From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Wed 09 Jun 1993 - 12:14:40 EEST
Graeme writes:
> MP are a sorcerer's expendable magical resource in RQIII. Not
> allowing them to be used while his long duration spell is in force
> is, I believe, a fairly simple yet flexible way of limiting his
> total power. As another pointed out in the digest, in the current
> sorcery system the best place to store active is in long duration
> spells. Having recently been sent the RQIV draft 1.0 sorcery I
> agree with a post a few months back saying it was like cutting
> off a sorcerer's arms at birth (more comments in a later post).
> As an example: a sorcerer wants to maintain damage resistance 4
> enhance con 4, and spirit resistance 4 on himself continuously.
> In RQ III free int of 16 and 2 POW 8 power spirits would allow
> him to cast those spells in 3 days out of every month. In the
While I'd allow one or two POW-spirits to sorcerers, I acknowledge they
don't _feel_ right. My foremost PC sorcerer says he's getting sick of
keeping track of several regenerating POW sources, and would greatly
prefer to have one single source.
(Right now he's got a desert cat and a hellion as familiars, and uses two
MP-matrices. He tries to keep some damage resistance on himself and his
cat, and sometimes he sells damage-boosted swords in return for services
rendered. His cultural background is comparable to Fonrit or Umathela,
currently he's joined some barbarian raiders.)
I tend to agree that the book-keeping doesn't further the magical feeling.
Neither does our fascination for Form/Set-spells, which are so damn
useful. Both of us despise tapping.
Why not allow the sorcerer to build up a pool of "false POW" which is used
for long term spells?
BTW, the longest duration he did by now was less 2 years, for a sword with
Damage Boosting 2. That was all his considerable Free INT of 16 gave...
> RQIV draft rules he would (with 75% skills) have to burn 3 POW
> every season to keep these spell going, or spend a season to
> cast a spell that lasts a season, or (and I think this was the
> designers aim) not cast them.
The old RQ2 theistic bias. I suppose.
I haven't seen those yet, but I dislike strongly what I heard so far.
> The last option makes sorcery into
> a system which, while it is a lot more flexible than spirit
> magic and rune magic, is a whole lot less efficient in effect
> per magic point. So much less effective that I doubt I would
> see many players having much of an interest in playing them,
> given the amount of effort it takes to play a sorcerer.
> In the system I propose, where the MP's equal to the intensity
> of a cast spell are unregenerable while it is still in force,but
> the duration table is the same as RQIII, the sorcerer above would
> need to dedicate 12 POW to keeping those 3 spells going (3x
> Intensity 4 spells).If he wants the MP back, he terminates the spells
> (which I suppose hecould do just by switching off the MP supporting
> the spells),waits the time needed for the POW spirits to get the
> MP back, and starts casting.
The false POW pool I suggested above would fit fine with Ischade's reply
to Molin Torchholder (not lliterally) "You think, you are better than we,
just because you sell your soul wholesale to your god, while we (she and
Enas Yorl) sell it piecemeal?". These are parts of the soul sold off to
gain some mundane effect, reusable in part, still creating magic points to
be used for powering spells when not pawned to uphold them, but not
counting as personal magic points for purposes of overcoming an opponents
MP, not counting for POW-skill modifiers, etc. It might be used to create
enchantments, too.
This way the sorcerer still is less powerful than the corresponding
shaman...
-- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de 0,,
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