantan's Tower" was the speed at which Urvantan is described to cast spells. My take-away as I read that section was that he's re-appearing from the God Time (we've already had the spoiler warning in the OP, before Bill et al yells at me) and casting a spell straight away, then dies and re-appears round after round. Per RQG's sorcery rules, a sorcery spell takes a minimum of two rounds to cast—a melee round, then two SRs per either magic point or level of intensity (can't recall which).

This struck me as a narrativist sort of approach to a fairly rules-heavy or simulationist game; thus far, the only resolution I see is essentially a sort of "in the God Time" handwavium. Which may in fact be valid—but as a gamemaster I would have appreciated more information on how this is happening for when my players cry "that's not fair, how do I do that?"

[Joerg]

Interesting idea about Magic being the "infer me" rune of all runes, but no idea whether that is the intent of the rules.

I am still in a mix of error-checking and reading into the scenario, which means I have still about 70 pages to read of TSR, so I will reserve my comments on Urvantan in action for later.

3 minutes ago, Crel said:

This struck me as a narrativist sort of approach to a fairly rules-heavy or simulationist game; thus far, the only resolution I see is essentially a sort of "in the God Time" handwavium. Which may in fact be valid—but as a gamemaster I would have appreciated more information on how this is happening for when my players cry "that's not fair, how do I do that?

That's the crux of it, once again. Right now I am focussed on the faults of Zindaulo's write-up, as it appears that Urvantan has received quite the closer look.

But still, for me I come away with a "demand" that sorcery spell listings should be followed by the points and then the runes and techniques used, and if inferred runes, to list these and their doubling. Pretty much like I did in my post above.

 

Neither Urvantan's Teleportation matrix nor his 17 point storage crystal are available under RAW  (rules as written).

I could see how a sorcerous Summon (lesser incarnation of) Orlanth or Summon Mastakos could lead to a bargain that produces such an Teleportation item, and I would love to learn the price paid for that. And I would love to see such a ritual described, both in Gloranthan narration (the Xeotam Dialogues hint at this), and in the rules systems available for playing a Gloranthan sorcerer.

But both these things are cheats that shouldn't be dangled before greedy rules-lawyery players who may read the scenarios once they have been played (or perhaps even before... bloody munchkins).

[Psullie]

I get the feeling that having multiple masteries is a requirement for Zzaburi - regardless of the inefficiency from a rules POV, from a world view mastering as many Runes as possible is the mark of a magi. Also I imagine that playing a sorcerer in RQ is akin to playing the librarian in CoC 

[Tindalos]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Neither Urvantan's Teleportation matrix nor his 17 point storage crystal are available under RAW  (rules as written).

I could see how a sorcerous Summon (lesser incarnation of) Orlanth or Summon Mastakos could lead to a bargain that produces such an Teleportation item, and I would love to learn the price paid for that. And I would love to see such a ritual described, both in Gloranthan narration (the Xeotam Dialogues hint at this), and in the rules systems available for playing a Gloranthan sorcerer.

But both these things are cheats that shouldn't be dangled before greedy rules-lawyery players who may read the scenarios once they have been played (or perhaps even before... bloody munchkins).

The teleportation matrix reminds me of the Staff of Flight (RQ:G Bestiary 201), another special Orlanthi spell matrix that allows for Rune Magic to be cast with MP instead.

There is also another sorcery user in the form of Scholar Wyrm (page 23), who himself has an incredible cheat item all PC sorcerers would want.

[Joerg]

 

34 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

There is also another sorcery user in the form of Scholar Wyrm (page 23), who himself has an incredible cheat item all PC sorcerers would want.

Thanks for pointing me that way.

Let's take apart his sorcery, too.

Knows Command and Summon techniques, and has mastered Earth, Truth, Spirit, and Man Runes. Infered runes are Darkness, Fire, Illusion.

Spells include

Geomancy (3 pts.) 41%, Truth Earth Summon

Identify Otherworldly Entity (3 pts.) 43%, Truth Spirit Command

Logician (2 pts.) 54%, Truth Summon

Reveal Rune(2 pts.) 29%, Truth Command

Speak to Mind (3 pts.) 42%, Truth Man Command

 

If Windwhistler has these memorized, his personal Free INT is down to 22 - 14 (for the spirit spells) - 5 (for the sorcery spells) = 3 (+8 for his necklace).

 

This shows that we need a slot for the Free INT of a sorcerer in the description template. The three runes may be unnecessary as long as every NPC avoids using inferred runes or techniques, but frankly speaking I find that approach in the examples extremely annoying as the reality of a player character sorcerer will be multiple doublings for certain spells that he may regard as must-haves. The sample characters should have the occasional spell with doubled or quadrupled cost, just to show this pitfall of learning sorcery.

 

While I am at it, do these added MP cost from using inferred runes or techniques give a sorcery spell a greater penetration strength than its intensity?

And how much does inscribing such spells using extra POW reduce the magic point cost for such spells? Or the casting time?

Edited December 25, 2019 by Joerg

[Jon Hunter]

I'm not as engaged with this I could be today, but it is leading me to believe that socery is too difficult and complex to bother with in a game.

[Joerg]

49 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

I'm not as engaged with this I could be today, but it is leading me to believe that socery is too difficult and complex to bother with in a game.

It is starting to feel like the HQ1 concept for Eastern Gloranthan roleplaying that each player would create two characters - one meditating mystic doing little but refute temptations over the course of the campaign, and another character (e.g. a martial artist or other more mundane member of Eastern society) that would go on regular adventures. At some point the mystics would gain powers of refutation that would actually influence reality around them, at which point they would join the action and continue to draw (or risk) their growth from interaction with opposing mystics (of the Adpara or Antigod races or worshipers).

A full sorcerer is starting to feel like a secondary character. Possibly just as in Ars Magica, only with the difference that the major roleplaying focus is on the non-sorcerer heroes, with the sorcerer coming in in a Merlin/Gandalf/Macros the Black/Zzabur function of arcane fire support and even more arcane quest-giving.

Really much like Urvantan in the middle scenario Urvantan's Tower in TSR (p.150).

Edited December 25, 2019 by Joerg

[Jon Hunter]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

It is starting to feel like the HQ1 concept for Eastern Gloranthan roleplaying that each player would create two characters - one meditating mystic doing little but refute temptations over the course of the campaign, and another character (e.g. a martial artist or other more mundane member of Eastern society) that would go on regular adventures. At some point the mystics would gain powers of refutation that would actually influence reality around them, at which point they would join the action and continue to draw (or risk) their growth from interaction with opposing mystics (of the Adpara or Antigod races or worshipers).

A full sorcerer is starting to feel like a secondary character. Possibly just as in Ars Magica, only with the difference that the major roleplaying focus is on the non-sorcerer heroes, with the sorcerer coming in in a Merlin/Gandalf/Macros the Black/Zzabur function of arcane fire support and even more arcane quest-giving.

Really much like Urvantan in the middle scenario Urvantan's Tower in TSR (p.150).

There is a a complexity to the rules i dont think i want to face. 

[Dissolv]

I don't mind and actually like that there is a magic type that is ultra-crunchy.  One of my long term players thrives on that sort of thing, and having options is always good.

The problem is that a functioning sorcerer is not being presented with anything remotely close to normal human stats, or following the just laid down game rules.  Instead, to make a plot work, the rules are immediately broken.  This is giving me fits in my unanswered thread about the Black Horse troop, and really comes down to sorcery just not working as well as we want it to. 

Ironically I can't get the expected sorcery supplement to come soon enough, and at the same time want it to be play tested the heck out of. 

[davecake]

Sorcery in The Smoking Ruins mostly just confirmed for me that most of the criticisms I have of sorcery seem to be pretty valid, and it’s nigh unusable as a system to achieve any of the things players (including GMs) are likely to want from it. 
 

 

[Akhôrahil]

After all this, is Sorcery actually particularly good (outside of having a college of combat mages casting in unison)? Rune Magic is of course brutally powerful, and shamanism more subtly so. But just how much good does even a good sorcerer do in a PC-type fight?

[Shiningbrow]

I would say... Joerg's comments are less about sorcery, and more about play-testing and editing! This is blatantly obvious when one of the NPC sorcerers has -3 Free INT to be casting with!

[Lordabdul]

Thanks for the deep dive, @Joerg!

Some comments:

• I think you're possibly too harsh on Urvantan having so-called "wasted" his Free INT on multiple techniques. This is actually what I would expect from a narrative point of view: you "specialized" in some form/element Runes to give yourself a theme/gimmick. This sorcerer is the master or fire, while that sorcerer is a master of illusion, etc. It's like the Planeswalkers in Magic: The Gathering, you limit your deck to only one or two colours because it's counter-productive to do otherwise. As a result, a sorcerer would master more techniques in order to cast more powerful spells without the douple-MP price. I don't see this as being "one trick poneys" as much as specialization/expertise.
• Good job catching NPC stat inconsistencies!
• Although I agree that writing up spell costs/stats would be helpful, I'm not sure it's feasible or worth the space.
  • CoC has suffered from this for decades (and still does), where big NPC cultists have a laundry list of spell names you need to look up...
  • From my experience, what I find most helpful is the CoC adventures that give tips on how to use these spells, like "this NPC will usually defend himself with Spell1 and Spell2, but if corner he will use Spell3 to escape. If he gets the drop on the party, he will use Spell4 to attack from above...etc...".
  • Not only does it help you play the NPC, it also often points out what the author had in mind. I often look at a big boss NPC stat and fail to see how it can pose any serious danger to my players, but often it's because I don't know all the spells well enough.
• I agree with you that the Magic Rune acts as a placeholder (it says so explicitly in RQG p391). I would be tempted to tell you to report the "Magic Rune" sidebar comment as a mistake -- either the text should say "a Rune of the character's choosing", or it's a premature leak of some upcoming additional rules for being able to use the Magic Rune itself as a wildcard Rune, possibly at a penalty like double MP or penalty to skill roll.

Other remarks:

• Speaking of Urvantan, I love his illustration in the book!
• Zindaulo is one of the very few NPCs to have more than one POW-storage crystal. I still don't know why that doesn't happen more often. You'd think Urvantan would have a whole necklace of crystals?
• WTF is a "magic point matrix"? I know about Spell matrices, I know about POW storage, but not "magic point matrices"?
• Based on Urvantan's write-up, at first I figured those spell skills look really lame, especially for a 105 year old sorcerer, but it looks like his "main" spells (those he likely studied for a long time) he just inscribed on a bunch of items he keeps on himself?
  • I guess that's how sorcerer go about it, inscribing and forgetting spells before moving on to new ones, slowly building up an arsenal over time...
  • Only it doesn't look like you get any SR advantage for casting inscribed spells? It would suck if you spent years inscribing a big powerful spell, but it still takes 4 rounds to cast... maybe that's a missing rule from RQG, and that's how Urvantan does it, being able to cast things fast enough? That surely would help not having to use hand-wavy God-Time excuses...
• The sorcery rules might have their problems, but, again, it depend what the narrative goal is, here.
  • The biggest problems arise IMHO when you try to mix "normal" PCs with sorcerers, frankly. But it's like trying to play Ars Magica and D&D at the same time -- you don't.
  • You either play D&D, and therefore the big powerful sorcerers are NPCs that are either your patron or the evil boss (or your patron that turns out to be the evil boss!)... or you play Ars Magica and the big wizard is just one of your multiple characters, and you play him/her only once every few adventures because he/she's busy studying and experimenting most of the time.
  • To me the main problem is more that a 105 year old sorcerer isn't so impressive (when he's supposed to be powerful enough to topple kingdoms, we are told...), and that a 47 year old sorcerer (which might represent a very experienced PC) doesn't look much compared to a 30 year old shaman. I'm hoping that maybe it's a mistake and they will beef up the stats significantly before it goes to print.

Edited December 26, 2019 by lordabdul

[Joerg]

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

I think you're possibly too harsh on Urvantan having so-called "wasted" his Free INT on multiple techniques. This is actually what I would expect from a narrative point of view: you "specialized" in some form/element Runes to give yourself a theme/gimmick. This sorcerer is the master or fire, while that sorcerer is a master of illusion, etc.

This master of Illusion has exactly two of the Illusion spells, and only one Truth spell at double cost  (and that not active). He would at least be able to add Sensation (requires Earth, at double cost) and Taste (possibly the least useful of the Illusions if you or your target are not immersed in water, requires Water, at double cost).

All sorcerers like to have Fire, because Enhance INT allows them to expand their manipulation range. While Earth and Water infer Fire, they double the cost for this rune. As the unfortunate result, all sorcerers are armed with the power to burn things away.

All sorcerers need Spirit if they don't have a spirit master of their own. No Spirit Rune, no protection from that pesky kind of magic.

All sorcerers appear to need Magic. I am inclined to give it for free and not count it against the points above 11.

Most research sorcerers probably go for Truth rather than Illusion, but one infers the other.

 

Command is by far the most common technique, and acts as a stand-in for every other technique. I can see that a master of Illusion would like to have Combine.

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• Although I agree that writing up spell costs/stats would be helpful, I'm not sure it's feasible or worth the space.

As the GM I would like to see how this NPC casts his spell without spending minutes leafing through the spell list for sorcery, and then discovering that this spell is listed elsewhere (like in TSR).

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• • Not only does it help you play the NPC, it also often points out what the author had in mind. I often look at a big boss NPC stat and fail to see how it can pose any serious danger to my players, but often it's because I don't know all the spells well enough.

Then the usualy approach of this spell caster should be documented, too. Same with Rune Lords preparing for battle - what's their usual sequence for powering up, what spells are provided by allied spirits or party members...

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• I agree with you that the Magic Rune acts as a placeholder (it says so explicitly in RQG p391). I would be tempted to tell you to report the "Magic Rune" sidebar comment as a mistake -- either the text should say "a Rune of the character's choosing", or it's a premature leak of some upcoming additional rules for being able to use the Magic Rune itself as a wildcard Rune, possibly at a penalty like double MP or penalty to skill roll.

I am no longer sure about this, otherwise the Arkati school (Black House of Arkat) makes their adepts start with a pointless rune. Urvantan and Zindaulo have it, Scholar Wyrm lacks it.

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Other remarks:

• Speaking of Urvantan, I love his illustration in the book!

I could do with less pronounced finger nails. While Urvantan refrains from lowly manual labor, he is a practitioner of alchemy and herbalism, and while I have fairly long fingernails on my right hand (especially when trying to keep my Play Guitar skill active), there is a limit to how long they can remain.

The staff in the illustration appears to be a mere prop, as it is found leaning in the first level's cloak room.

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• Zindaulo is one of the very few NPCs to have more than one POW-storage crystal. I still don't know why that doesn't happen more often. You'd think Urvantan would have a whole necklace of crystals?
• WTF is a "magic point matrix"? I know about Spell matrices, I know about POW storage, but not "magic point matrices"?

POW storage is RQ2 speak for a Magic Point Matrix in RQ3ese. The wishy-washy use of "POW vs POW" in RQ2 was clarified by naming "temporary POW" MP. The Magic Point Enchantment (as it is called in RQG) allows a magician (of any flavor) to create an item they can store magic points in, but unlike Dead Crystals no spirits. So yes, the use of the word "matrices" may be an erratum, as it is deprecated RQ3-speak.

But answering your second question should address the first one. His 24-point necklace

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• Based on Urvantan's write-up, at first I figured those spell skills look really lame, especially for a 105 year old sorcerer, but it looks like his "main" spells (those he likely studied for a long time) he just inscribed on a bunch of items he keeps on himself?
  • I guess that's how sorcerer go about it, inscribing and forgetting spells before moving on to new ones, slowly building up an arsenal over time...

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• • Only it doesn't look like you get any SR advantage for casting inscribed spells? It would suck if you spent years inscribing a big powerful spell, but it still takes 4 rounds to cast... maybe that's a missing rule from RQG, and that's how Urvantan does it, being able to cast things fast enough? That surely would help not having to use hand-wavy God-Time excuses...

Sure you do. Each point of inscription saves you expending one MP on intensity, which saves you 2 SR for a spell of the same intensity, or allows you to add an extra point of intensity. Unfortunately we don't learn how inscribing a spell for extra POW works, as Urvantan has put the only such device into the Protective Circle, the last spell we would see in a combat situation.

A wizard expecting to go to combat would have his Finger of Fire inscribed for a few POW, and cast it basically for free in no time at all. "I can do this all day!"

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• The sorcery rules might have their problems, but, again, it depend what the narrative goal is, here.
  • The biggest problems arise IMHO when you try to mix "normal" PCs with sorcerers, frankly. But it's like trying to play Ars Magica and D&D at the same time -- you don't.

Same thing with shamans or Rune Masters of considerable power.

Ars Magica btw lives from the mix of sorcerers and practical people.

 

10 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

• • You either play D&D, and therefore the big powerful sorcerers are NPCs that are either your patron or the evil boss (or your patron that turns out to be the evil boss!)... or you play Ars Magica and the big wizard is just one of your multiple characters, and you play him/her only once every few adventures because he/she's busy studying and experimenting most of the time.
  • To me the main problem is more that a 105 year old sorcerer isn't so impressive (when he's supposed to be powerful enough to topple kingdoms, we are told...), and that a 47 year old sorcerer (which might represent a very experienced PC) doesn't look much compared to a 30 year old shaman. I'm hoping that maybe it's a mistake and they will beef up the stats significantly before it goes to print.

Seeing a shaman fully statted out will be my next trip into the rules business. The ones I have seen so far appeared to be underwhelming compared to what I have seen in terms of shamanic abilities.

But then, I can see PC shamans undergo stat training all the time to recover ability loss to new shamanic abilities, unless you go the munchkin way and allow "Restore Health" to recover such losses. Personally, I would argue with the munchkin that the ability losses of a shaman are in effect the experience of Death. Otherwise a shaman of Daka Fal would be able to buy lots of abilities for hardly any characteristic loss.

[Tindalos]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

All sorcerers like to have Fire, because Enhance INT allows them to expand their manipulation range. While Earth and Water infer Fire, they double the cost for this rune. As the unfortunate result, all sorcerers are armed with the power to burn things away.

That is a bit of a frustrating issue, although I do like Urvantan as a different kind of fire wizard.

Of course the existence of Enhance Free INT (as that's what the spell comes down to) also makes it a spell that should be inscribed as soon as possible. Boost it with some extra inscribed POW to enhance the duration and you can end up with a long lasting Free INT enhancement. (Why inscribe Protective Circle with extra POW when you could use those 8 points inscribing Enhance INT to automatically last the day? Then you just pump in more MP and Free INT towards enhancing your Intelligence further. Or boost the duration even more.)

 

[David Scott]

20 hours ago, Joerg said:

who knows five runes and four techniques (why so many? they all can be inferred from one or two)

If you don't know the actual rune or techniques, it always costs more MPs to cast the spell, as these are multipliers, it gets expensive:

Page 382:

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Knowledge of a given Elemental Rune provides a certain amount of knowledge about its minor Runes. A sorcerer can learn spells using one of their minor Runes, even if the sorcerer has not mastered it, but they cost double the normal number of magic points to cast.

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A sorcerer can use spells using an opposing Power Rune, even if the sorcerer has not mastered it, but at a greater magic point cost to cast.

Page 383:

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Knowledge of one Form does not provide any insight into another Form.

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A sorcerer can use spells using an opposing technique, even if the sorcerer has not mastered it, but at double the magic point cost.

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A sorcerer mastering either of these techniques can learn spells using any other technique, but the magic point cost to cast is doubled.

 

[David Scott]

21 hours ago, Crel said:

My hypothesis about the Magic Rune is that mastering it lets the sorcerer infer any one other Rune in spells

I'm not sure where you've got this from. The Magic Rune Box on page 382 sets it out as the only Condition Rune (so far) used in Sorcery. It's a separate rune and as it's the only one of its type, so gives no insight into others of its type (until Mastery, Infinity, luck and Fate based sorcery becomes available). 

 

[Tindalos]

5 minutes ago, David Scott said:

I'm not sure where you've got this from. The Magic Rune Box on page 382 sets it out as the only Condition Rune (so far) used in Sorcery. It's a separate rune and as it's the only one of its type, so gives no insight into others of its type (until Mastery, Infinity, luck and Fate based sorcery becomes available). 

 

I think that then raises the question of "Why would anyone take the Magic Rune?"

We're told that the presence of the Magic Rune indicates the spell can be used with any Rune (page 391), so it's kind of superfluous as everyone's going to have an element or power they'd be using instead.

[Joerg]

38 minutes ago, David Scott said:

If you don't know the actual rune or techniques, it always costs more MPs to cast the spell, as these are multipliers, it gets expensive:

Yes. But the intensity you can add remains the same, only the MP cost and the casting time rise extremely.

Both of which can be cut back by inscribing such spells.

Which begs a couple of questions:

Is it possible at all to inscribe a spell with an inferred Rune or Technique?

What are the POW cost to inscribe a spell with an inferred Rune or Technique? One POW per point of intensity, or one POW per magic point needed to increase intensity by one?

 

Spell research: Can a spell be formulated by inverting the rune and technique?

Clarity of the Logical Mind is Dispel plus Illusion. Why couldn't it be Summon plus Truth?

 

Elemental runes don't have exact opposites, although Fire and Darkness may act as opposites when it comes to vision.

[David Scott]

30 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Yes. But the intensity you can add remains the same, only the MP cost and the casting time rise extremely.

Both of which can be cut back by inscribing such spells.

In games it's always magic points that have been the limiting problem. Players (in my groups) always avoid this if possible. Running out of MPs always means head for cover and recoup.

[Oracle]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

...

Clarity of the Logical Mind is Dispel plus Illusion. Why couldn't it be Summon plus Truth?

...

Because Summon plus Truth is just about Knowing the Truth, but not about Letting the Truth Emerge from a given set of obscure or ambiguous facts by removing all things, which may obscure the truth (i.e. Illusions)?

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

(until Mastery, Infinity, luck and Fate based sorcery becomes available)

This sounds like a dare. I love it.

In terms of the binary Powers being "reversible" I think that the arrow of Time in Glorantha implies that dispelling (banishing) one Power does not necessarily equate to summoning (evoking) its opposite. The immediate effects will often be similar as the Powers resolve but as with acid/alkali reactions you will also generate possibly unwanted "salt" and "water" neutral products that build up and get you into trouble down the road. Best to learn the technique or call a friendly specialist . . . if you have that luxury of course.

Edited December 26, 2019 by scott-martin
stinger; clarification