From: Paul Reilly (paul@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu)
Date: Wed 30 May 1990 - 09:56:33 EEST
I have been GMing and playing Runequest for over a decade now. When the
Sorcery rules came out, our group liked the flexibility of the system, but
there are several aspects to the sorcery system which we feel should be
changed.
We have experimented with different types of changes. From the gaming
point of view, some of these are "necessary", others simply add flavor.
One of the "necessary" changes we have found is in the matter of (Sense)
Projection. The rules as written allow a viewpoint to be used as a point
from which to cast spells. This is enormously powerful. One can target an
enemy thousands of kilometers away and then hit him with multiple Venom 20's,
for example.
Suggested changes in rough order of importance to game balance:
Example:
Arcon the Adept wishes to observe an enemy without being seen. He casts
a Sight Projection of Intensity 1; no spells may be cast through it. He
discovers the enemy's house is empty with lights out. Moving his Sight
Projection indoors, he dimly spies a sleeping form in bed.
Later, he goes out to within 160 meters of the enemies house, not wishing
to come closer because the guard dogs might bark. He remembers his old
viewpoint and casts a Sense Projection of Range 4 and Intensity 13. Through
this viewpoint he can cast a Smother 12, and he does so.
The enemy wakes up choking. Taking two rounds worth of damage, he manages
to stagger to the door and wake his dogs before collapsing. His servants and
guards start to wake up. Arcon maintains the Smother to make sure the enemy
is dead; a guard with Mystic Vision sees the viewpoint and tries to cast a
Venom 15 through it. The spell fails because the "hole" isn't "big" enough.
2. The caster must have a good picture of his viewpoint; either he has been there, or has scryed there. "The other side of this door" is insufficient if you don't know what is there. However, you could cast a viewpoint on this side and move it through. If the sorceror can picture his viewpoint (100 meters overhead, for example) or has a painting of the target to look at, he might be able to cast at some skill penalty, like 1/2 skill.
3. Certain natural phenomena interfere with scrying. Traditionally, running water interferes with all magic; one could assess an Intensity penalty for various sizes and power of streams, from -1 for a trickling flow up to -20 or more for a mighty river. Fire should interfere with scrying, particularly Reconstruction or psychometry. Earth already counts as interfering with Sense (Substance) at a penalty of 1 Intensity per meter; I see no reason why this penalty shouldn't apply to (Sense) Projection. A powerful storm could also interfere with scrying. Certain worlds will have special phenomena that block scrying. On Glorantha, for example, a Dead Zone cannot be scryed at all. Scrying over the Gloranthan Ocean should be impossible due to the Closing. (Perhaps an Open Seas ritual would allow such usage.) Scrying the Hidden Greens or other semi-real phenomena might give a result different from what the people who are there see.
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