Out now: The Red Book of Magic, the ultimate guide to magic in RuneQuest

[PhilHibbs]

3 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Actually, I am confused again. I thought it was clarified that when casting a "One-Use" spell you loses the RP (they do note replenish) but kept the knowledge of the spell (you do not have to resacrifice to learn it again). The section does not explicitly said that you lose the knowledge of the spell when you cast it but the last two bullet points strongly imply it (otherwise, why mention it for these two cases specifically).  

Err, yeah. The new description is odd. Three of the four outcomes - fail, fumble, and critical - explicitly say that you don't lose the knowledge of the spell. The other, for success, says you lose the RP but it is silent on whether or not you lose knowledge of the spell! It doesn't say that you lose it... but the others all explicitly say you don't.

[Hteph]

12 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

That one is correct!

Yeah I must have misunderstood something, because it looks fine when I get further in to the book, so pay no attention to me, I sit here in the corner wearing a “dumstrut” (whatever that is called in english)...

[DreadDomain]

8 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Err, yeah. The new description is odd. Three of the four outcomes - fail, fumble, and critical - explicitly say that you don't lose the knowledge of the spell. The other, for success, says you lose the RP but it is silent on whether or not you lose knowledge of the spell! It doesn't say that you lose it... but the others all explicitly say you don't.

It's only Fumble and Critical. Fails says "... and the spell is not cast". Still make the description a bit odd. The paragraph should simply say if the spell is lost or not.

[Hteph]

So far the only thing I found is that I would really really change “Bat Wing” into “Wings of the Bat” as it is a very specific pair of wings and not to be mixed with any bat hsunchen and similar...

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

59 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Actually, I am confused again. I thought it was clarified that when casting a "One-Use" spell you loses the RP (they do note replenish) but kept the knowledge of the spell (you do not have to resacrifice to learn it again). The section does not explicitly said that you lose the knowledge of the spell when you cast it but the last two bullet points strongly imply it (otherwise, why mention it for these two cases specifically).  

Actually you’re right I skim read and saw the bullet point on fumbles and thought it had been sorted. The bullet point on critical suggests that you could potentially lose the spell as well as the rune points. 
 

The ambiguity remains.

[Chromatism]

1 hour ago, Hteph said:

So far the only thing I found is that I would really really change “Bat Wing” into “Wings of the Bat” as it is a very specific pair of wings and not to be mixed with any bat hsunchen and similar...

Clearly when the God Learners were divining the future they approached the Cult of the Crimson Bat with a soupcon of snootiness. Not so unexpected really... They probably even thought they'd have the last laugh.

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Err, yeah. The new description is odd. Three of the four outcomes - fail, fumble, and critical - explicitly say that you don't lose the knowledge of the spell. The other, for success, says you lose the RP but it is silent on whether or not you lose knowledge of the spell! It doesn't say that you lose it... but the others all explicitly say you don't.

Thanks I was just trying to articulate that. Maybe copy and paste this in the corrections thread? 

[Gallowglass]

This might be better for the corrections thread, but I noticed that the rune spell Fleetfoot does the same thing as the spirit magic spell Mobility, minus the strike rank decrease. So this would make Fleetfoot kind of obsolete. Was this intentional?

[PhilHibbs]

For no good reason, here's a complete list of all the spells with their runes cross referenced and counted. You want to know how many spells can be cast with Darkness? I got you covered. (it's the biggest number)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wxSvlDR_FnEuboJ4Mso57ULC6WDTMFNAQU8gHrsUyOE/edit?usp=sharing

Also just for fun I categorised each spell as offensive, defensive, and/or utility and summed them up as well. You want to know how many offensive spells Harmony has? It's 7 (by my entirely subjective judgement).

Edited December 18, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[PhilHibbs]

Oooh I'm wrong about one-use spells.

You dedicate the RP to the spell when you learn it.

You want to cast Breathe Life Into Art? When you learn the spell, you sacrifice a point of POW and that one RP is only usable for that one spell. You can sacrifice for it multiple times, although there is at least one spell that forbids this in the description.

You want to cast Awaken Loon? I guess you have to sacrifice all 5 points of POW at the ceremony to learn it. Guess you aren't a priest any more, huh? Unless you have, say, a Rune Point pool of 10, you learn Awaken Loon, maybe spend 1 POW to go to 11, and now 5 of those points are dedicated to Awaken Loon giving you 6 to spend on other spells.

[jajagappa]

25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

here's a complete list of all the spells with their runes cross referenced and counted.

Looks like the best bet on your Power/Form runes:  be the Harmonious Beast of Death! 😉

 

[PhilHibbs]

1 minute ago, jajagappa said:

Looks like the best bet on your Power/Form runes:  be the Harmonious Beast of Death! 😉

You're such a munchkin!

[PhilHibbs]

20 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

You want to cast Awaken Loon? I guess you have to sacrifice all 5 points of POW at the ceremony to learn it. Guess you aren't a priest any more, huh? Unless you have, say, a Rune Point pool of 10, you learn Awaken Loon, maybe spend 1 POW to go to 11, and now 5 of those points are dedicated to Awaken Loon giving you 6 to spend on other spells.

Aah, I'm also wrong here, The Well says that you could dedicate the RP to a one-use spell when you regain them at a worship.

Doesn't seem to make sense for the spells that say "This can be cast as a One-Use spell to do x y z".

[jajagappa]

25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

You're such a munchkin!

That's Harrek, of course, after he's eaten Jar-eel's heart.

[PhilHibbs]

1 minute ago, jajagappa said:

That's Harrek, of course, after he's eaten Jar-eel's heart.

It's not like he needs the "1D3 STR per 6 full points of STR the victim possessed in life" (Devour Foe, RBoM p.42), but maybe. Shame the pineal gland is so hard to find, POW has got to be her best stat.

[Joerg]

8 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

That's Harrek, of course, after he's eaten Jar-eel's heart.

He is wearing it as a jewel - making the wearer of the bear fur a prime target for audacious pickpockets. Failure and even success is likely to result in painful death.

[Crel]

I wrote another "first impressions" article, in case anyone's still on the fence about Ye Olde Mountain of Spells.

[Psullie]

I agree that the rounding out of other cult's magic is great, especially for GM's who to make their NPC's more developed, and the art is fantastic! the Fox Woman on p119 is one of my favourites 

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, Crel said:

I wrote another "first impressions" article, in case anyone's still on the fence about Ye Olde Mountain of Spells.

I thought this was a really good and useful point for any GM! 🙂

So you’re new-ish to RuneQuest and Glorantha, you don’t know anything outside the corerulebook (or the slipcase set), and you want to make use of this book. What do you do?

Here’s what I suggest: make up your own cults. Pick an Elemental Rune and a Power or Form Rune, and choose three spells each associated with those cults. Then, mash ’em together and make up a story based on the general theme.

 

[DreadDomain]

9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Oooh I'm wrong about one-use spells.

You dedicate the RP to the spell when you learn it.

You want to cast Breathe Life Into Art? When you learn the spell, you sacrifice a point of POW and that one RP is only usable for that one spell. You can sacrifice for it multiple times, although there is at least one spell that forbids this in the description.

You want to cast Awaken Loon? I guess you have to sacrifice all 5 points of POW at the ceremony to learn it. Guess you aren't a priest any more, huh? Unless you have, say, a Rune Point pool of 10, you learn Awaken Loon, maybe spend 1 POW to go to 11, and now 5 of those points are dedicated to Awaken Loon giving you 6 to spend on other spells.

While this interpretation/clarification was made a while ago and documented on the Well, I suggest it is now superseded by the RBoM. The brand new published write-up of one-use spell does not even vaguely mention or hint at dedicating RPs to one-use spell when learned. Nor does the core book. Not to mention the mess of now having to manage how your RP pool is divided between your one-use spells (you might have more than one) and your general pool.    

The write-up in the RBoM might be somewhat vague about losing the spells or not while cast (I believe you do not lose it) but the fonctioning of it is simple, easy to implement and does not involve any kind of extra special tracking of RPs. Sounds easier to me.

Edited December 19, 2020 by DreadDomain

[Frp]

This just makes me want the cults book even more. I want to know who gets all those sun related spells...

And seeing Pamalt's spells reminded me how much I wanted to incorporate someone that worshiped him back in the RQ3 days. Running campaigns in Pavis and Fronela I never could come up with an excuse. 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

2 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

While this interpretation/clarification was made a while ago and documented on the Well, I suggest it is now superseded by the RBoM. The brand new published write-up of one-use spell does not even vaguely mention or hint at dedicating RPs to one-use spell when learned. Nor does the core book. Not to mention the mess of now having to manage how your RP pool is divided between your one-use spells (you might have more than one) and your general pool.    

The write-up in the RBoM might be somewhat vague about losing the spells or not while cast (I believe you do not lose it) but the fonctioning of it is simple, easy to implement and does not involve any kind of extra special tracking of RPs. Sounds better to me.

Jason Durall was pretty clear in the Q&A that the rune point gained when you learn a one-use spell is tied to the spell. Otherwise you could just use your other remaining runepoints to recast it multiple times. That’s how you make a one-use spell in RQG.

I guess whether it’s the spell, rune point, or both that disappears after using isn’t really important as the process to regain it is the same either way. But he did say it’s the Rune Point thematically that’s what’s needed to be re-sacrificed for, and not the spell. 

[DreadDomain]

4 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Jason Durall was pretty clear in the Q&A that the rune point gained when you learn a one-use spell is tied to the spell.

Perhaps but it still not what is written in the books.

4 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Otherwise you could just use your other remaining rune points to recast it multiple times. That’s how you make a one-use spell in RQG.

Not really, The in-world effect is simply to have the spell (not the RP) restored/reset with worship.  No need to have an other mechanical effect tied to it. Still you bring a good point. The new description remains vague about the loss or not of the spell but also if and when you can recast it. Now, it is clearly indicated under fumble but remains silent about the RP being tied to the one-use spell. If it is the case, it is a pretty important detail to mention. There is no way to guess this from the write-up.

4 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

I guess whether it’s the spell, rune point, or both that disappears after using isn’t really important as the process to regain it is the same either way.

Close but not quite the same.  In one case, I can sacrifice a POW and learn another rune spell. In the other case, I must choose One-Use spell again when I sacrifice my POW.

4 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

But he did say it’s the Rune Point thematically that’s what’s needed to be re-sacrificed for, and not the spell. 

If it is the case, when I sacrifice a POW and learn another rune spell (which is what I understood)

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

1 hour ago, DreadDomain said:

Perhaps but it still not what is written in the books.

Not really, The in-world effect is simply to have the spell (not the RP) restored/reset with worship.  No need to have an other mechanical effect tied to it. Still you bring a good point. The new description remains vague about the loss or not of the spell but also if and when you can recast it. Now, it is clearly indicated under fumble but remains silent about the RP being tied to the one-use spell. If it is the case, it is a pretty important detail to mention. There is no way to guess this from the write-up.

Close but not quite the same.  In one case, I can sacrifice a POW and learn another rune spell. In the other case, I must choose One-Use spell again when I sacrifice my POW.

If it is the case, when I sacrifice a POW and learn another rune spell (which is what I understood)

I agree that they really need to get this down coherently and without ambiguity. The text as it stands hasn’t achieved this yet. This is the opportunity to clear up the matter, shouldn’t have to rely on the Q&A  when there’s an opportunity to clear it up in print. 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

1 hour ago, DreadDomain said:

Close but not quite the same.  In one case, I can sacrifice a POW and learn another rune spell. In the other case, I must choose One-Use spell again when I sacrifice my POW.

Yes, but I was talking just in terms of the one-use spell. You can’t regain the one-use spell associated rune point through standard worship or sacrifice, and have to instead re-sacrifice POW, as you would if you were learning a new spell. 
 Mechanically it’s the same process as learning the whole spell again, but thematically you’re sacrificing for that special unique one-use power from the god in the form of the rune point.

I guess it’s the divine power that is important and is emphasised in the rules with Rune Points, not so much the mundane gestures, and sounds that are learnt to channel it, which won’t be forgotten once learnt.