RQG One-use Rune magic

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

Sure, if you were to abide by the "one-use spells can be used repeatedly" rule. Which I don't because, indeed, it can leave you a destitute lay-member even though you were previously a God Talker with a whooping 9 points Rune Points pool. Makes no sense to me.

You have always been able to have multiple castings of one-use spells, are you saying that that should no longer be possible?

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Sure, if you were to abide by the "one-use spells can be used repeatedly" rule. Which I don't because, indeed, it can leave you a destitute lay-member even though you were previously a God Talker with a whooping 9 points Rune Points pool. Makes no sense to me.

This can happen just as easily without that. Just use a 3p one-use Rune Spell with a starting character, and you drop to 0 right away.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Shiningbrow]

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

You have always been able to have multiple castings of one-use spells, are you saying that that should no longer be possible?

That's an important question... (how) Does the CA priestess need to sacrifice for multiple uses of Resurrection?  Would the spell need to be "chosen" 3 times to get 3 uses? 

[Lordabdul]

8 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Does the CA priestess need to sacrifice for multiple uses of Resurrection?

Chalana Arroy initiates can get Resurrect as a normal spell. You're thinking of Daka Fal maybe? (initiates do get a one-use version of Resurrect).

[PhilHibbs]

You can also drop to 0 RP via Divine intervention. (Need to check the mechanics, but I think that's how it works, CMIIW)

[Crel]

More possibly-relevant text to the discussion, from the Well of Daliath errata:

Quote

Spell Trading (page 340)

In its description, “The original “owners” of the spells can still cast them after trading them, provided that the spell was not a one-use spell and that all other requirements for the spell (Rune points, cult status, etc.) are still met.”

In the case of trading one-use spell, when will the original owner be able to cast the one-use spell?

As soon as desired, as per the rules.

I read Jason's answer as supporting Akhorahil's claim that the Spell Trading knowledge-loss text is a cut-and-paste error.

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Chalana Arroy initiates can get Resurrect as a normal spell. You're thinking of Daka Fal maybe? (initiates do get a one-use version of Resurrect).

D'oh 😣

Well, the specifics were wrong, but the intent is still there...

[Kloster]

17 hours ago, Psullie said:

It's actually the other way around, your sacrifice POW to get Rune Points, you can know a numbers of Special Cult spells equal to their Rune Points. Once you know all the cults spells you can still increase your Rune Points. This actually supports David' statement about 'forgetting' the Rune Spell, you can't know more Special Cult spells than you have RP... may have to rethink my original view!

I was simply stating that to get the Rune Point cost you 1 POW in the first place,

I think you are partly wrong. You indeed spend POW to get RP, but instead to have a number of special spells equal to your RP, what I understand is that you gain a special spell each time you spend said POW. The difference is that you can spend or loose RP (through Divine Intervention or One use spells), and thus know far morespecial spells than you have Rune Points.

[Kloster]

38 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

You can also drop to 0 RP via Divine intervention. (Need to check the mechanics, but I think that's how it works, CMIIW)

Yes, you can. When Rune Lord (and perhaps Priest, I am not sure), you loose RP before loosing POW. You even start the DI by spending a RP.

[Shiningbrow]

10 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Yes, you can. When Rune Lord (and perhaps Priest, I am not sure), you loose RP before loosing POW. You even start the DI by spending a RP.

But... You only temporarily lose those RPs (bar 1 permanently), so that'll situation is unlikely... Unless you somehow need to do multiple DIs (Or are just down to only 1 RP for that god).

[PhilHibbs]

4 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

But... You only temporarily lose those RPs (bar 1 permanently), so that'll situation is unlikely... Unless you somehow need to do multiple DIs (Or are just down to only 1 RP for that god).

Ah yes so I am wrong, you don't lose (most of) the RP on a DI.

[Kloster]

3 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

But... You only temporarily lose those RPs (bar 1 permanently), so that'll situation is unlikely... Unless you somehow need to do multiple DIs (Or are just down to only 1 RP for that god).

That's right: Only the 1st RP is lost permanently. You can go to 0 this way, but this is unlikely. But this is also a reason why you can have more Secial spells than you have Rune Points.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

40 minutes ago, Crel said:

More possibly-relevant text to the discussion, from the Well of Daliath errata:

I read Jason's answer as supporting Akhorahil's claim that the Spell Trading knowledge-loss text is a cut-and-paste error.

Odd that Jason didn't point out in his answer that the text for spell trading was in error. If that was a cut and paste error surely he would have mentioned something? As it stands I don't know what to think of his answer? 

[Crel]

1 minute ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

As it stands I don't know what to think of his answer? 

For me, there's an important distinction here between "supporting" and "proving." My reading definitely isn't 100% certain.

[Akhôrahil]

9 minutes ago, Crel said:

For me, there's an important distinction here between "supporting" and "proving." My reading definitely isn't 100% certain.

No, I agree. That ruling is consistent with my interpretation, but hardly decisive to anyone who didn't already agree.

It does mean, though, that people who want one use to mean spell forgetting get into the complicated situation of explaining why you can get multiple uses out of a one use spell merely by trading it around first. If two cultists each have a one use spell, they ought to trade it with each other first, because then they won't forget the spell when they cast it...

Edited February 11, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[PhilHibbs]

It's pretty clear to me.

• Follow the rules, not the term used to describe them.
• "One Use" is a carry-over from when spells were sacrificed for specifically with no RP mechanic. In order to maintain compatibility with existing material, where an NPC might be described in, say, Borderlands as having "Resurrect, One-use", everyone knows what this means in RQG.
• Spell Trading is a copy-paste - Jason's QA clarification backs this up.

Yes, the rules should have made it clearer that "One-use" just means that the RP used to cast it are gone, not regainable, but that the knowledge of the spell remains.

Anything else is a house-rule. Fine, I have no problem with that, if it had turned out that the official rules were the other way around then I would have house-ruled it too, the other way, and would have accepted that the RAW was against my interpretation.

Can we settle on that - we know what the official rule is now, and we know if we're house-ruling it a different way?

Edited February 11, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

It's pretty clear to me.

• Follow the rules, not the term used to describe them.
• "One Use" is a carry-over from when spells were sacrificed for specifically with no RP mechanic. In order to maintain compatibility with existing material, where an NPC might be described in, say, Borderlands as having "Resurrect, One-use", everyone knows what this means in RQG.
• Spell Trading is a copy-paste - Jason's QA clarification backs this up.

Yes, the rules should have made it clearer that "One-use" just means that the RP used to cast it are gone, not regainable, but that the knowledge of the spell remains.

Anything else is a house-rule. Fine, I have no problem with that, if it had turned out that the official rules were the other way around then I would have house-ruled it too, the other way, and would have accepted that the RAW was against my interpretation.

Can we settle on that - we know what the official rule is now, and we know if we're house-ruling it a different way?

[PhilHibbs]

There is an implication on p244 that something bad happens at 0 RP:

Quote

The minimum number of Rune points an adventurer can
have with a single cult is 1, and the maximum number of
Rune points is equal to their CHA characteristic.

This might be saying "You start with 1, and I (mistakenly) can't think if a way it could go below that, so you will in practice always have 1", rather than specifying a strict constraint. A mistaken observation, not a rule. The later text on the first RP creating a link could justify the more strict interpretation. I'm easy either way.

[Akhôrahil]

7 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

There is an implication on p244 that something bad happens at 0 RP:

This might be saying "You start with 1, and I (mistakenly) can't think if a way it could go below that, so you will in practice always have 1", rather than specifying a strict constraint. A mistaken observation, not a rule. The later text on the first RP creating a link could justify the more strict interpretation. I'm easy either way.

The only interpretation that doesn't leave some kind of hole in the rules is if this simply forbids you from doing anything that drops you to 0 (permanent) Rune Points.

However, this might not be intentional.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

24 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

It does mean, though, that people who want one use to mean spell forgetting get into the complicated situation of explaining why you can get multiple uses out of a one use spell merely by trading it around first.

As written the Spell Trading spell does point to One-use spells being a cast and forget.  If there was a big error in the way Spell Trading is worded I would of expected him to point it out in his reply, but he didn't. It seems more likely to me that he has missed the distinction in the original question between the trader and the receiver of the new spell...if he didn't its a very wishy washy way to explain such a major change to the text particularly in a Q&A.

 

[AndreJarosch]

21 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

It's pretty clear to me.

• Follow the rules, not the term used to describe them.
• "One Use" is a carry-over from when spells were sacrificed for specifically with no RP mechanic. In order to maintain compatibility with existing material, where an NPC might be described in, say, Borderlands as having "Resurrect, One-use", everyone knows what this means in RQG.
• Spell Trading is a copy-paste - Jason's QA clarification backs this up.

Yes, the rules should have made it clearer that "One-use" just means that the RP used to cast it are gone, not regainable, but that the knowledge of the spell remains.

Anything else is a house-rule. Fine, I have no problem with that, if it had turned out that the official rules were the other way around then I would have house-ruled it too, the other way, and would have accepted that the RAW was against my interpretation.

Can we settle on that - we know what the official rule is now, and we know if we're house-ruling it a different way?

I don´t agree. 

A Chalana Arroy for instance might have traded Resurrection in RQ2 to another person, because that person needed it for a specific situation. Would she has done that if she knew that he could used it over and over again (which seems to be in RQG, in your interpretation of the rules)?

In my Glorantha One-Use is Ine-Use = Runepoints AND knowlege of that spell are gone after you have cast it. 

 

[Akhôrahil]

10 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

I don´t agree. 

A Chalana Arroy for instance might have traded Resurrection in RQ2 to another person, because that person needed it for a specific situation. Would she has done that if she knew that he could used it over and over again (which seems to be in RQG, in your interpretation of the rules)?

No-one is arguing that - Spell Trading is clearly a special case in a number of ways, as you don't spend Rune Points when casting the spell (you spend them when doing the trading), forget the spell once cast, and don't even use your own Runes for the casting.

You don't learn the Spell Traded spell in any normal fashion (you merely get one pre-paid instance of casting), so there's nothing to unlearn. However, Spell Trading might well benefit from a proper re-write to fit the new system better (and also to bring the rules text in line with the ruling). 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

I was curious about when the term "One-Use" came about in RQ. It was in RQ3. RQ2 has the term "non-reusable". 

The RQ3 text on the subject makes it clear that One-Use spells are cast and forget. You need to re-sacrifice power in order to acquire the spell again:

 

Quote

A one-use spell may be cast once. In order for the caster to use the spell again he must re-sacrifice POW to relearn the spell

RQ3 Softbound Deluxe edition 1993. p112 - Spell limits.

I'm not sure there is a strong enough thematic reason why the designers would have changed this assumption in RQG?

[Akhôrahil]

17 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

The RQ3 text on the subject makes it clear that One-Use spells are cast and forget. You need to re-sacrifice power in order to acquire the spell again:

Oh, without a doubt. But earlier editions make no distinction between the knowledge of a spell and the POW sacrificed for it. RQG does.  

17 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

I'm not sure there is a strong enough thematic reason why the designers would have changed this assumption in RQG?

A natural part of the big Rune Magic overhaul in RQG. This is the reasonable way of writing the rule. Losing the spell was the only reasonable way of writing it in RQ3.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Joerg]

42 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

I don´t agree. 

A Chalana Arroy for instance might have traded Resurrection in RQ2 to another person, because that person needed it for a specific situation. Would she has done that if she knew that he could used it over and over again (which seems to be in RQG, in your interpretation of the rules)?

In my Glorantha One-Use is Ine-Use = Runepoints AND knowlege of that spell are gone after you have cast it.

All traded spells are a single casting of that spell, only.

Spell-trading doesn't demand a 1-on-1 runepower balance - it is fine to trade 1 point of Sword Trance for one 3-point Sunspear.

 

Basically, this is a munchkin's / heroquester's backdoor to carrying way more rune points onto a quest than normally possible. These spells won't be your usual arsenal (but can be), and they use the rune scores of the person who traded the spell to activate it.