From: Brent Krupp (fletcher@u.washington.edu)
Date: Wed 08 Sep 1993 - 05:45:26 EEST
I have been watching the discussion and examples of sorcery and whether it
is unbalanced and I thought I would throw my $0.02 in. My apologies if any
of this repeats what has gone before, but I have not been on this list for
too terribly long.
An example was given of a 'beginning' sorceror and it was demonstrated how powerful the guy is (namely, that all his compatriots wuld have near permanently enhanced attributes and powerfully boosted weapons). One person claimed that he couldn't easily boost/enhance all his buddies all the time. But if he spends lots of time casting between adventures (and remember, failing to cast costs only 1 MP) there is no problem here. Another person claimed the example guy was not really 'beginning' due to his MP crystals and spirit. This is what prompts me to write.
If you look at the character generation rules (which I assume are at least remotely followed - else it is impossible to say whether or not sorcerors are balanced, if the standard rules are discarded), there are apprentices and adepts. Adepts need spend less time studying than apprentices, the latter being barely able to adventure what with their 90% time commitment. Assuming that a 'beginning' sorceror is a new adept, let's see what happens. To be an adept the guy needs 75% in a few things, which in turn demands an absolute minimum number of years as an apprentice. With the basic 15+2D6 age, even 12 years is barely enough to make a guy an adept. However, given that many years (or just a few more from a lenient GM who wants the guy to be a 'real' sorceror - an adept) he will have learned a bunch of spells. This bunch of spells can easily include binding enchantment, dominate spirit, summon pow spirit and summon int spirit. For a measly 4 POW (and assume that a sorceror-to-be rolls decent POW (>14)) the guy gets two bound POW spirits (better than those crystals - at least 20 MP) and one bound INT spirit (for 5-6 points on spell storage. Someone suggested that sorcerors don't make enchantments until their skills are good, but to be an adept you can put enchant at 75%. With ceremony that as close to a sure thing as you get. And summonings can be done over and over until decent spirits are obtained. Furthermore, he has to have a familiar, which will take only one spell (create familiar INT) and yield another half-dozen INT points for storage and a dozen or so MP.
Clearly, this 'beginning' adept is quite cool. 30+ stored MP and a dozen or so stored spells. He ends up with 17 FREE INT and can enhance all his buddies and himself to high DEX (DEX SR 1) and big weapons.
So, you say, I've just proved that beginners should always be apprentices, not adepts. Ok, true enough. But, how on earth do you adventure with 90% of your time being your master's? I suppose the GM can rig it so adventures are quests for him, but what about your sorcery student or divine initiate buddies? All-in-all, I think apprentices present campaign arrangement problems in the same way adepts pose game balance problems. Also, even with apprentice sorceror characters, they can begin to reach the adept level, and the moment they free up enough FREE INT to do duration they become the pains that real adepts are.
The above notwithstanding, I have almost always had an adept in the games I have run and it can be managed. But it does elevate the level of the game, and none of this contradicts the odd position of sorcerors within the gloranthan setting.
Sorry for the length... fletcher@u.washington.edu
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