seventeenth issue - RPG Review

RQ III: Speedcast and Multitarget
by Peter Marcani
I've been running a multi­genre classic RuneQuest III campaign for a year now, and one of the PCs is playing a
sorceress. We've been using the standard sorcery rules. I know all the objections to the standard sorcery system, and my
campaign has a number of alternate magic systems in use (including ones that transcend the system, operating on a
strictly conceptual basis).
But the sorceress is basically crippled. It takes her more than a round to cast a single spell, since a decent Venom or
Palsy requires a fairly high number of magic points. She stands there, trying to cast, and at best only gets off one or two
spells before the combat is over ­ and often, her spells have no meaningful impact on the combat at all. Her long­term
enhancement spells are very helpful to the party, of course, but those don't require her presence in dangerous situations.
And she's not getting a shot at Power gain rolls.
So I recently added two new sorcery skills to try to balance sorcery. Both are treated in the same way as the other
standard sorcery spells; they don't increase from experience, for example, and the casting roll must be under the skill as
well in order to apply the skill to the spell.
With one exception: I know that some people have no use for the RQ III sorcery system. I don't need to be told once
again about the many alternatives. I use alternatives ­ hell, I wrote one, and have created many others ­ but I'm
interested in adapting THIS system, not replacing it outright.
Here are the new skills:
Speedcast: Each magic point used in Speedcast halves the casting time of the spell, with a minimum casting time of one
strike rank. The maximum number of points of Speedcast that can be used is limited to 1 MP per full 10% in the skill,
so a sorcerer with a Speedcast of 37% would be limited to no more than three points of Speedcast ­ allowing him to
reduce casting time to 1/8th of the original time needed. Of course, each magic point spent on Speedcast does count
towards the total casting time!
Example: A Venom spell is cast with Intensity 10 and Range 3 by a sorcerer whose Dex SR is 1. By adding Speedcast 3
to the spell, he ups the total cost of the spell to to 16 MP, but if his casting roll is under his Speedcast percentage he
halves the casting time (9 SR), halves it again (4 SR), and halves it again for a final casting time of 2 SR. If his roll is
over his Speedcast skill percentage but under all other skills used in the spell, the spell takes 17 SR. The MP spent on
Speedcast must still be paid for even if the skill fails, and increase the casting time by 1 SR per MP.
Multitarget: Each MP spent on Multitarget increases the number of targets by one. As with Speedcast, the points that
may be spent are capped to full 10% increments of the skill, so a caster with Multitarget at 43% couldn't target more
than five enemies total in a single casting.
46 RPG REVIEW ISSUE SEVENTEEN September 2012