POW - How many ways to use/increase it?

[HierophantX]

I was reading Merrie England *shameless plug* and noticed something. If a character completes a pilgrimage they vowed to undertake, they "have a chance" to increase their POW by however much they invested in the vow.

So does this mean that if my character vows to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (4-POW), I now, in theory have 4 pts worth of blessings/divine magic spells and my POW is now down by 4. So, my character makes it to Jerusalem (or is it good enough to get to Antioch?), he has a chance to recover those 4 pts of POW, but does he lose the 4 pts worth of blessings he has stored?

Am I correct in viewing the invested pts of POW as more or less permanent spell slots?

So as a Templar I would have a permanent 3 pts of spell slots for my Monastic vows, and if I went on Crusade that's 3 MORE pts of spell slots (of course by now my POW is down by 6! My inner CoC player is really sweating that.). And if I am always losing POW, it seems like my Bless skill is going to be a serious pain to increase over time.

How are all the ways one can regain POW, including those in a Stupor/Merrie setting?

[soltakss]

I was reading Merrie England *shameless plug*

I hope you liked it.

and noticed something. If a character completes a pilgrimage they vowed to undertake, they "have a chance" to increase their POW by however much they invested in the vow.

Is this the section on P16? "If the character had previously vowed to make the pilgrimage, then his POW devoted to gaining Blessings can increase by the appropriate amount for the Vow".

So does this mean that if my character vows to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (4-POW), I now, in theory have 4 pts worth of blessings/divine magic spells and my POW is now down by 4. So, my character makes it to Jerusalem (or is it good enough to get to Antioch?), he has a chance to recover those 4 pts of POW, but does he lose the 4 pts worth of blessings he has stored?

Not exactly.

Don't forget that Merrie England is based on the Mongoose RQ SRD which has the concept of Dedicated POW, interpreted in Merrie England as the ugly phrase Vow POW. So, character give some of the soul over to the deity in return for Blessings.

What happens in this case is that the character vows to go on a pilgrimage, this is typically a 1 point Vow and allows him to gain an extra 1 Blessing. Once he completes the pilgrimage, that Vow is now worthless, as it has been superceded, but the Blessing associated with the Vow is transferred to the POW dedicated as part of the pilgrimage.

So, Simon the Simple is a monk with 15 POW. He takes the normal 3 monkly vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience, reducing his available POW to 12 but gaining the use of 3 Blessings. After a pleasurable encounter with a Lilitin, he vows to travek to Jerusalem to purge the stain on his soul. This Vow reduces his available POW to 11 and gives him an extra 1 Blessing, taking the number of Blessings he can use to 4. After many months of travel and adventure, he reaches the Holy City and washes himself, purging himself of the demon's stain. His VOW POW increases by 4, reducing his available POW to 7 but increasing the number of Blessings he can use to 8.

Am I correct in viewing the invested pts of POW as more or less permanent spell slots?

Yes.

So as a Templar I would have a permanent 3 pts of spell slots for my Monastic vows, and if I went on Crusade that's 3 MORE pts of spell slots (of course by now my POW is down by 6! My inner CoC player is really sweating that.). And if I am always losing POW, it seems like my Bless skill is going to be a serious pain to increase over time.

Yes, and yes, although you do not have to take the Blessings or take the Vow POW, it is there if you want to. If you don't increase the Vow POW then your effective POW does not decrease but the number of Blessings you can get doesn't increase.

In Mongoose RQ, having a high POW isn't that important as you resist spells using your Resilience skill which can increase. You could also resist certain spells using your Piety skill instead, depending on the spell and the situation. So, a harlot using a Secude (Man) spell could match against Simon's Resilience skill of 50% or his Piety 70%, since he is resisting someone who is trying to make him break his vows, he can use his Piety skill instead.

Skills in Mongoose RQ are increased by rolling 1D100, if the roll is over the skill then it increases by 1D4+1, otherwise it increases by 1, so having a low POW doesn't impact on this.

The Bless skill should be increased as a normal skill as that is all it is. Piety, however, should only increase or decrease based on the actions of the character.

How are all the ways one can regain POW, including those in a Stupor/Merrie setting?

In Mongoose RQ, characteristics can be increased by spending 3 Improvement Points and by rolling over the Characteristic x 5, increasing the characteristic by 1, but increasing a related skill by 1 if the roll is equal to or below Characteristic x 5. POW is just a characteristic, so can be increased in the same way. However, as a GM, I would limit such rolls to times when the character has succeeded in a critical way or has done a specific deed. Finishing a Pilgrimage may well be one of the triggers to allow POW to be increased.

How can POW be increased in a Merrie England/Stupor Mundi setting? Completely off the top of my head, the following would seem probable reasons:

• Successfully completing a Pilgrimage
  
• Successfully completing a vowed action (I vow to take revenge on those who raped and killed my wife)
  
• Scoring a critical on a skill that has POW as a contributing characteristic
  
• Successfully summoning or banishing a demon, angel, elemental or similar spirit
  
• Travelling to the Otherworld (Heaven/Hell/Purgatory, Fair Elf Land, etc)
  

But, Merrie England is supposed to be a very flexible setting, so if you have any ideas of how to improve it then use them in your game and let us know.

The Vow POW mechanism would be slightly different if used in a RQ3 or BRP game.

[RosenMcStern]

Two points to remark here, while we are at it.

Simon did not remark it in the above description, but Vow POW is the equivalent of Pact POW in RQ Guilds rather than Dedicated POW in the core MRQ 1. That is, it reduces your maximum allotment of Magic Points, not your POW. In the above example, Simon the Simple's Luck roll would be 75% all the time, while his available Magic Points would go down. This has the side effect of decreasing the pious man's ability to cast forbidden magic, which uses Magic Points to fuel spells.

Another important point you may have noticed, and that is worth noting here, is that each POW point dedicated in a vow allows you to gain one spell, not one spell magnitude like in MRQ1. This is specified in a box IIRC. Note that this may lead to some clumsiness if using MRQ1, which is balanced with "one POW per magnitude" in mind. Now that MRQ II is available, I strongly recommend that you use the description for divine spells of the second edition, which is balanced for this kind of model.

[HierophantX]

Clearly referring back and forth between my Avalon Hill, GW, Mongoose editions and Call of Cthulhu has not been helpful.

So, in Merrie Stupor (heh), I'm not constantly using my POW on the resistance table, I'm using Persistance or Piety as appropriate. That helps.

And, my POW characteristic doesn't actually go down, basically just my MP, so Luck, (SAN if I use it which I might), and all skills with a POW contribution are not penalized. That's a big help.

And, if I go on a pilgrimage, I gain a spell slot, but when I complete the pilgrimage, I don't gain an additional spell slot, I just have the option of taking one of the pilgrimage site divine spells into the spot that was previously designated for the pilgrimage itself.

OK things are much less confusing.