RQG Design Intent behind Spell Balancing

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 6/28/2024 at 5:35 AM, Shiningbrow said:

You know what stops a fully powered up and operational battle station Humakti? One with a full Shield, and Sword Trance, and TrueSword... something that they have absolutely zero counter to??

Dropping your weapon.

Extra points for saying "I surrender". Or saying "Mercy".

And then wait for all of those spells to wear off.

(RAW, they can't do a damn thing about it - and can't even tie you up or stop you from just walking away).

Skirmishes are almost never one vs. one affairs.

1. The Humakti's companions can accept your surrender and tie you up.
2. The Humakti can move on to fight your other companions.
3. Technically, the Humakti can kill you, at a loss in honor.

Though, I get the impression that you are advocating a fake surrender.  True?  That might work once.  Then option #3 happens.  To you and all your companions.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 hours ago, General Confusion said:

So there are two reasonably valid interpretations I can see, because unfortunately I don't think it's ever clearly defined what 'boosting' means to Rune spells, time-wise. Either you take the rules in another section regarding boosting with MP and apply them - in which case each MP would add +1 to the Strike Rank of the spell, which is my preferred choice - or you decide that the statement 'Rune magic spells always take effect at strike rank 1' on pg 314 overrides and boosting a Rune spell takes no time, no matter how many MP you put into it.

I believe that the boosting does add SRs.  Too lazy to read the rules.

However another question is whether the caster must maintain focus / concentration on the rune spell, as they would for a spirit magic spell.  If they must focus, the spell could be interrupted by a Disruption, missile hit, etc.  If not, the rune spell takes time to come into effect, but cannot be interrupted.