Runequest Thursday #147 - A Newer New Sorcery!

A couple of years ago, when I started my Runequest Gloranthan campaign set in the River of Cradles, one of my player wanted to play a sorcerer. Since I have always had problems with the RAW Sorcery of Runequest, I began working out an entirely new system of Sorcery. 

One of the core concepts of A New Sorcery is the Manipulation Limit (which is equal to INT/3, rounding up). This represents the ability to which a sorcerer could manipulate the parameters of any spell he casts. It was also the limit on the number of ranks he could learn in a spell. It was intended to keep characters from casting horrifically over-powered spells if they had enough time and energy – essential imposing a restriction on the amount of spell power they could control and pack into any given spell.

Over time, and with the development of my Witchcraft rules for Runequest, I came upon a modification of Sorcery, which I have been playtesting for a while now. It plays well, allows greater freedom to the caster, but still maintains a check on the overall power one can command. Here is how it works.

In the original system for A New Sorcery, a sorcerer could manipulate the Duration, Range and sometimes other parameters of a spell (up to his Manipulation Limit) – using the ranks in the spell that he had learned. So a sorcerer with Blast 4, could choose to cast a 4 die blast at the base range, as an Instant spell (because you can’t extend duration on Duration: Instant spells). If he wanted to extend the range to hit a target further away, he would reduce the damage of the spell by one or more ranks, doubling the range with each reduction in damage: 3 dice at double range, 2 dice at x4 range, etc.

This made sense thematically, since the sorcerer can only command so much power and he is trading range for damage. Another spell, like Sharpen/ Dull might be manipulated both in range and duration, allowing one to cast on a foe or friend further away, and increase the duration at the cost of ranks of effect.

The problem with this is that Manipulation limit did not really do anything in practice, beyond limit the number of ranks of the spell a sorcerer could learn. Since the maximum rank was set by the Manipulation Limit, the spell was already being limited. And while the system as written seems like it would work, in practice, sorcerers tended not to modify their spells – opting for ranks of power over range or duration just about all the time.

What I wanted was for sorcerers to be able to make choices about the parameters of their spells, manipulating the energy in a way that battle magic casters could not emulate. It was not working that way at the table.

So here is what I changed for the playtest.

Sorcerers still buy ranks of a spell. Ranks determine maximum level of effect available to the sorcerer. So Conjure/ Dismiss Salamander 3 means a sorcerer can create a fire elemental of as much as three ranks of power. The Manipulation Limit now functions as the cap on the total amount of POW the sorcerer can invest into the spell, allowing greater flexibility in casting, but maintaining a limit on the power of the spell. So the same sorcerer with C/D Salamander 3 and a Manipulation limit of 5, could conjure a Rank 3 Salamander and use up to 2 additional ranks (and the POWer points) to increase the range at which it was cast or the duration, or a Rank 2 Salamander and have 3 ranks available to manipulation the spell, or a Rank 1 Salamander and have 4 ranks for manipulation. Since he does not know C/D Salamander 4 or higher, he cannot increase the Power level of the spell beyond three.

This has allowed sorcerers to be A LOT more flexible in the game, granting them a cool ability and increasing the amount of magic in the game, without overpowering the other characters. If you want to try out A New Sorcery, the full system is available as a free pdf via the link directly below the image. It includes the old Manipulation Limit system, so you can compare it to this one if you like. If you play around with this, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. You may also want to check out my Runequest Index, which has links to ever sorcery article I have ever posted in RQT.

Cheers.