Why was the duration of Spirit Magic reduced from five minutes in RQ3?

[styopa]

On 3/18/2019 at 9:04 AM, EpicureanDM said:

Because it was two minutes in RQ2

It may not be useful, but that's the actual answer.

On 3/19/2019 at 12:14 AM, Joerg said:

I more than once managed to parley a rune spell into expiration

Exactly.  The whole "trollkin zerg" strategy works best with shorter durations, and frankly 2 minutes is so short - 10 rounds of 12 second rounds - that it materially constrained how much buffing one did before a fight, knowing that each additional round spent buffing reduced the in-combat duration of everything previously cast by a cumulative 10%....that's a lot!

 

In re multispell and disrupt, that always felt crazy overpowered to me, that a relatively trivial 2-3 point multispell makes disrupt a one shot killer for even relatively nasty enemies ignoring armor entirely.  We always ruled that multispell spirit magic was just that: allowing the simultaneous casting of the spell, not boosting a single spell.

[g33k]

5 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

G33 has said a whole lot of words but those words mean "In my experience the best defense in a RQ combat has always been to take out some of the enemies fast. "

I was trying to break down what "take out some of the enemies fast" looks like in RQ terms.

The ultimate advice for a fight is "win."

But what does that look like?

"Take out some of the enemies fast".

But what does THAT look like?

etc ...

[EpicureanDM]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

Exactly.  The whole "trollkin zerg" strategy works best with shorter durations, and frankly 2 minutes is so short - 10 rounds of 12 second rounds - that it materially constrained how much buffing one did before a fight, knowing that each additional round spent buffing reduced the in-combat duration of everything previously cast by a cumulative 10%....that's a lot!

Aha, so here's some data for the side who drop into strict time-keeping once the magic points start to fly. Thanks!

[EpicureanDM]

8 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

In RQ:G we now have Multispell as a stackable Runespell that is Common. I just recently put it to use with a little hitsquad my Humakti is leading on an adventure. We had a character with a Spell Enhancing (Whichever one adds to variable spell intensity) Crystal POW 4 cast Multispell 2 and then Protection 4 (8 effective) and Bladesharp 4 (8 effective) on the while front line by the end of the second round. Made a HUGE difference against the 36 ghouls we were fighting. My Humakti has an item with Strength + Coordination + Mobility Linked together in Matrices which he uses with Multispell 2 to make everyone on the front lines a badass for a fight, he calls it Humakt's War Wind. Our Trickster with Shattering has realized he can cast a Multispell 3 on himself rather than several Shatterings and as long as he has MP to cast them, he can get more Diruption 4s off in a round then he can shatterings, like 3 times as many because of his DEX SR and how we calculate it.

If you could add this to the combat tricks thread (modified if you think the rules aren't quite right), I'd be grateful.

[g33k]

3 hours ago, styopa said:

... 10 rounds of 12 second rounds - that it materially constrained how much buffing one did before a fight, knowing that each additional round spent buffing reduced the in-combat duration of everything previously cast...

Note the the Shamanic Advantage here -- they can instruct several spirits to simul-Buff on the same signal, so the clock for the first spell isn't 3 rounds expended by the time that 4th spell is cast...

Edited March 20, 2019 by g33k
the soul of wit

[soltakss]

On 3/19/2019 at 5:14 AM, Joerg said:

more than once managed to parley a rune spell into expiration... the two minute limit will mean that spirit magic runs out in mid-combat if players put on a layer of spells all by themselves starting the round mechanism ticking before actual combat breaks out, as they were wont to do in RQ3 which had a lot less spirit allies or non-combatant supporters (at least in my experience).

We used to try and delay combat if we had seen that the opponents had already cast their Battle Magic, in RQ2. As battle Magic lasted 10 rounds, even delaying combat by 4 or 5 rounds meant that our spells lasted longer than theirs, if we delayed casting ours.

[gochie]

I'm not sure yet, but I think we might house rule to go back to 5 minutes. 

Using light and lantern as a torch replacement was painful enough when it was 5 minutes, 2 is just useless.