From: Brent Krupp (fletcher@u.washington.edu)
Date: Wed 23 Feb 1994 - 22:24:11 EET
Brent Krupp here (for those with mailer difficulties)...
I've stayed pretty quiet here, despite being on 'lurker' status for some
months and reading all that has transpired. However, I feel that another
set of opinions (insofar as it helps sway Oliver and the powers that be)
can't hurt.
Sorcery: Please, please, please let range and duration be exponential
like in RQ3 with the sole limitation that skill/10 is maximum
manipulation. This would work FINE. I have run and also played in
*several* RQ3 campaigns (both Gloranthan and Fantasy Earth) since '84
and the only problem with sorcery if you take the time to carefully read
the rules (yes, they could all be made more clear... something that the
RQ4 apparently does) is excessive duration. This IS fixed by the above
rule. The problem is not duration itself, it's the Free INT 18 sorceror
casting extended *everything* on all his buddies (and himself) once a
season or so. This *cannot* happen with the simple skill/10 limit.
Duration skill of 100% (not common) gives a maximum of +10 duration or
one *week*! That is not enough time for a sorceror to cast terribly many
extended spells on people if he still wants time left to go *use* those
spells before needing to recast them. In fact, even if he casts just a
few duration spells on himself and his familiar (or his liege lord) each
week, he'll be taking a good day or two to regenerate all the MPs he
spends. I think the idea of a sorceror spening one to two days every week
casting his spells and regaining MPs fits perfectly with the source
material and also popular conceptions of how sorcerors act.
In summary (of Sorcery): skill/10 maximum manipulation WITHOUT POW cost
is FINE! It works well, so use it! Charging the point of POW simply
ELIMINATES duration as a viable option -- in which case it should be
removed from the rules, not left around all crippled.
Brent Krupp (fletcher@u.washington.edu)
P.S. I lied about being done... note that with 50% duration the sorceror
can only get up to 5 hours... quite balanced, and at 75% only 42 hours...
barely long enough to recover the MPs spent...
P.P.S. Range is even more unbroken and not in need of fixing... 100%
range is 10 km (which just means line-of-sight except in odd
circumstances), 75% means 2500 m (long but still... that's 8 MP per spell
plus any intensity), 50% means a measly 320 m at a cost of 5+ MP... sure
it beats divine magic or spirit magic range, but it costs enough to be
balanced.
0,,
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat 05 Jul 2003 - 20:36:31 EEST