Sorcery question

[Murf]

New to the forum and RQG but I have played Runequest since the 70s. I really like the updated style and the art work. It feels far more like what Runequest was supposed to but never quit achieved. 

For the current campaign I am playing in I am updating some old characters from RQ3 which in turn were originally D&D adventures. I loved the characters if not the game system.

The current Sorcery is to say the least limited and is an important part of one of the characters. She is a Aeolian sorcerer.

The RQG sorcery was WAY over powered so i like how it has been dialed back  What spells from RQ3 should carry over to RQG? 

Yes I know YGMV. But I like things to be right as much as possible.

[Godlearner]

I have been facing the same issue with both my games and in print. All of what I am going to suggest is not RQG approved and is not supported by the current Glorantha canon. 

The best answer I can give is (keeping YGMV in mind) is all of them.

The issue you will need to work out are the Runes and Techniques associated with sorcery spells, limitations on the number of these that a sorcerer can sacrifice for and the spells themselves. If you are not sure as to what I mean, or how to do it, just ask. I will be happy to help out.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Murf said:

New to the forum and RQG but I have played Runequest since the 70s. I really like the updated style and the art work. It feels far more like what Runequest was supposed to but never quit achieved. 

Welcome to the forum!

1 hour ago, Murf said:

The current Sorcery is to say the least limited and is an important part of one of the characters. She is a Aeolian sorcerer.

The RQG sorcery was WAY over powered so i like how it has been dialed back  What spells from RQ3 should carry over to RQG? 

Yes I know YGMV. But I like things to be right as much as possible.

19 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

The best answer I can give is (keeping YGMV in mind) is all of them.

I'm of the same opinion as @Godlearner here that potentially all of them could be brought forward.  As he notes, what you need to work out first is what Runes and Techniques may apply (and in some cases there may be multiple possible options), and whether you want to keep the spell "generic" or sub-divide it and provide some more interesting name to the spell.

For instance:  Form/Set Air. 

Clearly this involves the Air Rune.  But what are you doing with it?  Does Forming it need a Command technique?  Or does it need to have a Combine technique used to unite it with Movement in order to form it?  Once you've formed it, you probably need to apply a Combine technique to unite it with Stasis to hold that form. 

What if you want to have that set form stay in a given location (e.g. a Wall of Wind)?  That might be Air + Command + Combine + Stasis as the basic, but to keep it in place maybe you need to add + Dispel + Movement?

I don't think there are necessarily right or wrong formulas here - it's really figuring out the "recipe" and the right sequencing to achieve the desired effect.

[Joerg]

Part of the problem is that you can describe stuff like "Form/Set Air" as "Dispel Air Mobiliy" or "Combine Air Stasis". And there are probably spells with such runes that do basically the same thing. There is no guide to creating new sorcery spells yet with regard to how many runes and techniques you should include.

Spells with target conditions are quite unwieldy, and hardly any sorcerer will know those as form runes are rather low priority runes. A flexible sorcerer really wants Magic, the Fire rune and either Darkness or Air to cover all five elements, four Power runes to imply their antitheses, and then Forms, Moon, and possibly some of the implied things. If  he has time and MP to spare, one technique covers all (Command, Tap), or you need one from Summon/Dispel and one from Combine/Separate. Be prepared to pay up to 16 MP per point of the spell for a four rune/techniques spell with that approach.

If you build the world from the rules, then a typical sorcerer would know very few spells decently well, and sorcerous orders may assign weird specializations to their junior members, possibly waiving some of the education cost for taking the role of a niche wizard.

Personally, I prefer the HQG approach with grimoires and still those same runes and techniques but not attribute-based limitations.

 

[Godlearner]

30 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Be prepared to pay up to 16 MP per point of the spell for a four rune/techniques spell with that approach.

Although possible, that is extreme. Most will likely wind up in the 3 to 4 range as it is unlikely that you will be casting a spell with 2 runes and 2 techniques using Insight. 

 

36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

A flexible sorcerer really wants Magic, the Fire rune and either Darkness or Air to cover all five elements, four Power runes to imply their antitheses, and then Forms, Moon, and possibly some of the implied things.

You are limited as to how many you can get to INT - 12, which means a sorcerer with an INT of 18 can have only 6. That means you will have 1 technique and 5 Runes (btw, that will also cost 6 POW). Unless you start substituting Runes on some spells, you will have a very, very limited selection.

[Nick Brooke]

The intent of the rules is that at any given time any sorcerer will have a very limited selection of spells. If you’re trying to work around that, you’ll find that they fight you. The author’s intention is to make sorcerers less flexible on the spot, but more flexible if they have preparation time (and of course a grimoire to bone up on).

[Godlearner]

21 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

The author’s intention is to make sorcerers less flexible on the spot, but more flexible if they have preparation time (and of course a grimoire to bone up on).

Even with time they are not very flexible unless you let them play with Rune and Techniques of the spells.

[Murf]

Thanks for the fast responses guys. Now the real challenge assigning runes to spells 

[Godlearner]

1 hour ago, Murf said:

Thanks for the fast responses guys. Now the real challenge assigning runes to spells 

Start by choosing which Runes you want your sorcerer to have mastered. Then see what spells that gives him. Then chose the spells you want him to have and see how you would have to change their runes. 

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, Godlearner said:

That means you will have 1 technique and 5 Runes (btw, that will also cost 6 POW).

Not really. If they start as Philosopher of Aeoleanism, they'll already have 2 Runes and 1 Technique from Aeolian, plus another 1 Rune and 1 Technique from Philosopher... So, there's 5 gone at zero POW loss, out of a (probable) maximum of 10. 

 

10 hours ago, Godlearner said:

limitations on the number of these that a sorcerer can sacrifice for

I'm not sure what you mean by this... RAW, you can learn any Rune or Technique just by focussing on it  (and then roll). Other than INT (and, technically, POW), there's no other limit.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

A flexible sorcerer really wants Magic, the Fire rune and either Darkness or Air to cover all five elements, four Power runes to imply their antitheses, and then Forms, Moon, and possibly some of the implied things.

I'd suggest Man and Spirit.... Man could be used to get around oh so many things... (depending on GM)

[soltakss]

13 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

The intent of the rules is that at any given time any sorcerer will have a very limited selection of spells.

The ideal situation would be that Sorcery has no spells.

You just rely on the Runes and Techniques that you have mastered and improvise effects based on them.

I see spells as just being handy little packages to make such improvisation easier.

 

[Joerg]

13 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

The intent of the rules is that at any given time any sorcerer will have a very limited selection of spells. If you’re trying to work around that, you’ll find that they fight you. The author’s intention is to make sorcerers less flexible on the spot, but more flexible if they have preparation time (and of course a grimoire to bone up on).

The practical effect of the rules as they stand right now is that a sorcerer has to decide on one or two sorcery spells as presented in the rules and choose his technique(s) and runes accordingly, and then hope that he finds another spell fitting that selection.

With some runes and some techniques mandatory (like magic), playing a sorcerer is playing a one spell beginner. Most sorcerers have as good a chance at hitting an opponent with an unfamiliar weapon as they have casting one of their very few spells.

Maybe playing a sorcerer in an adventuring game is similar to playing an illiterate Sword of Humakt in a campaign set in a vast library.

Spoiler

Urvantan and his Arkati opponent from The Smoking Ruins - Urvantan's Tower

These two sorcerer characters appear to have been tweaked to provide believable sorcerer encounters, with the antagonist remaining very much in the shadows regarding how his magic might actual work under the rules we have.

From what I have seen so far, in order to become a sorcerer that has any kind of serious power the sorcerer has to cheat. Starting with cheating old age while they spend a century to become reliable enough to support a military expedition in the field on the eve of battl, maybe prepare one big magical shot for the opening round of the battle. They'll be several days out of magic points for a repeat performance anyway, even if they have an entire spirit farm refilling matrices and crystals.

That magic point bottleneck is enough to limit what a player-controlled sorcerer can do at a given time. With a fairly hard limit on Free INT and on magic points, even with extensions like Enhance INT or magic crystals, bound spirits and magic point matrices, offset by the possibility to cast longer lasting spells, a sorcerer is about being prepared, doing things under auspicious circumstances, and investing crazy amounts of resources which are barely renewable if he sticks to sorcerous methods only.

I actually the rules implementation that a sorcery spell is a temporary spirit built from magic points. Sorcery spells attack the target POW with the sum of their magic points put towards effect. Neither the sorcerer's POW nor his current personal magic points (which may be a multiple of his POW, whether from legitimate activities like having performed a worship service to the Invisible God or from Tapping) play a role here.

Such overcharging with magic points always is temporary. While Tapping doesn't limit the number of tapping attacks during the spell's duration, adding MP to the caster's account is the active part of the spell, while the passive part of the spell is defining the amount of time that account can hold MP. The Tapper can of course transfer Magic Points into crystals and artifacts, preserving those MP even beyond the duration of the Tapping spell. I think that "Worship Invisible God" should be a spell with Duration, too, and possibly with intensity influencing the yield the officiating wizard can take out of the collective MP sacrifice of his congregation for use in spells. Maybe there is something to be done with the Wyter of that congregation?

5 minutes ago, soltakss said:

The ideal situation would be that Sorcery has no spells.

You just rely on the Runes and Techniques that you have mastered and improvise effects based on them.

I see spells as just being handy little packages to make such improvisation easier.

For a sorcerers' game, I agree. For a Gloranthan game played with mortal PCs, possibly young ones at the start or at best the middle of a heroic career (unless that career is typically cut short), not so much.

A sorcerer should be able to research a spell creating a magical effect he desires. That should be done using runes and techniques he has mastered, not just inferred. There should be some sort of rules mechanic for that in the hypothetical future publication that gives us sorcery rules for sorcery cultures, something akin to the Gods Book although probably not quite that voluminous.

 

Sorcery as in RQG creates a magical entity almost alive, caerfully constructed by the sorcerer's mind to act independently from the sorcerer except for the few active components that the sorcerer can actually manage to control on the fly/in the field. The sorcerer relies on well-defined energy patterns to hold the spell together. These are rote formulas with interfaces to other spell components. Operating with a visual symbology like a magic circle might make this easier.

I don't think that these components are easy to put together functionally. They need careful wiring, rather than clipping on another lego brick.

 

But it looks very much like Ars Magica minus improvised magic really is the way to play a wizard with limitations in Glorantha. You may manage a sorcerer character who goes on certain adventures, supported by a cast of non-sorcerer supporters played by others or provided by the GM, and then retreat into seclusion for a research process that may involve a couple of rolls accumulating success over a number of seasons, much like researching a raiseable characteristic raise.

The rules might even accommodate such a game, although they aren't designed for that style of play. Sorcerers aren't the only variant of "play, then retreat" kind of character role, either. A crafter, enchanter or alchemist might set out to gain crucial material or methods in an adventure and then send out hired or retainer characters for the rest while making slow progress on the artefact he is painstakingly crafting. A scholar will delve into obscure documents, producing a volume of annotations that may surpass the original document, to extract something that may send him off to the next field expedition (if he cannot avoid that entirely). And a prospective mystic might spend long time in meditations between short exposures to a challenge required to reach a new layer of insights to mull upon.

[Shiningbrow]

18 hours ago, soltakss said:

The ideal situation would be that Sorcery has no spells.

You just rely on the Runes and Techniques that you have mastered and improvise effects based on them.

I see spells as just being handy little packages to make such improvisation easier.

 

That sounds a bit Draconic to me... 

[Shiningbrow]

I think the player should be considering what role they intend to have, especially if you're not going to be playing down south there... So, why has this Aeolian sorcerer come to wherever, and what are they hoping to achieve?

 

That might influence spell selection. Which could be anything from RQ3 (or, really, anywhere, if you can make them fit).

Are you going to make up a new sorcerer occupation? Because a Philosopher is only a part-time sorcerer... At the very least, I'd move some of those percentages around... High R/W, a couple of high percentage spells... I'd also probably dump the Orate and maybe the 30% Lore... (change it to a spell??)

[Darius West]

On 7/17/2021 at 2:33 AM, Murf said:

What spells from RQ3 should carry over to RQG? 

For Aeolians, Form/Set Lightning is a must.  That way their mounted Cataphracts can become Shock Cavalry with lightning lances.

Edited July 18, 2021 by Darius West

[Godlearner]

On 7/17/2021 at 12:24 AM, Shiningbrow said:

Not really. If they start as Philosopher of Aeoleanism, they'll already have 2 Runes and 1 Technique from Aeolian, plus another 1 Rune and 1 Technique from Philosopher... So, there's 5 gone at zero POW loss, out of a (probable) maximum of 10.

If you are doing the character from scratch you do not pay, but technically he did at some point in the past. 

A sorcerer must have a minimum INT of 13 to understand one Rune and one technique. For each point of INT above 13, the sorcerer can learn one more Rune or one more technique. Thus, a sorcerer with an INT of 18 could know up to 7 Runes and techniques in total.

You need at least one technique, which leaves 6 Runes. Its tight.

[SDLeary]

11 hours ago, Darius West said:

For Aeolians, Form/Set Lightning is a must.  That way their mounted Cataphracts can become Shock Cavalry with lightning lances.

The only way I can envision this is very very expensive, in sorcery terms. How would you go about this? Right now I can only comprehend this as first calling on lightning, enough of which to comprise at least a cubic meter, and using Form/Set to contain it. The releasing is pretty straight forward.

How are you thinking of calling the lightning to begin with? I mean, someone could always have a bound lightning or weather spirit I suppose, but nothing in the Sorcery repertoire springs to mind.

SDLeary

[Godlearner]

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Right now I can only comprehend this as first calling on lightning, enough of which to comprise at least a cubic meter, and using Form/Set to contain it.

At the moment the RQG rules do not have a Form/Set spell. It is a left over from RQ3 so any method suggested would have to be Homebrew.

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Godlearner said:

At the moment the RQG rules do not have a Form/Set spell. It is a left over from RQ3 so any method suggested would have to be Homebrew.

Command Combine Stasis Movement

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, Godlearner said:

If you are doing the character from scratch you do not pay, but technically he did at some point in the past. 

A sorcerer must have a minimum INT of 13 to understand one Rune and one technique. For each point of INT above 13, the sorcerer can learn one more Rune or one more technique. Thus, a sorcerer with an INT of 18 could know up to 7 Runes and techniques in total.

You need at least one technique, which leaves 6 Runes. Its tight.

Nah! If you're looking to become a real hero, you'll do Heroquests, and get that limit changed. Either +INT, or +xDx of additional Runes/Techniques (along with +x Intensity).

I also envisage having enchantments for Runes or Techniques.

Sure, not currently RAW, but it's been clearly stated that what we've got is a pretty simplified version of the final,(which we won't likely see for a couple of years)

[Godlearner]

4 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Command Combine Stasis Movement

Sure, you are making it up. I can just as easily say Air Stasis and it would just as valid. Or, bind a Storm Demon into it that can shoot lightning and deliver Heatshock on contact. 

[Godlearner]

Just now, Shiningbrow said:

Sure, not currently RAW, but it's been clearly stated that what we've got is a pretty simplified version of the final,(which we won't likely see for a couple of years)

Of course. Totally agree, but we are talking Homebrew stuff until they do decide to put it out. Honestly, I am getting too old to keep waiting.

[Shiningbrow]

4 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Sure, you are making it up. I can just as easily say Air Stasis and it would just as valid. Or, bind a Storm Demon into it that can shoot lightning and deliver Heatshock on contact. 

"Making it up"... But, RAW we're expected to!  There's a full section on making your own spells.. 

[Shiningbrow]

5 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Honestly, I am getting too old to keep waiting.

Yeah.... I get that!😂

Edited July 19, 2021 by Shiningbrow

[Godlearner]

1 minute ago, Shiningbrow said:

"Making it up"... But, RAW we're expected to!  There's a full section on making your own spells.. 

Not like I need permission to. The issue of course when you start down that path is why even bother converting? Anything you come up with is can, and most likely will be invalidated with what the will come up with. Keep what you have from the system you were using and adapt parts from what you like.