Topic: Question about Bladerunes in other objects

[thass]

I have a problem with bladerunes. I initially though that the bladerunes could be imbedded only in weapons, shield and armour, but that player, after reading the rules found that in the bladerunes capacities chart some other objects can have runes in them. For example a ring, bracelet, boot, hat, etc. 
 
So, I think that this is a hole in the rules so a player can have lots of objects filled with bladerunes. He will travel with 10 shock bolts, 20 healings, speeds, etc.

Would you allow this? If not, what can I do? Because the rules doesn?t clarify how many items could you have with runes. My first though was to limit the spells that an item can have, for example only allowing a ?run? o ?jump? spell in the boots. But what about healing or speed?

Also, he asked me to imbed 6 shock bolts in his shield (the normal shield has a capacity of 12 and each shock bolt uses 2 slots). But the shield is a defensive item. Would you allow this?

Thanks in advance

Thass

[Macavite]

We allow it, but there's a few limiting factors going on:

First and foremost, arcane magic is Evil in my world.  Only evil races use it, and no good has ever come of it historically.  "The Cerulean wastes, well that's what happens when arcane rituals go bad, son".  So anyone with a reasonably good power perception skill knows the party is evil.  Even without that, if _everything_ the PC's own is magical, anyone with a decent power perception is either going  to think they're a lot more capable than they are, "Come help us with the rampaging dragons" or is going to think they're rich and perhaps need to be relieved of some of that wealth.

Secondly, it just takes time.  If the arcanist only uses the first 25 percent of their power points, a mid-level caster can embed maybe one or two spells at a time.   If the arcanist uses all their power points there's two problems.  One they stand a significant chance of fumbling, and arcane fumbles are much nastier than standard ones.  Make the arcanist read and reread that table.  Secondly, if they cast into penalties, they're at penalties and low on power if anything happens while they're sleeping/resting.  A few night time encounters with the arcanist at -30 due to power points will encourage discipline.

Second and a halfly, most parties can burn through a lot of runes in a single encounter.  For sake of example, lets say a 4 person party, each burning two +20's and six +10's on weapons, two +20's and six +10's on armor, a blur, a shield, a leap and two heals.  That's 4*(10+12+10+12+5+9+5+10) or 292 power points in a single fight.  So long as the party has more than an encounter every week or so, the arcanist is likely not going to have the power points to keep the party covered in level 2 and 3 spells.

Thirdly, they're not as good at attacks as people think.  The way we play it, any runed spell is cast at it's level, not the casters level.  Also, any attack occurs with 0 skill . . . the spell itself is not skilled in 'directed spells'.  So a sleep spell cast by the caster attacks with +10-20 on the BAR table, and then the victim saves against the casters level.  Cast out of a rune it attacks with +0 on the BAR table and the victim is resisting against a level 1 spell.  Generally after a few failed attempts at attacks the PC's have favoured utility and defensive spells.  "Why did i just spend a 75 percent action casting a 0 OB shock bolt?"  Even then the duration of those spells is very low as they're duration is determined by spell level, not caster level.  A 1 minute duration blur is nice, but when you can cast it for 1 PP and it lasts 5 minutes . . . it's not as cool.

We've currently got two campaigns with parties with arcanists in them.  The biggest issue that's cropped up has been the inordinate amount of EP the arcanist earns while 'spell-whoring'.  To that end we came up with a new category of spell ep, for 'very routine spells'.  Spells cast routinely (I cast warm solid on my bed every night) that do not require manuver rolls earn no EP, but require no failure roll.  It saves time, keeps the arcane caster from outstripping the fighter for EP's and further encourages only doing bladerunes through those first 25 percent of power points.  Before we implemented this, the arcanist was making a little more than twice the ep of everyone else in the party.  Although . . . my arcanist does rock

[mocking bird]

Agreed that it does take a lot of power points and that you can't rune magic weapons.  However spell mastery can do wonderful/evil things for this.  For example expand targets to a 5' radius with a bunch of arrows in it.  This also cuts down on spell casting exp's as it is still only one spell meaning more runes or spells which is also wonderful/evil.

[yammahoper]

There is aonother limitation; the runed item must be in the possession of the user and focused on to activate the rune.  In addition, each rune will need a specific action, word, etc to activate it.  Thiscan be VERY fun in play.  Example, the fighter tells you he will activate the runes on his shield by tapping the edge with his sword.  Wait until melee when he faces a foe with the same type of sword and hits his shield.

I require 10% activity to activate a ready runed item, or 30% if the item must be brought to hand.  As for the shock bolts, the following attack is 75% action, so a host of shock bolts don't seem all that over powering, since a broad sword is a far deadlier attack anyway.

lynn

[Macavite]

However spell mastery can do wonderful/evil things for this.  For example expand targets to a 5' radius with a bunch of arrows in it.  This also cuts down on spell casting exp's as it is still only one spell meaning more runes or spells which is also wonderful/evil.

Yeah, although to embed spells on a pile of stuff you'd need mastery in both runes and your spell to ball form both, yes?  My arcanist is looking longingly at "ball form" off the spell shaping list to this end.  Similarly, I'm saving some PP's these days by using 'targets' off the same list on the bigger bladerunes.  However, I still can't keep my party stocked up, even if most of the runes are simple +10's and +20's.

[mocking bird]

You wouldn't need the ball form spell since you are already using spell mastery to make it an area of effect spell rather than using ball the ball form spell to do it, i.e. using both would be redundant.

As an asibe ball form, and other spell shaping spells, are also very handy when applied to healing spells and can essentially make gates when applied to teleport spells.

[Balhirath]

Hmm Bladerunes are semi permanent spells. However as many other spells of that kind, they can be Disspelled. In RM2 Dispell Arcane is (depending on the list ofcause) a level 5 spell and imagine the chaos it would create, if someone disovered it (Using Power Perception or other means of discovery) and started an attack by dropping a Dispell Arcane 10'R on the Party. 

Also if you want to get REALLY mean, find someone that have the RM2 Alchemy Companion and take a very good look at Magic Item Interaction Critical Table. That table is about what can happen if too many magical items are working at the same time   

Yet another possibility and one that I use from time to time, is Anti-Magic Zones. In my world there are areas where Magic is very strong (Earthnodes) and areas where is doesn't work at all (Anti-Magic Zones). That tend to keep things interesting since I've ruled that magical items made by Alchemists just become dorment inside a Anti Magic zone, while Enruned Items (Items made with Blade runes and Spirit Runes), will actually be dispelled.

Also as far as I remember, it is not stated that Blade runes are invisible (Which they aren't in my world). So make people see them, comment on them and react to them. Bad guys are not blind and they will use this knowledge to their advantage.

[markc]

 Yes, dispelling IMO is big! And an importat way to fight in high magic campains.

MDC

[Arioch]

Also as far as I remember, it is not stated that Blade runes are invisible (Which they aren't in my world). So make people see them, comment on them and react to them. Bad guys are not blind and they will use this knowledge to their advantage.

Yes, we've decided that Bladerunes are very visible, too (in my world they constantly give off a pale glow). This can result in a boon sometimes (a warrior with an armor full of glowing runes is surely intimidating) but also in a lot of problems (harder to hide and easier to be target from Dispel by enemies...).

Also, in the Arcane Companion is stated that Bladerunes are activated like every other rune: does this mean that you need the Read Runes skill to use them?

[Balhirath]

According to Companion 1, they can either be Willed into working when the user touch a rune or by using the "Use/read Runes" skills. Either way, it's not automatic and it's kinda hard to touch a Rune on your armor, then defending with a shield in one hand and slashing with your sword in the other hand.
Hmm Ward Orcs and other 4-armed creatures would have an advantage here

[Der Graumantel]

For example expand targets to a 5' radius with a bunch of arrows in it.  This also cuts down on spell casting exp's as it is still only one spell meaning more runes or spells which is also wonderful/evil.

OK, maybe Spell Mastery should at least be restricted for arcane lists (I mean arcane is that old primal ehhm...dangerous thing), but of course you can use Spell Mastery on the spell you want to imbed. In that case you havn?t got the problem with the 20 arrows in one spell.

But to be honest, i didn?t really get what you meant. Did you mean using "Spell Rune X"  modified by Spell Mastery to imbed the spell into every arrow???
I wouldn?t allow that modification in my games (or maybe I would with absurd modification).

Ben

[Macavite]

You wouldn't need the ball form spell since you are already using spell mastery to make it an area of effect spell rather than using ball the ball form spell to do it, i.e. using both would be redundant.

Ahhh, not quite my point.  What I was trying to say is that if you were going the mastery route to mass-embed spells, you'd need mastery in both bladerunes and in the spell you're embedding.  In my mind casting a "embed 2nd level spell, 5' radius" is going to require a follow up with a "shield spell, 5' radius" or a sheild spell cast for every single item in that 5' radius.  That said, "+20 bladerune, 5' radius" pretty much kicks ass.

My arcanist doesn't have mastery in anything other than Void Law, so I'm leaning toward the ball-form spell in order to accomplish what was described above.

[mocking bird]

Ah, essentially shaping the imbedded spell then masteing runes to get many targets?  Like it.  However we don't allow spell mastery in spells to be imbedded so the shaping option gets around it.  SM on item spells has been talked about at length elsewhere.

OK, maybe Spell Mastery should at least be restricted for arcane lists (I mean arcane is that old primal ehhm...dangerous thing), but of course you can use Spell Mastery on the spell you want to imbed. In that case you havn?t got the problem with the 20 arrows in one spell.

But to be honest, i didn?t really get what you meant. Did you mean using "Spell Rune X"  modified by Spell Mastery to imbed the spell into every arrow???
I wouldn?t allow that modification in my games (or maybe I would with absurd modification).

I think you have it backwards to what I am saying.  The first part I answered above and am of a differing opinion but such things have been discussed elsewhere - regarding mastering spells cast from item or mastering spells being put into items, both of which we don't allow.  The spell mastery modification I am referring to is to increase number of targets from 1 to an area of effect (I am not sure what difficulty that would be) with the actual bladerune spell itself, not the spell put into the rune.

[Macavite]

Ah, essentially shaping the imbedded spell then masteing runes to get many targets?  Like it.  However we don't allow spell mastery in spells to be imbedded so the shaping option gets around it.  SM on item spells has been talked about at length elsewhere.

Hrm, yeah.  I hadn't really through through the long term economic consequences of area effect alchemy.  It would really trivialize the creation of magic items, from the spell casting point of view.  They'd only really be limited by the physical components and time needed to work them.  I'm imagining this jenga-like stack of longswords, trying to get as many as possible in a 5' radius. 

I guess i'll need to track down those threads talking about mastering item spells.  As my campaigns don't even have a named NPC who's an alchemist, let alone a PC, I hadn't figured those threads applied to my games much.  I guess it's a good thing to look up before my character has the DP to spend on Ball Form.

[mocking bird]

I would not apply spell mastery to any alchemical enchantment spells as those require more than just the waving of the hands as each really lasts 8 hours while the alchemist presumably is doing something with the item.