Thoughts on spells as written.

[RTrimmer]

I've never actually played or GM'd Sorcery as written, but...

First off, with Invasive spells I think that "overcoming the Psyche of the victim" is Psychic Combat and should be run as such. If its Decent Ranked Psyche vs Chaos Psyche schmuck, that's combat that goes by in the blink of an eye, but it should happen.

Invisibility is listed as an Invasive spell. Yet there's no mention of having to overcome the Psyches of everyone in visual range, all at once, which is what it should take. This should be a Shadow Manipulation spell, messing with light.

Stone Binding. I get it, it's an attempt to explain how Jasra and Sharu Garrul became coatracks. But if you can freeze time on an individual, slow it to something like 1/10,000, why can't you speed it up? A lot. 1000 times normal should be plenty to stab Benedict through each eyeball before he can blink. Besides, it's a big deal when the Jewel of Judgment slows or speeds people a hell of a lot less than that.

Strength Drain. Like the Strength guys need to get f**ked any harder. Gerard's 120-250 points in Strength go poof. And there's no corresponding spells to Drain Psyche or Warfare. What the hell?

Magic Drain. Now there's an equalizer. 17 points, dammit, but now a low-ish Psyche Strength or Warfare maven can assess the tactical arena and nuke the site from right there, it's the only way to be sure. Run you skinny little sorcerer, I got two miles to catch you.
People would use this a lot. Vampires? Dragons? Dark Lords? Bye-bye.
Places that have magically levitating castles and such need some way to block this, or really good insurance.

Summoning attack spells. Either you need to go to the place you're getting your lava, flowers, whatever from and memorize it or maybe even mark it magically...
Or the spell searches shadow like Ghostwheel on steroids, finds it and links to it, instantly.
Pattern Initiates can shift shadow to find anything they want? Slowpokes.
I would abuse the hell out of this.
And why, for f**ks sake? Replicate Shadow Object makes things "out of Shadow". Make your lava, your flowers, your Gyrating Blades yourself.

Teleport. Just how much mass can you 'port, or how big a portal can you make? Can you sail a ship through it? March an army? Drop the Pentagon on someone?

[jibbajibba]

I've never actually played or GM'd Sorcery as written, but...

First off, with Invasive spells I think that "overcoming the Psyche of the victim" is Psychic Combat and should be run as such. If its Decent Ranked Psyche vs Chaos Psyche schmuck, that's combat that goes by in the blink of an eye, but it should happen.

Invisibility is listed as an Invasive spell. Yet there's no mention of having to overcome the Psyches of everyone in visual range, all at once, which is what it should take. This should be a Shadow Manipulation spell, messing with light.

Stone Binding. I get it, it's an attempt to explain how Jasra and Sharu Garrul became coatracks. But if you can freeze time on an individual, slow it to something like 1/10,000, why can't you speed it up? A lot. 1000 times normal should be plenty to stab Benedict through each eyeball before he can blink. Besides, it's a big deal when the Jewel of Judgment slows or speeds people a hell of a lot less than that.

Strength Drain. Like the Strength guys need to get f**ked any harder. Gerard's 120-250 points in Strength go poof. And there's no corresponding spells to Drain Psyche or Warfare. What the hell?

Magic Drain. Now there's an equalizer. 17 points, dammit, but now a low-ish Psyche Strength or Warfare maven can assess the tactical arena and nuke the site from right there, it's the only way to be sure. Run you skinny little sorcerer, I got two miles to catch you.
People would use this a lot. Vampires? Dragons? Dark Lords? Bye-bye.
Places that have magically levitating castles and such need some way to block this, or really good insurance.

Summoning attack spells. Either you need to go to the place you're getting your lava, flowers, whatever from and memorize it or maybe even mark it magically...
Or the spell searches shadow like Ghostwheel on steroids, finds it and links to it, instantly.
Pattern Initiates can shift shadow to find anything they want? Slowpokes.
I would abuse the hell out of this.
And why, for f**ks sake? Replicate Shadow Object makes things "out of Shadow". Make your lava, your flowers, your Gyrating Blades yourself.

Teleport. Just how much mass can you 'port, or how big a portal can you make? Can you sail a ship through it? March an army? Drop the Pentagon on someone?

I am one of the few who like the sorcery system.
The example spells are uniformly shit and open up lots of exploits that a strong GM would avoid but worse they don't feel very Ambery they feel more like spells imported from D&D or something.

[Artifacts of Amber]

Sorcery is one of my favorites to run.

I think and use it something like a tool or means to accomplish things. Short cuts so to speak. So you might be able to do the same thing with any major power but sorcery helps you do it faster.

The Book spells stink basically. Sorcery is the one section of ADRP that needs work and from what I have seen in most games GM's usually tweak it if they want sorcery to be useful.

I have a two page treatise on Sorcery for players who want to use it. Sounds like a lot but you don't have to even look at sorcery in the game book just read these two pages and you know what ya need to know to run sorcery. It like Conjuration needs work.

My sorcery is more complex but also more useful I think and pulls you away from being a D&D like wizard into something more like Merlin or even Harry Dresden. More a structure of rules for sorcery than hers a spell list sort of stuff.

Amber needs lots of variability and loose framework than sorcery is presented as.

But that's just my thinking.

[Panjumanju]

I think the key to making Sorcery interesting is working in consequence sin order to balance out it's highly varied effects. You want to make a spell to know the history of the crown you found? That's great. Go right ahead.

But one many players often try to abuse is time manipulation in order to avoid having to prepare spells. For instance, making a pocket shadow where time goes 100x normal rate (or whatever the maximum is) and developing an easy way to pop in and out of it. They think they've discovered a clever hole in the system, but what ho! Consequence: unlike all other Amberites, you appear to be slowly ageing. Dum-dum-dum!

There's nothing that needs balancing for Sorcery beyond at-the-table adjustments, and I think consequences are the most interesting way to do it.

//Panjumanju

[RTrimmer]

I'd like to see those two pages, please.

Sorcery is one of my favorites to run.

I think and use it something like a tool or means to accomplish things. Short cuts so to speak. So you might be able to do the same thing with any major power but sorcery helps you do it faster.

The Book spells stink basically. Sorcery is the one section of ADRP that needs work and from what I have seen in most games GM's usually tweak it if they want sorcery to be useful.

I have a two page treatise on Sorcery for players who want to use it. Sounds like a lot but you don't have to even look at sorcery in the game book just read these two pages and you know what ya need to know to run sorcery. It like Conjuration needs work.

My sorcery is more complex but also more useful I think and pulls you away from being a D&D like wizard into something more like Merlin or even Harry Dresden. More a structure of rules for sorcery than hers a spell list sort of stuff.

Amber needs lots of variability and loose framework than sorcery is presented as.

But that's just my thinking.

[Jason D]

If I find the time (and it's a big if) I'd like to do a ground-up rewrite of Sorcery that puts it in line with the way the other powers are handled.

[Artifacts of Amber]

Rtrimmer

I'll post them up tonight when I get home. Might even throw in the conjuration (without the cost which makes it kinda long) as well since they are similar.

Thanks

[Panjumanju]

If I find the time (and it's a big if) I'd like to do a ground-up rewrite of Sorcery that puts it in line with the way the other powers are handled.

I'd be interested in seeing that.

//Panjumanju

[Artifacts of Amber]

Finally got around to posting them. Sorry for the delay

[RPGPundit]

In Lords of Olympus the closest thing to Sorcery is "Elementalism" (but there's also Glamour).  In any case, I did it very differently, and I think it works better.

[noman]

In Lords of Olympus the closest thing to Sorcery is "Elementalism" (but there's also Glamour).  In any case, I did it very differently, and I think it works better.

I very much dislike the ADRP sorcery system.

With ADRP, you kinda have to use sorcery as written (or some close variation thereof) if you want to emulate what Merlin and the other big sorcerers achieved in the books (lynchpins, racked spells, etc.).  However, with LoO or LoG&S there's no need to retain Wujick's magic/sorcery rules.  The settings are different, so you can plug in whatever magic system you want.  Adapt something from another game, or create your own.

LoO's magic rules do a very good job of replacing the original magic/sorcery system in ADRP.  This is especially true of Elementalism.  In the few playtests I've done so far, it has performed very well: neat, well written, balanced, and does what my players need it to do for spellcasting.  

Very well done, Pundit.  Thank you for creating this game.

Now make Lords of Asgard so I can throw more money at you

[RPGPundit]

Thanks!

As for Lords of Asgard, we'll have to see. I'm not ruling it out.

[Jason D]

Thanks!

As for Lords of Asgard, we'll have to see. I'm not ruling it out.

That would be a weird circle.

Back when Phage Press had more ambitious plans, I pitched a sourcebook called Fenris to Erick. It was basically a series of Primal Shadows based on the nine worlds of Norse myth that you could only reach by climing Ygg's branches.

It was very, very Norse, including rune magic, galdr, seidr, and a Gotterdammerung epic campaign.

I ran a few sessions of it at ACUK and (I think) ACNW, but when Erick was phasing down on issuing sourcebooks for Phage, I retooled it into a Norse myth-based game using runes as a primary randomizer.

Erick took a look at the manuscript and offered several suggestions, and hinted he might be up for publishing it some day.

I ended up ignoring most of his suggestions, though. I'd written the system as runes being drawn from a bag (players drew them, GMs interpreted but only drew them for major NPCs), but Erick wanted a big chart 25x25 columms/rows where the player drew a rune and the GM drew a rune and they were cross-referenced, with the combo of runes having a unique effect.

I spoke briefly with Guardians of Order about publishing it, but they went out of business before things proceeded.

Asgard Adventures (current title) has been on a shelf for the past 15 years as one of those things I keep wanting to dust off and complete.


(Damn, I am feeling old. So many of my posts these days seem to be "I remember when I was supposed to work on X and then all this other stuff happened.")

[RPGPundit]

Well now, that's very interesting!  I'd surely like to see what you did and how you went with things.  Of course, I'm sure everyone else would too.

Maybe YOU should write Lords of Asgard for LoO! It is an open game, you know...

[Croaker]

Aaargh!!!

I'd so love to see all of these...