RQG Sorcery - Inscription Question

[styopa]

2 hours ago, Zozotroll said:

Why does this sound to me like Scientologists?

Auditing Thetans may be augmented by Ceremony or the Nutter Rune, I'm almost certain.

[womble]

I am not a Mod, but I suspect discussion of real world belief systems probably oughtn't go the way this has headed...

[Zozotroll]

You are certainly right, and I should have thought of that before posting

[StephenMcG]

Hmm.  Reading through sorcery for the first time.  Obviously crafting their materials is how magicians grow in power/utility.  This is the key thread as far as I can see.

Do we have a settled opinion on whether you can ‘feed’ a transcription, allowing it to grow the intensity over time?  

Do we have a settled opinion on whether the POW fed into a transcribed spell is dedicated to Strength, Range or Duration or whether it can be allocated as hoc each time the spell is cast?

Do we have a settled opinion on the magic point cost?  If you cast a 4 intensity spell where you have all the necessary masteries it costs 4mp.  Right?  If you cast that same four intensity spell when you have it transcribed, what should the cost be? 1 or 4?  

My instincts are

1 - you cannot feed a transcription, this is what big congregations are for, pooling POW to provide a hero magician with the wherewithal to create a transcription far beyond anything she might be able to do solo.  It provides ties to communities for those magicians that want to be mega.

2 - the POW is fixed to one attribute at the time of the inscriptionwhich is how a grim lire grows, rather than all grimoires being pretty similar.  I would like the option of when a transcription is made of it being open or closed to others using it.  Again, a community then might lend a hero their power but expect that inscription to be returned to the community for future use.

3 - I am inclined to the lower costs.  That 4 intensity spell has cost 4 permanent POW, it needs to do more than free up INT.

 

Stephen

 

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Do we have a settled opinion on whether you can ‘feed’ a transcription, allowing it to grow the intensity over time?

I don't think so. Maybe, but I think it should be limited. Maybe you have to erase the manipulation, add POW, and then re-cast the spell, so it will always be limited to what you can cast yourself.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Do we have a settled opinion on whether the POW fed into a transcribed spell is dedicated to Strength, Range or Duration or whether it can be allocated as hoc each time the spell is cast?

Manipulation is baked in.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Do we have a settled opinion on the magic point cost?  If you cast a 4 intensity spell where you have all the necessary masteries it costs 4mp.  Right?  If you cast that same four intensity spell when you have it transcribed, what should the cost be? 1 or 4?

I don't think the inscription changes the cost at all, you are casting the spell so you need to know the rune(s) and technique, and pay the costs according to your current mastery of them.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

I would like the option of when a transcription is made of it being open or closed to others using it.  Again, a community then might lend a hero their power but expect that inscription to be returned to the community for future use.

Not sure about that, that's a big change. Also I don't think you can create self-casting enchantments like you can with rune magic. Maybe you could create an inscription, bind a spirit to it, and have it cast the spell, but it would need to have cast the spell into the inscription itself. I think the POW could come from elsewhere, like with other enchantments.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Do we have a settled opinion on whether you can ‘feed’ a transcription, allowing it to grow the intensity over time?  

I don't recall seeing that in the discussion, yet, so no.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Do we have a settled opinion on whether the POW fed into a transcribed spell is dedicated to Strength, Range or Duration or whether it can be allocated as hoc each time the spell is cast?

Neither.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Do we have a settled opinion on the magic point cost?  If you cast a 4 intensity spell where you have all the necessary masteries it costs 4mp.  Right?  

Now that you ask, not really:

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

If you cast that same four intensity spell when you have it transcribed, what should the cost be? 1 or 4?  

I would have gone for no reduction in magic point cost, but David Scott argued for a free boost of the spell by the amount of POW invested. That didn't address the occasion where the spell would be cast at the amount of POW it was inscribed with, though. One might argue that a spell inscription worth 4 POW would be able to release the spell without using any MP, but a 1 MP activation cost sounds like the minimum I would ask for.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

My instincts are

1 - you cannot feed a transcription,

It is like an enchantment, even somewhat lower in return as it isn't transferable at all. Enchantments can be expanded after the initial investment.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

this is what big congregations are for, pooling POW to provide a hero magician with the wherewithal to create a transcription far beyond anything she might be able to do solo.  It provides ties to communities for those magicians that want to be mega.

Is it that much like an enchantment? To me this seems like it is a personal achievement, similar to acquiring rune points.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

2 - the POW is fixed to one attribute at the time of the inscription which is how a grimoire grows, rather than all grimoires being pretty similar.  

So once you inscribed a spell with duration 2, it will always have to be cast with duration 2?

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

I would like the option of when a transcription is made of it being open or closed to others using it.  

That would be a matrix enchantment rather than an inscription.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

Again, a community then might lend a hero their power but expect that inscription to be returned to the community for future use.

That's a bit like manufacturing the sorcerous equivalent of Truestone.

2 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

3 - I am inclined to the lower costs.  That 4 intensity spell has cost 4 permanent POW, it needs to do more than free up INT.

It creates an INT extension that can be used in addition to Enhance INT. A middle way would be to have each point of Intensity provided by the inscription cost one MP regardless whether the technique or the runes are known or implied.

[PhilHibbs]

29 minutes ago, Joerg said:

It creates an INT extension that can be used in addition to Enhance INT. A middle way would be to have each point of Intensity provided by the inscription cost one MP regardless whether the technique or the runes are known or implied.

Given that only the creator can use it, the runes and techniques should all be available at the same level or better than when it was created unless the caster has suffered INT loss.

Although that raises the interesting question that, since "Once a Rune or technique has been mastered, it cannot be unmastered", maybe INT loss does not mean the loss of mastery. If so, could you use Enhance INT to boost it for long enough to master more runes?

Edited October 8, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Mugen]

As a matter of fact, the way inscribing is described in RQG is very similar to RQ3 Enchant Spell Matrix for sorcery spells.

What changes is you don't need an Enchant skill and to learn a specific ritual spell to do it. Plus, of course, the interaction with the new rules.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Mugen

[StephenMcG]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

It is like an enchantment, even somewhat lower in return as it isn't transferable at all. Enchantments can be expanded after the initial investment.

I am very poor at reading rules when not actively using them, so apologies for bouncing stuff of the forum.

The only explicit mention of expanding I have seen is in the spirit matrix enchantment (though there is ambiguity there) and everything else is implicit as far as I can see.  

When talking of conditions on enchantments it indicates that once a condition is added, the enchantment cannot subsequently be expanded.  The spell matrix enchantment indicates that “the strength of a matrix can be built up over time. Thus a 2-point Bladesharp could be built up into a 4-point Bladesharp by later sacrifices of POW and successful enchantment rolls”.  That sounds like a usable 2-point Bladesharp that becomes a usable 4-point Bladesharp.

The very next paragraph though says that the matrix can “be created a part at a time” but it “does not have the spell until the entire sacrifice is made”.  Why would anyone do it this way if the former way was available?

It also indicates that you cannot make a matrix for a spell that you dot have access to.  Does that mean you cannot create a Bladesharp-5 enchantment unless you can cast Bladesharp-5 or unless you can cast Bladesharp at all?

(I am trying to compare enchantment utility to that of inscription)

 

Stephen

[Pentallion]

On 8/29/2018 at 9:12 AM, PhilHibbs said:

There are plenty of epic feats of magic documented in Gloranthan lore, but making one of them reproducible just with one sorcery spell is... surprising. With a spell like that, I'm surprised it isn't happening every day all over the Empire and its provinces. It ought to be as common as mass shootings in the US.

We know that dragons have risen from the earth several times, but I don't see a sorcery spell that any adventurer can cast that raises a true dragon.

Ok, those examples are beyond a single adventurer, there's clearly some ritualized group casting or heroquesting going on to create effects on that scale. But the base Moonfire spell is ridiculous nonetheless! I don't think there's ever been a RuneQuest sorcery spell writeup with that kind of destructive power.

Agreed, Moonfire, as written, is ridiculous. Even ruling that Inscribed spells cannot be added onto later, let's consider for a moment what the Lunars can do here and would do in a heartbeat:

Gather together a group of Lunar Rune Lord philosophers who all inscribe the spell Moonfire.  These guys just go in by themselves and get within 2.5 km of the enemy army and BOOM!  Army gone.  Rune Lord philosophers don't care cuz 1d10 Divine Intervention just cost them some rune points, no big deal.

Then said Lunar sorcerers advance within 2.5 km of Sartarite cities and BOOM!  You will submit or die.

Who needs stupid bats?

No, that isn't a thing in WB/RM so it isn't a thing in Glorantha.

Moonfire the sorcery spell is banned in my Glorantha and should be either banned or severely nerfed in anyone's Glorantha.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Pentallion