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Author Topic: The Runemaster  (Read 5023 times)

Taruslar

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The Runemaster
« on: October 19, 2013, 09:53:26 AM »
The Runemaster:

Trained in Arcane and another school of his choice to give his playstyle a direction, all other school costs triple.

Runes are very powerfull and heavy to construct. Normally (all other Mages) you need two rounds (construct and complete) to cast a rune.The runemaster is able to construct a rune with a quickaction and complete it with a free action, in the same round. Also he can use that free-action to complete other incomplete runes in the game which gives him the possibility to construct a new rune and complete the same one or construct a new one and complete another one which was placed rounds before. All other mages need 2 rounds and have to use two quickactions, in each round one, to complete their runes. Incomplete runes are placed face down.

Once per Round, the rune master may pay one mana to give one of his active Runes a magical boost to make it immune against all kind of attacks and all kind of spells. Spells which are used on a boosted rune are discarded with no funktion.

New Underschool from Enchantments and Conjurations: Runes

They work like enchantments but also have a healthpool (with incorporeal trait) so they can be destroyed by attacks or incantations like dispell, purge magic.

They can be placed on creatures, zones, conjurations and equipment. To construct and complete a rune u need 2 rounds. In round one you need a quickaction to construct it, in round two u need a quick action to complete it but u can choose when you use the quickaction to complete the rune.
For Example: Construct the rune in round one and complete it in round six.The Runemaster has other rules which are explained at the top.

As Conjurations they have following traits: Nonliving, Incorporeal, burnproof, zone exclusive.
Powerfull runes are legendary, unique, epic. Powerfull runes could stack other traits.

The runes are designed based on the different schools.

Here some examples:

Equipmentrunes:

only one rune can be placed on an equipment.

Rune of Power ( Arcane, Underschool enchantment): This equipment gains the channel+ 1 trait which stacks with other channel traits. If the Runemaster give that rune a magical boost this Equipment gets also immunity against attacks and spells.

Dark school:

Rune of Destruction (Undertype of enchantment): Can be placed only at conjurations. During the upkeep-phase this conjuration takes 2 direct damage.

Rune of Destruction (Undertype of enchantment ): Can be placed at Eqipment. If this rune is completed, this equipment gets a token which starts at three. Every round during the upkeep-phase it looses one token. If there are zero tokens on this equipment it gets destroyed.

Circle of Destruction(Undertype Conjuration): Can be placed into zones. In every round, any living enemy creature who enters that zone or stands in that zone while this rune is completed takes 2 direkt damage.

Holy school:

Rune of Protection: Can be placed only at Conjurations. This conjuration gets 2 armor.
Another rune of Protection: Can be placed on Creatures. This creature gets the Aegis+1 trait, it stacks with another Aegis-trait.

Fire school:

Rune of Fire: This creature gains the fire+ 1 trait. This stacks with other fire traits. Does not work on creatures with fire immunity.

Mind school:

Rune of Illusion ( Zone Conjuration): If a friendly creature enters or stands in that zone while the rune is completed, an Illusion is constructed. This Illusion has no stats and can do nothing. It is destroyed with one attack or leaving the zone, but can built again with entering again that zone with the rune. Take a copy from the existing cardpool for the illusion. 2 Tokens are placed face down on both creatures. Choose your Illusion and place the mark with Illusion face down on the card and on the other one face down with Living Creature. For that rune it would be nice to have a second copy of all mages. If a creatures with psychic immunity will attack u have to tell your opponent which is the real creature.

I think they are many possibilities for the runemaster and with creativity this mage will be very interesting to play.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2013, 09:58:43 AM by Taruslar »

HomelessJoe

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Re: The Runemaster
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2013, 11:57:43 AM »
Wow, wizard on steroids. Seems incredibly overpowered as a standard mage. I would imagine this would make a good 'Boss' mage. I know there was talk of creating an Arcane super mage for multiplayer matches. Otherwise, with free casting actions for super spells with immunity, who wouldn't be this mage in tournaments?

DeckBuilder

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Re: The Runemaster
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2013, 06:31:12 PM »
This Runemaster topic is interesting as it opens up a totally different view of "how magic works".

Viking skalds (warrior bards) would "read the runes" (Futhark runes found by Odin) engraved on stones. Each of the 25 runes land either face-up or face-down. The combination of face-up runes then gives you a divination, an omen of the future. We see simplified runes in the excellent film Stardust. The I-Ching is a similar divination tool, from a culture where calligraphy is an art form. You could attribute Scrabble to drawing of runes from a bag to gain insight. Reading runes was certainly less messy than haruspicy (reading entrails).

Skalds carved specific runes onto objects to imbue it with that power word. The greatest sklads would brand a tattoo to allegedly grant that person that rune's mystical power. Although Futhark runes can convey some broad theme, they were not an alphabet hence great Viking sagas like Beowulf were passed on by the skalds via oral tradition.

Rune magic traditionally uses "Verb + Noun" format. It is unpredictable, completely at the whimsy of the gods, so usually involves drawing two runes from a bag. If I draw 2 verbs like "Create" and "Destroy" or 2 nouns like "Fire" and "Water", the casting has no effect. But if I drew 1 verb and 1 noun like "Create" and "Fire", then I have a spell effect and I can draw supplemental runes to progress the spell, for example I next draw "Control" which I pair with Fire to shape what I just created, then I draw "Mind" which I pair with Create to give shaped fiery entity a mind of its own and I pair Control and Mind to ensure the fire's mind is subservient. Runes drawn are only returned to the bag when the blank "Magic" rune is drawn so rune magic requires great improvisational skills, knowing Runes drawn now won't appear until the Magic reset. Rune magic is very free-form and random as other parameters (like range, magnitude and detail) enforce the power restrictions of its effect. Rune magic is my favourite magic system, typified by Ars Magica, probably the most sophisticated magic system of any RPG (it is almost a science book of magic).

In contrast, Mage Wars follows a "Vancian" magic system. Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories were the inspiration for Gary Gygax's magic system in D&D: each spell is chosen and memorised and when cast, it erases itself from the mind of the magic wielder. If you want to cast the same spell twice, you need to memorise 2 copies of it. So it would be breaking the MageWars game system to incorporate rune magic's highly improvisational verb plus noun into a Vancian magic system of specific spell effects that you remember, cast and forget.

I would anticipate Arcane Wonders will promote mages that fit well known archetypes. Occasionally, there may be a mechanistic reason to include a more niche mage (e.g. Siren to introduce more Water). But I would expect them to first release the Bard (who includes many archetypes including Runemaster, Bladesinger, Enchanter and Illusionist) as this is too ingrained as a fantasy trope.

Mechanics-wise, runes will be a sub-type of enchantments that target zones, conjurations, equipment or mages (as tattoos). I expect it will be a mage that specialises in trap enchantments (zones, walls) and buff enchantments (equipment, self). In addition, there may be some divination advantage (e.g. "Reading Runes: during Planning, if opponent has Initiative, he must openly choose his spells before you do"). But I can't see a niche Runemaster being created. There are so many other more defined archetypes that the fan base will want.

However I liked the thought that has gone into your Runemaster. As Joe said, it's far too powerful but some of the proposed mechanics are innovative and may be used somewhere.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2013, 07:07:15 PM by DeckBuilder »
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