Spirit Combat gang fight?

[Squaredeal Sten]

The RQG spirit combat rules seem oriented to one on one fights as far as I can see.  In your opinion is it possible to gang up two on one in spirit combat?

For example, 

Spoiler

In the Gloomwillow's Hollow adventure, if the adventurers are detected by the second hunt, that is Brangbans's wives' ghosts?

Or to put the shoe on the other foot, 

Spoiler

Could two rune level Adventurers' allied spirits attack a weakened Gloomwilow (dryad)?

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
2d example

[Dragon]

Definitely possible to gang up in Spirit Combat. Multiple disembodied spirits could all attack the same embodied spirit in Spirit Combat. As normal for multiple opponents, the solo participant is -20 in skill for the second, -40 for the third, and so on.
It is generally not possible for multiple embodied spirits to all use Spirit Combat against a disembodied spirits. There are a few exceptions like Attack Soul. However, it is possible to attack disembodied spirits with enchanted weapons. Multiple people in the party with Truesword, Slash, Firespear could 'gang' up on a visible disembodied spirit.

If the entire party was discorporate (there are ways), they could gang up in the spirit world on a single spirit.

But those don't happen as often as a single character being attacked by a single spirit and the rest of the party watches. Until the party has Rune levels in it.

[David Scott]

7 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

The RQG spirit combat rules seem oriented to one on one fights as far as I can see.  In your opinion is it possible to gang up two on one in spirit combat?

Yes and the reverse is of course true.

7 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

For example, 

Could two rune level Adventurers' allied spirits attack a weakened spirit

Not unless they can discorporate. Allied spirits aren't discorporate, and it's likely that only Waha allied spirits could do it (after the hour ritual). See 5.5.5 https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-13-rune-cults/#ib-toc-anchor-24

 

[Akhôrahil]

9 hours ago, Dragon said:

Definitely possible to gang up in Spirit Combat. Multiple disembodied spirits could all attack the same embodied spirit in Spirit Combat. As normal for multiple opponents, the solo participant is -20 in skill for the second, -40 for the third, and so on.

I don't think the rules actually support the outnumbered penalty in Spirit Combat, but I also think it makes sense as ruling that it applies.

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

Not unless they can discorporate.

It's enough if they can attack it through spellcasting or (in the case of allied spirits in animate bodies) attack it using natural weapons that could damage a spirit (through whatever magic supports that, if they have access to it), though? The spirit has to be manifested to initiate spirit combat, after all. So an OA allied spirit could probably cast Lightning at the spirit (brutally effective when it works), if either it or the PC has that spell.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Dragon]

On 2/2/2023 at 8:03 AM, Akhôrahil said:

It's enough if they can attack it through spellcasting or (in the case of allied spirits in animate bodies) attack it using natural weapons that could damage a spirit (through whatever magic supports that, if they have access to it), though? The spirit has to be manifested to initiate spirit combat, after all. So an OA allied spirit could probably cast Lightning at the spirit (brutally effective when it works), if either it or the PC has that spell.

Indeed they could - though I was limiting my scope specifically to 'Spirit Combat' as in the skill. In addition to the weapon skills that I mentioned which are opposed rolls vs Spirit Combat, you could cast Disrupt, Lightning, or Fireblast. It is just that those use the normal spell overcoming rules instead. 

[Dragon]

On 2/2/2023 at 8:00 AM, Akhôrahil said:

I don't think the rules actually support the outnumbered penalty in Spirit Combat, but I also think it makes sense as ruling that it applies.

That may be in my mind (and my game) because an answer I heard on this overall forum mentioned it.

[Bren]

On 2/2/2023 at 10:00 AM, Akhôrahil said:

I don't think the rules actually support the outnumbered penalty in Spirit Combat, but I also think it makes sense as ruling that it applies.

I see the logic, but I'm very reluctant to implement this since the situation is mostly going to occur to the disadvantage of player characters.

[PhilHibbs]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:55 AM, Dragon said:

Definitely possible to gang up in Spirit Combat. Multiple disembodied spirits could all attack the same embodied spirit in Spirit Combat. As normal for multiple opponents, the solo participant is -20 in skill for the second, -40 for the third, and so on.

That's how I ran it when a Fiend of Cacodemon died and attacked the adventurer that finished it off. It's not in the rules though.

I also allowed adventurers (and a couple of NPCs) with sufficiently magical weapons hit it and counted those as accumulating -20s to its chance. The PC (Vishi Dunn) wouldn't have had a chance without all those!

Edited February 9, 2023 by PhilHibbs

[whitelaughter]

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - certainly epic - but something to be considered before making the ruling.

[PhilHibbs]

6 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - certainly epic - but something to be considered before making the ruling.

I'm not aware of any such magic circle that can do that, but yes I accept the point in principle.

Either way requires creative extension of the rules-as-written. There is currently no provision for multiple opponents in spirit combat, the rules are silent either way.

• If you just allow it with no modifier, then one powerful individual can take on an army of spirits.
• If you allow it with -20% then one target can be dog-piled fairly easily.

Both of these have potentially negative consequences, but I prefer the second.

Judicious application of Spirit Block would be useful in either scenario. Vishi I think cast 7 or 8 points of it when fighting the Fiend.

[Joerg]

12 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - certainly epic - but something to be considered before making the ruling.

While his zombie-generating power seems to be something gained on a heroquest rather than a sorcery spell, what you are describing here is Delecti the Necromancer. His power takes a couple of hours for the new zombies to activate, though.

[Bren]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

• If you just allow it with no modifier, then one powerful individual can take on an army of spirits.
• If you allow it with -20% then one target can be dog-piled fairly easily.

Phil, you nicely laid out two alternate issues. I will need to think some more about which alternative I prefer the least. I hadn't considered this as, for some reason*, I was thinking spirit combat would be 1-on-1, but the rules clearly state,

Quote

If an entity is attacked by more than one spirit, they
must roll their Spirit Combat skill separately against each
attacking spirit. (RQ: RiG, top left column on p. 368)

Regarding the "one powerful individual" - there are some limits on that tactic that some may not have considered.

1. Only Discorporate spirits can initiate spirit combat. So the one powerful individual would have to first be discorporate. That usually takes time and preparation.
2. Spirit Dance can be rolled to disengage and that happens at any time in the round, most importantly it can happen before SR 12 when Spirit Combat rolls are made. If successful there is no spirit combat that round. I assume weak spirits would choose to try to disengage from a powerful spirit.
3. If the powerful individual wants to continue Spirit combat they would have to pursue a disengaged spirit and re-engage on a subsequent round. That should automatically disengage any previously engaged spirits. If enough weak spirits are around, many will probably be able to disengage and escape or escape when the powerful spirit decides to chase down other fleeing spirits.

* I believe that is how the folks I played with played it in the RQ2 days. That belief was influenced by the statement in RQ2 that "The spirit englobes the challenger." We presumed that meant only one spirit could englobe at a time so only one spirit attacking at a time. And for us, that situation did not come up very often.

[Bren]

12 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

I'm confused as to what you are envisioning here. What spell or ability would this be? The Resurrection 3-pt Rune spell doesn't allow multiple resurrections, just one.

[David Scott]

13 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

Generally speaking, summoning spirits (of any kind) is a minimum hour long ritual (per magic point, rune point, etc), (Rune, sorcery or spirit magic), even resurrect takes three hours.

I don't think a sorcery spell that does this is impossible, but It would take maybe 24 hours to gather enough controlled spirits to launch them as an attack (plus scores of magic points). A shaman could do it better.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I'm confused as to what you are envisioning here. What spell or ability would this be? The Resurrection 3-pt Rune spell doesn't allow multiple resurrections, just one.

@whitelaughter was talking sorcery.  It generally can scale upward to obscene levels, if the sorceror has enough MP's to feed it, time to cast, etc etc etc.

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, Bren said:

Phil, you nicely laid out two alternate issues. I will need to think some more about which alternative I prefer the least. I hadn't considered this as, for some reason*, I was thinking spirit combat would be 1-on-1, but the rules clearly state,

Quote

If an entity is attacked by more than one spirit, they
must roll their Spirit Combat skill separately against each
attacking spirit. (RQ: RiG, top left column on p. 368)

Ah, I hadn't spotted (or had forgotten) that.

[Joerg]

On 2/10/2023 at 6:55 PM, g33k said:

@whitelaughter was talking sorcery.  It generally can scale upward to obscene levels, if the sorceror has enough MP's to feed it, time to cast, etc etc etc.

You forget the Free IINT requirement for total manipulation (which can be expanded by using inscriptions, but even so there is a hard limit). MP can be collected, INT is harder, even with insxribed Enhance INT.

 

[whitelaughter]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

You forget the Free INT requirement for total manipulation (which can be expanded by using inscriptions, but even so there is a hard limit). MP can be collected, INT is harder, even with insxribed Enhance INT.

 

Not really a problem. Any sorcerer is going to dump their spells into a familiar and use Enhance INT - an inscription for Enhance INT benefits everything the Sorcerer  does, not just just sorcery.

Needs an Intensity of 6 to allow Resurrection.

What's the casting time for Rituals again? Index is useless. Assume an hour and you need a duration of five: 6 or 7 gives you multiple hours.

Any remaining Free INT provides for Range. But even on base range, you can pile a lot of bodies into a 1 metre circle, remembering that only part of the body needs to be inside.

So, assume Free IT 14 for this to be workable, 18 to be easy.

 

[Bren]

On 2/10/2023 at 12:55 PM, g33k said:

@whitelaughter was talking sorcery.  It generally can scale upward to obscene levels, if the sorceror has enough MP's to feed it, time to cast, etc etc etc.

I'm still confused. I knew it was Sorcery, but as far as I can tell, Sorcery doesn't have a spell for Resurrection. What sorcery spell is it that the Sorcerer is scaling up to Resurrect the dead?

[Bren]

On 2/10/2023 at 3:24 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Ah, I hadn't spotted (or had forgotten) that.

🙂 The wording doesn't definitively state that Spirit Combat should be decremented for each subsequent use so I don't know if that is what the designers intended. However, given that Spirit Combat has the word "Combat" treating it like melee combat seems like a reasonable interpretation.

Totally off topic, but now I am wondering if additional missile attacks in the same round should also be decremented. At first blush it seems reasonable to do that.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I'm still confused. I knew it was Sorcery, but as far as I can tell, Sorcery doesn't have a spell for Resurrection. What sorcery spell is it that the Sorcerer is scaling up to Resurrect the dead?

The list of spells is explicitly incomplete, and players & GM's urged to create new spells (RQG, p.390).
I would find it quite astonishing if Sorcery were deemed unable to do this!

[jajagappa]

31 minutes ago, g33k said:

The list of spells is explicitly incomplete, and players & GM's urged to create new spells (RQG, p.390).
I would find it quite astonishing if Sorcery were deemed unable to do this!

Probably a complex one needing:  Summon + Man + Dispel + Death (possibly with a Combine + Fertility for good measure, though perhaps that has to be done to the body first to make it capable of hosting the spirit again?).

[David Scott]

Lots of ways to achieve resurrect in sorcery.

The most obvious would be Summon species, you'd know the name of the person, so for a human:    

Then Bind spirit : 

It would cost 3 POW in addition to the all the magic points as the spirit would have CHA.

Edited February 16, 2023 by David Scott

[Joerg]

11 hours ago, Bren said:

I'm still confused. I knew it was Sorcery, but as far as I can tell, Sorcery doesn't have a spell for Resurrection. What sorcery spell is it that the Sorcerer is scaling up to Resurrect the dead?

From the description of the Brithini in Arolanit (in the Guide as well as the earlier Genertela Box, and from Malkioni history - the Vadeli uprising against the Kachisti in western Genertela) we know that there is a Malkioni sorcery spell (or a combination of spells) for resurrection, but we haven't ever seen the spell in game terms. And to be honest, I would be fine keeping it this way, with only specialists from the big organisations having access to it.