Dare I ask?

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

The example is earlier in this thread, with magic spirit and conditions.

With enough magic spirits, I'll concede it might be possible, but I have to note that requires a typically much more powerful shaman than the example sorcerer I've been looking at, since each magic spirit either has to be in its own binding, or is taking up 13-14 points of the fetch's power to hold. Except for an extremely powerful fetch, that's probably a single spirit)

How much time to relearn the spell. If I remember well, the answer is: 1 week. Still the same downtime problem.

Correct, but again, most of these aren't spells he needs to use very often; the Summon spells in particular are only necessary when he's setting the process up. Same for the enchantments, and since these aren't spirits you use actively (as are, say, elementals) you don't even really need the sorcerous control spell equivelents outside the binding period.

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

That's nice if you have the option, but in many cases you don't have that kind of lead time; I'll give you that if you do a shaman is a good spy until the opposition has quite good magical capability, but as I noted in my other post, even then there's limits as to what he can do, and how often that comes up is sharply limited. If something is going on that needs to be interrupted, you don't necessarily know days in advance, and that can be what's needed to do effective reconnaisance even for a shaman.

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

I'm beginning to suspect your GM isn't clear on the limits of spirit magic command spells; the situation you describe should be almost impossible there, as those spells are pretty much useless tactically, since the target spirits have to be reduced to 0 magic points before they'll work.

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.

Even planned fights don't always have huge amounts of lead time, however.

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.

There's still only so much room for larger spells; keep in mind I'm talking about spells in the rank 4-8 range. Its quite easy for even 2-4 of those to take up all his Int. Of course he could make matrices, but that's a considerable power cost.

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.

Note rituals, even with ceremonies, don't have to take more than a handful of days, however; as I noted, the ceremony bonus is in hours, not days.

first assumption: large cities, which is not always the case.

Sure. But in a civilized environment (which is the only place you'll be encountering sorcerers in any number anyway, so the arguement is otherwise moot) it doesn't take a huge one to have a few sorcerers at moderate levels.

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.

That, however, is not primarily a rules issue but a campaign culture issue; while there's no special reason for a sorcerer to be willing to teach spells to someone else, that's just as true of almost all skill training, and given the cost of training, it certainly seems like on at least a financial level, its as good a use of the teacher's time as anything else he'd do. That doesn't mean you can't have a culture of jealous, spell-hording sorcerers, but since the game assumes that all civilized characters have access to some sorcery, I don't think its the default when it comes to simple skill training (training in advanced manipulations is a different story).

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

Its less a case of things being done to get the enchantments for one's self then to prevent the prisoner having access to it, and no conditions will help with that.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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.

I bow down to your wondrous courtesy, then!

Then why are you doing so?

Why am I arguing the point? That's easy. Since I've played at higher powers with all the magic systems in place, I know for a fact they balance out exactly as I've described. Obviously, someone who's had issues with it has done something differently, and so my initial goal was to be helpful. Obviously from this thread, you've been unsuccessful getting the system to balance to your liking, I've been quite success getting them to balance to mine, so maybe my experience could be helpful. See below.

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.

It's not a house rule to determine which spells are available and not for sorcerers or shamans, any more than it's a house rule that only certain cults get certain divine magic. It's the same thing. Try this one: suppose instead of saying that nobody but shaman have access to spirit spells, instead I allow all of those but simply never have anyone around who knows those spells to teach them to a sorcerer? That ends up at the exact same point, uses all the rules in book (important to you, it appears), but uses a different rationale to get there. The same goes for divine magic. According to the book, only certain spells are available at shrines, so if we play in a world with low population density and only shrines to gods, then divine magic users will be hamstrung by a lack of spells. All the rules are in place, but they simply don't come up. Or, within the rules I can make super-god who rules the heaven and the earth and has access to all divine magic, many large temples, and hordes of priests. Surely, in such a case divine magic would trump everything else, at least for character's who achieve priesthood for that god. The point here being that interpretation and application is crucial. The same is true of a given world. I can run one premade world, you can run the same premade world, and yet we could end up with completely different balances through how we interpret at the table, even while playing directly from the same rules. RPGs all work that way to some extent or another.

I've intentionally stayed away from house rules, such as allowing initiates to relearn divine magic rather than lose it. It's probably the most common house rule for RQ2/3 (never played with anyone who didn't have some sort of house rule on this, from the earliest days), but it's still definitely a house rule. The same would be true of fatigue in RQIII, and a couple of other minor rules.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by RMS

I bow down to your wondrous courtesy, then!

I respond in kind. If you don't like my attitude, I'd suggest adjusting your own.

It's not a house rule to determine which spells are available and not for sorcerers or shamans, any more than it's a house rule that only certain cults get certain divine magic. It's the same thing. Try this one: suppose instead

No, actually, its not. The divine magic is directly supported by the rules; the others are, in practice, the GM deleting spells he finds inconvenient for a PC to have and just not being upfront about it.

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Kloster

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.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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 is correct here. While the Sorcerer does have to learn each Ritual spell individually, there is NO separate spell skill associated with Ritual magics, as the rules are written (yes, including errata). Thus, even for a sorcerer, Summon Ghost would use the Summoning skill, as would the separate spell Summon Intellect Spirit.

That being said, I think what we are seeing here in this discussion are simply different playing styles. In the LONG campaign (which started out as a playtest for RQIII) that I played in NONE of the sorcerers ever did this. In a BS session, it was contemplated but was quickly house ruled that each spell SHOULD be a separate skill for sorcerers, in keeping with the restrictions of that type of magic. I thought that had made it into the official errata, but I don't see it in any of my copies.

SDLeary

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

Nightshade is correct here. While the Sorcerer does have to learn each Ritual spell individually, there is NO separate spell skill associated with Ritual magics, as the rules are written (yes, including errata). Thus, even for a sorcerer, Summon Ghost would use the Summoning skill, as would the separate spell Summon Intellect Spirit.

That being said, I think what we are seeing here in this discussion are simply different playing styles. In the LONG campaign (which started out as a playtest for RQIII) that I played in NONE of the sorcerers ever did this. In a BS session, it was contemplated but was quickly house ruled that each spell SHOULD be a separate skill for sorcerers, in keeping with the restrictions of that type of magic. I thought that had made it into the official errata, but I don't see it in any of my copies.

SDLeary

Point taken. That means my character should be stronger than he is already.



Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

...
Its less a case of things being done to get the enchantments for one's self then to prevent the prisoner having access to it, and no conditions will help with that.

That's why I've written 'partial answer' and that some characters have taken the risk. Whatever the case, apart by killing the character, it is difficult to prevent a character using his strengthening enchantments (the most frequents in our case).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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.

I've just checked: summoned power spirits have a pow of 2D6+3. The most powerful one will never give 16 POW. An average gives 10. (RQIII magic book p 54)

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Point taken. That means my character should be stronger than he is already.



Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Well... yes and no. If you are playing RQIII, yes. If you are playing BRP, no..."Magic" seems to have taken care of this issue.


SDLeary

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I respond in kind. If you don't like my attitude, I'd suggest adjusting your own.

I've never shown anything beyond good natured and friendly, and yet somehow you've misconstrued that to be an "attitude". However, I really do find it humorous to be accused of having an attitude about something as superfluous as an RPG discussion for some bizarre reason.

No, actually, its not. The divine magic is directly supported by the rules; the others are, in practice, the GM deleting spells he finds inconvenient for a PC to have and just not being upfront about it.

Picking and choosing what spells, creatures, equipment, cultures, etc. are part of the world is surely one of the prime GM decisions in any game, so yes it's well within the rules for the GM to pick what's in the world and/or available and this is actually support by the rules in RQIII. Your logic would indicate that's it's wrong (against the rules) to ever refuse any request of the players at any time, if it's not expressly stated in the rules. I would guess (hope!) that's not what you intended.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

...
I'm beginning to suspect your GM isn't clear on the limits of spirit magic command spells; the situation you describe should be almost impossible there, as those spells are pretty much useless tactically, since the target spirits have to be reduced to 0 magic points before they'll work.
...

RQ III Magic book p57:
Control spells automatically works against creatures while they are bound in items.
Also, a control spell supercedes the innate control held over a creature bound into an item. An enchanter who does not use conditions to restrict the use of his items may find his bound creatures stolen from him or turned against him by crafty opponents using the proper control spells. Anyone who can use the object can also cast spells on the creature trapped inside, and he does not need to be in physical contact with the item to affect the creature by spells. He must use magical means of seeing on the mundane plane (Mystic vision, 2nd sight or soul sight) to target spells against a bound creature.

I think my GM just has read the rules.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster