sorcery headache: how do you counter steal breath?

[Brootse]

11 minutes ago, Jeff said:

OK so first, I'm assuming he's using Tap against humans, so that going to mark him as an outlaw by pretty much all other Malkioni. That means no allies, no cult support, nothing. If he is a Lhankor Mhy cultist, his temple is going to get plagued by angry wind spirits and maybe even get a visit from the local Orlanth Rex. The kin of his victims may complain - even if they are nonhumans like dark trolls, that is the sort of "evil magic" that might get you outlawed from your tribe or city.

It is the sort of spell that identifies you to everyone as an Evil Sorcerer - the sort of bad guy that adventurers get hired to kill.

What's the Aeolian view of using that spell?

[Jeff]

10 minutes ago, Brootse said:

What's the Aeolian view of using that spell?

Very very bad.

[David Scott]

On 12/9/2020 at 9:47 PM, coffeemancer said:

Our party sorcerer makes short work of many decently powerful enemies with steal breath in any fair fight. Or unfair for that matter.

How can I counter it without unfairly targeting his character?

This is exactly what Reputation is for. Using Steal Breath would start to ramp up their reputation (in the bad way), people will start recognising you for what what they've heard you do and acting accordingly.

Victims will use their Air rune to augment their POW vs POW roll, or use their Earth rune to augment their CONx5 roll.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by David Scott

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

This is exactly what Reputation is for. Using Steal Breath would start to ramp up their reputation (in the bad way), people will start recognising you for what what they've heard you do and acting accordingly.

Victims will use their Air rune to augment their POW vs POW roll, and use their Earth rune to augment their CONx5 roll.

 

Yep. In short, a sorcerer who runs around casting Tap spells willy-nilly is exactly the sort of "evil sorcerer" that everyone is willing to gang up on and get rid of.  Now casting that every once in a blue moon might be different......

[Psullie]

35 minutes ago, Jeff said:

once in a blue moon might be different

though Annilla may want a word with you. 😄

 

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, Brootse said:

What's the Aeolian view of using that spell?

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

Very very bad.

I suspect that the problem stems from the fact that this is not evident in the rules. I can kind of understand someone who looked at the spell list, thought that looks awesome in an rpg-murder-hobo-way and didn't see the down side of it. I can also see how that is very naive and how they should have foreseen that an entire kingdom of air-worshippers would take a dim view of it.

[coffeemancer]

14 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I suspect that the problem stems from the fact that this is not evident in the rules. I can kind of understand someone who looked at the spell list, thought that looks awesome in an rpg-murder-hobo-way and didn't see the down side of it. I can also see how that is very naive and how they should have foreseen that an entire kingdom of air-worshippers would take a dim view of it.

Makes a lot of sense to me as someone who knows some lore.

For the sorcerer-player who is entirely new to the world...

[PhilHibbs]

Getting back to the original problem - if he uses it on people, people that Orlanthi (assuming that's whom he is among) care even fractionally about, he's in trouble. If he uses it on monsters, not so much. "You took the air away from a Broo? Good on you, don't want that filth sucking in and tainting Umath's body!"

So you're not taking his toys away, he still has a powerful tool in the box (that you can moderate with countermagic and dispel and reflection), but you're limiting the times he gets to play with them and dominate the whole game.

One time in my RQ3 game, the party sorcerer used Multispell Venom 1 against a big tough monster figuring that they would fail to overcome its huge CON anyway so might as well just go for a bunch of single points. Unfortunately the big bad had "reflects 1 point spells" as a chaotic ability.. Resurrection, please!

Edited December 11, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Rodney Dangerduck]

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

Victims will use their Air rune to augment their POW vs POW roll, and use their Earth rune to augment their CONx5 roll

They can't do both.  At least how we understand the rules.  Can only use one Rune or Passion per "scene".  Nor is it clear that Air is useful in POW vs. POW, that would be Moon.  (Or Sing, Dance, etc...)

Still, the idea that opponents would try extra hard againt "that evil tapper" is true.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Lordabdul]

9 hours ago, Jeff said:

If he is a Lhankor Mhy cultist, his temple is going to get plagued by angry wind spirits.

Being marked as an outlaw by Malkioni factions and getting an angry visit from Orlanth Rex thanes who heard complaints from their constituents makes sense to me (because these are humans following their societal taboos). But what is the rationale behind angry wind spirits getting involved? Is it because these would be ghosts and cult spirits that also do follow these same traditional taboos? Does that mean the Lightbringer cults (or Lhankor Mhy specifically) also have a specific rule against tapping? (not just Malkioni schools?)

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I suspect that the problem stems from the fact that this is not evident in the rules. I can kind of understand someone who looked at the spell list, thought that looks awesome in an rpg-murder-hobo-way and didn't see the down side of it. I can also see how that is very naive and how they should have foreseen that an entire kingdom of air-worshippers would take a dim view of it.

It doesn't even need to be looked at in an RPG-murder-hoboy-way... it's right there in the spell list, and just looks like any other offensive spell. There are no caveats about using the Tap technique either that I can see in the rulebook, so one would have to read the Guide or something to learn about that. In fact, the example of learning a new technique on p384 shows a character learning Tap!

Without knowing about the taboo around tapping, common sense would dictate that if it's ok to hit someone with an axe, then it's also ok to attack them with sorcery spells, be they fireballs or asphyxiation.

But the OP was about the sorcerer making combats too easy, so the social ramifications of using Steal Breath wouldn't help if the problem was that the party goes through Chaos monsters too fast. It does occur to me however that Stealing Breath from a Broo may be a bad idea... you're drawing the creature's breath into you to convert into magic points, but that breath is full of nasty stuff. A mean GM may ask the sorcerer to roll against some disease, with varying difficulty based on how much foul smelly breath the sorcerer absorbed....

[Richard S.]

3 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Being marked as an outlaw by Malkioni factions and getting an angry visit from Orlanth Rex thanes who heard complaints from their constituents makes sense to me (because these are humans following their societal taboos). But what is the rationale behind angry wind spirits getting involved? Is it because these would be ghosts and cult spirits that also do follow these same traditional taboos? Does that mean the Lightbringer cults (or Lhankor Mhy specifically) also have a specific rule against tapping? (not just Malkioni schools?)

Angry wind spirits are getting involved because you're busy sucking up their homes/friends and turning them into magic juice. Nothing to do with taboos or cultures, they just don't like you. It may also have something to do with the fact that LM is friends with Orlanth and you, by destroying the air using LM's knowledge, are violating that friendship.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Richard S.

[Kloster]

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I suspect that the problem stems from the fact that this is not evident in the rules. I can kind of understand someone who looked at the spell list, thought that looks awesome in an rpg-murder-hobo-way and didn't see the down side of it.

I completely agree here. Nothing in the rules gives the smallest info about that, even for somebody that is not a murder hobo.

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I can also see how that is very naive and how they should have foreseen that an entire kingdom of air-worshippers would take a dim view of it.

Even if not being naive.

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Getting back to the original problem - if he uses it on people, people that Orlanthi (assuming that's whom he is among) care even fractionally about, he's in trouble. If he uses it on monsters, not so much. "You took the air away from a Broo? Good on you, don't want that filth sucking in and tainting Umath's body!"

Completely agree here. In fact, this is the very reason my character took it (in addition to my taste for the extra MP).

6 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

For the sorcerer-player who is entirely new to the world...

Just see above answer. I am playing RQ since '84, so am not really a newbie. But if something presented in the rules is supposed to be problematic or to be restricted to a restricted category for such or such reason, this HAS to be written in the rules.

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

One time in my RQ3 game, the party sorcerer used Multispell Venom 1 against a big tough monster figuring that they would fail to overcome its huge CON anyway so might as well just go for a bunch of single points. Unfortunately the big bad had "reflects 1 point spells" as a chaotic ability.. Resurrection, please!

Good.

2 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Can only use one Rune or Passion per "scene". 

I understand that a single rune can only be used once, not that you can only use one rune. Maybe I am wrong.

2 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Nor is it clear that Air is useful in POW vs. POW, that would be Moon.  (Or Sing, Dance, etc...)

Agreed, it should be Moon rune.

39 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

It doesn't even need to be looked at in an RPG-murder-hoboy-way... it's right there in the spell list, and just looks like any other offensive spell. There are no caveats about using the Tap technique either that I can see in the rulebook, so one would have to read the Guide or something to learn about that. In fact, the example of learning a new technique on p384 shows a character learning Tap!

Without knowing about the taboo around tapping, common sense would dictate that if it's ok to hit someone with an axe, then it's also ok to attack them with sorcery spells, be they fireballs or asphyxiation.

Exactly my point.

40 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

It does occur to me however that Stealing Breath from a Broo may be a bad idea... you're drawing the creature's breath into you to convert into magic points, but that breath is full of nasty stuff.

Even with the spell name, you are only destroying (ok , tapping) the air in and around him, making him unable to breath, because there is no more air. I agree your reading is as valid as mine.

 

[Lordabdul]

41 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Even with the spell name, you are only destroying (ok , tapping) the air in and around him, making him unable to breath, because there is no more air. I agree your reading is as valid as mine.

If 2020 told us anything, it's that the air immediately around a disease-carrying individual is full of bad stuff... 😷  but yes, I'm just coming up with artificial consequences only to nerf someone's spell... still, now that it's out there, that I kinda like that idea.

  

1 hour ago, Richard S. said:

Angry wind spirits are getting involved because you're busy sucking up their homes/friends and turning them into magic juice.

Yep make sense, thanks!

 

Edited December 11, 2020 by lordabdul

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

But what is the rationale behind angry wind spirits getting involved?

Steal Breath (aka Tap Air) - destroys the air, therefore you are killing/obliterating wind spirits by your action.  All their kin will turn against you too.

[Lordabdul]

 

On 12/10/2020 at 7:51 AM, Joerg said:

I guess I would not allow the sorcerer to take a break from Tapping. Once his concentration falters or the target leaves the targeting perception, the conversion of air to MP stops. The spell still goes on in the passive mode that allows the sorcerer to keep those MP available.

I'm not sure where you're reading that? Steal Breath is an Active spell. If the caster loses their concentration, wants to move faster, or needs to deal with an enemy coming into contact with them, the spell is gone. What is this "going on in passive mode" thing?

For me, if an NPC suddenly can't breathe and sees a bearded weirdo gesticulating in their direction, the solution is for them to hold their breath for a round or two while running in the sorcerer's direction. They don't suffocate in the first round, actually, so casting Mobility and getting into melee in one round might be possible!  Maybe throw an axe or fire an arrow in their direction in the hope that it will break their concentration, for good measure. Or count on the other NPCs to charge the sorcerer who, in turn, will have to count on the other PCs to form a line of defense if the spell needs to be maintained. Of course, such a line of defense adds distance between the sorcerer and the NPCs, so that would potentially require moving some MPs away from Strength/Duration and into Range.  The last option is for the NPC to hold their breath and go hide -- breaking line of sight prevents the sorcerer from maintaining the spell too.

 

On 12/10/2020 at 9:20 AM, HreshtIronBorne said:

I am not sure if this is an artifact of an old copy of the pdf or what but my descriptions for Dispel Magic (Spirit) and Dismiss Magic (Rune) each interact with sorcery differently. 

Oh good catch, yeah. It looks like Rune Magic can brush away sorcerous spells a lot more easily than Spirit Magic.  However this is contradicted by the boxed text on p260 which says that "Dismiss Magic works the same way but is twice as powerful", and where all the sorcery-related vocabulary uses "intensity" and not "strength".

 

On 12/10/2020 at 12:32 PM, Kloster said:

- Don't count too much on the concentration roll. My character rolled 16 for INT. I added 2 of the 3 extra points, plus a major in fire rune. With a total of 20, the concentration roll is 60%, sufficiently high to success at least 1 or 2 rounds.

Yeah but asphyxiation starts at CONx5 on the next round. The NPC will most likely be fine for about the same number of rounds as the sorcerer, maybe one more round, even.

Edited December 11, 2020 by lordabdul

[Joerg]

15 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

 

I'm not sure where you're reading that? Steal Breath is an Active spell. If the caster loses their concentration, wants to move faster, or needs to deal with an enemy coming into contact with them, the spell is gone. What is this "going on in passive mode" thing?

Passive mode is holding on to all those misappropriated MP until Duration runs out. That part of the spell is not active. You don't have to succeed in concentration rolls to keep your stolen MP.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

I understand that a single rune can only be used once, not that you can only use one rune. Maybe I am wrong.

The rules are a bit scattered and challenging to gather together - (hint to Chaosium) it could be useful to collate them into a single sheet or so.  Using a Rune or Passion is "inspiration", and has the advantage of lasting longer than a "mere" skill augment.  But, there are restrictions as well: page 229

"Only one attempt at inspiration can be made in a situation—such as the duration of a combat, battle, assembly
meeting, magical ritual, etc.
....
If the adventurer has already rolled to be inspired by a Rune or Passion during the situation at hand, they cannot
try to be inspired again, even by a different Rune or Passion."

So one could use Moon to resist the evil tapper in the first encounter.  If you then meet his evil twin in a second encounter that session, you cannot use Moon again (see below), but could use Earth or Hate Vile Tapper or whatever.

page 229:

"Finally, once a Rune is successfully used for inspiration, it cannot be used again that session"

 

Note, many GMs are more relaxed on this, YGMV.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Rodney Dangerduck

[HreshtIronBorne]

39 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Oh good catch, yeah. It looks like Rune Magic can brush away sorcerous spells a lot more easily than Spirit Magic.  However this is contradicted by the boxed text on p260 which says that "Dismiss Magic works the same way but is twice as powerful", and where all the sorcery-related vocabulary uses "intensity" and not "strength".

Well, taking the general use of Intensity in most cases sorcery is brought up to indicate intent works just fine for me. I think making all the interactions similar keeps it simple and moves the game forward. Sorcery does therefore have the immense advantage of basically smashing most Countermagic effects from all but the most powerful Rune-lords, Priests, or Shaman. You'd have to dedicate a lot of resources and/or preperation to even find a Countermagic 7 or higher, in Gloranthas I have played in anyway. 

[Lordabdul]

36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Passive mode is holding on to all those misappropriated MP until Duration runs out. That part of the spell is not active. You don't have to succeed in concentration rolls to keep your stolen MP.

Ah I see. Mmmh...  my reading is that you actually keep these (mis)appropriated MPs for as long as you want. It's the points that are over your total MP that disappear when Steal Breath has expired (or is interrupted, depending on how you interpret "duration"). So my understanding is that if you have a total of 16 MPs but you're currently down to 9 MPs, and you suck in 10 MPs from someone, you have 19 MPs until the spell goes away. Then you're at 16 MPs for a few hours during which you're not resting (maybe you're hiking back to town or something). These 16 MPs are made of 9 "normal" MPs and 7 "stolen" MPs. Eventually, you sit down and rest, so the 9 MPs start going up, pushing the stolen MPs out -- your total stays 16 MPs. But if somehow Steal Breath was still active, you could go all the way up to 26 MPs (your regular recovered 16 MPs + your 10 stolen MPs still held tight).

So an evil wizard could keep a bunch of prisoners chained to the wall outside his tower, cast a 1-day duration Steal Breath, and repeatedly asphyxiate these poor victims, letting them breathe again every few rounds by moving the "air sucking" volume away from their heads and back again[1]. He would accumulate large amounts of MPs that he can hold onto for the rest of the day, and then work his evil magics.  Maybe that's for the munchkinery thread?   (Edit: Steal Breath has been already mentioned and productively abused on that thread of course!)

[1] note that you don't need to asphyxiate anybody, the spell would would work even on empty air, but it's more fun that way no?

Edited December 11, 2020 by lordabdul

[Jeff]

In retrospect, I clearly gave people too many tools with sorcery in the core rules. With the next edition, I'll strip out every spell except those likely to be found at a Lhankor Mhy temple (Enhance INT, Identify Otherworld Entity, Geomancy, Logical Clarity, Logician, Reveal Rune, Solace of the Logical Mind, Speak to Mind, and Total Recall). As the rules say on page 389, the Lhankor Mhy cult teaches a LIMITED number of sorcery spells and not every temple possesses all of those spells. 

Also it seems it is clearly too much to assume that people can figure out that a sorcery spell that kills people through asphyxiation is going to be viewed as evil by most people.

[Martin]

I read all this and would make a comment that the issue is less about the rules and more about the nature of those using them in games (the players ) as people, or about those of those who use them in world (characters and NPCS)...

This enforces one of the fundamental themes of RPGS amd in many respects humans interactions with myth and experiences of the cosmos in  which we as humans inhabit and atempt to understand....

For example in realtion to the Steal breath...ask yourelf and your players and their characters ......a "bad" guy has prisoners and is "evil"...

so is it "evil" to use Steal Breath or some other Tap style spell to kill him and rescue the prisoners? 

The answer is never going to be clear cut and as Jeff says "most" people would think of it as evil. 

The issue i am making here is its all about the  "worldview" of us as humans and how we enact that in RPGs and in our lives...are we objective in our ontology and epsistemology or is everything subjective ....do we try and catergize and have a black and white perespective? or do we accept the subjective nature of the cosmos?

Edited December 12, 2020 by Martin

[David Scott]

16 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

They can't do both.  At least how we understand the rules.  Can only use one Rune or Passion per "scene". 

Yes, should be an or not an and. (corrected).

Quote

Nor is it clear that Air is useful in POW vs. POW, that would be Moon.  (Or Sing, Dance, etc...)

Why wouldn't Air be useful in resisting having it sucked out of your body. You can use any rune as long as the GM agrees. The associations in the Adventurer chapter are just that - associations, but not the only ones. The idea of using the Moon rune to resist suffocation is hilarious given the conflict between the two runes. Th best way to use the associations lists is a starting point. Any that players come up with in game that gel with situation are great.

 

 

[Rodney Dangerduck]

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

Why wouldn't Air be useful in resisting having it sucked out of your body

If you use that logic then Air can be used to augment most anything.

My arrow flies through the air.

My singing is heard through the air.

I jump through the air.

We prefer to be fairly strict on element runes.  Your GM may vary.

[Brootse]

9 hours ago, Jeff said:

In retrospect, I clearly gave people too many tools with sorcery in the core rules. With the next edition, I'll strip out every spell except those likely to be found at a Lhankor Mhy temple (Enhance INT, Identify Otherworld Entity, Geomancy, Logical Clarity, Logician, Reveal Rune, Solace of the Logical Mind, Speak to Mind, and Total Recall). As the rules say on page 389, the Lhankor Mhy cult teaches a LIMITED number of sorcery spells and not every temple possesses all of those spells. 

Also it seems it is clearly too much to assume that people can figure out that a sorcery spell that kills people through asphyxiation is going to be viewed as evil by most people.

Is it viewed to be more evil than killing people with Disruption spells?

[Hteph]

9 hours ago, Jeff said:

In retrospect, I clearly gave people too many tools with sorcery in the core rules. With the next edition, I'll strip out every spell except those likely to be found at a Lhankor Mhy temple (Enhance INT, Identify Otherworld Entity, Geomancy, Logical Clarity, Logician, Reveal Rune, Solace of the Logical Mind, Speak to Mind, and Total Recall). As the rules say on page 389, the Lhankor Mhy cult teaches a LIMITED number of sorcery spells and not every temple possesses all of those spells. 

Also it seems it is clearly too much to assume that people can figure out that a sorcery spell that kills people through asphyxiation is going to be viewed as evil by most people.

The danger with players is that they will use everything that is not explicitly restricted. I was suprised by the inclusion of Sorcery in LM (that was a HW thing to me) and more so at the choice of spells, but saw that mostly as a thing for the GM’s evil NPCs (all sorcerous things are evil). Pruning it may be good, especially when “the elusive tome of sorcery and Malkionism” is conjured into existence.