[Rq-rules] Re: House Rule Query

[Simon Phipp]

steve at limitedchaos.com wrote:

> Sure, you can have a system where you trade oxen for
> Divine Magic, but that isn't RuneQuest. You can change
> the POW costs, make spells more or less frequently
> re-usable, make them more or less available to
> different grades of worshippers, more or less
> powerful, but the exchange of POW for divine
> intervention in the form of spells, as well as regular
> DI, is central to the dynamic of the game. If this
> seems to make Spirit Magic and Sorcery more attractive
> than Divine Magic, then there is probably something
> wrong with Spirit Magic and Sorcery in your game.

There's actually a sort-of example of this happening in old supplements. In SnakePipe Hollow, the Ogre can sacrifice sentient beings and gets a POW reward for doing so. You could use this for sacrificing non-sentient beings to other gods, with perhaps a 1 for 10 return, so you sacrifice a POW 11 Black Bull and get 1 POW to spend on learning Divine Magic. You sacrifice 20 Black Bulls (210 POW) and get 21 POW. But, of course, they can't be just any sacrifice. Certain deities like certain sacrifices, they must be certain colours, without blemishes and of certain ages. Compare with biblical sacrifices where a whole industry was set up breeding and selling sacrificial animals.

Guy Hoyle:
> I understand this rationale, but what confuses me is that reducing POW
> actually punishes the character who tries to use Divine Magic or Divine
> Intervention.  As his power goes down, his Luck roll and his Magic Points
> and his Spirit Magic roll go down (even for cult spirit magic).  He's not as
> much in touch with his gods anymore, which seems contrary to me. If the
> character is using the god's magic to do the god's work in the world,
> shouldn't he be more in touch with the god, not less?

I've never liked the fact that Luck corresponds to Power. So, powerful people are always lucky. No, it doesn't work for me. I'd use a new characteristic LUC, rolled on 3D6 for most species, that gives a Luck Roll on LUCx5% and allows people to spend Luck Points and a Luck Roll to be especially lucky.

> The only workaround that I've thought of (and I haven't tried playing this)
> is to keep a tally of the points sacrificed on DI and Divine magic, and use
> that to supplement your Luck and Spirit Magic (maybe Sacrifice Points/x).
> This would probably have some kind of horrible, unforseen effect on game
> balance, though.

Well, it's fine except that at reasonable levels you get massive bonuses. In our RQ2 campaign, my main character had spent somehting like 200POW on Divine Intervention and 30POW on Divine (Rune) Magic. Even adding Points Spent / 10, that would give him +24 to POW.

See Ya

Simon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.thinbits.net/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20080210/8ec6b292/attachment.html