Why POW increase when defeat Disease spirit?

[Manu]

I'd like to know why PC get a free POW increase (1d3) every time they defeat a disease spirit? Why these and not the other type of spirit?

[Akhôrahil]

44 minutes ago, Manu said:

I'd like to know why PC get a free POW increase (1d3) every time they defeat a disease spirit? Why these and not the other type of spirit?

And also, how is it possibly balanced? The potential for abuse is ridiculous.

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

And also, how is it possibly balanced? The potential for abuse is ridiculous.

Pow is already pretty easy to raise (and lower)...  1d3 ain't that much, really.

[Akhôrahil]

13 minutes ago, g33k said:

Pow is already pretty easy to raise (and lower)...  1d3 ain't that much, really.

It is when you do it again and again and again.

[Qizilbashwoman]

27 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

It is when you do it again and again and again.

shamans be like I LOVE MY JOB

[g33k]

37 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

It is when you do it again and again and again.

<shrug>

GM:  "You can't find any more Disease Spirits nearby...  You'll need to go searching for some; but first, you have some diseases to treat, from the POW rolls..."

 

I haven't experienced this to a problematic degree.

OTOH, it's true I haven't seen any really munchkin-style players hitting the Shaman rules.  I don't expect to have a problem.  I guess it remains to ve seen, at my table.

[Akhôrahil]

17 minutes ago, g33k said:

GM:  "You can't find any more Disease Spirits nearby...  You'll need to go searching for some; but first, you have some diseases to treat, from the POW rolls..."

No diseases involved for the victor - better than that in fact, since you get full immunity.

[g33k]

16 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

No diseases involved for the victor - better than that in fact, since you get full immunity.

Sorry, I was presuming you were "using up" each Disease Spirit:  getting it to attack the rest of the party, the larger community of the Tula, etc...  If it's good for you, it's good for them!

 

But the odds are, at least SOME of those will result in disease that needs to be treated...

[Akhôrahil]

26 minutes ago, g33k said:

Sorry, I was presuming you were "using up" each Disease Spirit:  getting it to attack the rest of the party, the larger community of the Tula, etc...  If it's good for you, it's good for them!

That’s civic-minded. But no-one should lose - just put spirit armor on the recipient if things are going poorly. 

[Bill the barbarian]

36 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

That’s civic-minded. But no-one should lose - just put spirit armor on the recipient if things are going poorly. 

Note, that while sprit armour makes lt harder for the disease spirit to get a successful attack which is required for a disesase effect to occur, it does not protect against the diseasem itself. Seems the only thing that does that as a prophylactic would be infection and recovery granting immunity like IRL.

Cheers

[Akhôrahil]

24 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Note, that while sprit armour makes lt harder for the disease spirit to get a successful attack which is required for a disesase effect to occur, it does not protect against the diseasem itself. Seems the only thing that does that as a prophylactic would be infection and recovery granting immunity like IRL.

Cheers

This is an extremely temporary problem - as soon as the "defender" has won, he or she becomes immune.

[Shiningbrow]

Irrelevant. If someone gets the diseases, just Summon a Healing spirit to fox it, then Restore Health if needed.

[Shiningbrow]

16 hours ago, Manu said:

I'd like to know why PC get a free POW increase (1d3) every time they defeat a disease spirit? Why these and not the other type of spirit?

It's for all that munchkinny goodness! 

The Hero Wars aren't going to just wait for the PCs to get all strong and POWerful the slow way!

12 hours ago, g33k said:

<shrug>

GM:  "You can't find any more Disease Spirits nearby...  You'll need to go searching for some; but first, you have some diseases to treat, from the POW rolls..."

 

I haven't experienced this to a problematic degree.

OTOH, it's true I haven't seen any really munchkin-style players hitting the Shaman rules.  I don't expect to have a problem.  I guess it remains to ve seen, at my table.

That's because I haven't played at your table

[g33k]

26 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

...

That's because I haven't played at your table

True dat!  😁

 

OTOH, you also haven't had me be your GM ...   😬  😲   😭 

👹

 

⚔️  

💀 

 

I am also a munchkin, at need.

[Austin]

15 hours ago, g33k said:

OTOH, it's true I haven't seen any really munchkin-style players hitting the Shaman rules.  I don't expect to have a problem.  I guess it remains to ve seen, at my table.

That's very interesting to me as well, since it seems to me that the shaman rules-space has some serious munchkin potential. Which might be why my own adventurer is shaman-track, on those rare occasions I get to play instead of GM...

As to game balance, at the very least I suggest that any adventurer who learns the spirit magic spell Summon Disease Spirit will quickly be run out of town. No one wants folks dabbling in Mallia living in the hut next door. Discorporating and seeking disease spirits out in the Spirit World remains an option, but as a gamemaster I'd make it clear to the player that they may run across something much bigger and scarier as they progress into diseased (and probably chaotic?) regions.

19 hours ago, Manu said:

I'd like to know why PC get a free POW increase (1d3) every time they defeat a disease spirit? Why these and not the other type of spirit?

Ultimately, I don't know. I can speculate a little.

Why don't disease spirits have CHA or INT? As entities with only POW (per the Bestiary), it seems to me that they're just whatever illness they embody without either cunning or personality. This feature could represent them as being more fractious, maybe as a sort of "temporary" spirit? Once a given disease spirit's POW withers away, in that model, they no longer exist. Thus, capturing and forcing a bound disease spirit into spirit combat with sufficiently prepared individuals could become, in a way, a "virtuous" act. A way of reducing the disease in Glorantha. Contra to this is that a typical disease spirit's POW roll doesn't allow for less than POW 9—so where are the weaker ones?

Another line of thought is that this POW is the means by which the victorious adventurer becomes immune to the disease. In this case, the immunity is a sort of benign covert possession, mechanically represented by gaining POW. However, that POW doesn't go away after a year... but I think some element of this line of thought still feels applicable.

Does anyone know if this is in some way a hold-over from a previous edition of RQ?

[Shiningbrow]

7 minutes ago, Crel said:

As to game balance, at the very least I suggest that any adventurer who learns the spirit magic spell Summon Disease Spirit will quickly be run out of town.

Anyone stupid enough to let everyone know they have and use that spell indiscriminately deserves to be run out of town! 

Although, having the immunity option is a smart move. A good Fast Talk should do the trick.

[Akhôrahil]

25 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Anyone stupid enough to let everyone know they have and use that spell indiscriminately deserves to be run out of town! 

So this is why so many shamans are hermits... everyone got fed up with their Disease Spirit POW gain shenanigans!

Edited January 16, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Pheres]

3 hours ago, Crel said:

As to game balance, at the very least I suggest that any adventurer who learns the spirit magic spell Summon Disease Spirit will quickly be run out of town.

That's a good idea, but summon disease spirit spell is very expensive, you need to learn it at level 14 or 15, because it's the astandard spirit disease POW, 15 points in one unique spirit spell is very expensive!

Plus if a spirit that don't have 15 in POW or fewer isn't living in the area, the spell don't summon it! So GM have a lot of tools to control the inner power of a shaman player.

It could be, also, a starting for a new adventure for all the groupe, to find a place where disease spirit can be summoned... If i was a GM, i will use it this way, allowing a player to summon all the disease spirit he can in the area (3 or 4 spirits could be a good number) and when all the spirits have disepeared, the shaman player have to find a new place where he can summon other spirits..

I like to think about Munchkin things, and in this way, binding a disease spirit into an object could be a good thing, so you can fight him until he has no POW!

Edited January 16, 2020 by Pheres

[Pheres]

22 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

And also, how is it possibly balanced? The potential for abuse is ridiculous.

I am thinking that if a player abuse, a GM must abuse too. And a very powerfull shaman that become so powerfull by defeating spirit diseases could face some trouble, i guess, when their last three oaths are to not wear any clothes, don't take bath and always speak the truth, during social encounters...

Edited January 16, 2020 by Pheres

[French Desperate WindChild]

in Dorastor, the Ituvanu (oriflam version, but I believe it's the same in english version) are described munchkin  expert. These telmori shaman invoke spirits (not only disease) to raise there POW ("augmenter leur POU" in the text) every Fire and Earth seasons. Somethimes they invoke too powerful spirits to succeed.

One Ituvanu may survive 5-10 years

So from my perspective, yes, a shaman player can raise his pow day after day by this way. But the GM can raise the chance to invoke a harder spirit. After all, if the shaman disturbs too much the Force, there is no reason to not meet a Sith master.

[Bill the barbarian]

7 hours ago, Crel said:

As to game balance, at the very least I suggest that any adventurer who learns the spirit magic spell Summon Disease Spirit will quickly be run out of town. No one wants folks dabbling in Mallia living in the hut next door. Discorporating and seeking disease spirits out in the Spirit World remains an option, but as a gamemaster I'd make it clear to the player that they may run across something much bigger and scarier as they progress into diseased (and probably chaotic?) regions.

 

Sounds good Crel, but what about the canonical accepted prophylactic response mentioned in few sources (I shan’t look the sources up as I am sure there are a few groggies, er grognards that know what I am referring to and can cite publication, edition, and page number of the sources to back me up) of calling on vile chaos and placating it with a worship they would never participate in with another alternative. I seem to recall this is mentioned in Cults/Lords of Terror and

Borderlands and Shadows on the Borderlands.

[Akhôrahil]

47 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Sounds good Crel, but what about the canonical accepted prophylactic response mentioned in few sources (I shan’t look the sources up as I am sure there are a few groggies, er grognards that know what I am referring to and can cite publication, edition, and page number of the sources to back me up) of calling on vile chaos and placating it with a worship they would never participate in with another alternative.

Also, shamans are scary. While you might not want your shaman to sic a disease spirit on someone who has offended him, what are you going to do about it? And shamans need to maintain their aura of scariness in self-defence. That's what you get for offending shamans, so just don't do it!

(I wouldn't even rule this chaotic, as long as you just hammer an offending individual with it rather than spread disease more generally in the community.)

Edited January 16, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Pheres said:

That's a good idea, but summon disease spirit spell is very expensive, you need to learn it at level 14 or 15, because it's the astandard spirit disease POW, 15 points in one unique spirit spell is very expensive!

I don't think that's the case. For ritual spells, or at least this ritual spell, the number of magic points you can pour into the ritual is not limited by the number of points you have learned the spell at. RQG p.265, 267

Quote

To cast this spell, the caster must inform the gamemaster of the Summon (entity) spell being used. Shamans and adventurers normally summon only spirit entities. The summoner states how many magic points they are using, and the summoner cannot use more magic points than are available. If the number of magic points used is less than the magic points possessed by the specific entity being summoned (as generated by the gamemaster), then the ritual automatically fails. The magic points powering the Summon spell are expended whether it succeeds or not.

Comparing with other ritual spirit spells (e.g. Binding, Magic Point or Spell Matrix Enchantment), I don't see any indication that they are learned as variable spells, either.

Summon rituals use magic points rather than permanent POW to call forth the specified entity from beyond the veil. The summon <specific species> spell takes up one point of CHA, but doesn't limit the number of MP poured into this spell.

The MP must be available to the caster, but can come from MP storage items (enchantments, crystals) or bound spirits, or from a temporary pool of MP exceeding the character's long term capacity to contain MP. (The Absorption rune spell is the only published source of such surplus MP for human non-sorcerer characters. Sorcerous Tapping, or draining abilities like those of vampires or ghosts are usually not available to human or troll spirit magic users.)

But even with such MP reserves, in practice you would prefer to team the summoner with a second magician who takes control over the summoned entity.

 

Divine magic is pretty useless for commanding summoned entities other than cult spirits or cult entities. There isn't any deity that grants spells to control the minions of its enemies. If you want to deal with potentially hostile spirits, you either need a shaman or some other magician able to discorporate and attack the summoned entity in spirit combat, beat it down to zero MP and then bind it into a (prepared) Binding Enchantment for an entity of that kind, or a sorcerer who has a spell to enslave that more or less specific kind summoned entity. The shaman's ability to jump into spirit combat more or less at will is at a big advantage as there is no need to prepare for a specific enemy.

Disease spirits have no volition, and will attack any potential infection candidate without regards for odds or its own safety. A prepared infection candidate with spirit screen or similar active 

[Pheres]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't think that's the case. For ritual spells, or at least this ritual spell, the number of magic points you can pour into the ritual is not limited by the number of points you have learned the spell at. RQG p.265, 267

Comparing with other ritual spirit spells (e.g. Binding, Magic Point or Spell Matrix Enchantment), I don't see any indication that they are learned as variable spells, either.

 

Thanks Joerg, so, it's a very powerfull spell, at no cost!

Edit: i have read another time the rulebook, and p 247-248 in Terminology chapter it's written that varaible spell have to be learned at several intensity:

Quote

Variable/Nonvariable Spell:

Variable spells can be learned and cast at several intensities. If there
is a limit to the strength of a spell, that limit is included in the spell’s description. An adventurer could learn a low-intensity spell (Protection 1, for example) and later learn more powerful versions of the spell (Protection 2 or 3). An adventurer cannot cast Protection 1 after casting Protection 2 and get Protection 3 as a result; to get Protection 3 they must cast Protection 3. An adventurer can know

a powerful variable spell and cast a weaker version of that spell.

Nonvariable spells have a specific, unchanging magic point cost. They cannot be learned or cast at an intensity other than that given in the spell description.

So i think that you have to learn the summon(entity) at the appropriate intensity in order to cast it for summoning a spirit that have 15 in POW.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Pheres

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

Divine magic is pretty useless for commanding summoned entities other than cult spirits or cult entities. There isn't any deity that grants spells to control the minions of its enemies. If you want to deal with potentially hostile spirits, you either need a shaman or some other magician able to discorporate and attack the summoned entity in spirit combat, beat it down to zero MP and then bind it into a (prepared) Binding Enchantment for an entity of that kind, or a sorcerer who has a spell to enslave that more or less specific kind summoned entity. The shaman's ability to jump into spirit combat more or less at will is at a big advantage as there is no need to prepare for a specific enemy.

Healing spirit.

Have a couple ready in advance, sic (🤣) them on the Disease spirit until it's MPs are low, then command them back into the enchantment.

Granted, 2 spells... But Healing spirits are much nicer to summon.