Shamans and what they can do

[polemikus]

Hi All!

I am a new RQ GM and we started off with the Starter Set and played some Apple Lane Stuff from the GM Pack. The players got into a fight and we had Vishi Dunn with us. During the fight, his player asked me: "What can I do with him in combat... you know... as a Shaman?" 

I was stumped. So I replied that he could call some spitrits to aid him, but I wasn't entirely sure myself. Can you do that by using spells? Or do you have special Shaman Powers which make spell use unnecessary? With Waha - what is his Cult Spirit? Can he just ask rock spirits to hurl themselves at the opponents? Cool suggestion - but how, rulewise? 

Is a shaman in constant contact with spirits? Or does he have to use a spell? He is an assistant, so he has no fetch (yet). But if he gets one - does he have to use spells, or can he ask them for help by using his fetch? 

I love the concept of spirits, of all the msyticism with it - to be hones, it was THE main reason that I fell in love with the RQ:G edition. It's something you don't get in ANY other  RPG. But there is no "manual" how to use it. 

Any ideas? 

 

[Scotty]

Welcome! 

2 hours ago, polemikus said:

I am a new RQ GM and we started off with the Starter Set and played some Apple Lane Stuff from the GM Pack. The players got into a fight and we had Vishi Dunn with us. During the fight, his player asked me: "What can I do with him in combat... you know... as a Shaman?" 

Vishi is an assistant Shaman and an initiate of Waha. Firstly have a look at How to Play Vishi Dunn (on his sheet):

• You are not a good melee fighter and have no armor unless you cast your Shield spell.

Cast shield, don't get off your high llama, use your lance to Charge down foes. use your dagger axe. Foes can only hit locations 1-10

Use Cousin Monkey as your ranged combat - he's not great, but a few shots will count. Act as his spotter and augment him with your Air rune.

As an assistant shaman, he's accruing experience to do his shamanic initiation. When I played him, I bought disruption from his mentor with the first booty he got. With multispell and disruption he can pack a punch. You need to cast as much offensive magic as possible to get the POW gain rolls to get his POW up for initiation.

 

[Akhôrahil]

(Full) shamans have access to superb Spirit Magic with a ton of spell access, loads of MP, and various Spirit Magic advantages. Overcoming POW will be trivial once the Fetch has grown. They have Rune Spell access through Spirit cults.  They can discorporate and engage in Spirit combat.

Spamming all but irresistible Demoralize or Befuddle is already very powerful. If anything, a more advanced Shaman risk becoming overpowered in fights.

Assistant Shamans on the other hand lack many of these tools. You can be of good use with just standard Spirit Magic, but they tend to be spirit specialists, rather. Look for that full Shaman Initiation.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[polemikus]

Thanks a lot for those quick and thorough replies. 

Regarding the specific suggestion by the player, can he ask Stone Spirits to hurl themselves at an opponent? Or is this "represented" by the Spriti Magic spells? 

[French Desperate WindChild]

In the tank / dps / heal model, I see an assistant chaman in several way :

 

as a distant dps -> spirit spells to disturb (beffudle, demoralize, ...) and do few damage (disruption). once shaman, the damage would become very high with the right "powers"

as a distant dps ->  invoking (or more using a bounded one) a spirit/elemant to fight, then the player is more playing the spirit with its specific power than the shaman, but it could play like any warrior, rolling each round against her ennemy. once shaman, the spirit would be stronger and stronger

 

as a healer / buffer -> casting protection and others buff to her friends, and healing those who need

as a healer / debuffer -> casting spell to dispell oponent magic, and disturb them, but first is to heal her companions

 

but there are probably other options, maybe even become a "tank"  (with enough protection, heal spirits, and some personal buffs...) taunting ennemies, to give enough time to her friends to organize the fight etc...

 

of course an assistant shaman may have some battle skills but "mixed" characters are more difficult to be moved forward

[Ryan Kent]

The first thing I had Vishi do was buy a composite helm, heavy leather hauberk and cuirboilli greaves and vambraces. I could not justify going into danger with no protection. Vishi comes into his own when the group encounters spirits. For other encounters use Cousin Monkey to make ranged attacks.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Ryan Kent

[Ludo Bagman]

3 hours ago, polemikus said:

Regarding the specific suggestion by the player, can he ask Stone Spirits to hurl themselves at an opponent? Or is this "represented" by the Spriti Magic spells? 

In combat, that's usually handled with learnt spirit magic spells or with summoned/controlled/bound spirits that can be used to attack an opponent.

Finding suitable/helpful spirits should be done outside of combat, since it will usually take a long time - most of them will be in the Spirit World, perhaps not interested in communicating with humans, not intelligent enough (most spirits don't have INT) etc. On the other hand, he can use his Spirit Binding spell to bind a spirit into his magic crystal (POW vs. POW roll needed against unwilling targets), losing ALL stored magic points in the process, but gaining the spirit. Note that the magic crystal has no user restriction, so anyone that can sense the bound spirit could use an appropriate spell to control it.

[Shiningbrow]

19 hours ago, polemikus said:

Can he just ask rock spirits to hurl themselves at the opponents? Cool suggestion - but how, rulewise?

I would say no to this from a stone spirit (because it's more about stability and not moving, as well as being too small and POWerless (1D6 max)), but yes to an elemental "throwing" stones, especially an air elemental forming a mini-tornado. However, that would need to be prepared in advance, and at Vishi's starting level, definitely not worth it.(e.g., nowhere to put it other than the 14-pt POW crystal, and the MPs are more valuable).

[Darius West]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:08 PM, polemikus said:

Hi All!

I am a new RQ GM and we started off with the Starter Set and played some Apple Lane Stuff from the GM Pack. The players got into a fight and we had Vishi Dunn with us. During the fight, his player asked me: "What can I do with him in combat... you know... as a Shaman?" 

Vishi isn't a shaman, he's an apprentice shaman.  His spell load-out is all-but entirely devoted to dealing with spirits.  Spells like Axis Mundi and Discorporate will be immensely helpful in contacting and dealing with spirits, but they are hour-long rituals.  Vishi will be of great value on occasions when the party is attacked by spirits.  On other occasions he is very helpful because of his dagger-axe.

I happen to really like Vishi as a character, but he often seems a bit weak.  He would benefit from better armor and a more versatile list of spells.  At the moment he is a very vulnerable glass cannon, in that he can slam with a dagger-axe, or charge for murder-damage on his llama, and is pretty good with spirits, but is basically running around naked in armor-terms and with only 1pt of Healing is going to go down and stay down for what other characters would consider 'tickle damage'.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Darius West

[Squaredeal Sten]

Your assistant shanan's experience is not unique, and not limited to asst. Shamans.  Some characters require thinking strategically.

Just as a player who starts with a poor farmer with only a spear and shield  needs to get armor for the character, the assistant shaman needs to get at least one good offensive spell and raise POW.  Using the offensive spells will not only help the party but also will  raise POW and this in turn will advance the character's ability to pass the ordeal for shamanhood.

If on the way he can bind a spirit so much the better, it is the start of the spirit collection he will amass as a full shaman.  But I agree with Shiningbrow, don't use the 14 point crystal for that.  14 extra magic points enable him to do devastating magic.

So which spells to buy and which rune magic to sacrifice POW for should be his near term concerns.  

And by the way having one character hang back out of melee and cast spells is a basic tactic.

 

 

[dumuzid]

Best thing for increasing shaman power, from learning new magic to increasing POW over time to simply being more effective in combat situations, is Spirit Combat.  Win a spirit combat encounter and you've got your POW gain roll for the season.  Win it against a spirit and you can learn some of its Spirit Magic, or use other magic to bind it into a suitably enchanted item.  Assistant Shamans get a flat bonus to Spirit Combat, and it only gets better with shamanhood.  Their main limitation is that only discorporate entities can initiate spirit combat, which makes assistants more defensive spirit combatants unless they have the Discorporate rune spell.  With shamanhood the shaman can discorporate reliably, without spending rune points, and engage in aggressive spirit combat against physical opponents.  The shaman player character in my campaign has the +Spirit Combat Damage vs. Spirits shamanic ability, and so has a flat bonus of something like +6 damage vs. spirit opponents in Spirit Combat.

[Dragon]

I do think a very valuable spell for an assistant shaman would be Distraction. Too bad Vishi doesn't have it yet. Waha offers it.

Distraction is very useful to pull dangerous spirits from other party members to the one person who is best equipped to fight them. It increases the chance he can get Spirit Combat skill checks and POW gains.

[Ludo Bagman]

16 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

nowhere to put it other than the 14-pt POW crystal, and the MPs are more valuable.

If the binder has physical contact with the item (the crystal), then he can use the magic points of the bound spirit (that the spirit will regain at the normal rate) and (depending on the spirit) spirit magic spells or other abilities that work while in the binding (Spirit Combat for example doesn't work). So it really depends on the spirits that he can find and bind. A tiny one with 1 power is not worth it, but say a spirit with 12 Power, Spirit Combat skill of 60%, and 3 points of spirit magic is probably better than the 14 MP.

Well, if the player accepts the risk that someone with the proper detection and control spells may steal the spirit, leaving him with an empty crystal.

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, Ludo Bagman said:

If the binder has physical contact with the item (the crystal), then he can use the magic points of the bound spirit (that the spirit will regain at the normal rate) and (depending on the spirit) spirit magic spells or other abilities that work while in the binding (Spirit Combat for example doesn't work). So it really depends on the spirits that he can find and bind. A tiny one with 1 power is not worth it, but say a spirit with 12 Power, Spirit Combat skill of 60%, and 3 points of spirit magic is probably better than the 14 MP.

Well, if the player accepts the risk that someone with the proper detection and control spells may steal the spirit, leaving him with an empty crystal.

Yeah, I won't disagree with that. All depends on what type (and POW, etc) of said spirit. But in the above context, of air elementals to throw stones, I'd say keep the MPs (unless it's a big elemental).

 

[Joerg]

Dead crystals pre-destined to hold spirits are those with rather low single digit MP capacity - your POW 12 spirit (or even a POW 36 spirit) will fit into a 2MP crystal, and then can be commanded to fill up the 14 point crystal.

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

Dead crystals pre-destined to hold spirits are those with rather low single digit MP capacity - your POW 12 spirit (or even a POW 36 spirit) will fit into a 2MP crystal, and then can be commanded to fill up the 14 point crystal.

Has there ever been anything written about chipping dead crystals down? E.g., turning a 12pt POW-storing into 6 2pt POW-storing?

(should be a clear "no" on "live" powered crystals)

[JRE]

I would expect that to be some secret technique of Mostali or godless sorcerers. It is a divine remnant, a relic of a dead god, and you know some dead gods return. So theists would probably consider that sacrilege. For balance reasons I would expect you lose some points in the exchange, with the risk of ruining it all with your disrespect/missed skill roll. 

However, if you could reliably identify the donor of the crystal, then for certain cults breaking up or destroying the crystal could be a meritorious action.

[JRE]

Thinking a bit more, I would expect plenty of worked crystals (polished, set as gems, or integrated in objects) come from the Second age and those two big exploiters of the divine, the Jrusteli and the EWF. So you can still have split crystals or a nice polished pommel stone. Just blame the typical scapegoats, as known crystals will be treasured and transferred through the centuries. 

[PhilHibbs]

There's also the Multispell rune spell, which allows multiple spirit magic spells to be cast simultaneously. I can't remember if he has Demoralize but it should be easy to acquire if he doesn't. Three of those, every round, yes that's a lot of MPs so he needs to start building up a collection of crystals or bound spirits.

[soltakss]

On 2/3/2022 at 11:31 PM, PhilHibbs said:

There's also the Multispell rune spell, which allows multiple spirit magic spells to be cast simultaneously. I can't remember if he has Demoralize but it should be easy to acquire if he doesn't. Three of those, every round, yes that's a lot of MPs so he needs to start building up a collection of crystals or bound spirits.

Shamans have a similar ability, Spell Barrage. So some Shamans can do this without Multispell.