Egregious munchkinnery!

[Akhôrahil]

18 minutes ago, Crel said:

Where is this in the rules? I don't remember anything written regarding an allied spirit's POW Gain being abnormal.

Bestiary, Spirits in general. There is no indication that your Allied Spirit breaks this general rule.

[Akhôrahil]

20 minutes ago, Crel said:

[Bestiary]

This quote seems unclear to me. By strict reading, it says that +12 counts as one die. This seems unreasonable though, as it means that 2d6+12 has lower Species Maximum than 4d6.

By a less strict reading, it means that each instance of a full +6 counts as one die. This has the advantage of making sense.

Will ask in the questions thread. 

[Austin]

20 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

By a less strict reading, it means that each instance of a full +6 counts as one die.

Less strict reading? I mean, it's literally the text in the book. I think the intention's pretty explicit that 2D6+12 has a lower max than 4D6.

25 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Bestiary, Spirits in general. There is no indication that your Allied Spirit breaks this general rule.

Found it, p. 164, thanks. However, it does say "Disembodied spirits," which I believe disqualifies a good number of allied spirits--those in shadowcats, for instance. I don't know if a Humakti's allied spirit in their sword counts as disembodied or not. Can allied spirits leave their "body" as if in a binding enchantment, and go attack things in spirit combat?

[Akhôrahil]

29 minutes ago, Crel said:

Found it, p. 164, thanks. However, it does say "Disembodied spirits," which I believe disqualifies a good number of allied spirits--those in shadowcats, for instance. I don't know if a Humakti's allied spirit in their sword counts as disembodied or not. Can allied spirits leave their "body" as if in a binding enchantment, and go attack things in spirit combat?

Good point! I imagine the idea is that some "spirits" live in the material world as default (like some elementals), while others are Spirit Plane dwellers that sometimes come to visit. I'm not sure what an Allied Spirit counts as - my immediate interpretation is that it's an entity that normally lives on the Spirit Plane that comes to the material plane to live in another beast or object (rather than being the beast or object), but I have no idea either what this formally counts as or what it would do to POW gain. 

Allied Spirits can definitely go and attack things in Spirit Combat - check the Resurrection spell, where you can let your Allied Spirit do the fighting. (They can also protect a disembodied caster from spirits, but here you could argue that it's just a part of the link.)

Edited February 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

Oh, and since we're talking Allied Spirits, another quick little munchkinnery thing:

Allied Spirits that are animals might be vulnerable in combat, and you super don't want them to die.

As animals, they're typically naked anyway, so they make unusually good subjects for Woad.

[Shiningbrow]

14 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I offer you... Daka Fal-specific egregious munchkinnery! I'm proud of this one, and was pleasantly surprised with how well everything interlocks. If I made any rules mistakes, please point them out - this all gets a bit tricky, and a true munchkin merely abuses the rules, not cheats.

1. Keep using Summon Ancestor. This is part of what you're doing anyway. Roll on the table every time. Make note of and roll up every Ancestor. There's a 4% chance every time that you will get one of the two best classes of friendly Ancestors (the third best might work on occasion as well, with a good Rune Point roll). This is your goal. The GM may also allow you to research your ancestors. The point is to gain access to a friendly ancestor with decent amounts of Rune Points (and preferably way more than one).
2. Once you have access to good friendly ancestors, cast Summon Ancestor + Summon Specific Ancestor + Summon Spirit Guardian. You have now created a kinda-Allied Spirit for a day (or more). By my reading, Axis Mundi isn't required.
3. Since it counts as an Allied Spirit, you have free access to its Rune Points. These will be for Daka Fal, so you will be fine spending them. As long as they have more than 3 Rune Points, you will get a net Rune Point gain, here.
4. Ancestors count as worshipers of Daka Fal, so after you blow through the Ancestor's Rune Points and spend the 3 Rune Points for it, on the next Daka Fal Holy Day, both you and the Ancestor can regain them. It's also unusually easy to maintain your own Daka Fal shrine.
5. Special pro-tip: Since you don't particularly care about the Ancestor's Rune point status post-summoning (especially if you have multiple good ancestors to choose between), you can use their Rune points to cast one-use spells, which in this case means Resurrection. Good way to save Rune Points from permanent loss! (Also, shamans are exceptional resurrectionists, as they are spirit combat experts and far more likely to force the spirit back into the body than your average CA initiate). A smart Daka Fal cultist uses less useful ancestors with only 3 Rune Points for this, as you want to save the ones with more Rune Points for more important stuff! You're on slightly shaky rules grounds here, though - while the most immediate reading of the rules is that Rune Points used to cast One-Use spells cannot be regained, the rules also talk about the caster of the spell, and in this case, those two parts of the rule start to contradict (as the caster and the source of the rune points are different entities).   
6. Special pro-tip 2: This may require a bit of GM wrangling, but honestly, you're in the right here. Ancestors don't know Common Rune magic. But you do, and you can cast Extension using their Rune Points. The point? These Rune Points can't be regained while the Extended spell is ongoing, but you don't care all that much that one Ancestor can't regain the Rune Points. (The same goes for casting other common Rune Magic, and Daka Fal Rune Magic that you know but the Ancestor doesn't.) Oh, and I'm pretty sure that you can cast Extension from one cult to Extend a spell from a different cult, so if you have better Rune Spells from another cult (could be even just a spirit cult), the Rune Points from an Ancestor can extend those.
7. You thought this couldn't be turned up to 11? Once you have a decent set of Ancestors with, say, 5 or more Rune Points each (even the third-best type can work if you roll well), you can cycle through them - spend Rune points from one until they're down to 2 Rune Points on it, then use those 2 Rune Points to cast Summon Ancestor + Summon Specific Ancestor for a new ancestor. Dismiss your current Spirit Guardian and cast Summon Spirit Guardian on the new one. This way, you spend 1 of your own Rune Points in order to gain access to [Rune Points - 2] points of Daka Fal Rune Magic from an ancestor. At Holy Day, fill up everyone's Rune Points.
8. Is it far to the next Holy Day? You and your ancestors have Odayla and Yinkin (and probably Kyger Litor going by older books, but this might be tricky in play) as Associated Cults, so Rune Points can be regained on their Holy Days as well, albeit at a slow pace.

Ancestors... gotta cath'em all!

Pro-tip: Daka Fal and Fleshman is every first human's ancestor. Kyger Litor is every troll's ancestor. Aldrya is every elf's ancestor.

[soltakss]

On 2/20/2020 at 5:39 AM, Shiningbrow said:

Pro-tip: Daka Fal and Fleshman is every first human's ancestor.

Daka Fal is the ancestor of all humans, being Grandfather Mortal's ghost.

Flesh Man isn't, as he is a distinct entity. I play that Flesh Man is the owner of ancestor worship amongst the Orlanthi folk, though. He does grant Spirit Block to every cult, even spirit Cults or Chaos Cults, as their vote on the Spirit Plane (Well, he did in RQ2 and I like the idea).

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Daka Fal is the ancestor of all humans

Isn't he even the ancestor of all mortals, including for instance trolls? I'm assuming that this is why his cult is Associated with Kyger Litor's? 

[soltakss]

13 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Isn't he even the ancestor of all mortals, including for instance trolls? I'm assuming that this is why his cult is Associated with Kyger Litor's? 

Yes, he is.

[Shiningbrow]

7 hours ago, soltakss said:

Flesh Man isn't, as he is a distinct entity.

Ok, my bad.

[g33k]

On 2/19/2020 at 8:14 AM, Akhôrahil said:

...

As animals, they're typically naked anyway, so they make unusually good subjects for Woad.

Does this mean when Argrath leads the Praxians into Sartar, Sartarites inclined to join him are part of the Blue Bulls Society?

[Bill the barbarian]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Does this mean when Argrath leads the Praxians into Sartar, Sartarites inclined to join him are part of the Blue Bulls Society?

sigh

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, g33k said:

Does this mean when Argrath leads the Praxians into Sartar, Sartarites inclined to join him are part of the Blue Bulls Society?

Balls...

[g33k]

4 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

sigh

Hey man.

Dinna gi' me nae o tha' rollin o' th'eyes an' lugubrious sighs.

This be the' Egregious Punchkinnery thread!

[Akhôrahil]

Maran Gor has outstanding AoE.

For a mere 46 Rune Points (achievable for a big Wyter or when using Allied Spirit shenanigans) , you can cast a Blast Earth that affects all of Glorantha. You can get away with less if you just want to Blast all of Genertela.

Not sure why you would want to, but you can!

Similarly, it only takes 46 Magic Points (which should be all but trivial) to cast a Shake Earth that affects all of Glorantha. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Joerg]

15 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Maran Gor has outstanding AoE.

For a mere 46 Rune Points (achievable for a big Wyter or when using Allied Spirit shenanigans) , you can cast a Blast Earth that affects all of Glorantha. You can get away with less if you just want to Blast all of Genertela.

Not sure why you would want to, but you can!

Similarly, it only takes 46 Magic Points (which should be all but trivial) to cast a Shake Earth that affects all of Glorantha. 

That should be impossible, as the Earth of Glorantha is currently separated into four separate bits (the Mostali are working on closing the deflected rift between Pamaltela and Jrustela/the drowned west).

Such a Shake Earth should generate a mother of all waves...

[Thaz]

On 2/19/2020 at 3:35 PM, Akhôrahil said:

I offer you... Daka Fal-specific egregious munchkinnery! <snip>

Ancestors... gotta cath'em all!

Another use of this :- Learn the various enchanting SM off various ancestors. Then use a friendly/neutral spirit with decent pow and RP to summon another fairly useless neutral spirit (low pow, no spells you don't already know) and sacrifice all _that_ spirits POW into the enchantment. Bingo 15 Pow spirit, leave it 1 POW (which desummons it as below 11 mp) and that gives you a 14d10 MP storage matrix.......

I have just ruled that this is massive disrespect to ones ancestors and is not allowed IMG. 

Top DF Munchkinry by the way. Well done. 

[Akhôrahil]

17 minutes ago, Thaz said:

Another use of this :- Learn the various enchanting SM off various ancestors. Then use a friendly/neutral spirit with decent pow and RP to summon another fairly useless neutral spirit (low pow, no spells you don't already know) and sacrifice all _that_ spirits POW into the enchantment. Bingo 15 Pow spirit, leave it 1 POW (which desummons it as below 11 mp) and that gives you a 14d10 MP storage matrix.......

I tried not to include things that assumed the cooperation of the spirit - you can access the spirit's Rune Points directly, but not its POW. Even beating up spirits in Spirit Combat doesn't let you toy with their POW, normally. In earlier editions, the flow of POW went the opposite direction, with the DF cultist having to sacrifice to the ancestors. 

That said, if you can find a willing ancestor, go wild!

[Thaz]

45 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

That said, if you can find a willing ancestor, go wild!

Sorry should have made clear. Use 3 RP to stack SummonA, SummonSpesAn and Spirit Teacher. Which makes that Pow available....just like a Fetch which explicitly allows you to sacrifice POW.  

Edited March 1, 2020 by Thaz

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I tried not to include things that assumed the cooperation of the spirit - you can access the spirit's Rune Points directly, but not its POW. Even beating up spirits in Spirit Combat doesn't let you toy with their POW, normally. In earlier editions, the flow of POW went the opposite direction, with the DF cultist having to sacrifice to the ancestors. 

That said, if you can find a willing ancestor, go wild!

Not if you can command the spirit... Difficult for the time required by most, but sorcerers can easily pull it off, as well as the Shaman with their Spell Extensions.

[Thaz]

This is completely against the spirit of the spell(s) involved but :-

Berserk and Fanaticism boost weapon skills. There is no mention of melee weapon only. 

Using these on an archer negates much of the downside (parry/dodge) and combined with a decent rate of fire and high chance for special/critical can be bad bad news. Of course once the archer runs out of hostile targets ...... 

[PhilHibbs]

8 hours ago, Thaz said:

Berserk and Fanaticism boost weapon skills. There is no mention of melee weapon only. 

Using these on an archer negates much of the downside (parry/dodge) and combined with a decent rate of fire and high chance for special/critical can be bad bad news. Of course once the archer runs out of hostile targets ...... 

Casting Fanaticism on an enemy horseman is a classic, as their attack skill is limited by their Ride skill. Oh, and cast Fanaticism on the horse instead if they look like they are going to be fleeing on horseback soon. Berserk horses are hilarious as well, especially if they are behind the front lines.

[g33k]

12 hours ago, Thaz said:

This is completely against the spirit of the spell(s) involved but :-

Berserk and Fanaticism boost weapon skills. There is no mention of melee weapon only. 

Using these on an archer negates much of the downside (parry/dodge) and combined with a decent rate of fire and high chance for special/critical can be bad bad news. Of course once the archer runs out of hostile targets ...... 

I'd have to rule in favor of "the spirit of the spells" here, and Nope this one.

YGMV.

[Akhôrahil]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Casting Fanaticism on an enemy horseman is a classic, as their attack skill is limited by their Ride skill. Oh, and cast Fanaticism on the horse instead if they look like they are going to be fleeing on horseback soon. Berserk horses are hilarious as well, especially if they are behind the front lines.

They get POW vs, POW, so it’s questionable whether this is better than an actual debuff spell.

[PhilHibbs]

2 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

They get POW vs, POW, so it’s questionable whether this is better than an actual debuff spell.

If it's all you have...