HQ for a Low-Fantasy Setting: Help needed

[Scripty]

Every magic user has a Mana ability, which is her capacity for storing magical energy. Treat it as a mundane ability (either a Skill or perhaps a Relationship with the astral world). No Magical Ability is allowed to increase past a character's rating in Mana.

This is similar to how Lael and I treated what we called "Spell Energy" in Midnight. I will get the document to you, Caynreth, as soon as I can but the basic rundown on Spell Energy is:

1) Each race starts out with a set amount of "Spell Energy." The amount of Spell Energy available to someone is distinguished by their genetics.

2) In Midnight, it is a magical ability. But only those trained in spellcasting can take it. It's only use is as an ability is as a defacto magical resistance, or an automatic augment to any other form of magical resistance that the character has.

3) When casting a spell, the consequences have been altered in relation to a character's Spell Energy. This was necessary for Midnight because pretty much all non-Izrador spellcasting drains spell energy. So, if the spellcaster has a Complete success then they lose zero Energy, if they have a major, minor, or marginal success then they lose -1. If they have a tie or marginal defeat, again the loss of Spell Energy is -1. If they have a minor defeat, then Spell Energy is dropped to -10%. If they have a major defeat, it's dropped by -50%. If they have a complete defeat, then all spell energy is lost.

There are rules for casting when you have no Spell Energy left, but they wouldn't seem to apply in your situation.

4) Spell Energy is recovered (healed) with rest. Rather than keep up with the loss of Spell Energy as individual wounds, etc., I decided to just allow one Spell Point to be recovered per day of non-strenuous activity. This just seemed easier from a bookkeeping perspective, as I saw keeping track of all the Hurts, etc., as a real chore. It also fit in nicely with the way spellcasting worked in Midnight.

The second way that is presented in Midnight-HQ is based on just a simple spell roll. The negative consequences only apply when you roll a failure to cast a spell. In your case, the consequences of failure would be fatigue. So, someone who rolled a Minor Defeat in a spellcasting attempt would be fatigued at -10%. This is both better in some aspects than spell energy and worse in others.

It's worse in that a caster could just cast spells all day as long as they never failed worse than a marginal defeat. So much for low-magic! But it's better in that the caster can be dropped a lot quicker using this method, so it's more unpredictable. In the Spell Energy method, you don't start taking damage until your Spell Energy drops to zero. With this method, you could roll a complete defeat and collapse.

Either way could work, it depends on how you want magic to be in your game.

Scott

[Mike Holmes]

Edited to note here that this cross posted with Scott. So now you have three options on how to handle these things. :-)

Peter's suggestions are looking a bit like what I posted here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8054

Comments:

Every magic user has a Mana ability, which is her capacity for storing magical energy. Treat it as a mundane ability (either a Skill or perhaps a Relationship with the astral world). No Magical Ability is allowed to increase past a character's rating in Mana.

Why this limitation? Just for color? Or to give the player an incentive to keep it up?

There are many ways to do this I guess, but I would just make sure that any failed magic roll inflicted damage to a character's Mana rating (as per Contest Consequences table, page 74). No magical or mundane ability, except the ones mentioned below, can be used to "heal" Mana.

The implication being that the character can't cast a spell that exceeds his lowered level then? Must be, else mana doesn't affect the caster's ability to cast.

What I did, was to say that to use a magic ability, the character had to roll a contest using his "spell point" ability against the level of the spell attemted as the resistance. Yes, this requires an extra roll, but it means that players can always attempt to cast things that are over their heads. In any case, failure has an impact on future casting in terms of lowering the stat, like you mention.

Good notes on healing in general for this stuff. For rest, however, I'd advocate making it a contest. The better the rest, the more bonus you get to your recovery roll. You can then either have some recovery ability like Rest Well or Regain Mana, or use traditional ones like meditation, prayer, whathaveyou. Difficulty is per normal healing rules.

Treat these objects as Reliquaries (see HeroQuest, page 174). I.e. they have functions just like Guardians. People filled by magical energy can be treated either as Guardians, or as ordinary people with special abilities, or both.

Ooh. Good call. Hadn't thought of that one. For less complicated objects, however, I just give them a rating that serves as another battery just like the first. Drain the one, and you can use the other. If they're meant to be finite, then when its drained, "Healing" the thing becomes recharging it, which can be as easy or difficult as the GM thinks makes sense. If it breaks completely or something, then it may be easier to just make a new one. If it's a Mana Battery gem ala GURPS, it should just be a contest like the healing ones above, or even easier than resting.

Treat as spells in HeroQuest, i.e. each magical effect can do only a limited thing. Suitable abilities are specific (Ignite Wood, Protection from Missile Fire).

Yeah, this is what I use for all "bookish" magic users, whether or not there's a monotheistic being in the equation. That said, I've found it possible to substitute the base magic of the world for that being. Thus the effect is that Study of Magic becomes parallel to Worship of God. Venerating Saints becomes Researching Wizards. Etc.

At first I wasn't concerned with limiting the magical pool during conversion. But now I worry about the balance between PCs. In HQ everyone can use magic, so this is not a problem. But in DSA it's limited to only a few.

I don't think this is much of a problem.

Remember that with either Brand's mana interpretation, or mine, that the PCs will be limited in overall effects that they can create by the potential of magical disaster. At any time that 1:400 Complete Failure can occur making the guy's abilities useless for potentially a long time. Meaning that wizards really have an incentive to save their ability for when it's important. They can't count on getting their magic points back as reliably, so there's none of that "use em' or lose em'" attitude that you see in some games of that sort.

Mike

[Caynreth]

Before deciding how to convert HQ magic rules into DSA magic there is still one thing about character creation I don't know how to handle.

I assume every player will choose a race/species keyword, then a homeland keyword and a keyword for the character's occupation.

That's all for non-magic-users. But how should I proceed with magic users? Will they get an additional 'magic' keyword? Or sould they choose their magic keyword instead of an occupation? Or something completly different?

Any suggestions would be very helpful

Cay

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. If you were to simply have magic as part of an occupation, would it really balance out with other occupations? I'm guessing no. That is, unless you short the occupation of lots of things that it should have, then I think that smashing magic into an occupation just makes the occupation stronger. So I wouldn't do that. Keep them separate.

Now, that means that magic wielding characters have more breadth, power, etc, doesn't it? But why is that? Because they have an additional keyword, essentially.

In my SW game, I discovered that it was more interesting to allow characters to have more than the basic level of starting abilites. But what I found is that different players went different ways with how they wanted their character to be special. So I just went with the flow, and basically said that each character has one "thing" that makes them special. So, some have Advanced Experience, making their ability levels higher, some have odd Species Keywords. Some have the "Traveler" keyword to represent being from all over. And some have extra keywords.

So, what I'd suggest is just allowing players with characters that do not have a magic keyword to have another keyword. If you feel the need to balance.

That said, there are probably those who would argue that the common magic keyword is no substitute for a Specialized Magic Keyword. And most characters I've seen that have Specialized ones also have Common Magic anyhow. Meaning that in normal HQ this "imbalance" already exists, and is simply ignored. As such you might not even need my balance crock.

Mike

[buserian]

Caynreth:

Before deciding how to convert HQ magic rules into DSA magic there is still one thing about character creation I don't know how to handle.

I assume every player will choose a race/species keyword, then a homeland keyword and a keyword for the character's occupation.

That's all for non-magic-users. But how should I proceed with magic users? Will they get an additional 'magic' keyword? Or sould they choose their magic keyword instead of an occupation? Or something completly different?

Mike Holmes:

Hmmm. If you were to simply have magic as part of an occupation, would it really balance out with other occupations? I'm guessing no. That is, unless you short the occupation of lots of things that it should have, then I think that smashing magic into an occupation just makes the occupation stronger. So I wouldn't do that. Keep them separate.

Now, that means that magic wielding characters have more breadth, power, etc, doesn't it? But why is that? Because they have an additional keyword, essentially.

Not sure if this is an appropriate suggestion, since I don't know enough about the background, but another option is to allow only magical occupations to use magic. That is, to use magic, the character must be a priest, spirit-talker, wizard, whatever. Those occupations don't have much in the way of "useful" abilities (as many players would see it), so magic becomes what is useful to them. (Other stuff can be part of their list or narrative.)

If someone doesn't have a magic occupation, then later wants to use magic, make them buy it, but start them out at a rating of 6 to simulate the lack of proper apprenticeship, the low level of control they have over untrained magic, etc.

buserian

[Caynreth]

I'm still working on converting HQ to my own setting. I made some decisions concerning the restriction of magic, but still have some questions (If you don't understand something or if something sounds stupid: Please bear with me. I have never wrote that much in english before):

I really love the system presented in HQ but I had a hard time understanding how some things work. The magic chapters were the hardest for me, as I always tried to understand the underlying rules system since I didn't want to use Glorantha as setting but adopt the rules for my own setting.

I have struggled a lot with how to balance magic: it is not available for everyone in the world I will play in. Meanwhile I have read other posts and have hoped for some "insight". Something I read here at the Forge - I can't remember the thread or post - finaly hit the point: Magic in HQ is not thought to be a scientifcaly explainable force like electricity. Magic in HQ is tied to religion, because only the things you believe in make you powerfull. Therefore I decided not to 'balance' magic for my world. If people believe in their lucky charms they should really have a higher chance to succeed. They can use common magic (common beliefs) or choose a believe system that suits them more.

Now I'm trying to picture some characters in HQ-system-terms. As I never created HQ-characters before it will be a great help if someone more experienced gives me some hints here:

Rix-Blix:
Rix-Blix was born and raised in the Kingdom of Horas (homeland). In his childhood someone discovered his abilities to use raw magical essence and took him to the Magical Fighting Academy in Bethana. Rix-Blix had a hard time with the discipline there but managed somehow beeing a clever guy. One day he was supposed to cast his first important war spell. Instead of burning an object with his fire power he produced a fire explosion which devastated a part of the library and his mentors office. In addition he conjured a daemon which almost killed his mentor.
After that Rix-Blix fled the academy and joined a troupe of wandering entertainers. He now is a fulltime entertainer (occupation) who uses his magical abilities to improve his work,

What kind of magical keyword would you suggest for this guy? Only the common one with some spells he uses for his daily work? Or a specialized keyword fitting the Academy he came from? Or something else?

Thanks in advance

Cay

[Scripty]

Rix-Blix: Rix-Blix was born and raised in the Kingdom of Horas (homeland). In his childhood someone discovered his abilities to use raw magical essence and took him to the Magical Fighting Academy in Bethana. Rix-Blix had a hard time with the discipline there but managed somehow beeing a clever guy. One day he was supposed to cast his first important war spell. Instead of burning an object with his fire power he produced a fire explosion which devastated a part of the library and his mentors office. In addition he conjured a daemon which almost killed his mentor. After that Rix-Blix fled the academy and joined a troupe of wandering entertainers. He now is a fulltime entertainer (occupation) who uses his magical abilities to improve his work,

What kind of magical keyword would you suggest for this guy? Only the common one with some spells he uses for his daily work? Or a specialized keyword fitting the Academy he came from? Or something else?

Thanks in advance

Cay

I'll try my hand at it...

What I'm seeing here, IMO, gels with the Wizardry style of magic that adepts use. Others may differ in their opinion but I think it fits better than Theism, better than Animism, better than Talents, Communal Wizardry and certainly Common Magic.

Instead of a "Use Grimoire" ability, I would give Rix a "Cast Battle Magic" skill that functioned identically to the "Use Grimoire" ability. Then I would assign the spells: Fire explosion, Summon fire daemon and other magicks that Rix is naturally talented at casting under the heading "Fire Magic" or "Battle Magic" and have that serve as his "grimoire" for these purposes.

Now, approaching the use of these abilities is something else entirely, first (according to HQ rules) Rix would need to use his "Cast Battle Magic" skill during contests instead of his ratings in the spells themselves. Rix has no talisman (and cannot create one) and thus cannot cast these spells as active abilities. They can, however, augment his attempts at casting. With this approach, you can allow Rix to have the "Fire Explosion" spell at a much higher rating than 17, reflecting the effect that the spell had earlier.

In the contest you described, Rix would be casting "Fire Explosion 7w2" with his "Cast Battle Magic 17" skill against a natural resistance of 14 (unless you wanted his mentor to have enchanted the candle in order to sabotage Rix's efforts). So Rix would roll a 2w (17 + 5 = 22) against a 14. Somehow, he failed miserably. There's probably a modifier in there somewhere (see below).

That's the vanilla HQ approach.

Another approach which Mike has proposed elsewhere is to have Rix use his "Cast Battle Magic" skill to roll a Spell Roll. Sort of like a skill check, with the result affecting the subsequent spell. So, in the above example, we'll say Rix tried to cast a controlled version of his "Fire Explosion 7w2" spell using his "Cast Battle Magic 17" skill. Because he's trying to control the outcome, he incurs a -5 modifier, putting his "Cast Battle Magic 17" skill at 12.

Unsurprisingly, the roll results in a Complete Defeat for Rix and the Fire Explosion goes out of control.

This Spell Roll mechanic is a smart one  that Mike came up with. It fits some settings well, others not so well. I think it works best in settings where magic is a force requiring the magic-user to harness or control its effects. Mike has taken some grief for adding a roll onto spellcasting, but honestly is it any worse than an Animist needing to get a spirit's cooperation for a specific task?

In fairness, Mike proposed this mechanic for use with his Shadow World game, but I did not see it used during play. I think this is because we had a lot of new players whom the extra roll might have confused. Also, playing by chat room moved a little slowly at times, adding another layer of rules to task resolution would've slowed things down even more. Mike's a smart guy and I think he realized this. But I don't think that any of these issues stands in the way of using a Spell Roll during table-top play, if it fits your setting.

I think you have the Midnight-HQ document, Caynreth. Mike's Spell Rolls (as they relate to Spell Drain) are listed in that document. It would be easy to extrapolate that into a control mechanic rather than a Spell Drain mechanic by having the Spell Roll either act as a bonus or penalty onto the spell's effectiveness rather than as fatigue towards the caster. Also, Midnight-HQ gives a pretty thorough overview of all the types of magic in HQ and what you can do with them when they are active and inactive (even according to the vanilla HQ rules).

It also introduces the use of something called Primary Magic which is like Concentrating Magic except without the funky point costs. Primary Magic is also something worth looking into for HQ with other settings, IMO. It's simple and (I hate to say it) somewhat balanced.

I based Primary Magic on the idea that while a character devoted themselves to the study of a school of magic or the mysteries of religion, then they wouldn't be focused on keeping their Talents and other types of magic up to speed. It made sense at the time. It also frees you up from having to worry about characters concentrating on magic and losing all their powers from another type of magic, which works for Glorantha but not neccessarily for every other fantasy setting out there.

Sorry to pimp myself out so blatantly but check those out. They may help.

Scott

[Caynreth]

I think you have the Midnight-HQ document, Caynreth.

No, I don't!!!

Sounds very interesting. Where can I get it?

[Scripty]

I think you have the Midnight-HQ document, Caynreth.

No, I don't!!!

Sounds very interesting. Where can I get it?

Just PM me an email address. I'll be happy to send it to you.

Scott

[Mike Holmes]

(If you don't understand something or if something sounds stupid: Please bear with me. I have never wrote that much in english before)

You're doing very well, I wouldn't worry.

Therefore I decided not to 'balance' magic for my world.

If this means what I think it does, that you're not going to balance in terms of keywords, then I think it's the right choice. To a large extent, the "power" of a character is based on their largest ability, anyhow, which is unaffected by what keywords they have. Further, only in HQ is the system set up such that mundane abilities can be used as creatively as magic, so no problem there, either, really. Just player choice.

I agree with most of Scott's analysis for the most part. I personally think that the vanilla interpretation is tht Rix cast his fire spell at 17, and got a complete failure which the GM interpreted as stated in the example. That would be the simplest way to handle it.

I'm still sorta conflicted on the whole Spell Points rolls, as Scott points out. Basically, I only want to put it into play if/when I have players who are interested in playing the rule. Since many of the players are new to the system, and I've been teaching as I go, I've avoided it until now, and probably will keep avoiding it until I start a new segment of the game, and can explain the rules in detail.

For a FTF game in which I could discuss it more easily, however, I'd probably be implementing the rules right away. So don't let my odd circumstances indicate to you that I don't think rules like this would work for your game.

Mike