Questions about Vamargic Eye Necklace

[Sumath]

*Spoilers for Smoking Ruin*

Vamargic has a POW of 0. How does he cast Protection 6? 

Also the dragonewt eye on his necklace has no POW listed - at what percentage does it cast Disruption, and what should be used to overcome target's POW?

I'm running the second session of this scenario tomorrow night, so suggestions welcome.

[Ryan Kent]

Does he have an allied spirit?

[Psullie]

1 hour ago, Sumath said:

*Spoilers for Smoking Ruin*

Vamargic has a POW of 0. How does he cast Protection 6? 

Does he not drain them from the Necklace, which has 40MP

1 hour ago, Sumath said:

Also the dragonewt eye on his necklace has no POW listed - at what percentage does it cast Disruption, and what should be used to overcome target's POW?

I'm running the second session of this scenario tomorrow night, so suggestions welcome.

I'd use his Zorak Zoran Passion rating as the artefact is dedicated to the Troll god

[Sumath]

1 minute ago, Psullie said:

Does he not drain them from the Necklace, which has 40MP

It's more the casting percentage I was thinking of, as he has no POW x 5 to utilize.

2 minutes ago, Psullie said:

I'd use his Zorak Zoran Passion rating as the artefact is dedicated to the Troll god

That's not a bad shout. Thanks.

[Akhôrahil]

On 11/17/2020 at 9:15 PM, Sumath said:

Vamargic has a POW of 0. How does he cast Protection 6? 

This seems like an outright error. For instance, the Bestiary says about Vampires, "Since vampires have no POW, they cannot cast spirit magic spells".

[Akhôrahil]

It's also unclear why he should have Spirit Combat Damage 2d6+3 when the rules would say 1d6 from a Cha of 18.

[soltakss]

13 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

It's also unclear why he should have Spirit Combat Damage 2d6+3 when the rules would say 1d6 from a Cha of 18.

I am currently not allowed to read Smoking Ruin, but I guess it is based on MPs instead of POW.

Sometimes, NPCs in scenarios do not always follow the rules exactly. This really annoys some people and confuses others, but I just assume that there is a hidden reason that has not been shared and move on.

[Akhôrahil]

46 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I am currently not allowed to read Smoking Ruin, but I guess it is based on MPs instead of POW.

Sometimes, NPCs in scenarios do not always follow the rules exactly. This really annoys some people and confuses others, but I just assume that there is a hidden reason that has not been shared and move on.

Yeah, I’m not calling this an error, merely unexplained. He also has extra DB outside of what Str and Siz would indicate, explained by just how angry he is.

[Lordabdul]

 

7 hours ago, soltakss said:

I just assume that there is a hidden reason that has not been shared and move on.

Kinda hard to move on when the GM doesn't know what to roll 

What I'd do is give Protection 6 to one of the eyes on the necklace, or add an extra eye (maybe he has two troll eyes?). So he orders that spirit to cast Protection. No need to bend the rules.

As for the necklace spirits not having POW listed, I assume it's missing information that wasn't caught in the editorial phase. Again, no need to bend the rules, I would just assign the species' average POW (or roll it) for each spirit.

[soltakss]

17 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Kinda hard to move on when the GM doesn't know what to roll 

If it says Spirit Combat Damage 2d6+3 then the GM knows exactly what needs to be rolled.

However, I see your point that it doesn't match the rules so there is a disconnect.

I come at it from the position that I have RQ2, RQ3, MRQI, MRQII, RQ6, Mythras, Legend, OpenQuest, Renaissance, Revolution and more RQ-like games running around in my head and if I run a scenario written for any of those then I have to make far more mental gymnastics than checking Spirit Combat damage.

[Akhôrahil]

18 hours ago, lordabdul said:

As for the necklace spirits not having POW listed, I assume it's missing information that wasn't caught in the editorial phase. Again, no need to bend the rules, I would just assign the species' average POW (or roll it) for each spirit.

Or just assume that they have a POW equal to the MP.

[Lordabdul]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

If it says Spirit Combat Damage 2d6+3 then the GM knows exactly what needs to be rolled.

I meant the roll to cast Protection.

Arguably, many GMs might just skip the rolls and rule that Vamargic succeeds... same thing for the necklace spirits casting spells. It may not be interesting to have him fail.

Edited November 22, 2020 by lordabdul

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Or just assume that they have a POW equal to the MP.

That’s assuming they are all at their full MP, which doesn’t seem to be the case: a couple of those spirits have 3MPs only (pretty much their species’ minimum if we used that for POW). And a 15% chance of casting a spell doesn’t sound fun. I think Vamargic should be more dangerous than that.

Edited November 22, 2020 by lordabdul

[Akhôrahil]

49 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

That’s assuming they are all at their full MP, which doesn’t seem to be the case: a couple of those spirits have 3MPs only (pretty much their species’ minimum if we used that for POW). And a 15% chance of casting a spell doesn’t sound fun. I think Vamargic should be more dangerous than that.

Don’t bound spirits regenerate MPs normally, though? Why would they be this low in that case?

[Lordabdul]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Don’t bound spirits regenerate MPs normally, though? Why would they be this low in that case?

No idea!  

I'm not even sure that MP regeneration for spirits is spelled out in the rulebook... at least I can't find it after a quick 2 minute search through the rulebook and bestiary PDF.  The only vaguely relevant mention I found is that a shaman's fetch regenerates MPs at the same rate as the shaman, but neither the shaman nor the fetch regenerate while the shaman is discorporate, so....

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

No idea!  

I'm not even sure that MP regeneration for spirits is spelled out in the rulebook... at least I can't find it after a quick 2 minute search through the rulebook and bestiary PDF.  The only vaguely relevant mention I found is that a shaman's fetch regenerates MPs at the same rate as the shaman, but neither the shaman nor the fetch regenerate while the shaman is discorporate, so....

If they don’t, then allied and bound spirits will be a lot less useful!

Although it would kinda work out if you have to feed at least these spirits MP, which would be easy for the non-Undead but not so much here...

[soltakss]

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Don’t bound spirits regenerate MPs normally, though? Why would they be this low in that case?

RuneQuest Glorantha p 396 says:

Quote

Magic points stored in enchanted items do not regenerate on their own (they have no characteristic POW)

RuneQuest Glorantha p356 says:

Quote

The fetch’s magic points regenerate at the normal rate, in parallel with the shaman’s. If the fetch’s POW is 12, for example, it regains 1 magic point every two hours

RuneQuest Glorantha p358 says:

Quote

This additional POW regenerates magic points at the same rate as the shaman’s own magic point regeneration.

So, fetches and shamanic stored POW regenerate Magic Points but enchantments containing magic points don't because they don't have POW.

A reasonable extrapolation is that Bound spirits have POW and so regenerate Magic Points. They did in RQ2 and RQ3, so why not in RQG?

[Akhôrahil]

“Magic points stored in enchanted items do not regenerate on their own (they have no characteristic POW)”

True, but this might be about MP crystals and matrices more than bound spirits. Not sure. But a bound spirit does have POW.

On the third hand (thanks, Pocharngo!) the magic item in question has no listed POW, which in that case would explain why it doesn’t regenerate MPs...

Edited November 22, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Lordabdul]

30 minutes ago, soltakss said:

A reasonable extrapolation is that Bound spirits have POW and so regenerate Magic Points. They did in RQ2 and RQ3, so why not in RQG?

I assume they indeed regenerate MPs. It's not mentioned at what rate, however. Using the mortal characters' rate makes sense as a baseline, but I wouldn't be surprised if spirits had a bit more variation there, especially those that can receive worship.

I went looking for the same information in RQ2, thinking that might give me a lead for something I might have missed in RQG, but I don't see any rules either there? It's harder to find in RQ2 though since instead of looking for "magic points" I have to look for POW and that obviously lights up the entire PDF document. Do you have an actual page reference for this?

21 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

True, but this might be about MP crystals and matrices more than bound spirits. Not sure.

Yes, the relevant quote is from the various forms of the Magic Point Enchantment, so it doesn't apply to spirits.

Edited November 22, 2020 by lordabdul

[Stephen L]

On 11/17/2020 at 8:15 PM, Sumath said:

at what percentage does it cast Disruption, and what should be used to overcome target's POW?

I've had a similar issue recently, where creatures have no POW, and I've used a suitable Rune as a substitute, so I'd agree with Psullie.  

What would people do about resisting spells, in general for creatures without POW?

In general, I'd have no resistance.  But Vampires I'd use their MP.

[soltakss]

18 hours ago, lordabdul said:

19 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

True, but this might be about MP crystals and matrices more than bound spirits. Not sure.

Yes, the relevant quote is from the various forms of the Magic Point Enchantment, so it doesn't apply to spirits.

But it does mention that MP enchantments don't regenerate as they don't have POW, implying that Bound Spirits can regenerate as they have POW.

18 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I assume they indeed regenerate MPs. It's not mentioned at what rate, however. Using the mortal characters' rate makes sense as a baseline, but I wouldn't be surprised if spirits had a bit more variation there, especially those that can receive worship.

I just assume it's at the same rate, 1/24th per hour. So, a POW 12 Spirit regenerates 1 MP every 2 hours. Why make it more difficult?

[Lordabdul]

40 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Why make it more difficult?

Not more difficult, sorry. I meant that it's a good baseline/rule of thumb for this case, but that spirits being spirits (i.e: weird and diverse), the GM should feel free to come up with other regeneration rules for other spirits elsewhere. So for instance I could imagine a naiad recovering MPs much faster whenever a group of fishermen come around and do their usual little worship rites before pushing the boat into the water.

Did you have a reference for spirit MP regen in RQ2 by the way?

[soltakss]

On 11/23/2020 at 7:24 PM, lordabdul said:

Did you have a reference for spirit MP regen in RQ2 by the way?

No 😥

[Kloster]

On 11/23/2020 at 8:24 PM, lordabdul said:

Did you have a reference for spirit MP regen in RQ2 by the way?

In both RQ3 (Magic book p57) and RQG (p250), a bound creature can not regain Hit Points, but nothing is said about MP, So, for me, the normal rule (i.e. 1/24th of total MP per hour) should apply.

[Akhôrahil]

I have this idea that spirits on the Spirit Plane will have a much worse MP regeneration, similar to how they have a really poor POW gain. That way, having MPs sacrificed to them actually matters. It makes sense that the Material Plane is much better for MP regeneration.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Akhôrahil