From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 03 Nov 1993 - 18:24:55 EET
Hi folks,
This is a thought which I've been toying with for a while. I need a bit of advice to perfect it, but here is the plan: I like the idea that sorcerers should specialize to some extent, but the RQIII sorcery rules don't give much motivation for specialisation (in fact, quite the opposite, they encourage sorcerers to concentrate on the good spells and avoid the more esoteric (crap) spells).
Say you want to play a "Fire Wizard":
With the current rules your skill at form/setting fire is completely independent
from your skill to animate fire, which is in turn completely divorced from
your ability to dominate salamanders. I have a gut feeling that these things
should be linked in some way, but the rules don't really allow for this.
So here is my idea:
(It involves adding another level of abstraction and complexity to Sorcery,
so some people will hate it, but bear with me...)
I want to do away with the idea of having a separate skill for each and every
spell. Instead I propose a skill for each Rune, and then associate one or more
Runes with each spell. The name of the game is RUNEQuest, after all.
To cast a spell (assuming you've gone to the trouble of learning it) you roll
against your skill(s) with the appropriate rune(s).
So, for example, your skill with the Fire rune will help in the casting of any
fire-related spell (but you might also need knowledge of other runes depending
upon the nature of the spell).
Here is my first draft of a table of spell/rune associations. The question marks (?) indicate runes which I am unsure of. (Notice that there are rather a lot of these:-)
SORCERY_SPELL____________ ASSOCIATED_RUNE(S)_______________________________
Animate (Substance) Movement + substance rune
(wood=Plant; fire=Fire; metal=Earth? etc)
Cast Back Magic + Disorder?
Damage Boosting Mastery? + Death
Damage Resistance Law? + Stasis?
Diminish (STR, CON,SIZ) Mastery? + Fertility
Diminish (DEX) Mastery? + Movement
Diminish (APP) Mastery? + Communication?
Dominate (Species) Mastery? + species rune
(human,troll,dwarf=Man; elf=Plant
dragonewt=Dragonewt; sheep=Beast
spirit=Spirit; salamander=Fire etc)
Drain Mastery? + Fertility
Enhance (STR, CON, SIZ) Mastery? + Fertility
Enhance (DEX) Mastery? + Movement
Enhance (APP) Mastery? + Communication?
Fly Movement + Air
Form/Set (Substance) Mastery + substance rune
Glow Light (maybe Fire? or Moon?)
Haste Movement
Hinder Stasis
Holdfast Stasis
Mystic Vision Truth + Magic
Neutralise Magic Magic + ? (Mastery again??)
Palsy Stasis
Phantom (Sense) Illusion
(Sense) Projection Truth + Stasis
Protective Circle Law? + Harmony?
Regenerate Fertility
Sense (Substance) Truth + substance rune
Shapechange (Spec to Spec) Harmony + species rune + other species rune
eg. human->troll only needs Harmony+Man runes
human->elf needs Harmony+Man+Plant runes
Skin of Life Harmony + Air
Smother Death + Air
Spell Resistance Law? + Magic
Spirit Resistance Law? + Spirit
Stupefaction Disorder? (for confusion?)
(maybe Harmony for Harmonization?)
Tap (Characteristic) Chaos
Telepathy Communication
Teleport Movement + Stasis (ie. moving without travelling)
Treat wounds Fertility
Venom Death
So, for example, Gandalfus has the following rune-skills:
Fire 80%; Mastery 70%; Movement 60%
If Gandalfus had knowledge of Form/Set Fire he could cast it at 70% (assuming
no further manipulations)
Likewise he uses the same runes (Fire and Mastery) to Dominate Salamander
at 70% (assuming he learns the Dominate Salamander spell).
With Animate Fire he would succeed 60% of the time (taking the lower of his
Fire & Movement skills).
As a bonus, if he learnt Haste he could cast it at 60% (as it depends on
Movement alone).
I guess you get the idea.
A small number of rune-skills allows the casting of a larger number of
*related* spells. This encourages specialisation.
On the other hand, to master a diverse selection of unrelated spells one would
have to master a huge number of rune-skills. (This is maybe a bit hard on
novice sorcerers :-( ).
My problem is I'm not certain that I've understood the meaning of some of the runes. This is where I need help from all you Runemasters out there.
Notes:
Mastery - I've assumed this also means "Control" which is why I assign it
to both the Enhance & Diminish spells. I'm dubious about using it
for Diminish, but if not Mastery then what?
Law - I've used this to indicate "Protection & Resistance". This is largely
based upon the (fairly) recent discussion about Protective Circle.
Chaos - Tap=Chaos. It's not explicit in the rules, but I think it should be.
This is pure bias on my part ;->.
Truth - I feel confident in assuming this means "Information".
I'm more than happy to hear quibbles about any of the Runic assumptions I've made. Even if you think the whole idea is completely hat-stand.
BTW I'm not suggesting that we should all go away and convert every sorcerer in Glorantha using the above suggestions. But it might make an interesting alternative for parts of the campaign which are not yet developed.
I have not mentioned Ritual spells because they could still use the appropriate ritual skills. However, I did have another, less robust, idea for converting all magic skills into rune skills:
Ceremony -> Magic Enchant -> Stasis? Summon -> Spirit Intensity -> Mastery Range -> Movement? Duration -> Time/Infinity? Multispell-> Harmony
But maybe this is taking things a bit too far...
Are there any Sorcery spells which deal with Luck? Or Fate?
___
CW.
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