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[RQG] Increasing chance of success with magic


Dragonsnail

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It seems to me that passions are the best kind of augment. They start fairly high, it's quite easy to get a starting passion at 70 or 80, and it's fairly easy to justify how a loyalty, love, or hate applies in a wide variety of circumstances. The penalty for failure is lower, only 10%, although it is potentially worse in that it affects everything.

I'll probably also houserule that specials or criticals can be taken as two of the lower success levels, so a special can give +20 to two skills, a critical can give +30 to two or +20 to four skills.

I like the passion and rune augments, I want to encourage them, but to keep it from dominating the game I think a character can only be under the effect of one augment at a time. You can't passion up your combat and rune up your magic. I might drop the skill augment rules entirely due to the problem with skills less than 50%, or just remove the penalty for failure.

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12 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

but to keep it from dominating the game I think a character can only be under the effect of one augment at a time.

The rules specifically state that.  And I certainly enforce that.  

12 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

You can't passion up your combat and rune up your magic.

Why not?  One of my players used his Hate(Greydog) to great effect in combat.  You're missing something if you can't apply passions in combat.

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An augment can only effect ONE other ability. So your Hate(Greydog) could augment your sword skill or a Rune affiliation for the purpose of casting spells but not both at the same time.

You could however use Hate(Greydog) to bolster the sword skill then the next round use Honour (or any other ability except Hate(Greydog) to bolster your magic. 

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1 hour ago, Psullie said:

An augment can only effect ONE other ability. So your Hate(Greydog) could augment your sword skill or a Rune affiliation for the purpose of casting spells but not both at the same time.

You could however use Hate(Greydog) to bolster the sword skill then the next round use Honour (or any other ability except Hate(Greydog) to bolster your magic. 

Are you saying that the Honour augment cancels the Hate (Greydog) augment? I'm also not keen on that; you've got yourself all worked up over those evil Greydogs, that's going to make it hard to get all passionate about something else. I think I might start imposing passion losses for that kind of emotional self-abuse.

What I'm trying to avoid here is an approach of "never roll until you have found something to augment the roll with". So for any lasting passion or rune augment, maybe you can have one of each. And if you want to end one of the benefits and replace it with another, I'm not sure what the mechanic would be. Maybe you lose the experience check. Maybe a flat loss of 1 point in the rating. Maybe a Meditate roll can bring the augmented state to a safe end.

So framing it positively rather than thou-shalt-not:

  1. Pick a passion and something to augment with it.
  2. Pick a rune and something to augment with it.
  3. Roll them.
  4. That's it for the scene. Stick with what you chose.
  5. If you want to change one, roll Meditate. On a success, you can do a different augment.
Edited by PhilHibbs
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No not cancels. Augments only effect one ability. If you want to augment your melee and magic abilities it would require two augments, and as an augment can't be used twice, the second must come from a different source. 

Now as a GM you could rule that augmenting for a combat effects everything relating to the fight; or allow the same Passion be used to again for subsequent abilities; but if the adventurer fumbles what abilities are reduced by 50%? 

Augments are scene based, so as soon as the 'event' passes the effects wear off, you can't cancel an augment, just chose not to act on it.

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19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

My players have used and liked it - but they also expect that it will take time to ensure they get a beneficial value.

For sure players can like it for flair or role playing perspective. But from the technical point of view it is basically always worse to use meditate than not using it for increasing spell casting chance. And as RQG is a more technical system than for example Heroquest, I think rules should be either useful or removed to lessen rule bloat.

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I would be interested in hearing from the game designers about this issue.  I don't have a problem w/the various augments not working well in combat, since I dont think that was their intent.  If you want to do something better in combat, train it.  But if time is not an issue, it makes sense that Meditation and skill augments are there to make your chances better.

But there are problems w/Meditation.  We have always played that a fail-cast spirit spell cost 1 MP.  So casual casters w/a 10 POW would fail half the time, and the caster could possibly lose several MP before casting successfully.  Thus Meditate fits in well, as a mechanism to be able to take an extra 10 mins to make the chance 75%.  But w/the cost of failed casts being 0, there just seems to be little point in Meditation.  Why not just keep casting until successful and take less time in the process?

This doesn't seem to be the only inconsistency in the rules.  Its almost as if the different rules of this game were taken willy nilly from different editions without much regard to how they work together.

Skill augments seem to work a little better.  I can imagine doing a dance to make that Influence of the noble more likely.  You don't want to fail such a roll even once, so repeat-till-fail is not an option.

Edited by Stephen
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21 hours ago, Zozotroll said:

JaJa, I read that to mean you cant passion combat at the same time you are runeing magic.  One or the other.

Ah, yes, if that was the intent, meaning no use of multiple augments at the same time, then agree

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

You could however use Hate(Greydog) to bolster the sword skill then the next round use Honour (or any other ability except Hate(Greydog) to bolster your magic. 

Not the way I've read it (or would generally allow).  If my PC's invoke Hate(Greydog) in a combat, that augment/inspiration applies until the combat/event is done.  No mixing in other augments. As noted on RQG p.229 "Only one attempt at inspiration can be made in a situation—such as the duration of a combat, battle, assembly meeting, magical ritual, etc. An adventurer does not get to make an inspiration roll every time they swing a sword!"

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

And if you want to end one of the benefits and replace it with another, I'm not sure what the mechanic would be.

In my game, the event by which you applied the augment/inspiration has to end.  If you applied it to a combat, then it's when the combat ends (e.g. all foes down or surrendered).  I'd support a Meditate roll or a roll on a passion/rune opposing what is active as well (perhaps the latter by an opposing player using Orate or the like though).

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:
  • Pick a passion and something to augment with it.
  • Pick a rune and something to augment with it.

I would not allow both.  Same note as above.  RQG p.229 "Only one attempt at inspiration can be made in a situation—such as the duration of a combat, battle, assembly meeting, magical ritual, etc."

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7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I would not allow both.  Same note as above.  RQG p.229 "Only one attempt at inspiration can be made in a situation—such as the duration of a combat, battle, assembly meeting, magical ritual, etc."

That works as a base rule. I'd be prepared to allow a little more leeway in practice if the situation seems to warrant it.

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8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Not the way I've read it (or would generally allow).  If my PC's invoke Hate(Greydog) in a combat, that augment/inspiration applies until the combat/event is done.  No mixing in other augments. As noted on RQG p.229 "Only one attempt at inspiration can be made in a situation—such as the duration of a combat, battle, assembly meeting, magical ritual, etc. An adventurer does not get to make an inspiration roll every time they swing a sword!"

Ah good call, I was focusing on the Augment section,

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  • 2 weeks later...

So lets compare on a guy that have 14 POW, and therefore 70% casting success. Also lets say that the Meditate rolls is a guaranteed success. Normally it is not and therefore makes the usage even worse than this example.

Meditate 1 melee round
1 meditate, no parry or dodge
2 get +5% bonus and roll with 75% chance of success

Not meditate
1 cast with 70% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
2 cast with 70% chance of success, can parry or dodge - statistical chance of success after two rolls is 91%


Meditate 2 melee rounds
1 meditate, no parry or dodge
2 meditate, no parry or dodge
2 get +10% bonus and roll with 80% chance of success

Not meditate
1 cast with 70% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
2 cast with 70% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
2 cast with 70% chance of success, can parry or dodge - statistical chance of success after three rolls is 97%

 

Lets try a guy with 10 POW and 50% chance of casting success

Meditate 1 melee round
1 meditate, no parry or dodge
2 get +5% bonus and roll with 55% chance of success

Not meditate
1 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
2 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge - statistical chance of success after two rolls is 75%


Meditate 5 melee rounds
1 meditate, no parry or dodge
2 meditate, no parry or dodge
3 meditate, no parry or dodge
4 meditate, no parry or dodge
5 get +15% bonus and roll with 65% chance of success - hooray!

Not meditate
1 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
1 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
1 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
1 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge (wont lose magic points if spell fails)
1 cast with 50% chance of success, can parry or dodge  - statistical chance of success after five rolls is 95%

 

As far as I'm concerned using Meditate to increase chance of success casting a spell is a broken rule.

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57 minutes ago, Dragonsnail said:

As far as I'm concerned using Meditate to increase chance of success casting a spell is a broken rule.

In the middle of combat, Meditate is not your friend.

There is sorcery, with considerably longer casting times and longer durations, where the use of meditation becomes interesting.

If you are casting a spirit spell without having the focus at hand, meditation still only betters your chance of success marginally, but the repeat casting would be two melee rounds later.

There may be situations where the attempt to cast the spell will make you the focus of attention. If so, you probably will want the best chance you can get for the spell to come off as expected.

 

I haven't familiarized myself enough with the enchantment rules in RQG, but in RQ3 characters dabbling in enchantments usually used the ceremony bonus to prevent waste of material and preparation.

 

The accelerated MP regeneration feature is extremely nifty if you just had a successful Divine Intervention or some other cause to lower your POW dramatically. Approaching maximum POW, the benefits diminish.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I was interested to see the following on page 245 of the RQG core rules:

Ritual Practices
An adventurer can increase their chance to successfully cast
any spell (including ritual spells), use a Rune, or perform
a Magic skill (such as Worship) through a ritual practice.

It seems like these practices may _not_ be used to augment a resistance roll. In a lot of situations, it's the resistance roll that's the hardest to make.

This seems a bit different from magic as depicted in HeroQuest. There ritual bonuses like community support, sacrifices, auspicious day, etc. could have a big impact on how effective a spell could be. 

Page 316 lists a bunch of similar factors that offer bonuses to the Worship skill, but not for other situations.

Rob

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16 minutes ago, Rob Helm said:

I was interested to see the following on page 245 of the RQG core rules:

Ritual Practices
An adventurer can increase their chance to successfully cast
any spell (including ritual spells), use a Rune, or perform
a Magic skill (such as Worship) through a ritual practice.

It seems like these practices may _not_ be used to augment a resistance roll. In a lot of situations, it's the resistance roll that's the hardest to make.

I'd allow it, although a strict reading does not say it. I'd also allow passions, and appropriate runes. Moon could be used for any magic, other runes for spells cast with that rune. Some spirit spells may have appropriate runes also, like Death or Disorder for Disruption.

Edited by PhilHibbs
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On 9/4/2018 at 4:05 AM, PhilHibbs said:

The middle point also raises another concern of mine over augments in general, which is that if you have less than 50% in a skill, then trying to use it to help is usually counterproductive. So if I am arm wrestling with someone and using STR vs STR on the resistance table, and I have training specifically in arm wrestling up to 45% skill, I am probably worse off by using my training to improve my chance of winning. Until I can get my skill over 50%, it is more harm than good. Someone with Battle 45% should be better at laying an ambush than someone with no Battle skill at all.

It also goes against the normal tradition when failing a skill - failing a climb or jump is not disastrous, you don't fall to your death, you just make no progress for a while. Failing an attack roll has no consequences whatsoever, except that you didn't hurt your enemy (or they might have damaged your weapon with a successful parry). Failing a skill augment should not incur a penalty, and I will almost certainly houserule that way. Not sure about passion or runic inspiration, I might keep the failure penalty on that, as passions and runes typically start higher and the benefit is more flexible and long term. A skill augment is typically just for a single roll.

I can't weigh in on the main topic, but when I start running the game the argument above has certainly sold me on dropping failure penalties for augment rolls. I'll still apply a penalty on a fumble, but a penalty for failure just doesn't make sense to me.

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