Countermagic vs Sorcery

[PhilHibbs]

I agree with the recent, deleted, question on the Q&A thread.

The older Q&A here (search "sorcery") says:

Quote

Countermagic & Sorcery

How do you calculate the intensity of a Sorcery spell for the purposes of countermagic? As far as I can figure, the total intensity is 1 + the levels of intensity purchased, is that right?

That’s correct. 

In RQ3, "Intensity" referred to a portion of the spell, the portion that increases the core effect of the spell. RQG calls this "Strength". "Intensity" is now the total of all the manipulations plus the base 1 point.

The contention is that the rule paraphrased as "Countermagic is matched against the Intensity" has been carried over, which now means that the total of all the manipulations is used, rather than just the manipulation that makes the spell more potent.

Personally I'm going to house rule it that the Strength component is matched against the Countermagic or Dispel, not the total Intensity.

[Joerg]

This also creates a bit of a problem as Boosting a spell adds to its Strength (for penetration purposes, not for dispelling purposes) but not to its Intensity. (Not that sorcery spells aren't already fat with MP anyway... after all, they act as an independent entity whose MP are used for the purpose of overcoming a target's POW.)

[PhilHibbs]

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

This also creates a bit of a problem as Boosting a spell adds to its Strength (for penetration purposes, not for dispelling purposes) but not to its Intensity. 

Where does it say that? The section "Boosting Spells" in Sorcery does not mention either.

[PhilHibbs]

It's also interesting to note that each of the manipulations is referred to as "intensity".

Nowhere in the rules (CMIIW) does it mention adding up the intensity components of a sorcery spell to get a "total intensity". The manipulation limit on Free INT just limits the points added, the base 1 point in all three does not contribute to this. The rule that the base spell counts for 1 intensity even though each of the three components all have a base intensity of 1 (potentially implying a base spell intensity of 3) is never mentioned either.

[Brootse]

So does the countermagic oppose the biggest intensity of the spell?

[PhilHibbs]

22 minutes ago, Brootse said:

So does the countermagic oppose the biggest intensity of the spell?

It could be interpreted that way, I suppose. I think would not, but it does sound interesting. I think Strength is simpler.

Edited December 15, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[PhilHibbs]

Attract Magic (p.391) says this:

Quote

Match the Attract Magic spell’s strength vs. the intensity
of a valid spell on the resistance table.

So here we have a similar question, what is "the intensity" of the other spell?

1. Sum of all the intensities
2. The sum of all the intensities except for the base 1 point in each that is only counted once
3. The strength intensity
4. The highest intensity

 

[Psullie]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

for penetration purposes, not for dispelling purposes

I believe that this has been corrected, you can boost to make spells more difficult to dispel

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-players-book-print/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-11-magic/

"Casting Sword Trance boosted with 5 magic points for +50%,  at the same time you could boost it with an extra 3 magic points.

Using Dismiss Magic as an example, each point of Dismiss Magic cancels 2 points of spirit magic Rune Magic or sorcery, or 1 point of Rune magic. so Dismiss Magic would need 3 rune points (2 points cancels the boost, 1 point cancels the rune spell 1 point, 2+1=3 Rune points.) Without the 3 point boost it would cost only 1 rune point to dismiss."

emphasis mine

[PhilHibbs]

22 hours ago, Psullie said:

I believe that this has been corrected, you can boost to make spells more difficult to dispel.

That's a clarification that I will not be using. I and other GMs that I've played with have considered it in the past, in prior editions, and always thought that it didn't make any sense. If you want a spell to persist, you have to have a big version of it.

Although my avatar thinks that a shaman, casting Befuddle with 30 extra MP, and using their shamanic spell extension power to keep it going, would be hilarious. Or Sleep, or Hotfoot, plenty of choices.

Let that sink in for a moment, and you will realise why this could be a bad idea. That spell now takes Dismiss Magic 15 to get rid of. You got more MP available? I've played in games where an individual character could amass 100 MP if the party pooled their treasures. Of course you could say that the ranged spell drops when the target goes out of range of the caster. I'm not sure how I would rule that, I don't want to be mean and say "sorry, that Mobility spell on your friend drops as soon as he runs out of range".

Edited December 16, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[HreshtIronBorne]

Wouldn't it just take a refular dispel plus MP? Or does the boosting mp suddenly become spell strength once you boost a Hotfoot or sleep?

[Psullie]

41 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Wouldn't it just take a refular dispel plus MP? Or does the boosting mp suddenly become spell strength once you boost a Hotfoot or sleep?

Yes I believe so, you would just boost with your MPs or RPs to overcome theirs.

[PhilHibbs]

21 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Wouldn't it just take a regular dispel plus MP? Or does the boosting mp suddenly become spell strength once you boost a Hotfoot or sleep?

Why would DIspel Magic be variable, if you could dispel anything by casting Dispel Magic 1 and boosting it with MPs? Or are you suggesting that the actual points of Dispel Magic has to match the actual points in the spell, but the boosting MPs can be dispelled by boosting the dispel with extra MPs? That would be inventing a new rule that isn't in the core rules, but then again so is boosting to prevent dispelling in the first place. So maybe.

[French Desperate WindChild]

To escape this kind of issue, I consider than boosting with MP is an "immediate" effect to determine if you gain or not the spell effect (overcoming the passive defense) . And that's all.  This boosted MP are lost and not "IN" the spell for any further challenge

so a dispel Magic 2 will dispell a confusion spell, even if it was boosted by 10 MP

Another possibility could be to add this rule about (boosted versus boosted) as just said

but if you need to know a spell level 20 to dispel a level 1 but boosted, it is just unfair