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Armoring Enchantment in RQG


svensson

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1 hour ago, svensson said:

Any plans on bringing back Armoring Enchantment in RQG?

I believe that Jason commented somewhere that both Armoring and Strengthening Enchantments were dropped as they were considered "broken" (or perhaps just made PC's too strong).  Whichever, I don't believe there are any plans to bring back, but certainly can add back in for your own game.

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So what exactly makes Armoring Enchantment so 'broken'?

Now,  in my games I put a limit on how many AP can be put one location [3 AP /loc]. Any more than that and I start wondering if someone is trying to game a Chaos Feature without the Chaos.

I can see where somebody would find some epic long term characters with lots of AP Enchant to get broken as Hell. The Lunar Coder Nose Ring is pretty off the charts with an average of 8 AP per location. Plus regular armor [described as 'leather', which I interpret to be 2 pt.]. Plus sorcerous Damage Resistance.  That guy could take an RPG to the chest and shake it off like a Schwarzeneggar movie...

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44 minutes ago, Frp said:

I hope they don't bring them back. 

I hope they do !

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I believe that Jason commented somewhere that both Armoring and Strengthening Enchantments were dropped as they were considered "broken" (or perhaps just made PC's too strong).

Yep, I absolutely totally agree with this estimation...

4 minutes ago, svensson said:

So what exactly makes Armoring Enchantment so 'broken'?

I had done some rough estimation (last week) about them and clearly its too strong because losing 1POW for 1AP cost you 7MP per week but a Sorcerer spell cost around 15-20MP per week to have a chainmail-like armor (depending on rq3/rqg rules), a Runelord need to block  at least 10 RP to create shield-spell-with-one-year-duration for equalling the 1POW for 1AP ratio.

In terms of POW cost, it was too much advantaging to create a permanent 1AP for 1POW only; For a RQ3 fan, I always hated the POW economy and the Armor enchantment was a good thing for shields and weapons strengthening but far too much powerfull if the protection is extended to the whole body.
Any items giving you 1-3 AP was not a big deal but the day you find a ring of protection giving you the protection of a chainmail, without the ENC downside, without need for reparation and at same cost of your chainmail 😒... you will become a God-Learner breaking the laws of the universe for mass producing magical items cause you found out material armor are trash.

After some calculation (I will spare you), The only way to have an Full Armor Enchantment that don't utterly break the system is to have a 1POW for 1AP per location, which mean 7POW for 1 Full Body AP. A bit costly at first sight but more fair compared to other enchantment.

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3 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

After some calculation (I will spare you), The only way to have an Full Armor Enchantment that don't utterly break the system is to have a 1POW for 1AP per location, which mean 7POW for 1 Full Body AP. A bit costly at first sight but more fair compared to other enchantment.

For some reason I always thought that was the case, 1 POW = 1 AP in ONE location.

It's one of the reasons why the Lunar Coders [and other 'boss level' human NPCs] seemed to have a whole lot of deus in the machina. Nose Ring's Armoring Enchantments alone are a solid decade of plowing one's POW gain rolls into the AP enchantments. It always seemed to me that the Lunar Empire HAD to have sorcerers Tapping people to supply that much POW. It wouldn't be the first thing Red Chaos lied about, after all.

So in the end, my 3 AP per loc limit is EVEN MORE limiting and thus reasonable.

And you know, the funny thing about all this is just how incredibly powerful RQG characters are compared to their earlier counterparts [ESPECIALLY RQ2 characters] and yet somehow Armoring and Strengthening Enchantments are 'overpowered'. I'm not saying anyone is wrong about it. Only that I find the irony really funny.

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8 hours ago, svensson said:

Any plans on bringing back Armoring Enchantment in RQG?

The Conversion Guide says 'currently unavailable', which might imply that it will be at a later date. Or not.

A character in the title adventure of The Smoking Ruin has an item with boosted APs from an Armoring Enchantment (page 42, not naming whom to be spoiler-free). However, when I asked Jeff in a conversation on the FB group why this was the case, he stated that this is an error in the book, and that Armoring Enchantments will not be returning.

I presume this is the case as well with Strengthening Enchantments.

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Personally, I would bring back the enchantments and streamline them.

So, rather than learning each kind of Enchantment as a separate spell, you would have one spell of Enchanting and learn the different Enchantments individually. Then, you just drop POW into whatever Enchantments you want.

Armouring enchantment does not break RQ. We played an RQ3 campaign where the PCs had 20 points of armour, due to enchantments and Iron. sure, it made them harder to injure, but the type of foes they were facing in Dorastor laughed at such weak armour.

When you have Protection 10 and Shield 10 flying around, a few points of extra armour doesn't make a lot of difference.

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1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I believe you just answered your own question. 🙂

There were two reasons for that.

The first was that I had the POW /AP calculations wrong. I thought they were 1 POW per AP per location. Turns out they were 1 POW per AP but that AP was the entire body. So yes, I fully agree that's over powered.

The second was that when I started looking at some of the RQ3 humanoid boss fights [especially in Strangers In Prax], I thought that high levels of Armoring Enchantment + regular armor + high level of sorcerous Damage Resist was just too damned much. Count Julan or Nose Ring [the two melee types in the Lunar Coders] could tee off on multiple warrior cult rune lords each, *without* magical support from their priestess or magus. Nose Ring by himself would require 24 pts. of damage before you even  nicked him. Count Julan is worse. He's got 33 pts. of chest AP before injury.

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10 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I believe that Jason commented somewhere that both Armoring and Strengthening Enchantments were dropped as they were considered "broken" (or perhaps just made PC's too strong).  Whichever, I don't believe there are any plans to bring back, but certainly can add back in for your own game.

For armouring enchantment, I would consider an equivalent to be a HeroQuest Boon, or a shamanic ability from a Greater Entity. Such as surviving a dip in the baths of Nelat or being scorched by Yelm in a contest. There's already a precedent in the Rainbow Mounds, who didn't get 1 point skin! For strengthening, I'd do the same, we've examples such as the Unbreakable sword so I'd make unique unbreakable things. For adventurer hit points, a HeroQuest Boon, or a shamanic ability is certainly possible, a bet with Asrelia that you win to take an item from her jar: a peach of immortality (+5 HP), or your allied spirit in a creature that you share hit points with - like a shamans fetch for POW. IMO much more interesting than MaxiQuesting.

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10 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

After some calculation (I will spare you), The only way to have an Full Armor Enchantment that don't utterly break the system is to have a 1POW for 1AP per location, which mean 7POW for 1 Full Body AP. A bit costly at first sight but more fair compared to other enchantment.

It was the case in RQ3. You had to enchant each location separately. This is why I never made more than 1 enchant per location.

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On 8/9/2020 at 5:19 PM, Kloster said:

It was the case in RQ3. You had to enchant each location separately. This is why I never made more than 1 enchant per location.

Yes, you had to enchant each localisation separately but there was a loophole : You can create an enchantment to cast the spell which affect the whole body (Spell matrix : 1POW => 1PA full body) and the armor / strengthening matrix was per location but with a generous +1D6 Pt (1POW : 1D6 PA per location).

The spell matrix was as much over-powerfull as the actual "inscribing spell" but the armor matrix is still a big three times stronger than a spell in terms of cost/effectiveness :
-An Enchanted shield with 4POW get an average +12 PA (~24 total AP), rendering most attack ineffective.
-An 6POW strengthening matrix on your both arms get you +9 AP per arm And as parry with your hand stop as much as your HP localisation (3+9P = 12 AP), rendering most attack ineffective even unarmed

These are the few examples of rules breaking enchantment, 1POW for 1PA per location is the fairest rules to me ............ but it's out of the reach of RQ-G campaign's PC because there is more efficient way to use your POW, so there is no need for armor enchanting when you can create long duration spell in sorcery n' theism OR use a shaman ability to make a permanent protection spell. And in the Orlanthi campaign, there is Orlanthi... Orlanthi skin only wear blue protecting war paint, armor is for the weak 😛

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I don't even know how I would really compare rhe effectiveness of old Armoring Enchantment within its Rules Structure to the new rules.

Spirit Armor Enchant exists, so getting armor that can scale is reasonable, we know lots of Gloranthans want to avoid death and work hard at it. 

With RQ:G and super accessible and flexible Rune Magic, isn't spending whatever POW you would spend on individual Armoring Enchantments better spent building a Big Ol' Shield Matrix Size X? You could even get fancy and link it with Extension 5. You could get at least 5 Professional Warriors in Full-Time X•2 AP everywhere and X•2 CM all year long. Depending on how often you can fill it the enchantment can get even better. 

I will head back to the Munkin Thread now. Sorry. :D

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On 8/9/2020 at 8:55 PM, David Scott said:

For armouring enchantment, I would consider an equivalent to be a HeroQuest Boon, or a shamanic ability from a Greater Entity. Such as surviving a dip in the baths of Nelat or being scorched by Yelm in a contest. There's already a precedent in the Rainbow Mounds, who didn't get 1 point skin! For strengthening, I'd do the same, we've examples such as the Unbreakable sword so I'd make unique unbreakable things. For adventurer hit points, a HeroQuest Boon, or a shamanic ability is certainly possible, a bet with Asrelia that you win to take an item from her jar: a peach of immortality (+5 HP), or your allied spirit in a creature that you share hit points with - like a shamans fetch for POW. IMO much more interesting than MaxiQuesting.

This surely hints at how both enchantments can come back and have them nerfed appropriately...

Shamanic abilities cost more stat points per upgrade. Do the same here. So, the first AP costs 1 POW, the second costs 2, third costs 3, etc...

I'm sure there will still be some super-munchkins out there, but oh they'd have to work long and hard to get to anything even moderately powerful...

10 AP would cost 55 POW.

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3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

This surely hints at how both enchantments can come back and have them nerfed appropriately...

Shamanic abilities cost more stat points per upgrade. Do the same here. So, the first AP costs 1 POW, the second costs 2, third costs 3, etc...

I'm sure there will still be some super-munchkins out there, but oh they'd have to work long and hard to get to anything even moderately powerful...

10 AP would cost 55 POW.

Yes that is exactly my idea.

I cannot believe that in a world where enchantment technic exists and a temporary effect spell exist, there is no way to transform the temporary spell into enchantment.

The only issue is not rp but gp what is the cost* to not break the balance ?

it depends on rules but also on gm (if you allow a pc to duel and win against Cacodemon, Harreck or Cwim, of course that not the same that just allow the pc to fly if succeeding a pow x 1 roll)

 

*cost is not only POW (or other stat) but also mundane/heroic material (blood/soul/jewels/stones/herbs/...)

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4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Shamanic abilities cost more stat points per upgrade. Do the same here. So, the first AP costs 1 POW, the second costs 2, third costs 3, etc...

Unless you take a taboo.

I would likely have a shamanic ability that was limited to 4 levels of 1 AP/level that looks like ritual scarification. Or a heroQuest boon, just like the one in Rainbow mounds. I'd keep it simple and not very variable.

 

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On 8/14/2020 at 6:24 AM, Shiningbrow said:

10 AP would cost 55 POW.

On 8/14/2020 at 10:53 AM, David Scott said:

Unless you take a taboo.

  Why only one ... ability extension for 10 AP extension cost 10POW with 9 taboo. I have rolls the taboo, I just have all pilgrimages to do, never use an axe (what for ? I'm shaman not zombie-hunter), and I must cast my spell with spirit-speech in singing (which will torture my enemies eardrums). It lessen the cost and give a real Shaman Vibe to your PC ...

On 8/14/2020 at 10:22 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

I cannot believe that in a world where enchantment technic exists and a temporary effect spell exist, there is no way to transform the temporary spell into enchantment.
...
The only issue is not rp but gp what is the cost* to not break the balance ? ... *cost is not only POW (or other stat) but also mundane/heroic material.

Balance + Rule ...........  I'm the guy your looking for 🧐 because it's pretty much easy for me who do rules tuning as much as I breath

Enchantment by a French Sadistic Sorcerer 😉
-Power effect : 1POW for each Intensity, the spell activate for its natural duration with no MP cost.
-Duration effect : Depending of the magic used, you can rise the duration or increase number of used before having to recharge the object

  1. Theism : 1POW for +1 Extension duration (max 5 POW for 1year) based on extension spell cost
  2. Sorcery : 1POW for +3 intensity duration (3POW for a day, 4POW : a week, 6POW a year) based on Inscribing spell
  3. Animism : 1POW for first 5 pts spells, 3POW until 1pts, 6POW until 15pts and 10POW until 20pts (For 3 uses, double cost for unlimited use) based on taboo cost progression

-Recharge (Cool Down effect) : When expired each matrix need 1 day to a week of cooldown to naturally recharge himself. Generally done in the appropriate place (temple, place of power) or time (Sacred Time, Sacred day of the cult ) for a quick charge (a day).
-Extra Cost : Depending of the ritual magic rites (I like hitting players on their pocket money).

  1. Theism : 1 Cow or a Golden wheel for each POW, plus an extra cost for runic material (enchanted gold for yelm, iron to humakty). (Gods demand sacrifice)
  2. Sorcery : 1-5 weeks for each POW depending on the number of runes and techniques, plus extra cost to feed an protect yourself to not be interrupted. (Sorcerer need time)
  3. Animism : A cost worth 1-2 full week for "hiring" 1 shaman Assistant and 1D6 Spirit Dancer for each POW. Extra POW don't need more time but more people 5POW : 5 A.S +5D6 dancers. (Shaman don't need time, they need a big party ... ).

Yo frenchy pal, does these balance n' cost please you ?
edit : correcting a mispell

Edited by MJ Sadique
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13 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

  Why only one ... ability extension for 10 AP extension cost 10POW with 9 taboo. I have rolls the taboo, I just have all pilgrimages to do, never use an axe (what for ? I'm shaman not zombie-hunter), and I must cast my spell with spirit-speech in singing (which will torture my enemies eardrums). It lessen the cost and give a real Shaman Vibe to your PC ...

Balance + Rule ...........  I'm the guy your looking for 🧐 because it's pretty much easy who do rules tuning as

Enchantment by a French Sadistic Sorcerer 😉
-Power effect : 1POW for each Intensity, the spell activate for its natural duration with no MP cost.
-Duration effect : Depending of the magic used, you can rise the duration or increase number of used before having to recharge the object

  1. Theism : 1POW for +1 Extension duration (max 5 POW for 1year) based on extension spell cost
  2. Sorcery : 1POW for +3 intensity duration (3POW for a day, 4POW : a week, 6POW a year) based on Inscribing spell
  3. Animism : 1POW for first 5 pts spells, 3POW until 1pts, 6POW until 15pts and 10POW until 20pts (For 3 uses, double cost for unlimited use) based on taboo cost progression

-Recharge (Cool Down effect) : When expired each matrix need 1 day to a week of cooldown to naturally recharge himself. Generally done in the appropriate place (temple, place of power) or time (Sacred Time, Sacred day of the cult ) for a quick charge (a day).
-Extra Cost : Depending of the ritual magic rites (I like hitting players on their pocket money).

  1. Theism : 1 Cow or a Golden wheel for each POW, plus an extra cost for runic material (enchanted gold for yelm, iron to humakty). (Gods demand sacrifice)
  2. Sorcery : 1-5 weeks for each POW depending on the number of runes and techniques, plus extra cost to feed an protect yourself to not be interrupted. (Sorcerer need time)
  3. Animism : A cost worth 1-2 full week for "hiring" 1 shaman Assistant and 1D6 Spirit Dancer for each POW. Extra POW don't need more time but more people 5POW : 5 A.S +5D6 dancers. (Shaman don't need time, they need a big party ... ).

Yo frenchy pal, does these balance n' cost please you ?

 

I like the idea that, in fact, you need an annual ceremony to continue to use indefinitly your enchant.

 

Personaly I would increment the extra cost depending of the power needed : it is easy to lose one POW, it is dangerous to lose 10 pow.

1 POW = 1 unit of extra cost

2 POW = 3, 3 POW = 6 ...

And also as gift... an annual subscription to obtain every week some service from Uleria temple

 

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On 8/15/2020 at 3:50 AM, MJ Sadique said:

Why only one ... ability extension for 10 AP extension cost 10POW with 9 taboo. I have rolls the taboo, I just have all pilgrimages to do, never use an axe (what for ? I'm shaman not zombie-hunter), and I must cast my spell with spirit-speech in singing (which will torture my enemies eardrums). It lessen the cost and give a real Shaman Vibe to your PC ...

GMs shouldn't be giving out non-meaningful (ie, trivial) taboos (well, occasionally...). 

Obvious "taboos" would be sacrificing a point of POW every X... Only/never eat the flesh of X... Things that are flavourful, meaningful, and make for interesting times... Not things that the player gets to handwave away are a minor annoyance or irrelevant.

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