My group has played four sessions with the new sorcery rules with two sorcerers in the group (well, we were using the playtest version, but I haven’t noticed any major differences yet). Only three of the sessions had any spells cast, but it’s worked well every time. They’re four lifepath characters and they’re still very potent. I was nervous about the changes, but in play it’s worked just fine–in fact, I’ve liked it quite a bit better.
Also, as has been said before, FoRKing and Help are much more important now, but really it just acts more like other skills, which I like.
And way back form the first page of thw thread…
Since the new casting option to help with Tax (I can’t remember the name) allows you move dice away from Sorcery into the Tax roll, you can get Challenging and Difficult tests for Sorcery pretty easily (and without even having to get injured or lobby for disadvantage penalties) simply by moving enough dice out of your Sorcery casting pool over into your Forte pool for Tax to bring your Sorcery roll down enough to get the type of test you want. Sure it’s dangerous, but you always have artha and, well, I like sorcery to be dangerous.
I don’t have any in-game experience with learning new spells yet (though the sorcerers ecently found some scrolls with new spells, so maybe we’ll see soon).
Also, since your Helping, you gain all the benefits associated, right? So if my Sorcery skill is 4 and I help my buddy who has a skill of 7 cast an ob 5 spell, that’s a Challenging test for me.
Dro rolled two unwanted summoning results in one playtest. The ghouls ended up fighting over his sorceress’ soul.
I’m curious how many sorcerer playtests such a thing took. Under the old rules, we had 4 “disasters” in about a year of sessions, two of which were caused by interrupted spells. We also had an intentionally summoned demon accidentally released when then summoner was interrupted. These events already seemed quite punishing in terms of negative effects of sorcery.
As for random tables resulting in TPKs … if the random table was used correctly (rolled on at a relevant time, when the PCs took a risk with full knowledge of what they were getting themselves into), what’s the problem? If a random table is used correctly, it can only serve to benefit the campaign.
The problem is, I honestly think that given the odds, no sane person would ever adventure with a sorcerer. As you say, it’s a choice to use sorcery, so shouldn’t the characters (and therefore the players) choose not to ever use it? Otherwise, demon summons or garbled transmissions are not rare accidents like they were under the old system, but they’ve become almost common.
Based on the odds, no sane person would ever Adventure either - you’re as likely as not to end up skewered or roasted if you go out and pick fights with Orcs, Spiders, or mad Wizards. While the overall impact might reasonably be larger with a garbled transmission, it just means a Sorcerer needs to be a more cautious shade of crazy - use the spells only when you really need them, and then do everything you can to maximize your chance of success.
And as has been said before, the actual interpretation is very open - while it shouldn’t be trivialized I don’t see why a group would consciously choose to interpret a Garbled Communication in a way that immediately kills everyone’s character and effectively ends the campaign, unless they were just tired of playing it. Otherwise, come up with a different interpretation.
In the previous Burning Wheel, our experience with Sorcerers was there was never a second thought given to casting, you pulled out a spell the same way you’d pull out your smartphone today. Now there’ll be plenty of second thought, do I need this spell right now? I think this accomplishes the aim of giving Sorcery more of an Earthsea feel, powerful but not to be toyed with. And you still get a 2/3 chance of nothing extraordinarily bad happening. You want to see really crazy people? Give Spirit Binding or Summoning a try. Speaking from experience, failing those rolls gets you in real trouble.
What PCs in adventure-oriented games do is staggeringly, almost laughably dangerous. The party sorcerer botching his magic is an occupational hazard.
On a more practical note, there’s no reason to assume the absolute worst every time there’s a Garbled Transmission. The facets are vague enough that you can interpret them in all sorts of non-campaign-derailing ways. Instead of “airless moonscape for hundreds of miles forever,” you could interpret Air / Destroy / Hundreds of Miles / Permanent as a permanent atmospheric turbulence which prevents flight, violent and unpredictable downbursts, or roaming tornadoes. Granted, that area is in a lot of trouble no matter what happens, but it’s not necessarily apocalyptic.
Edit: Darren beats me to the punch. Listen to his wisdom.
In our case, we’re not adventuring because we want to (except maybe the Dwarf). We’re “adventuring” because the Roden are overrunning our homeland, the local government is actually complicit in the invasion, and someone has to stop them. It’s either win, die trying, or be enslaved by the Roden. We’ve kept motivations very realistic, and with that in mind, it just doesn’t make sense to include the sorcerer in the quest.
Instead of “airless moonscape for hundreds of miles forever,” you could interpret Air / Destroy / Hundreds of Miles / Permanent as a permanent atmospheric turbulence which prevents flight, violent and unpredictable downbursts, or roaming tornadoes.
Right, of course “airless waste” not only makes no sense physically, but is needlessly ending the campaign. Nevertheless, garbled transmissions are still likely to be disasters, or at least severe problems to overcome, and any unwanted summoning is a disaster.
In the last version, sorcery was clearly OP; our sorcerer could routinely lay waste to 10 people at once with a well-prepared White Fire. In this version, I think it’s gone too far in the other direction. I just think there should be some distance where the spell doesn’t work, but you still don’t have a 1/3 chance of disaster.
tests for helping
Doesn’t apply if there’s only one sorcerer in the group.
Wait, so you’re saying his odds would be better if he picked “be enslaved?” It sounds like your party has excellent reasons for doing stupid dangerous stuff.
White Fire is more dangerous than swinging a sword, yes. But it’s not a suitable comparison. White Fire is not like scripting Strike, it’s more like entering a Fight at all. When you enter a Fight against four guys, what are your odds? How about your odds when you cast White Fire against those four guys? Personally, I’d rather be casting White Fire when outnumbered, unless I’m some kind of billy-badass Warden or Sword Singer.
My question is this: Is the sorcerer fighting for what s/he believes? Do thone Beliefs tie the sorcerer to the rest of you? If yes, remember that sometimes, shit happens, but that shit can be on a small scale, or huge. These are the risks we take for our Beliefs.
If no, follow up question: Why are you playing Burning Wheel?
In our current game, based on my PC’s beliefs, he’s trying to opening summoning from scratch. The game is getting more complex by the session, and he still hasn’t even opened the skill.
I had no idea how to make unwanted summoning: Minor Deity anything but a party wipe against my PCs in trouble in Hochen. I mean, they are just dudes with a knife, how to they fight/stop a minor deity if it doesn’t want them to?
I just had it give them a little plot if they succeeded some diplomacy style checks. Then it faded because it didn’t belong in this plane.
I think I might use the “spell failure by 1 is always harmless dissipation” just to slightly change the odds away from catastrophe. I think that’s a really nice way to affect the risk/reward of sorcery as it applies to your setting. When we burn up a world/characters for our own game (after trouble in hochen) we’ll discuss how dangerous we want sorcery to be.
Why would they have to fight the deity? I run Trouble in Hochen at cons fairly regularly. The one time I’ve had the Unwanted Summoning come up it was a Major Corporal Spirit. It annihilated their enemies (like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark) and then looked deeply into their souls and told each of them explicitly how they were wanting in its eyes. It then demanded of them a quest. It was a pretty crushing experience for those characters involved, and several of them changed Beliefs on the spot.
Sorcery was in need of a nerfing. A single sorcerer in BWR was capable of single-handedly wrecking everything.
It’s really not much of a nerfing at all. It just means that sorcerers need to cast a wider variety of spells and can’t expect to just lay waste to armies.
FoRK’s now matter a lot more. Geometry Training anyone?
Sorcery can actually advance in the course of use. Pick something like Sarch’s Glare or Emperor’s Hand, and you’ve got a way to get Difficult and Challenging tests galore. The stat enhancing spells are useful for this too.
If you’re worried about failure, spend artha! Just like everyone else. Persona points are your friend.
Also, NPC Apprentices have a crucial use now for PC sorcerers. You get that extra helping dice, and the apprentice gets those Difficult and Challenging tests!
Heh, and then you Circle up some more powerful dude, so you can learn from him, and give him helping dice, and get your own Difficults and Challengings that way. Yeah, Circles-ing up more powerful sorcerers, that’s always a good time!
I think that this is an issue that would have to considered and voted on by the group, when deciding the world you want to play/run. If you want a world where magic is super dangerous and initiate wizards spend years in training before they even attempt to cast without their masters present than this is good. It could give a real sense of why people might fear wizards and burn witches.
Imagine, some apprentice kid just learning magic, goes to cast Wyrd Light or some other harmless spell. Then all of a sudden, wham there is massive deamon who of course kills the kid in some gruesome fashion, then goes on a killing spree through the nearest town. The survivors tell the story of deamons being spawned at the nearby wizards tower, and how the master of that tower is some terrible devil worshiping cultist who released the deamon upon them to act as terrible blood sacrifices for his next wicked magical experiment.
Granted I really like this scenario and may use it for a game I run at some point.
However. If you want to play in a world where wizards are looked up to and sought out as advisers to courts or war wizards and seen as imposing masters of the world around them. These rules won’t do very well for that. I couldn’t imagine any sane king being willing to stand in the same room as a man who has a 1/6 chance of causing some terrible calamity every time he tries to cast a useful spell.
In a world where I want this kind of feel, I would use the BWR rules or one of the systems out of The Magic Burner, perhaps Art. If I wanted lower powered wizards who are in more control of their magic I would implement something like, (you only roll for a magic fumble if you fail to successfully cast a spell and rolled a (?) number of 1s).
I’m not telling anyone how to play the game, I just thought maybe I would try to add some constructive insight for people who might have a problem with this change and want some ideas.
Anyways, it all comes down to play however you feel comfortable. You shouldn’t be afraid to make a house rule if you think will make the game more enjoyable.
I think some of you are drastically underestimating the number of additional dice a sorcerer can bring to bear. Between FoRKs, Help, Linked tests, Imbuing wands and amulets and other devices for specific spells, not to mention casting Patiently and Carefully, sorcerers can easily match or exceed the number of dice sorcerers had available to them under BWR.
The difference is that sorcerers now have to play the same game as other BW characters. They need to think about how they’re going to approach a test. They need to marshal their resources. They need to seek out help and set up appropriate linked tests. They can’t just throw down at the drop of a hat because they have all the dice they need already at their disposal. Maybe there’s even a bit of a temptation to turn down the black paths of Corruption and Blood Magic now.
I can’t help but thinking there’s mismatch of expectations. In D&D and many video games, a wizard is a little like someone who just happens to use firebolts instead of a sword or arrows. Since they suck in combat (and there’s a ton of combat), the expectation is they ought to be able to dish out their magical abilities with same frequency and low risk as their mundane colleagues.
