Perpetual Spirit Magic

[Joerg]

Yeah. So I give you a running house to house combat against trollkin in the Pavis Rubble, with ducking from javelineers or slingers sniping when leaving cover, and you need to re-cast your magic for every group of opponents you face. If you are lucky, your divine magic will last through two encounters. Let's be generous and let the magic spirit have enough juice for four castings of Bladesharp 4. Now which of these let's say eight combats do you want fight without the magic?

Especially when there might be a Death Lord in one of the later combats?

Edited February 25, 2018 by Joerg

[BWP]

18 hours ago, Pentallion said:

that magic spirit casts detect enemy whenever someone has ill intent upon wearer.

Err ... if I have a magic spirit that can tell whenever someone has ill intent toward me, why do I need it to cast a spell that tells me that someone has ill intent toward me?  And, how does the spirit know that someone that someone has ill intent toward me without first casting the spell?

Aside from the logistics of enchanting, which are often prohibitive in their own right, they don't just waive away logical problems.  Glorantha is magical, not stupid.

I think that I'd rather have the approach of "permanent" magic items being sourced at GM whim.  Where do they come from?  Who knows?  There's no shortage of possible answers.  Not everything needs a detailed explanation.  If a player insisted on discovering how to make such a thing himself, it sounds like a HeroQuest of some sort to me ....

 

[Pentallion]

A condition can be only initiates of Storm Bull can use this item or only I and my descendants can use this item.

How does a magic spirit know THOSE things?

It's fantasy,  don't over analyze it.

[simonh]

10 hours ago, Pentallion said:

A condition can be only initiates of Storm Bull can use this item or only I and my descendants can use this item.

How does a magic spirit know THOSE things?

It's fantasy,  don't over analyze it.

I think he’s got a point, you can order the spirit to cast the spell, or to cast it under certain circumstances, but there’s no way for it to pre-judge the need to do so. That’s what the spell does.

Simon Hibbs

[BWP]

19 hours ago, Pentallion said:

A condition can be only initiates of Storm Bull can use this item or only I and my descendants can use this item.

How does a magic spirit know THOSE things?

It's fantasy,  don't over analyze it.

The spirit and/or the enchantment itself knows who you are, or finds out who you are, when you make the attempt to use the item.  How does it do it?  Presumably it "examines" you on the spirit plane.  Or maybe it makes a quick spiritual phone call to the Storm Bull Help Desk ("We're ready to help you in all your chaos-fighting ventures!").  What is unreasonable (IMO) is to expect that the spirit and/or enchantment knows everything about everyone regardless of whether they are or are not interacting with the spirit or anything attached to the spirit.  That would imply that all spirits and/or enchantments know such things.  Which in turn would imply that all shamans (at least) also know all those things.  Which would make them pretty much all-powerful ... I know shamans are tough, but I don't think that they're that tough.

I suppose one could postulate the existence of a spirit who has the power of being able to Detect Enemies all the time, without needing to cast the spell.  If so, why would you then need it to cast the spell?  Would it even be able to cast the spell?  That would be a second (albeit related) power that the spirit has.  In any case that makes it more than "just" a Spell Spirit (as they are described in the rules).

"It's fantasy, therefore it doesn't need to make any sense whatsoever" is lazy hand-waiving of the worst kind, and indeed, is 100% contrary to the rules of the game being played.  Why bother with an involved and detailed system for creating enchanted objects if you're just going to make up the end result anyway?

 

Edited February 27, 2018 by BWP

[Pentallion]

First off, if the magic spirits spell is detecting magic or detecting enemies or whatever, and it's condition is "cast the spell whenever etc. etc." then one can pretty much "wave one's hand" and say the magic spirits nature is to detect whatever and all it is doing is giving YOU that ability. 

It's that easy to explain how the magic spirit could prejudge.

But you take this too far and it devolves into silliness.  You can take some of the greatest novels and when you start applying such stringent detail to it and you're left with, well, the sword in the stone is magic, don't you see, so it knew Arthur was the one.

Orrrr, you come back to the point that whoever put the sword into the stone put a condition on it and that's how magic works.  That's as far and deep into the mechanics as you need to go.

Those ARE the rules.  As written.  It's not going too far, nor making shamans all powerful, to say a magic spirit or even a spell spirit innately knows and can do what it's spell does, what it is doing is letting YOU in on the magic.

Now, as for the OP's question, no it's not permanent per se, but it virtually is for all intents and purposes and can fulfill the conditions of his needs.

[MJ Sadique]

On 26/02/2018 at 6:53 AM, Pentallion said:

A condition can be only initiates of Storm Bull can use this item or only I and my descendants can use this item.
How does a magic spirit know THOSE things?
It's fantasy,  don't over analyze it.

As GM, we need to understand how it work to be able to know what is possible what is not ! This is the very core of mankind and the very opposite of fantastic

How it work to me, I prefer understand each different magic with different set of rules ...

For divine magic use, as the spell soul sight state, people from the same cult can recognise another initiate surely because  they share the same magic bond with a god. So Initiate Bull Storm condition is set by a link to Bull Storm (every Minotaur could also be automatically include by error !? ).

With spirit magic checking a descendants condition, you can say that spirits are strictly like animals (or pokemon :p), they can simply smell or recognise a peculiar trait in someone. This may not be perfect but a lot of creature can genetically recognise a family member even if they never meet ! Spirits could be wrong sometimes and it as never been said that they always know the true...

On 27/02/2018 at 2:34 AM, BWP said:

I suppose one could postulate the existence of a spirit who has the power of being able to Detect Enemies all the time, without needing to cast the spell. 

You don't have to go that far !

What is the spell for some creature are just natural abilities for others, Example : Humakti initiate could learn the spell sense undead or have it as a gift ! Shaman have second sight as a natural ability and they don't use it as the spell. Spirit don't NECESSARY use spells, sometimes they just have the ability to do it without spending a single magic point.

To me, Abilities of detections can be acquired by spirit magic spell for some people or be a natural gift for those born with it. Abilities to sense an enemy are common through history, as peculiar fan of orientals plays, Warriors can naturally sense enemies but magician need a spell to do the same.

RuneQuestly speaking, A warrior who can control the death Rune can also detect it but a sorcerer need a spell to do this.

Edited March 1, 2018 by MJ Sadique
a bit of spacing (I'm a bit maniac, sorry -_-;)

[BWP]

OK Pentallion, you think I'm being silly, I think you're talking nonsense.  We're not going to be playing in each other's games so I guess it doesn't matter.  All I can tell you is: if you brought your arguments to my gaming table when I was GM, I'd tell you a flat "no, it doesn't work that way" as the response.

 

[Pentallion]

8 hours ago, BWP said:

OK Pentallion, you think I'm being silly, I think you're talking nonsense.  We're not going to be playing in each other's games so I guess it doesn't matter.  All I can tell you is: if you brought your arguments to my gaming table when I was GM, I'd tell you a flat "no, it doesn't work that way" as the response.

 

And I'd say OK.  The GM always has the final say.