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How to deal with this much rune magic ?


Jon Hunter

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OK i'm trying to get my head round how the world of Glorantha remains vaugley the same after the rune magic changes in RQG?

I was wrongly under the impression that initiates only got there magic back on high holy days and sacred times ( don't ask me how, something i picked up in the playstest and game dev phases that stuck in my mind, and i never checked again).

Now I understand that  most adults get 2 or 3 rune points that if they live near a fair size temple they can replenish every week. Thats a  game changing level of rune magic,  available to PCs, NPC's , foes and lots of monsters.

Rune magic has Just got turned up to 11.

  • Every adults will go into every combat with full out rune magic, as they have available runepoints and will assume there opponent does too, and combats to dangerous to take any chances. 
  • Little remains hidden because most people can use divination without real cost,
  • Everyone can heal to a  high level.
  • Everything steal-able will be warded
  • etc etc

I've always loved gloranthas highly magical nature, but it just feels to much.

Edited by Jon Hunter
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Jeff has clarified that the "3 Rune Points for all Initiates" rule refers only to PCs. Most denizens of Glorantha will know only spirit magic. Elite warriors will have some Rune Points, but cannon fodder will not. The stats for RQ2/3 supplements should still be a valid example, and few initiates had Rune Magic in these.

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I agree, it's the almost trivial Rune Point regain that is the issue (that you will always have 95% to succeed when you want them doesn't help any). In the design stage, I had thought an Initiate would regain Rune Points once or twice yearly, not on a weekly basis if they feel like it!

I would add to your list:

  • Every field will be blessed (Bless Crops)
  • Every breeding animal will be blessed (Bless Animal)
  • Every household will have a Household Guardian (this is mostly just cool, though!)
  • Most any CA initiate can resurrect on a regular basis, as can Ernaldans if you're fine with the worse version
  • Everyone can fight off a moderately-sized spirit through Spirit Block
  • It takes extreme ill luck in order to not get a limb regrown (Heal 6 used to be a bit rare, but virtually everyone has Heal Wounds and 6 MP, and even Regrow Limb is not much a big deal)
  • Orlanthi will never suffer a natural drought (the unnatural kind may still happen)
  • Lots of people in Orlanthi society can fly when they have to 
  • Problems with pregnancies are exclusively for poor people
Edited by Akhôrahil
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9 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

Jeff has clarified that the "3 Rune Points for all Initiates" rule refers only to PCs. Most denizens of Glorantha will know only spirit magic. 

This isn't how the adventures are being written, though. Most everyone in Orlanthi society is an Initiate, and all initiates have Rune Points, and usually more than one (one is just for newbies). A very substantial part of Orlanthi men can hit you with either Lightning or a Thunderbolt, or can Fly.

Outside of Orlanthi society, things start to differ, but by definition, every Initiate has Rune Points.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

Jeff has clarified that the "3 Rune Points for all Initiates" rule refers only to PCs. Most denizens of Glorantha will know only spirit magic. Elite warriors will have some Rune Points, but cannon fodder will not. The stats for RQ2/3 supplements should still be a valid example, and few initiates had Rune Magic in these.

I'd assumed 3 points was adventurers better than most, but 1 or 2 is every significant.

Where did Jeff clarify that ?

It makes no sense that you get this potential magic power upon becoming an initiate and everyone decides not to sacrifice for 1 point of power.

hmm most initiates which Chaosium has stated have rune points, even the herders in have 1 or 2.

If you get access to all rune spells at initiation, even 1 rune point gives you access to massive amounts of rune magic.

I could make sense of it with very limited restoration of rune magic for initiates, it was interesting challenging and believable.

With initiates virtually getting virtually the same access to rune magic as priest and lords, to make sense of it we need to;

  • Say that most adults are not initiates - major change to game world, 
  • Say that most initiates don't sacrifice for rune magic - world looses internal consistency
  • Have a world much more magical
  • Limit the number of minor holidays to not weekly - again changing the world
Edited by Jon Hunter
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38 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Now I understand that  most adults get 2 or 3 rune points that if they live near a fair size temple they can replenish every week.

What is the wording on that? Dont have my books to hand....certainly POW gain rolls to get stuff to sacrifice are still Yearly unless your a Priest, Shammy or the like so people wont have a ton of RP.

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22 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

I'd assumed 3 points was adventurers better than most, but 1 or 2 is every significant.

2-3 really would seem like the average for adult Joe Orlanthi. And if we look at the game itself, an expenditure of 1 POW per decade or so seems trivial for what you get for it.

PCs are 21 per default, and are probably one or two Rune Points ahead of the curve. And they get three Rune Points per decade of life, so even if the average initiate only gain at one third that rate, elders should be at 4-5 Rune Points (which is actually kinda cool - it means that even if grandma is old and tired, she can bring out the Rune Magic when she has to). 

Edited by Akhôrahil
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4 minutes ago, Thaz said:

What is the wording on that? Dont have my books to hand....certainly POW gain rolls to get stuff to sacrifice are still Yearly unless your a Priest, Shammy or the like so people wont have a ton of RP.

A regular worshipper will (or would, if the standard rules applied to them) get two POW gain rolls per year just through worship (HHD and Sacred Time). It shouldn't be any problem whatsoever to save a little up for Rune Points, given how monstrously powerful they are.

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43 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

OK i'm trying to get my head round how the world of Glorantha remains vaugley the same after the rune magic changes in RQG?

I was wrongly under the impression that initiates only got there magic back on high holy days and sacred times ( don't ask me how, something i picked up in the playstest and game dev phases that stuck in my mind, and i never checked again).

Now I understand that  most adults get 2 or 3 rune points that if they live near a fair size temple they can replenish every week. Thats a  game changing level of rune magic,  available to PCs, NPC's , foes and lots of monsters.

Rune magic has Just got turned up to 11.

  • Every adults will go into every combat with full out rune magic, as they have available runepoints and will assume there opponent does too, and combats to dangerous to take any chances. 
  • Little remains hidden because most people can use divination without real cost,
  • Everyone can heal to a  high level.
  • Everything steal-able will be warded
  • etc etc

I've always loved gloranthas highly magical nature, but it just feels to much.

1.  Not if its possible they will have another fight soon. Raiding trolls - use every runepoint (except those they are keeping back for healing or dismissing magic). In a battle or exploring a rune have to be careful with those runepoints.

2. Divination has to be cast in a temple/shrine or a sanctified area. 2 runepoints is a lot to use on an adventure. Divination has its limits anyway.

3. Not if they have just used all their runepoints in a fight.

4. Everything valuable probably will. Given the rarity and primitive nature of locks in a bronze age world this is probably a good thing.

3 runepoints are soon expended and players can't keep going back to the temple to renew their runepoints after every wilderness encounter.

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2 minutes ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

1.  Not if its possible they will have another fight soon. Raiding trolls - use every runepoint (except those they are keeping back for healing or dismissing magic). In a battle or exploring a rune have to be careful with those runepoints.

2. Divination has to be cast in a temple/shrine or a sanctified area. 2 runepoints is a lot to use on an adventure. Divination has its limits anyway.

3. Not if they have just used all their runepoints in a fight.

4. Everything valuable probably will. Given the rarity and primitive nature of locks in a bronze age world this is probably a good thing.

3 runepoints are soon expended and players can't keep going back to the temple to renew their runepoints after every wilderness encounter.

I think your looking at use of rune points by adventures, not by people in the wider community, its the 2nd that falls over.

I think this adventure foscus may be our source of the problem

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1 minute ago, Jon Hunter said:

I think your looking at use of rune points by adventures, not by people in the wider community, its the 2nd that falls over.

I think this adventure foscus may be our source of the problem

I think its exaggerated.

Sure, Bless Crops may be common. That's the primary function of an Earth Priestess in an agricultural society though.

I am a bit concerned by how common Resurrection may be though. I think I'd maybe limit access to that to Rune levels.

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8 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

I think this adventure foscus may be our source of the problem

I mean, it's pretty obvious that the idea is that you have one adventure per season, and will get to blow all your Rune Points in an adventure and then regain them for the next. The rest is built around this notion.

Except that this still makes weekly holy days seem excessive!

Edited by Akhôrahil
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One of the most dramatic things is that spell trading is now trivial. Issaries has weekly holy days, so a couple of spell tradings per week for an initiate is easy. And spell trading has an immense pay-off in that you accumulate a lot of emergency and situational spells.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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13 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

One of the most dramatic things is that spell trading is now trivial. Issaries has weekly holy days, so a couple of spell tradings per week for an initiate is easy. And spell trading has an immense pay-off in that you accumulate a lot of emergency and situational spells.

If you can find a Rune Priest to do it with, sure.  It does mention that in the description.

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44 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Acccording to jeff -  Pg 315 Minor Holy days, but my books arent with me either

Okay. So your average Joe (with RP and I'm not getting into the Everyone/Only some debate because as written it appears everyone _is_ from scenarios) gets 1d6 RP back _if_ they are able to get to a temple and _if_ they make a worship roll.  Now for High Holy, Sacred Time and even seasonal holy days I expect people are able to find the time to make for a days worship (the example given is clear its a days worship to get your points back).  If you have to burn through a chunk of MP to make the success then you're still down a few next day.  Does your average Orlanthi type have room in his work schedule to take a weekend ?  Being near a larger temple helps of course. . . as do sacrifices. Added to which what is the average pow of average Joe? a lot of people are not GOING to have 10 mp to spare, at least until their later years...

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35 minutes ago, Diana Probst said:

If you can find a Rune Priest to do it with, sure.  It does mention that in the description.

Not sure what you mean here. Obviously you need an Issaries initiate or better, but that could easily be one of the PCs. Or do you mean cult permisssion? That's only mentioned specifically for Earth Goddesses and Storm Bull/Waha. And if you're in decent standing, why would anyone object? Especially if you're doing it within the clan (potentially even within the cult!). It incurs no cost for the temple, and only the risk of spread and irresponsible use of cult magic should be a factor. 

Edited by Akhôrahil
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4 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

(T)he temple surely performs the worship every holy day?

Of course. And city dwellers will attend. But out in the sticks? Major cults will have shrines on the Clan Tula of course but good luck if you dont have one locally. Plus you get unlucky on that 1d6 roll or skimp on the MP because you might need to light the fire tomorrow morning and....no RP for you.

It does mean Granny and Grandpa are venerated because they've been soaking POW Gain rolls and have time to attend the shrine and can bring some serious magic when needed....

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I thought the idea of initiates having limit regain of RP was a really cool idea, and would lead to interesting decisions and payoffs for both PC's and NPC's.

and the RP system with this feature, dealt with the initiate trap beautifully, but still gave a step change  for rune levels which i think is now gone.

I sure many think the PC's always having full RP for every adventure is the best root the maximum game fun,  but I'm  not  one of those.

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1 minute ago, Thaz said:

Of course. And city dwellers will attend. But out in the sticks? Major cults will have shrines on the Clan Tula of course but good luck if you dont have one locally. Plus you get unlucky on that 1d6 roll or skimp on the MP because you might need to light the fire tomorrow morning and....no RP for you.

It does mean Granny and Grandpa are venerated because they've been soaking POW Gain rolls and have time to attend the shrine and can bring some serious magic when needed....

Another power boost for the major cults and yet another reason never to play a hunter cult.

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3 minutes ago, Thaz said:

Of course. And city dwellers will attend. But out in the sticks? Major cults will have shrines on the Clan Tula of course but good luck if you dont have one locally. Plus you get unlucky on that 1d6 roll or skimp on the MP because you might need to light the fire tomorrow morning and....no RP for you.

Your clan will have at least minor temples to Orlanth and Ernalda, and these will include shrines to associated cults.

If you go for oddball cults though, you may get into trouble with Rune Point regain.

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1 minute ago, Jon Hunter said:

Another power boost for the major cults and yet another reason never to play a hunter cult.

There's a good reason to have a Hunter Shrine if you like eating meat all year round. There is also a fair number described in various descriptions. As it happens IMG it's Dark season of 1626 and the Hunter of the Group (Yinkin FTW) has taken advantage of a break in the weather to head over to Blue Boar Fort to re-up her RP and perhaps investigate the Blue Boar HQ prior to having a go at the great Boar of Pig Hollow..... 

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8 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Another power boost for the major cults and yet another reason never to play a hunter cult.

They're Associated Cults - this helps a lot, as you can regain Rune Points from the other cult's worship.

That said, hunter cult shrines out in the wild may be a good idea. Of course, someone must still officiate...

(Hmm... turning that semi-retired old hunter with a bad leg into a Hunter God God-Talker makes every kind of sense... the other hunters help support him, he hunts part-time, and you get to regain your magic while out in the bush.)

Edited by Akhôrahil
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1 hour ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

I think its exaggerated.

Sure, Bless Crops may be common. That's the primary function of an Earth Priestess in an agricultural society though.

I am a bit concerned by how common Resurrection may be though. I think I'd maybe limit access to that to Rune levels.

If your average guy/gal has only a handful of RP do you blow them on Bless Crops and then loose a child who has a nasty accident and you cant cast Heal Wound? I suspect a lot of Magic gets cast the night before Holy Day.....

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4 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

That said, hunter cult shrines out in the wild may be a good idea. Of course, someone must still officiate...

Well your not going to find Hunter Priests or RL in the Big City now are you?  Blue Boar Fort is mentioned https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Boar_Fort as being one such location

 

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