Battle magic

[StephenMcG]

I have been running a modded RQII game for my group which has been going great.

One of the queries was why battle magic was so limited.  An example they gave was BladeSharp - add chance to hit and damage by expending magical power.  Why was there no battle magic reducing SR and adding damage, or reducing chance to hit but upping damage delivered.  Any number of things.

Anyone experimented with new battle magic spells like this.  I could come up with stuff but is nice to know if things have been tried and evaluated...

Stephen

[Joerg]

I guess it is mostly about the setting history. If you have full control over setting and optional rules, there is nothing to stop you from adding weird magics playing around with the mechanics of the game.  And of course a limited set of such spells provides limited ranges of gross abuse in the hands of minimaxers.

Having played with ruleplayers who delight in finding optimized spell use, you will need quite a bit of playtesting to adjust temporary POW cost  and memory requirements to the efficiency of the new spell.

And there is such a separated approach in RQ3 sorcery. 

[StephenMcG]

yeah, worried about both such things.  I hated RQIII sorcery....

🙂

 

I am thinking of adding in additional spells that are only available from particular cults.I need to think of which ones would be most likely to have priests heroquest to "find" the right kinds of magic.

[styopa]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

I guess it is mostly about the setting history.

That's one possible rationalization, of course.  I think a more practical read would be about the simple space limitations in a what, 144-page? book produced basically on a shoestring? 

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

... of course a limited set of such spells provides limited ranges of gross abuse in the hands of minimaxers.

And think about it: if we got rid of ALL the spells there'd be NOTHING for those darn 'minimaxers' to abuse! 

Would that really be a much better game?

[simonh]

I think the battle magic in the RQ2 rulebook is really only intended a sample of what's possible, and what is commonly found in the Dragon pass area. There's no way it's intended as a comprehensive catalogue of all possible Battle magic. In fact specialist Battle magic is one of the ways the cults in various supplements offer differentiation and specialisation to their members, through access to exotic spells. If they'd come up with every possible variation of magical effect and piled them all into the basic rulebook, firstly it would have ballooned the page count, then there wouldn't have been any way they could have play-tested it all, and finally it would have left little scope for exotic or specialist magic to be presented in different contexts. They needed to keep scope for alternative magical effects to be available to different elder races, cults and cultures.

Finally, bear in mind that in Runequest the magic flows from the myths and metaphysics of the setting. A character in Glorantha can't just imagine a magical effect and then 'invent it'. It's not science. They are more like religious or spiritual experiences expressed in practical ways.

Simon Hibbs

Edited May 14, 2018 by simonh

[StephenMcG]

I am bought into the whole thing, specialist magic from cults, expanding (even extensively) from the base rulebook (a masterpiece of brevity and setting integration).

What I am lacking is anyone giving me examples of what has been done.  I think the easy bit is coming up with spells that can do things, the difficult thing is assigning such spells to appropriate cults.  It would be too easy for most of the really useful combat stuff to be assigned to Orlanth, Humakt and Yelmalio when actually it is the other cults that need something to keep them alive in dangerous situations while the combatants get on with killing broo...

:-)

Any takers?  Is there no experience of this out there for me to steal wholesale and pretend it is mine??!!?

Stephen

[StephenMcG]

8 hours ago, styopa said:

That's one possible rationalization, of course.  I think a more practical read would be about the simple space limitations in a what, 144-page? book produced basically on a shoestring? 

And think about it: if we got rid of ALL the spells there'd be NOTHING for those darn 'minimaxers' to abuse! 

Would that really be a much better game?

wasn't that what we did with HeroQuest??

:-)

[styopa]

42 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

What I am lacking is anyone giving me examples of what has been done.  I think the easy bit is coming up with spells that can do things, the difficult thing is assigning such spells to appropriate cults. 

I'd like to help, but I guess I'm a little confused?  As you said, it's easy enough to figure out relatively balanced mechanics from the source material, ie:

Disrupt does 1-3 ignoring armor after winning a pow v pow check, for 1 MP.  Considering that bigger strikes are inherently more valuable (as the chance of actually incapacitating the target in one shot rise steeply), one could opine a 2d3 version might be 3 or even 4MP to cast, or it could be only 2 MP, but be affected by armor. 

Same for healing, it's established that 1 point of healing =1 MP, but likewise that bigger piles of hp are also more useful, so you might have a heal over time spell that heals 1hp per round for 3 rounds only cost 2 MP.

Nobody save a developer It's going to have time to play test/balance this, you have to just guesstimate, and roll with the results.  If something ends up being overpowered to the point of abuse, I generally find players amenable to retcon...once the npcs start using it just as heavily.

As far as applying them to the cults, a couple of observations;

- it seems there ARE ALREADY  tons of examples in CoP, CoT, not to mention scads of rq3 sources (for inspiration, if nothing else)

- ygmv, but I guess I've always assumed that the lack of combat spells for issaries or ernalda is setting-deliberate.  That's why they hang out with orlanthi (despite how overbearing they can be), humakti (despite how creepy they are), or storm bull (drunk/dangerous)...because they NEED to in a practical way (if not mythically necessary balance).  If you want to give some non combat cults some combat ability, make it topical: issaries might have a damage spell like warding that pops when someone steals their stuff, or ernalda might summon snakes to fight for them.

Does that help at all?  Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are looking for?

[simonh]

If you do want to introduce new spell there are several lightweight ways to do this. An obscure spell might only be taught by a particular holy man, or at a remote shrine, or by a spirit that is only contactable under certain circumstances. A visiting foreign magician might be able to teach exotic or unusual magic. Characters might come across a spell focus or matrix for a 'lost' spell, perhaps in the form of a holy or cursed relic. The Egyptians used to soak magical scrolls in beer then drink it, so maybe a potion or magical plant might grant the ability to cast a new spell for some period of time after consuming it. All without permanently altering the 'magical economy' of the setting.

Simon Hibbs

[StephenMcG]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

I'd like to help, but I guess I'm a little confused? 

[some useful commentary]

 

Does that help at all?  Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are looking for?

As you say - coherent worked out stuff comes from developers.  I was simply wondering if anyone has added to the published material in their own campaign that I might steal.  I have most of the material published since 1978, that I periodically flick through and a reasonable number of the TotRM and Tradetalks to peruse as well.

I think I am fine with eyeballing things like a 2D6 disruption.  What I have never come across is, for example, a spell that reduces the strike rank of a combatant, or one that hinders the effectiveness of incoming missile fire.

I have an idea for a spell for sages that makes opponents target more dangerous people first.  That might be like a reduced invisibility or more like a befuddle.  This would allow sages to be on the battlefield but with less danger as long as their colleagues remain up and fighting, it would also be negated the first time the did damage.  

To be honest, I think I can work things out - I am just lazy enough to ask folk for things they have used before sitting down to do all this for myself.  It is also useful to have folk that might have worked a set out for particular cults, my lot are not your usual RQ cults but more Pavis based - so Zola Fel, Pavis, Flintnail, Lankhor Mhy and a modded Lanbril cult that appeared in Hearts in Glorantha.  They really are not heavy on the usual sources of combat magic.

Stephen

 

[Richard S.]

2 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

As you say - coherent worked out stuff comes from developers.  I was simply wondering if anyone has added to the published material in their own campaign that I might steal.  I have most of the material published since 1978, that I periodically flick through and a reasonable number of the TotRM and Tradetalks to peruse as well.

I think I am fine with eyeballing things like a 2D6 disruption.  What I have never come across is, for example, a spell that reduces the strike rank of a combatant, or one that hinders the effectiveness of incoming missile fire.

I have an idea for a spell for sages that makes opponents target more dangerous people first.  That might be like a reduced invisibility or more like a befuddle.  This would allow sages to be on the battlefield but with less danger as long as their colleagues remain up and fighting, it would also be negated the first time the did damage.  

To be honest, I think I can work things out - I am just lazy enough to ask folk for things they have used before sitting down to do all this for myself.  It is also useful to have folk that might have worked a set out for particular cults, my lot are not your usual RQ cults but more Pavis based - so Zola Fel, Pavis, Flintnail, Lankhor Mhy and a modded Lanbril cult that appeared in Hearts in Glorantha.  They really are not heavy on the usual sources of combat magic.

Stephen

 

If you're looking for more battle magic I'd suggest checking out the cult compendium. It has cult write-ups for all those cults you just mentioned.

[StephenMcG]

1 minute ago, Richard S. said:

If you're looking for more battle magic I'd suggest checking out the cult compendium. It has cult write-ups for all those cults you just mentioned.

It does (there is more in the P&BR compendiums by Ian Thompson??) but I was looking for more (what can I say, I am greedy!) 

Again, I am simply trawling for homebrew spells that people have used, especially if they have been popular with players or provided them with difficult choices.  RQ is, IMO, one of the key resource management games for magic - you have so many magic points and so much INT.  What spells do you have ready and when do you use them.  it is one of the things that keeps the game's feet firmly on the ground.

Stephen

[styopa]

59 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

I have an idea for a spell for sages that makes opponents target more dangerous people first.  That might be like a reduced invisibility or more like a befuddle.  This would allow sages to be on the battlefield but with less danger as long as their colleagues remain up and fighting, it would also be negated the first time the did damage.  

GoG Aldrya I believe already has camouflage, which forces attackers to pass a spot check before they can even attack the camouflaged target - failure means a lost attack, so a decent disincentive to 'push' attackers to preferentially target others?

[Atgxtg]

19 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

One of the queries was why battle magic was so limited.  An example they gave was BladeSharp - add chance to hit and damage by expending magical power.  Why was there no battle magic reducing SR and adding damage, or reducing chance to hit but upping damage delivered.  Any number of things.

Probably becuase Battle Magic was kept very simple in RQ, deliberately. 

[simonh]

6 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

As you say - coherent worked out stuff comes from developers.  I was simply wondering if anyone has added to the published material in their own campaign that I might steal. 

 

For myself, not really. The fanzines for most of the last 25 years or so have mainly been focused on Glorantha rather than RQ. 

Another factor is that RQ3 had much less common spirit magic than the battle magic in RQ2, and got rid of the most overpowered spells like Invisibility.

There were a lot of fanzines around in the 80s with tons of stuff like non-Gloranthan cults, weird monsters and new spells.

Simon Hibbs

[Joerg]

 

19 hours ago, styopa said:

And think about it: if we got rid of ALL the spells there'd be NOTHING for those darn 'minimaxers' to abuse! 

Would that really be a much better game?

It is called HeroQuest. You get sample spells/charms/whatever but can do whatever you want. You don't get game mechanic exploitation for lack of those game mechanics, however. (Though you do get punished for aiming for renaissance man characters in a setting where such characters were regularly found...)

 

RQ is a gritty and deadly game system. That's because of a great chance of failure or at least lack of instantly gratifying success, and rarely any mechanic for failing forward in its RQ2 and RQ3 rules. (I do expect RQG to have at least some guidelines for this kind of outcomes, possibly only in the game-masters book.)

It  also has rules which can be exploited by rules-altering magic, which happens when people mix role-playing with playing the rules in a semi--competitive mode between players and GMs. Neither RQ nor BRP are particularly balanced games, but with the absence of even more unbalanced area-effect spells (need I mention fireballs?) and the availability of some magic for all characters problems that arose with Old School rules taken to extreme levels are a lot less than compared with AD&D 1st edition (the contemporary of RQ2 and 3).

 

The problems that RQ3 sorcery brought are the same that you get when you twist Battle Magic making various  rules-bending approaches universally or even just limited available. I think a lot of the problems RQ2 players had with sorcery was that it felt like devaluing their lovingly built overpowered rune masters or nearly rune masters under the old rules. But then I suppose they never tried to play an apprentice sorcerer or fresh adept under that system and experience the limitations, but they saw the vastly unbalanced examples like Griffin Island's Halcyon var Enkorth.

[jajagappa]

16 hours ago, styopa said:

one could opine a 2d3 version might be 3 or even 4MP to cast

It was called Shattering and was a Black Fang rune spell.  Acted as 4 Disrupt spells.

16 hours ago, styopa said:

or ernalda

Between summoning earth elementals, casting Inviolable or Absorption, or drawing on Earthpower, there is a fair capability with Ernalda now.

13 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

a spell that reduces the strike rank of a combatant, or one that hinders the effectiveness of incoming missile fire.

For the first, Coordination.  Changes to DEX reduce SR's.  For the second, Shimmer which reduces chance to hit.  There's only so far you can reduce strike ranks.  And the RQ2 Defense ability showed that adding too much to reducing attack chances could really throw the game out of balance.  

13 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

makes opponents target more dangerous people first

The new Distraction spirit magic in RQG draws spirits towards the caster and away from those with less ability to fight spirits.  You could certainly come up with a spell to draw fighters to you.  The Conceal spell took attention away from you, so that gives you the cost level you should target (and if you want as a spirit spell, it's twice the rune spell cost typically).

13 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Again, I am simply trawling for homebrew spells that people have used, especially if they have been popular with players or provided them with difficult choices.

Given the general focus on gods, most attention in the past went to creating rune spells relevant to them rather than spirit/battle magic.  That was generally true whether in TotRM, Tradetalk, or other fanzines.