Egregious munchkinnery!

[HreshtIronBorne]

I would love to see some statistical breakdowns of the magic loot possibly collected from past adventures. I know there was the old Plunder Book that had some charts for loot and specific magic items, I don't know how common crystals were on those charts.

[Pentallion]

13 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

 

So I like the idea of removing the rule, since it means you can keep your pre-calculated Special/Critical success thresholds... but, errr, doesn't that make high powered combat completely ridiculous? Everybody always does special/critical success, even when 2 evenly matched opponents fight?

It makes for really fun combats.  And between two highly skilled combatants, combat is always dangerous, even if one is 200% and the other 140%

[Pentallion]

18 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

No I actually played only a few one shots so far. That's why I'm asking

Well, if you play a campaign for, say 8 game years, your guys will have tons of power crystals.  I mean, if you just allow what's in the printed material.  If you don't like that happening, then make power crystals incredibly rare items and ignore the crystals given.  Won't really help, since as pointed out above, the PCs will just make their own and to keep their opponents challenging, you'll be having to give them the ability to keep up in the MP race.

It's a vicious, inevitable circle.  Your only real options to avoid MP creep is to steal from the PCs on a regular basis or charge them not in money, but in power crystals.  Personally, I just don't worry about it.  They reach a point eventually where even they don't want anymore power crystals and start bartering them off.  Meanwhile, no one has to worry about tracking the mp supply.  Less game maths.

Until an epic fail like Sword Trance comes along.  That spell has "Designed by someone who never played a long RQ campaign" written all over it, I don't care that Jeff has played LOTS of RQ, he obviously never stuck to one LONG RQ campaign or he'd have nerfed that spell immediately.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Pentallion

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I don't know how common crystals were on those charts.

If you're talking about the old Plunders book, not very. There's a 1% chance of getting a storage crystal on the "gems & jewelry" table. There's 1 "Treasure" that doubles as a storage crystal. Since most of the treasure tables only give out money, and only occasionally a gem/jewelry or a special item, then nope, crystal were pretty rare. That plus, like I say, the fact that all NPCs from either RQ2's Runemasters/Griffin Mountain/Borderlands, or RQG's GM Adventures only have one POW storage crystal at most, tells me that something doesn't add up somewhere... (when they have more than 1 crystal, the other crystals are always either a bound spirit or a spell matrix).

1 hour ago, Pentallion said:

It's a vicious, inevitable circle.  Your only real options to avoid MP creep is to steal from the PCs on a regular basis or charge them not in money, but in power crystals.

I think there are other options if you look into house rules. Now that I'm aware of this problem, my first thought was to use some simple rules to limit the accumulation of storage crystals over time (which is the actual problem, I think). So either they have a limited number of recharges (1d6+2 recharges?), or (and I'm leaning that way for now) you can only be "linked" to one POW storage crystal at a time and it takes, errr, say, 24 hours, or even a week, to "link" yourself to a new crystal (dropping the link to the previous one). This way, it explains why, as mentioned previously, all NPCs I've seen so far only have one such storage crystal: they just keep the biggest crystal they can find and sell/trade the rest.

Still I'd be curious how the authors never ran into this problem.

Edited December 22, 2019 by lordabdul

[Bill the barbarian]

56 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

No I actually played only a few one shots so far. That's why I'm asking

It is sometimes hard for many of us to remember that, you have an incredibly inquisitive mind and good insight, so many would mistake you for much more experienced. I have to compliment on how well you take the shock when people realize that there is an incongruity with what you know and what you should know and sometimes lash out at ya.

 

44 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I would love to see some statistical breakdowns of the magic loot possibly collected from past adventures. I know there was the old Plunder Book that had some charts for loot and specific magic items, I don't know how common crystals were on those charts.

You want the appendix IX of the RQ 2 rules that introduces the idea of treasure factors. It goes for 6 pages so a bit too much to quote....

Edited December 22, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Lordabdul]

27 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

It is sometimes hard for many of us to remember that, you have an incredibly inquisitive mind and good insight, so many would mistake you for much more experienced. I have to compliment on how well you take the shock when people realize 

Awwwww thanks 😅    (let's go get a room)

I did a big search through my RQ2 PDF collection (I have all the official ones) and I found that:

• The are five NPCs ever to have more than 1 POW storage crystal on them. Gringle in Apple Lane, Kzwmp in Snakepipe Hollow, the river elf and sea dragon in Big Rubble, and Boshbisil in Griffin Mountain each have a mere 2 crystals.
• Given the way crystals are listed in stat blocks, though, it could very well be that they just don't use the second one and have yet to bind a spirit in it (but that's pure speculation on my part).
• Based on some passing sentence in 2 of those books (for instance, Nuckelavee's 50 POW storage crystal in Big Rubble), I'm wondering if it's common for people to put some conditional enchantment on their crystals so that they're the only ones who can use it. I'm not sure if that's possible using RAW, though, that's just a thought I had. It would surely make crystals more rare, as you can't just pick them up from dead NPCs anymore.
• In Snakepipe Hollow there's a mention that a flawed storing crystal might give you a Chaotic feature when you attune with it. I assume this has to do with the "tentative attunement" that you do to figure out what kind of crystal it is, but that's another idea to limit crystals a bit more (cursed crystals!).

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by lordabdul

[HreshtIronBorne]

I have seen and looked through plunder. 

I have as talking about something that collated all the loot from old published adventures, so I could remember where I found that one something or other. As well as find the average number of crystals per adventure. 

The actual number of crystals we found in old adventures was truly ridiculous. Multiple times we were stripped to 0 additional MP and ended up with another 6-12, depending on casting needs, or so of varying capacity apiece before long.

I remember even random encounters having power crystals in some of the adventure books. It was also a symptom of resisiting with temporary POW or current MP. Had to have sources for NPCs to cast at least their regular spells from or they would be immediately susceptible to any offensive spells. 

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Awwwww thanks 😅    (let's go get a room)

 

Dude, folks will start thinking we’re Canadian, eh!

[Lordabdul]

20 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

The actual number of crystals we found in old adventures was truly ridiculous.

Since like I said I was looking through the PDFs, I had actually written down some numbers, so I'm posting them here. These are the total number of crystals mentioned in each book, including from friendly NPCs... so most likely, on average (unless you killed absolutely everybody) you would have only gathered less than half those numbers (for example, all crystals mentioned in Apple Lane belong to the "good guys"). For sandbox adventures like Griffin Mountain, probably vastly less, unless you really roamed the land to get 100% completion. Also note that some crystals can be flawed or cursed, and that a few ones are embedded in a weapon. Finally, I didn't count the storage crystals that have a spirit currently bound in them, but in retrospect I should have (since when you kill that NPC, the spirit vacates the crystal and you can just pick it up). You can probably add between 8 and 12 more crystals in that respect for the last 3 books... but in reality, as I understand it, killing an NPC isn't supposed to be the "default" result of combat (instead, it's supposed to either be fleeing, or surrender/ransom).

• Ballastor's Barracks: 0
• Apple Lane: 6
• Snakepipe Hollow: 7
• The Sea Cave: 0
• Big Rubble: 24
• Borderlands: 26 (plus some "found items" table with a 6% chance of getting a crystal)
• Griffin Mountain: 41

Edited December 22, 2019 by lordabdul

[HreshtIronBorne]

When you ransom a guy, you *don't* take his stuff?

[Lordabdul]

5 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

When you ransom a guy, you *don't* take his stuff?

Yes, but not when he manages to flee, was what I meant. Plus, in some rare cases the ransom negotiation might include some of his equipment, like unique weapons/armor that have special value.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

When you ransom a guy, you *don't* take his stuff?

Why not, who’s going to stop you!

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I'm not sure it would even be intentional, but I think the logic is sturdy from the way it's written:

1. You can boost any spell.
2. Boosting a spell increases its effective casting cost.
3. Higher casting cost makes dispelling more demanding. 

1) and 2) seem beyond dispute from the rules text (it's basically explicit), so any attack on the line of reasoning would have to be about 3).

Point 3 needs to visit the Dispel Magic rules, which you have avoided in your argumentation so far.

Quote

Dispel, Dismiss, and Neutralize Magic
The Dispel, Dismiss, and Neutralize Magic spells are three different ways to get rid of a spell already in effect. Each point of Dispel Magic removes 1 point of spirit magic or intensity of sorcery spells; 2 points removes 1 point of Rune magic. Dismiss Magic works the same way but is twice as powerful—each point of Dismiss Magic removes 2 points of spirit magic or intensity of sorcery spells; 1 point removes 1 point of Rune magic.
The total points of the spell must be eliminated to destroy the spell. Thus, to dispel a Befuddle spell requires 2 points of Dispel Magic, to dispel a 1-point Shield spell requires 2 points, and to dispel a 4-point Conflagration spell would require 4 points of Dispel Magic. One cannot dispel only part of a spell.
The sorcery spell Neutralize Magic works somewhat differently. The spell must overcome the strength (or points) of the target spell on the resistance table with its own strength. Rune magic has a strength of 2 for every Rune point used to cast the Rune spell.

The points of the spell. Your ruling is that the boost adds to the points of the spell because of that unfortunate wording in the example.

My ruling is that a Protection 4 that is boosted by any amount of magic points (to get past that Shield spell already in place) still is the four point spell.

There are other spells which play into this problem - I think I'll start a new thread on this.

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Well, if you play a campaign for, say 8 game years, your guys will have tons of power crystals.  I mean, if you just allow what's in the printed material.  If you don't like that happening, then make power crystals incredibly rare items and ignore the crystals given.  Won't really help, since as pointed out above, the PCs will just make their own and to keep their opponents challenging, you'll be having to give them the ability to keep up in the MP race.

I don't recall how many accumulated in my old RQ3 campaign which ran 10 years, but I don't remember any egregious amount. But then, Griffin Mountain was the only published setting I used - and I may have just not had very many available.

The other limiting factor (and I don't recall if it was a published or house rule) was that you could not mix MP sources to cast/boost spells. Sure you had plenty of reserves to draw upon to keep casting spirit magic, but you didn't have infinite reserves. (I don't recall if I did the same with sorcery though.)

[Austin]

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

So I like the idea of removing the rule, since it means you can keep your pre-calculated Special/Critical success thresholds... but, errr, doesn't that make high powered combat completely ridiculous? Everybody always does special/critical success, even when 2 evenly matched opponents fight?

I haven't played in a super-high-powered campaign (base skills breaking 200%), but yeah, basically. I have a friend who's been playing the same Wind Lord, a bit on and off, for over a decade, and his base skill is something like 220%; their game foundation is RQ3, houseruled, and combats against equal opponents do often come down to who specials past parry armor first. Or who rolls 96+ first.

@HreshtIronBorne thanks for the head's-up on Fireblade. I'll keep an eye out for that at my table; I can't recall exactly what my players were using--maybe it's just that he likes that spell, but wasn't using it on spirits.

In any case, Truesword + enchanted iron broadsword does still make very short work of spirits.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

p. 248: "A caster may always use additional magic points to boost a
spell, regardless of type. This is typically done to overcome
a Countermagic or Shield spell, or other magical defenses."

...

"The next round Vasana decides to cast Demoralize, a 2-point
spirit magic spell, on the same troll. This time she boosts the
spell with 4 magic points, making it effectively a 6-point spell."

So my rules interpretation (which I believe is solid) goes like this: Any spell ("regardless of type") can be boosted.

Any spell can be boosted in its penetration. The Demoralize with four extra MP has the six points of penetration against whatever Countermagic effect the target may have.

 

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

The phrasing "this is typically done to overcome" heavily indicates that there are other uses, and it also seems a bit pointless to allow boosting that has no possible effect.

There is one other case of boosting: setting the strength of certain divine spells like Heal Wound or <Weapon> Trance. It takes these rune spells to make the additional magic points do anything.

 

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

What boosting does, is increase the strength of the spell - this, after all, is why a boosted spell can punch through Countermagic.

This is where we part ways.

 

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

The boosting example text (there is no actual rules text, which is weird) clearly states that the spell "effectively" becomes a higher-cost (i.e. stronger) spell. Countermagic gives a good indication about how it works - spells being stronger/weaker, and boosting magic points making a spell stronger (otherwise, offensive boosting wouldn't work in the first place). Hence, any spell boosted with magic points now "effectively" counts as its effective cost. 

For how long? Boosting a spell adds to the penetration vs. Countermagic, Absorption, and Reflection/Castback, but that's as far as it goes.

 

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

So a defensively boosted spell is now a stronger (higher-cost) spell. If a Demoralize boosted with 4 Magic Points is effectively a 6-point spell, then it follows that a Coordination boosted with 4 Magic Points is also a 6-point spell.

For penetration purposes. The example that you quote is not rules-lawyer-proof in its phrasing. Neither is the interaction of Shield with a pre-existing Spirit Magic Countermagic.

 

Or stacking of rune spells. Imagine a one-on-one duel is to be fought by your champion, and the rest of the group pools a number of spells to buff their champion before he enters the duel. Three of the other party members know Shield, and might be able to offer 2 rune points each. Does this add up to six points of shield for the champion? And the second supporter who adds Shield has to boost with 1 magic point to add to the Shield, and the third supporter has to boost with 5 magic points.

(And, accepting your reasoning, does this mean that in order to Dismiss this shield I need 6 + 6/2 = 9 rune points of Dismiss, or a highly improbable 18 points of Dispel Magic?)

 

Two melee rounds into the duel, the opponent of the champion attempted to cast a Thunderbolt that was stopped by the Shield. Our champion decides to spend two of his remaining rune points to cast two more points of Shield. Does his Shield now go up to 8? Will 2 points remain for (at least) two melee rounds longer?

When dispelling, the entire Shield stack is affected. What if the champion has put a Protection on top of that? Do these points add to the strength of the Shield when dispelling it (and end up being dispelled along with the Shield)?

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

(Following this, everything gets incredibly complicated as Dispel Magic, Dismiss Magic, and Neutralize Magic are all worded in different ways, with some of them talking about magic points and other talking points of Spirit Magic, but one thing is fairly clear - my "Shield 21 boosted with 100 Magic Points" is "effectively" a 142-point spell.)

For penetration purposes, only.

 

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

((Also, by the gods would this game benefit by defining its terms strictly and using clear and consistent rules text. It has a lot to learn from more recent editions of D&D in this regard.))

Apparently being a lawyer doesn't prepare you to compete with a whole horde of rules lawyers... But then, the aesthetics of a lawyer-proof phrasing are not on par with the aesthetics of the presentation of the game.

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Point 3 needs to visit the Dispel Magic rules, which you have avoided in your argumentation so far.

Mostly because the set of dispel-type spells are so poorly written it's hard to make sense of. 

Essentially, the argument comes down to this: when you boost a spell, does it actually increase the cost of the spell (as the example, our only real source for what boosting does) says, where the boost literally - or at least "effectively" - turns a 2-cost spell into 6-cost spell) which will in turn require a a larger Dispel/Dismiss (as the spell is now a higher-cost spell), or does it only create a "false" size of the spell for penetration purposes (but not dispelling purposes)? 

Also, the rules are so poorly written and so contradictory that all any of us can do is decide on a reading that makes the most sense. Any such interpretation will be contradicted by some other rule - it's just a matter of how badly and how. I think the easiest way to think of it is this - when you boost a spell, it increases its cost/size, without increasing its other effects. The cost of the spell is what matters for countermagic penetration and dispelling purposes. Any other ruling adds more exceptions and special cases, something that all else being equal should be avoided on Occam's Razor grounds.

[Akhôrahil]

13 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Apparently being a lawyer doesn't prepare you to compete with a whole horde of rules lawyers... But then, the aesthetics of a lawyer-proof phrasing are not on par with the aesthetics of the presentation of the game.

I actually disagree. Sure, it's impossible to make something fully rules lawyering-proof (then they only invent a better rules lawyer), but there are many games that manage well-engineered rules-design while being fully readable. It serves no purpose to write essentially the same effect (dispelling) in different ways every place it turns up - if anything, it's endlessly frustrating that you can't know that a spell that is supposedly "like this other one, only twice as powerful" (Dismiss vs. Dispel) isn't written in some different fashion.

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, Akhôrahil said:

I actually disagree. Sure, it's impossible to make something fully rules lawyering-proof (then they only invent a better rules lawyer), but there are many games that manage well-engineered rules-design while being fully readable. It serves no purpose to write essentially the same effect (dispelling) in different ways every place it turns up - if anything, it's endlessly frustrating that you can't know that a spell that is supposedly "like this other one, only twice as powerful" (Dismiss vs. Dispel) isn't written in some different fashion.

I have tried to address that in my Dueling Magic(ian)s thread. Comments, disagreements and suggestions for modification of that text or links to related threads (like this one) are welcome.

The problem is that such well-defined terms quickly become jargon, a specialized language that has well-defined meanings, and might have to be marked up in different font color or emphasis to make clear that a well-defined term rather than the everyday language term is meant. And then the poor reader trying to parse that text will be forced to look up each and every definition... even if it comes as floating text in an electronic document (similar to the links in Wikipedia), this gets exhausting really fast.

 

There is also the issue of unbreakable spells. The spirit spell Dispel Magic has a theoretical upper limit of the INT of the caster minus one if said caster is (or has) a shaman who can find any spirit he wants. Unless you are able to find and bind a spirit that knows an even more powerful version of that spell, and that can be commanded to cast it on behalf of its binder.

The amount of Dismiss Magic that can be put into a single casting depends on the number of rune points the caster can pour into that, or alternatively in the number of rune points put into that Dismiss Magic enchantment item.

Sorcerers can only "dispel" active spirit magic with "Neutralize Spirit Magic", but they can also use Neutralize Magic to disable a rune spell or sorcery spell termporarily. With the ability to Inscribe spells with a number of free points of Intensity, Duration and/or Range (for one POW per such point, resulting in the equivalent of magic points cast for free whenever they cast those spells), sorcerers have no theoretical upper limit for their Neutralize Magic spells.

But then, a Neutralize Magic spell can be Neutralized by another Neutralize Magic spell. A sorcerer might produce a blinking light effect by Neutralizing Neutralize Magic spells with different durations....

[Akhôrahil]

So which five 21-point Year-Extended Rune Magic Spells would it be optimal to keep up all the time for a typical adventurer? I would be inclined to say:

• Shield (duh!)
• Slash
• Bear's Strength
• Charisma
• Flight

Other fun options include Bear's Hide, Earth Shield, Fearless, Harmony or Peace (if you're Chalana Array and want to be endlessly annoying), Invisibility, Morale, Spirit Block...

What else? 

(You might be able to squeeze in more than five if you're... ahem... "religious" about catching up weekly worship, or if you filled up another cult.)

Edited December 22, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[HreshtIronBorne]

4 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

So which five 21-point Year-Extended Rune Magic Spells would it be optimal to keep up all the time for a typical adventurer? I would be inclined to say:

• Shield (duh!)
• Slash
• Bear's Strength
• Charisma
• Flight

Other fun options include Bear's Hide, Earth Shield, Fearless, Harmony or Peace (if you're Chalana Array and want to be endlessly annoying), Invisibility, Morale, Spirit Block...

What else? 

I think nearly every spell Orlanth has access to is worth Extending. Leap 1 is solid, Leap 3 allows you to compete with chaos features, lol. Darkwalk is AMAZING. Flight is cool but, has lots of drawbacks that Jumping everywhere doesn't.  

Truesword has been a favorite for my Humakti PC. You could also do Detect Truth and get your Inquisitorial Death God jollies. 

[Akhôrahil]

If You Want War, Prepare for Peace

Bring a few runemasters together. Cast Peace. Murder all the helpless non-runemasters who can no longer fight back. 

Make this extra annoying by having Peace up all year round through Extension.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Austin]

@Akhôrahil, @HreshtIronBorne: if we're in rules-lawyer territory, per @Jason Durall's errata answers on the Q&A spells with the "nonstackable" tag cannot be Extended. Notable spells including this are Peace, Charisma, Bear's Strength, Sword Trance, Truesword, and Earth Shield, though this includes others as well.

(FWIW I'm not sure I'll be keeping with that ruling myself, and I suspect it's an example of imprecise definitions as Akhorahil has complained of, rather than an intended result. I've not yet found an example of actual published text in the core where a "nonstackable" spell was Extended.)

[HreshtIronBorne]

I honestly think Jason's answer that all Non-Stackable spells aren't extendable is just too broken a fix in the other direction. I personally am loving the new feel of RuneQuest and how it has had the ability to model what the fluff has always said about what happens in Glorantha. This is a world where legitimately everything is magical. People are described as walking with their gods all the time. We don't even have rules for HQ abilities officially yet but, there have been casual mentions frlm official sources of Powers like Permanent Shield 4. So, I think the power level for this entire game is shifting much more towards KoDP and HQ sources, and I am in love with it for consistency with Glorantha as I have always seen it. For this line of reasoning alone I would be fine extending most of the spell kit for most gods.

Or you make the PCs go on a HeroQuest and get an item the God got that let them Do The Thing. 

Edited to add: With the ruling that all Non-Stackable spells are incapable of Extension all of the Odaylans lose out on their best magics completely. I personally really like the idea of some Odaylans preferring to hunt in the Great Hunt as Men and some Hunt as Bears! None of the Transformation Spells are stackable, though the individual spells have Temporal Status. If you allow at least the individual Transformation spells to be stacked with Extension then Badass Initiates and Rune-Lords with massive CHA can at least transform for a week or a season. 

Edited December 22, 2019 by HreshtIronBorne
Completed a thought

[Akhôrahil]

24 minutes ago, Crel said:

@Akhôrahil, @HreshtIronBorne: if we're in rules-lawyer territory, per @Jason Durall's errata answers on the Q&A spells with the "nonstackable" tag cannot be Extended. Notable spells including this are Peace, Charisma, Bear's Strength, Sword Trance, Truesword, and Earth Shield, though this includes others as well.

(FWIW I'm not sure I'll be keeping with that ruling myself, and I suspect it's an example of imprecise definitions as Akhorahil has complained of, rather than an intended result. I've not yet found an example of actual published text in the core where a "nonstackable" spell was Extended.)

This makes no sense - there are non-stackable spells in the rules text that talks about being able to be extended (like Incarnate Ancestor).

It's also hard to see any reason for the ruling. Most of the munchkin ammo comes from extending giant stackable rune spells anyway.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Akhôrahil