Sorcery as presented in The Smoking Ruins

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

Not to mention the brutalist breakpoint of the 13 INT.   Very retro?  13 INT you can learn this stuff, 12 = nope, sorry, you're too stupid to even grasp the basics.

The limit of INT 13 is for learning masteries.  If you don't know the rune or technique then the cost of the spell is quadrupled (RQ:G p386).  But the only slow people who would be casting sorcery would be the dwarves.

[Richard S.]

8 minutes ago, metcalph said:

The limit of INT 13 is for learning masteries.  If you don't know the rune or technique then the cost of the spell is quadrupled (RQ:G p386).  But the only slow people who would be casting sorcery would be the dwarves.

The wording is a bit weird, but I think if you're casting a spell with an R/T you haven't mastered it still needs to be implied from your mastered R/Ts.

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Not all sorcerers are "adventuring" sorcerers, so there's probably a good distribution of specialties, but as far as sorcerer PCs are concerned, I don't know if it would push them all to have the same things and look very similar, which would be sad.

I doubt it. Especially with the limited amount of Runes you can master, plus the skills required for each spell. 

Not many are going to have a repertoire of more than a dozen spells, which will be restricted by Runes/Techniques. I'd presume very few will have more than a couple of spells using multiple Inferred Runes/Techniques. 

So, yeah, I think most PCs would specialise and be quite different. And, actually, would be more likely to work together to ensure little doubling up on spells (and probably also Runes). There's not a lot of spells you'd need more than one player having, anyway. Variants - yes. 

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, lordabdul said:

To show how limited that is: there is a total of 26 Runes/Forms/Techniques (there might be more if you consider condition Runes... I'm not sure why they're not listed). With INT 20 you can know 8 of those. So at most, a sorcerer can only master ~30% of all there is to master in sorcery.

True... But that's full Mastery. If you Under a lot, it seriously brings that down... Strictly, you only need 1 Technique. 3 Elements (Moon +2 others), 4 Power... And the whole arsenal of Forms ( 5 - although I'd imagine not many would take Chaos, and very few Plant). Plus Magic, now that the rules have changed.

So, 12... Sure, it'll make some spells expensive, but I seriously doubt many will actually try to cover every base... It's not worth trying because of skill economy. Unless you're really happy with 15-25% for most spells. Also, POW economy for inscriptions.

What I imagine is going to happen with PCs is that they will go Heroquesting and take +Free INT and +extra Rune/Techniques as gifts, not unlike Shamans' gifts. (If you have the choice of +1 INT, or +1D6 Free INT/Runes/Techniques, which would you choose???)

Edited January 7, 2020 by Shiningbrow
It's Magic

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

So, yeah, I think most PCs would specialise and be quite different.

Maybe I need to look at the spells a bit closer, but I figured the PCs might look similar in terms of Runes/Techniques because combat spells might all cluster around the same things... but maybe that's not true... and now that I think about it, I suppose you can make support/healer sorcerers, "social/talker" sorcerer, etc.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Strictly, you only need 1 Technique. 3 Elements (Moon +2 others), 4 Power...

....which maxes your INT, and that's if you even managed to boost it to 20. Most likely, a whole bunch of spells will out of reach for a long time. Worse, once you gain a mastery, you can't unlearn it, so on a purely gaming side, you have to be careful which ones you take. And when you consider that the Moon Rune is pretty recent, all things considered, you gotta wonder how sorcerers of the 1st and 2nd Age did it. I guess it helps when you're in a group.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

What I imagine is going to happen with PCs is that they will go Heroquesting

Do sorcerers heroquest? Isn't that something they should look down upon or something?

[SDLeary]

1 minute ago, lordabdul said:

Do sorcerers heroquest? Isn't that something they should look down upon or something?

Wasn't there a whole Western Empire that did that? 

SDLeary

[Lordabdul]

Just now, SDLeary said:

Wasn't there a whole Western Empire that did that? 

LOL yes I guess   Ok I'm tired

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

which maxes your INT, and that's if you even managed to boost it to 20.

Enhance INT ....

Although I wonder about the mechanics of mastering something, and then losing the INT later...

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

Maybe I need to look at the spells a bit closer, but I figured the PCs might look similar in terms of Runes/Techniques because combat spells might all cluster around the same things

I figured that combat spells won't be relied upon because of the time it takes to cast.

Besides, at the moment, Moonfire, Wall of Flame and Finger of Fire (names???) might appear so standard that taking an alternative combat element might really confuse/impress.

Instead of a Fireblade, you make an Iceblade (Summon Death Darkness Water???). Hailstorm  (Summon Air Water???). Earthbludgeon on a mace (Summon Earth??) Wall of Freezing Darkness - pitch black and does freezing damage, as well as reducing mobility.

[Austin]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Although I wonder about the mechanics of mastering something, and then losing the INT later..

IIRC it was confirmed that if you increased your CHA magically (such as Charisma+Extension, or a shaman's spell extension on Glamour), sacrificed POW to gain extra Rune points beyond your usual CHA, and then the spell later went away, was dispelled, etc. that the adventurer would flat-out lose those additional Rune points.

I suspect the "official" ruling in this case would be that if your INT goes down, you lose the additional mastered Runes/Techniques.

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, Crel said:

I suspect the "official" ruling in this case would be that if your INT goes down, you lose the additional mastered Runes/Techniques.

And it could be a nice plan to reduce a sorcerer power : do what you can to let him no time / magic to prevent him from "reload" enhance Int (when a strong dispell Magic is not enough)

You may need two years and a lot of warriors but at the end of the day (and the end of thousand men) you succed to beat the great villain.

Or you might succeed the lightbringer quest and find someone (something ?) stronger and faster than an army

 

[Tindalos]

1 hour ago, Crel said:

IIRC it was confirmed that if you increased your CHA magically (such as Charisma+Extension, or a shaman's spell extension on Glamour), sacrificed POW to gain extra Rune points beyond your usual CHA, and then the spell later went away, was dispelled, etc. that the adventurer would flat-out lose those additional Rune points.

I suspect the "official" ruling in this case would be that if your INT goes down, you lose the additional mastered Runes/Techniques.

On the other hand, page 384 says "Once a Rune or technique has been mastered, it cannot be unmastered."

If you can learn more techniques after Enhancing your INT (and assuming you pull it off while the spell is active) then you're likely to keep those runes/techniques around, but you wouldn't be able to learn any more until you Enhanced your INT even further than before.

[Kloster]

10 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

True... But that's full Mastery. If you Under a lot, it seriously brings that down... Strictly, you only need 1 Technique. 3 Elements (Moon +2 others), 4 Power... And the whole arsenal of Forms ( 5 - although I'd imagine not many would take Chaos, and very few Plant). Plus Magic, now that the rules have changed.

That means a 27 INT. Hard to manage.

[Kloster]

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Although I wonder about the mechanics of mastering something, and then losing the INT later...

For me, if you enhance INT for sufficient time to learn a rune or technique (1 season if my reasoning is correct), you can use the INT points to learn that. As (RQG p384) you never unmaster a rune or technique you have mastered. My understanding is that you can't learn more rune or technique before enhancing INT again, but higher than previously. I am still undecided if you can still use the rune or technique after the enhance INT stops, and before you recast it.

[Mugen]

16 hours ago, Kloster said:

That means a 27 INT. Hard to manage.

It seems to me someone on this forum showed that you could go up to INT 28 by casting Enhance INT multiple times, so that each spell was more powerful than the previous one, and with a reasonable duration.

I don't remember the details, and obviously you had to have a good INT stat to start with.

[Shiningbrow]

20 hours ago, Mugen said:

It seems to me someone on this forum showed that you could go up to INT 28 by casting Enhance INT multiple times, so that each spell was more powerful than the previous one, and with a reasonable duration.

I don't remember the details, and obviously you had to have a good INT stat to start with.

Given Rune Lords can DI for stats at 1D10 (T??? 😜) renewable Rune Points, it's quite possible. 🤑

(And I can't get rid of that emoji at the end.... )

Edited January 9, 2020 by Shiningbrow

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Given Rune Lords can DI for stats at 1D10 (T??? 😜) renewable Rune Points, it's quite possible. 🤑

(And I can't get rid of that emoji at the end.... )

No, it was a sorcerer using the sorcery spell Enhance INT multiple times, each time with a higher Intensity. 

[Shiningbrow]

40 minutes ago, Mugen said:

No, it was a sorcerer using the sorcery spell Enhance INT multiple times, each time with a higher Intensity. 

I get that. I'm saying they could get to 21 easily enough, then Enhance INT. You'd basically need to, to get to 27/28. That's a +6/7enhancement.

 

Firstly, need to remember - 9 points for 1 day, 12 for a week, 17 for 1 year... So, even for a pretty short duration - unless it's purely for a few minutes, is going to be expensive in Free INT.

Secondly, 2 FI & MP for +1, 6 for +2, 10 for +3, 14 for +4, 18 for +5, and 22 for +6. You *need* at least 4 to get the additional +1 to re-do the improvement.

So, if you start at 14 INT, and no duration, you can get to 18 INT... which can get you an extra +1 improved on the next casting - ie, 19. 

Therefore, you can really only get to 28 if you start with a really high INT. 21 INT (and inscribed spell) gets you to 26 (+5), and on a second casting to 28 (INT +7). For woot! A whole 10 minutes!!! Slightly useful for some occasions.

NB - not including inscriptions, you *need* to start with a natural 21 INT to get to 28!!! 

Now, having 4 INT  points in inscriptions (14 POW) however, would be extreme munchkinnerry! (If GM allowed). Combine with 4point POW Enhancing crystal for added fun!

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I get that. I'm saying they could get to 21 easily enough, then Enhance INT. You'd basically need to, to get to 27/28. That's a +6/7enhancement.

 

Firstly, need to remember - 9 points for 1 day, 12 for a week, 17 for 1 year... So, even for a pretty short duration - unless it's purely for a few minutes, is going to be expensive in Free INT.

Secondly, 2 FI & MP for +1, 6 for +2, 10 for +3, 14 for +4, 18 for +5, and 22 for +6. You *need* at least 4 to get the additional +1 to re-do the improvement.

So, if you start at 14 INT, and no duration, you can get to 18 INT... which can get you an extra +1 improved on the next casting - ie, 19. 

Therefore, you can really only get to 28 if you start with a really high INT. 21 INT (and inscribed spell) gets you to 26 (+5), and on a second casting to 28 (INT +7). For woot! A whole 10 minutes!!! Slightly useful for some occasions.

NB - not including inscriptions, you *need* to start with a natural 21 INT to get to 28!!! 

Now, having 4 INT  points in inscriptions (14 POW) however, would be extreme munchkinnerry! (If GM allowed). Combine with 4point POW Enhancing crystal for added fun!

conclusion :  for specialist sorcerer , the rules are very well thought !

[Austin]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Now, having 4 INT  points in inscriptions (14 POW) however, would be extreme munchkinnerry! (If GM allowed).

I think this is really the key point. If you know Enhance INT (and I struggle to imagine a proper sorcerer who wouldn't), and can just survive long enough, you can dump truly tremendous amounts of POW into an inscription which allows all the rest of your spells to get incrementally better as your Free INT increases (regardless how that interacts with mastering additional Runes). Sort of like how a shaman can become ridiculously powerful if they just keep dumping POW into their fetch (except that someone can nick a sorcerer's shiny bauble).

[Kloster]

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Given Rune Lords can DI for stats at 1D10 (T??? 😜) renewable Rune Points, it's quite possible. 🤑

(And I can't get rid of that emoji at the end.... )

Only up to the normal max (21 for humans), and you first loose a permanent rune point, to gain 1 INT (or other stat) point.

[styopa]

On 1/6/2020 at 4:33 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

13 is the average score for human Int.

Sorcery is one of the more complex thing to understand for a gloranthan (with illumination)

You're too stupid to use sorcery ? you can use spirit magic

You're too weak to use great sword ? you can use a dagger or... you can run

The spell skill can also be seen as "remember" how to cast that spell

I don't disagree that good Sorcery requires good INT.

But let's remember, if you don't have the strength to use that great sword YOU CAN STILL USE IT, just badly.  Sometimes you don't have a choice.

They don't just say "whups, you have a STR 8, can't use it at all."

 

[Shiningbrow]

4 hours ago, Kloster said:

Only up to the normal max (21 for humans), and you first loose a permanent rune point, to gain 1 INT (or other stat) point.

True true..

But I think most going sorcery (or, given the +5% to most category modifiers, ironically excluding Magic), it's well worth it!

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

They don't just say "whups, you have a STR 8, can't use it at all."

Some games do say that   And using the weapon at half-skill (RQG RAW) is so discouraging that in many cases I'd probably rather flee. But yes, this is one of those cases in RQG where it feels that... ahem... "design sensibilities" are clashing... old-school rules vs modern rules, or something. AFAICT RQ2 was just flat-out preventing you from using the weapon, while RQ3 was giving you a 5% penalty for each point you're missing (but without the DEX/STR trade-off). Looks like RQG is again a simplified middle ground between the two (not that I have a problem with that).

I think what bothers me with the Free INT rules isn't so much how limiting it is for the poor beginning sorcerer... it's how limiting it is for character creation. If you go with RAW, you will roll the dice for each characteristic individually... which means when you get to INT, you get what you get ("and you don't get upset!"). Someone who has high hopes of making a famous priest can get by with a poor POW roll, as you can increase POW fairly well. But if you get a poor INT roll and you wanted to play a sorcerer, you're fucked. AFAICT, you have to re-roll characters unless you get lucky enough to get a 16+ on the INT roll, otherwise you start with such a disadvantage that I'm not even sure it's worth it. If INT was improvable through research and study then that would make it way better IMHO (Which should be the case anyway... it feels like the INT rules are still anchored in the 70s when people still considered "intelligence" something immutable that you're either born with or not... which... well, is kinda the basis of some racist and sexist theories in education, but anyway...). For that matter, it's also stupid that SIZ can't be changed -- after all, I'm pretty sure I'm a lot fatter than I used to be   And tying it to increases in STR in a limited way (+2 at most, for instance) would also make sense.

Edited January 9, 2020 by lordabdul

[Austin]

13 hours ago, lordabdul said:

it's how limiting it is for character creation. If you go with RAW, you will roll the dice for each characteristic individually... which means when you get to INT, you get what you get ("and you don't get upset!"). Someone who has high hopes of making a famous priest can get by with a poor POW roll, as you can increase POW fairly well. But if you get a poor INT roll and you wanted to play a sorcerer, you're fucked. AFAICT, you have to re-roll characters unless you get lucky enough to get a 16+ on the INT roll, otherwise you start with such a disadvantage that I'm not even sure it's worth it.

IMHO, the issue is that RAW doesn't reflect the writers' play process, nor does it reflect the characteristics of the pre-generated adventurers. Can't recall where at this time, but I seem to remember one of the writers (Jeff, I think?) noting that they just asked players to basically describe their characters (Vasana et al) and then assigned characteristics they felt reasonable.

Literally, the game could just have different default rules for characteristic generation, and I believe this dimension of its difficulties would be resolved.

I feel like a 95 or 100 point-buy would be reasonable, based on the 92+3 sidebar in the section, or 100 based on the characteristics of the pre-gens. All over 100 except Vasana, IIRC, at 99.

For some context, Mythras's point-buy is 75 with the same characteristic array.