Memorizing and Forgetting Spells, & Related tidbits.

[DiedatWhitewall]

On pg.390 of RQG, it states that since sorcery and spirit magic share the same Free Int that the technique of Forgetting through mediation is important. Most of the language is clear to me, except two things.

Firstly, can both spirit magic and sorcery be forgotten and memorized by using the techniques. And lastly, can anyone do this or just sorcerers. If it is only sorcerers, what is the distinction since Sorcery is mostly just knowledge of the Runes/Techniques/Sorcery skill. Does one become a sorcerer when they have any of these. 

I suppose it's also worth asking, does the Dominate sorcery work similarly to Command (Species) or Command (Cult Spirit). Where in the former the control uses the melee round but is mostly up to the desire of the caster, and the latter the spirit merely acts in accordance with it's nature. Or do I have the wrong understanding entirely.

[Darius West]

11 minutes ago, DiedatWhitewall said:

Firstly, can both spirit magic and sorcery be forgotten and memorized by using the techniques. And lastly, can anyone do this or just sorcerers. If it is only sorcerers, what is the distinction since Sorcery is mostly just knowledge of the Runes/Techniques/Sorcery skill. Does one become a sorcerer when they have any of these. 

Page 254.  Limits to Spell Holding.   Spirit magic when forgotten is lost, and must be re-learned, unlike sorcery (p390) which can be remembered again.

14 minutes ago, DiedatWhitewall said:

I suppose it's also worth asking, does the Dominate sorcery work similarly to Command (Species) or Command (Cult Spirit). Where in the former the control uses the melee round but is mostly up to the desire of the caster, and the latter the spirit merely acts in accordance with it's nature. Or do I have the wrong understanding entirely.

TBH the wording of the Dominate spell is somewhat unclear to me too.  In answer to your question, it seems that Command (Species) and (Spirit) allow a telepathic link between the caster and the affected creature.  There is nothing in the Dominate spell which says that it creates a similar effect.  On the other hand, animals can't speak, so how dominate is able to control them is sort of moot.  When in doubt, defaulting to a known system like the Command Species spell as a model seems sensible.  I would want to get a clarification from one of the people who wrote it though.

[womble]

3 hours ago, DiedatWhitewall said:

Firstly, can both spirit magic and sorcery be forgotten and memorized by using the techniques. And lastly, can anyone do this or just sorcerers. If it is only sorcerers, what is the distinction since Sorcery is mostly just knowledge of the Runes/Techniques/Sorcery skill. Does one become a sorcerer when they have any of these. 

You're a Sorceror, in my book, if you have a Rune and a Technique. But all that changes is that you can't forget your Rune or Technique. It isn't "whether you're a sorceror" that determines if you can forget-and-remember, but the thing you're performing Memory Palace functions on, namely, the spell in question. Sorcery spells are structured in a way that you can forget them in a structured enough way to remember them. Spirit Magic spells are not. Rational constructs are more amenable to mnemonic techniques than non-rational ones. The mnemonic techniques are taught as part of the learning of the spell, I'd say.

Edit: doesn't mean someone, somewhere, hasn't developed some way of 'shelving' a Spirit Magic spell and then 'getting it back out to use again'. It might even be a Hero Quest ability, but given the ready* availability of Spirits to know spells for you and Bindings to put them in, it's not as necessary.

* if you're the kind of successful adventurer who's running out of CHA-slots for their Spirit Magic...

Edited December 21, 2018 by womble

[Jeff]

3 minutes ago, womble said:

You're a Sorceror, in my book, if you have a Rune and a Technique. But all that changes is that you can't forget your Rune or Technique. It isn't "whether you're a sorceror" that determines if you can forget-and-remember, but the thing you're performing Memory Palace functions on, namely, the spell in question. Sorcery spells are structured in a way that you can forget them in a structured enough way to remember them. Spirit Magic spells are not. Rational constructs are more amenable to mnemonic techniques than non-rational ones. The mnemonic techniques are taught as part of the learning of the spell, I'd say.

Spot on. Memory Palace techniques are inherent in sorcery. 

[DiedatWhitewall]

16 hours ago, Darius West said:

Page 254.  Limits to Spell Holding.   Spirit magic when forgotten is lost, and must be re-learned, unlike sorcery (p390) which can be remembered again.

TBH the wording of the Dominate spell is somewhat unclear to me too.  In answer to your question, it seems that Command (Species) and (Spirit) allow a telepathic link between the caster and the affected creature.  There is nothing in the Dominate spell which says that it creates a similar effect.  On the other hand, animals can't speak, so how dominate is able to control them is sort of moot.  When in doubt, defaulting to a known system like the Command Species spell as a model seems sensible.  I would want to get a clarification from one of the people who wrote it though.

That was my thought process, I think I'll use Command Species as a template as the word "Dominate" seems to lend less autonomy than Command (Spirit). I tried looking at the entries for the other Dominate spells but alas here I am.

Quote

Page 254.  Limits to Spell Holding.   Spirit magic when forgotten is lost, and must be re-learned, unlike sorcery (p390) which can be remembered again.

Yeah these two pages were what sparked my confusion, though I suppose I should've considered that since I was in the Sorcery section it was solely referring to that.

Edited December 21, 2018 by DiedatWhitewall

[DiedatWhitewall]

13 hours ago, womble said:

You're a Sorceror, in my book, if you have a Rune and a Technique. But all that changes is that you can't forget your Rune or Technique. It isn't "whether you're a sorceror" that determines if you can forget-and-remember, but the thing you're performing Memory Palace functions on, namely, the spell in question. Sorcery spells are structured in a way that you can forget them in a structured enough way to remember them. Spirit Magic spells are not. Rational constructs are more amenable to mnemonic techniques than non-rational ones. The mnemonic techniques are taught as part of the learning of the spell, I'd say..

Your second to last sentence seems like solid reasoning, I'll explain it to my players like that. Thanks for your help!

[womble]

I've been wondering whether there might be a "Mnemonics" skill for Sorcerors to govern the speed at which they can "shelve" and "reconstruct" their spell knowledges. Might be germane in a more Sorcery-focused setting.

[DiedatWhitewall]

3 minutes ago, womble said:

I've been wondering whether there might be a "Mnemonics" skill for Sorcerors to govern the speed at which they can "shelve" and "reconstruct" their spell knowledges. Might be germane in a more Sorcery-focused setting.

It seems they've just compartmentalized that into Meditate, which seems sufficient. I'm not one to complain but even I think BRP systems can lean towards skill bloat, though my players enjoy the granularity when it allows them to thrive in certain niches. 

That would be interesting though, speeding up the process would be really powerful. Maybe we could rule that special/critical successes would have some effect on the time that the process takes.

Edited December 21, 2018 by DiedatWhitewall

[womble]

6 minutes ago, DiedatWhitewall said:

It seems they've just compartmentalized that into Meditate, which seems sufficient. I'm not one to complain but even I think BRP systems can lean towards skill bloat, though my players enjoy the granularity when it allows them to thrive in certain niches. 

That would be interesting though, speeding up the process would be really powerful. Maybe we could rule that special/critical successes would have some effect on the time that the process takes.

You could say the standard times are the risk-free ones. If you want to hurry up the process, make your Mnemonics roll: Success shaves 10% off, Specials knock a quarter off the time and Crits halve it, say. Failure would mean you wasted the standard amount of time.

And a fumble in either direction means the spell being operated upon is permanently irretrievable, or stuck in Free INT (maybe you can purge it with another Mnemoics roll; failure there forgets the wrong spell, or corrupts it if you fumble) if you really want to be nasty...

Will players ever want to shave a couple of hours off a 'remember' operation at the risk of losing a spell?