Dare I ask?

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I did not say on one player; I said on the whole party. That _does_ change the balance, especially since it can stack with spirit spells typically known by most characters.



Why? You can do it all in one day quite trivially once you have a reasonable amount of power points available; even modest levels will let it be done in two or three.

Even if we count you're version, he will need 16 MP per spell (4 for Intensity, and 12 for duration). Launching several per day requires a lot of stored POW. A lot more I've ever had.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

You forgot the D3 he gets initially, and you're assuming the character walked in knowing all these spells; most were usually learned after the fact. Since Ritual magic uses the Ritual skill rather than its own percentage, its in fact a particularly efficient thing to do later (though you have to increase your Summoning and Enchantment skills to get the most out of it, of course).
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Yes, I forgot them.
But you still need to learn the other spells, which means finding them, and taking the time to learn them.
And if I remember correctly, ritual spells have also a percentage, that has to be rolled under, but also under the corresponding ritual skill. For the enchanting and summoning spells means you need a lot of learning before being able to use them.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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And if I had much belief that its particularly easy to do or likely to occur, I'd consider that important.
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Take a shaman (with permanent 2nd sight). He sees the intellect spirit, goes away and learn "control intellect spirit". He then goes discorporate or uses farsee, and controlls the intellect spirit to go away. With the spirit gone are also the spells.

This is an example.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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Then we're at an impasse. I've explained how I've seen it done; you've not explained why its not possible.

I'm not saying it is not possible, I'm saying it comes later in the campaign (in part because of campaign styles, it seems), and that at least the shaman can obtain similar results with the same amount of time, money and POW expenditure.
And I have give you examples on how to do it.
I think the disagreement cames mainly because of different experiences upon what is imbalancing, and when it does occur.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

How? He has to cast them one at a time, just like everyone else, and there's only ten strike ranks in a round. Even with his fetch casting half of them, that's considerably more than one round.
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The example is earlier in this thread, with magic spirit and conditions.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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Since one will likely be in a matrix, and the others don't need to be anywhere but in a book when he's not using them, I don't consider that disagreement proves much.
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How much time to relearn the spell. If I remember well, the answer is: 1 week. Still the same downtime problem.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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Do potential enemies make it a habit of standing around and letting you cast at them without starting combat? Do you always even know you need to do this in advance? If so, no wonder you think this is easy.



And if I thought that opportunity occurred outside of combat particularly frequently, I'd find that more relevant.
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No, they don't. But when I expect a combat, I'm doing preparations, and if those preparations can include spying and sabotaging the ennemies I will fight, I'm doing it. My GM does the same with us, of course, which means that those of us that have bound spirits have to be careful if they want to keep them. One of them has even been possessed by his own magic spirit, that a shaman was controlling. The hell broke the following round when the trollkin slingers opened fire just after the humakti had been possessed.
Not all fights are random. Some (even most in our case) are planned by 1 group or the other.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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I can't agree; even a shaman has to find a spirit with the size of spell he wants, and he still needs to put it somewhere; as you noted, Int spirits can't hold very large spells, so he's limited to himself, his fetch, or matrices.
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He need to have part of his own INT free, and He will likely be over 12, so he can. This will be the small spells that will be in spirits and matrix.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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That's certainly part of it, then. In the campaigns I ever saw, there were usually as much as weeks of possible downtime on occasion. I'm suprised anyone could get in any training time at all if time was that tight; that must hurt lore types quite a bit.
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Consecutive weeks of downtime were rare. This is not a problem for the skill training (that can be split), but is catastrophic for ceremony (which can not).
So, yes it hurts lore guys, but much less than ceremony guys.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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That's true here too, but assuming large cities, and given how generally useful some of the spells involved were, that didn't mean it was particularly difficult. Finding someone with Summon (Hellion) might be work, but Summon (Int Spirit)? Not so much.
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first assumption: large cities, which is not always the case.
2nd assumtpion: some spells are so useful they have a far better chance of being available, and summon int spirit being one of those. I totally agree here.
3rd assumption: the knowledgeable sorceror is frendly, agrees to teach you the spell for a not too enormous price and has 1 week available right now to do it, without question. I would say my GM is not so generous.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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Part of it might be because there was a strong culture of avoiding self-enchantment (that is to say, enchanting your body) locally, as it tended to cause rather grisly results if you got captured.

This is a risk some have taken. And a partial answer is, again, conditions on the enchantments.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by RMS

I just wanted to say that this one had me rolling with laughter, so thanks. I've certainly been called lots of things, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever been called self-righteous. You either criticaled or fumbled your Orate here and I'm not sure which it is...take a skill check either way.

Given you've twice now accused me of being self-serving in this thread, once for something I did _as a courtesy to you_, I'd say it was quite accurate.

happy to contribute. You aren't the first person to complain about sorcery being unbalanced, and I'm actually a bit surprised that the weight of opinion has been squarely on my side here, but having run a lot of high level RQ without any kind of blanket balance issues I'm very positive of my position so debating it is pointless.

Then why are you doing so?

I'll just note here that it's not that simple. The rules can't exist in a vaccuum, so how any individual GM interrupts them is an essential ingredient into how they actually function. What I think has everything to do with how the rules are actually interpreted and used at the table. It doesn't violate any rule if I decide that only shaman have access to spirits in my world, for

Of course it does. It violates the listiing of summoning and binding spells. Its perfectly within your right to do so, but when talking about the rules, if one brings in a million different people's houserules and conditions, its a fool's game.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

I understand. We are not considering it a magical attack, but a physical one. That's why we disagree. But considering this, you're right, this one counts.

That's the reason I always try to use the term "power attack" for the sorts of spells you're talking about; it reduces ambiguoity.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Even if we count you're version, he will need 16 MP per spell (4 for Intensity, and 12 for duration). Launching several per day requires a lot of stored POW. A lot more I've ever had.

But note I've assumed Power Spirits in most of this discussion, and that's just about exactly a single day's yield from a power spirit. So between two power spirits and you and you're familiar's output, that's basically two days for six people. Quite doable.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Yes, I forgot them.
But you still need to learn the other spells, which means finding them, and taking the time to learn them.

Sure. And other people have to find and take time to do skill training, usually at higher levels, which can be just as time consuming.

And if I remember correctly, ritual spells have also a percentage, that has to be rolled under, but also under the corresponding ritual skill. For the enchanting and summoning spells means you need a lot of learning before being able to use them.

Not my reading of the rules, nor indicated by any clarification from Avalon Hill back in the day; the Ritual magic spells work on their own rules; the only thing they typically have in common with the regular spells of type is how you acquire them. There's certainly nothing in them that references using anything but the appropriate ritual skill. They're even referred to as a fourth magic system in a couple places.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Take a shaman (with permanent 2nd sight). He sees the intellect spirit, goes away and learn "control intellect spirit". He then goes

Assuming he even encounters the enemy before the situation occurs. In all likelyhood in most cases, the first time he sees an opponent will be the last time he sees it, so the time to do all this is not possible. This is even more true when talking about the opponent is a PC, as the latter tend to be proactive more often. On those occasions when it isn't, there's no guarentee that the shaman will even know the opposition will have a sorcerer, will know who he is if he does know this, or, if both of these are true, will be able to get at him to examine him in the first place, even incorporeal.

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discorporate or uses farsee, and controlls the intellect spirit to go away. With the spirit gone are also the spells.

[/quote]

I still don't see how he does that since the spirit magic control spells only work _after_ you've defeated spirits in spirit combat; somehow, I have trouble believing the sorcerer will simply sit around while the spirit combat goes on.

This is an example.

One that, as best I can tell, simply doesn't work except under special circumstances.