Suggestions for V3 of the Lorien Trust rules

This is the suggestions so far for V3 of the Lorien Trust rules. I'll get round to formatting it better, later.
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From Ross Fifield

Ritualist OSP's

(2) ritual warding

This skill allows a ritualist to counter any level of spell or incant within
a sealed ritual or transport circle without ripping spell cards. They may
only counter levels of spells or incants up to the level they can cast.

(2) rune stone

Allows the ritualist to create a rune stone that will store a level 1 spell
or incantation card within the rune. The rune stone has a level equal to the
ritualist that empowered it. The rune stone does not require invocation to
invoke. The rune stone can only be invoked by a ritualist with ritual magic
equal to or greater than the ritualist that empowered it. Upon use of this
skill, the ritualist must rip a level 1 spell card. This skill must be
performed within the guilds area and at an LT main event. This skill takes
approximately 30 minutes to perform.

(2) Ritual circle interaction

This skill allows a ritualist to sense when a ritual transport is incoming
to a ritual or transport circle. The character must be within 2 foot of the
circle. They can also sense whether a circle is attuned to particular
element or type of magic.

(3) Ritual circle trace

This skill will allow a ritualist to trace the destination of the last
ritual transport to take place within a ritual or transport circle. This
requires a referee, marshall or last player to transport, to verify their
destination. If no one is present to verify the destination, then no result
is received. This skill will not work if used within 60 seconds of a ritual
transport.

(3) Attune circle

This skill can be used, in conjunction with a 5 minute rite, to attune a
ritual circle to one of the 16 elements. This will create an enhanced ritual
effect whenever a ritual performed in the circle is relevant to the
particular element that it is attuned to. If a ritual is not relevant to the
particular element the circle is attuned to, then the ritual effect will be
significantly less effective than the ritualist would otherwise be able to
achieve.

Game notes - ritual gets a +2 bonus if it is relevant to the element it is
attuned to. ritual gets a -2 bonus if it is not relevant.

(3) Maintain circle

This skill can be used, over the course of a week, to repair any damage
caused to the circle. This week must be un-interrupted and the ritualist may
not leave the vicinity during the maintainance of a circle.

(4) ritual stone

Allows the ritualist to create a rune stone that will store a level 2 spell
or incantation card within the rune. The rune stone has a level equal to the
ritualist that empowered it. The rune stone does not require invocation to
invoke. The rune stone can only be invoked by a ritualist with ritual magic
equal to or greater than the ritualist that empowered it. Upon use of this
skill, the ritualist must rip a level 2 spell card. This skill must be
performed within the guilds area and at an LT main event. This skill takes
approximately 60 minutes to perform.

(4) Advanced ritualist

This skill allows a ritualist to safely perform a ritual, provided they have
at least 10 points of power in the ritual circle.

(5) ritual harmony

This skill allows a ritualist to contribute half of their ritual power to
another ritualist. This counts as the perfomance of a ritual for the day for
both ritualists. Both ritualists must have ritual harmony for this skill to
be effective.

(5) magical resilience

This skill makes the ritualist completely immune to magical damage whilst
within a ritual or transport circle.

(6) void link

This skill allows a ritualist to perform a ritual in tandem with another
ritualist and share power during a ritual in whatever way they see fit.

(6) Disrupt Seal

This skill allows a ritualist to perform a 5 minute rite that will drop a
sealed ritual or transport circle. They must have at least the same level of
ritual magic as the ritualist in the circle and the ritualist's group must
have more power than the ritual group within the circle. To use this skill,
the ritualist must be within 10 feet of the seal.

(7) Breach Seal

Through the use of a 1 minute rite, this skill allows a lone ritualist to
pass through a ritual or transport circle seal. This skill provides no
protection from any power used by the ritualist within the seal and only
allows the ritualist to pass in one direction. To leave, the seal must be
dropped or this skill must be used again. This skill will only be successful
if the ritualist has at least the same level of ritual magic as the
ritualist within the circle. The ritualist using this skill must be in
physical contact with the seal for the full minute.

(7) glyph stone

Allows the ritualist to create a rune stone that will store a level 3 spell
or incantation card within the rune. The rune stone has a level equal to the
ritualist that empowered it. The rune stone does not require invocation to
invoke. The rune stone can only be invoked by a ritualist with ritual magic
equal to or greater than the ritualist that empowered it. Upon use of this
skill, the ritualist must rip a level 3 spell card. This skill must be
performed within the guilds area and at an LT main event. This skill takes
approximately 90 minutes to perform.

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From Nic Doran

Necromancy spell list and effects please so players can know how to react to them.

Clarifications on MI numbers carried what can and can't be counted.

Clarification of=n the Damage tables and any rune entries effecting anything

A simple explaination of Psionics and when it effects / doesn't

Some way of taking natural claws on a character for a cost similar to bow use and a claws comp test like bow comp

Simple worked examples for stuff like DEcay.

Clarification on how death counts work and when they stop if there are multiple wounds etc.

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From Meldir

Not sure if it would come under rules or not, but the money system needs sorting, so maybe rule 3 could incorperate some form of downtime system, something along the lines of the "Economic Modal for Mauritanja" Hugh Ducker drew up several years ago. It would mean that there was at least some point for having money in the system rather than cheap drinks.

I know that it will be argued down, but I would also like to see a light incantation spell list as well, having similar role-played effects to DI, making the opportunity to play Good characters more appealing. Even though Dark Incant isn't that useful compaired to normal incant (unless you've got up to level 3) a lot of people take it because it is in their character to do so. If you add a third list of spells, even if the spells are pretty much useless, I think a lot of people would take it, and it would add a new level of skills to the game.

Make OSPs spendable at the Heartlands so that they can come in at the Gathering, or make it so that OSPs are refunded if you die before the Heartland Games that they become effective.

Iron out certain rulings like that of the sleep spell, allowing people to wake a sleeping person by stabbing / kicking them etc, rather than just shaking them.

*Sort out the sleep spell so that it can be woken after certain actions, such as being attacked.
* Sort / scrap the current money system and introduce some form of faction-based / group-based downtime system.
*Reduce weapon of flame's power (level, that is).
* Define psionics, global hits, alien life patterns and so forth more clearly in the rulebook so that when people are asked to monster as such creatures, they know what they're doing.
* Update the IC histories etc so that they are more accurate to how the Factions are currently played, rather than how they were definied 10 years ago.
*Standardise the time for spells, with a spell being either instant, 30 seconds, 10 minutes or until time out / dawn.
*Allow ‘forgery’ as either a base character skill or as a low-level OSP, allowing players to play on written forgeries more etc. I also like the idea of lore-coding IC documents, making them stealable, though this would be a nightmare to administrate.
*Make ambidex a free skill.

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From Dickson

Change certain spells and effects to better reflect what they do: For example. remove paralysis should NOT be a mind effect

Introduce or change existing spells / incants to include more "Physical" spells - too many spells are mind effecting

Give incantors the equivalent of a "bless weapon" spell allowing them to charge their weapon to effect unlving?

Remove "advancement" from races / creatures that get better with age - essentially it is level based advancement in a system that doesn't allow level based advancement

change the way the OSP system works. It is unfair to expect people to wait upto a year for a skill to appear on their card when they may have spent 3 or 4 years gaining enough OSP's to buy the skill they want. Surely they've learn't something in that time? Perhaps change to a master/apprentice system?

I think allowing all beastkin to "buy" the ability to use natural claws is a excellent idea

Clarify spectral effects, such as "harm" on a weapons - does it count as a spell for the purposes of aura of immunity? (while some people may know the answer to things like this a suprising number of players don't)

Add the ability to buy certain character skills with OSP'S

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From Keldor

An increase in the Occupational Skills available:
eg.
Invoke scroll/glyph (literacy required, invocation not required)
Teaching OS (allows the character to teach someone a skill he/she has regardless of rank).
Natural claws (not a skill more than a physical ability but I'd like it to be available without ritual).
Faction oath sworn (so magic items can be made/bought that use the skill as the "identifier".
Make enchanted item.

Poison use teachable by the Alchemists Guild.

Necromancy effects known to the players (ie what to do when hit by "Repel Living" for example as although it's quite obvious, as a player can cast this at another player they all need to know).

Give examples for things when describing rules effects (especially for perceived complicated effects: decay; bane etc)

Give mages some sort of low power direct damage spell akin to "cause wounds".

Make more spells physical not mind affecting.

Make a light incantation list to balance the dark

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From Ian H

Simplify Decay e.g. it does a point of damage to all locations every X minutes.

On character death allow purchase of Generic Rate OSP's which go on your new character card there and then.

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From Gordon

Give healers an actual call for "discern wounds/diseases/poisons" or "pattern scan" - explain what it can actually do. Most people use the 'if I can heal it I can detect it which gets confusing when someone has bane and poisons and normal wounds on them.

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From Khaine

It would make the system alot simpler if these calls went and they aren't really needed

Cold, Flame, Affect, Silver: Just use enchanted

Disease: one hit an hour, what difference does it make in combat?

Cause wounds: Just use through

Harm: Just use Fatal

Bane: Just use Fatal

Petrification: Depends on what is using it, but fatal or decay?

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From Ian Compton

Make Weapon of Flame last an hour and allow the caster to hand the weapon over (with properly filled out spellcard attached).

Give Endurance and Mage armour the same duration.

Magebolt/Harm: 5 points of Enchanted Through damage to all targets regardless of whether they are global or locational hits creatures.

Redesign spellcards so there is a box next to any durational spells to write in the time of casting. This makes it easier to pass on spellcards to mark effects such as Endurance.

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From Simon Chidgey
(a lot of them!)

Remove the current "aging specials" rules mechanics and replace them with a set of OSP list of abilities that can be purchased with their age acting like rank. Open this up to some other special types such as demons, etc. No more free ride for staying at home and surviving the event you weren't at.

Allow generic OSPs to be purchased at character creation and immeadietly take effect on the new character. Lessens the psychological effects of character death.

Add imunity to non beneficial level 1 and 2 spells and incantations to Tranquility.

Replace "Confusion" with a physical "Root" spell that makes you unable to move from the spot for 30 seconds.

Make Fumble a physical effect that targets a limb rather than an item. This allows it to be placed on a weapon so that when it strikes an arm that person has to drop what it holds.

Rename Shatter so it doesn't suggest that the item is in pieces.

Split "shield use" into three skills based on shield size. Priced at buckler 1,shield 2, and tower shield 3 points. Just like the armour skills the higher ones include the lesser ones.

Add a "Knockback" effect that forces a target to take one or maybe even three steps backwards. Make mighty blow inflict this instead of Strikedown to get round the whole physical/magical strikedown issue. Knock back works even if defelected by a shield.

Crush is far too common and simply annoys shield users. Reduce this without down stating it by reworking shields so that they have hits 1 for a buckler, 2 for a normal shield, 3 for a tower (raiseable with magic/osps/etc). A shield only takes damage from a small set of specified abilities (crush, knockback) once it has no hits left it is unusable. Reduce the power of effects such as shield mastery/mithril so instead of giving blanket immunity they instead give +1 hit.

Shields regardless of how they were broken require a number of points of mending to fix them equal to the number of hits they have. This can be 1 minute per point or via the mend spell I list below.

Add a level one "mend" spell this an instantaous physical spell that repairs one point of damage to a piece of armour or shield touched.

Change sleep so that it is countered by damage after the first 10 seconds.

As mostly npcs have level three casting add some more level three spells that can be given to someone else. I.e. Spell Ward, grants touched person immunity to specified level one or two spell or incantion for 8 hours.

Change weapon of flame to "Enchant Weapon". This lasts one hour or until it leaves the targets hand. Change target to any spellcaster touched. Drop damage to enchanted (see Elementalist osp skill below)

Add a physical "Banish" spell that phases the target out of reality for ten seconds (simple hand in air effect). Doesn't work in a sealed ritual circle. While banished death counts and all durations are frozen.

Make dismiss undead/etc less npc intensive and more open to the players by having undead take partial dismiss. If the dismiss wasn't enough to kill them they instead reduce their current dismiss level. I.e. if you have a dismiss of 5 you can take either 5 at once or 5 different dismiss ones. Instead of control give dark incantors a fortify undead spell that increases a targets dismiss level (rule of double). Major unliving can either fortify in an area effect, or for really hard ones provide a dismiss shield (all dismiss spells reduced by X) in an area effect around them.
Both fortify boosts and partial dismiss effects last until dawn the next day.
These rules make unliving with a necromancer harder than random unliving. May require some restating of dismiss levels. May require wedge mastery benefit to be increased.
Control still requires full current dismiss in one go although now it is a necromancy effect or requires an osp skill.
Add reasonably low level Incantor guild OSPs that allow you or the wedge you lead to dismiss things other than undead, i.e. Dismiss Demon, Dismiss Possession. Add Demonologist (add Control Demon spell) OSP to mages list. Add Control Undead as a rank 5 OSP buyable for dark incantors on the incantors list.

Tie the number of people transported into the transporters ritual score so that there is a reason to have something other than 1 and 8. A simple rule like you can transport ritual score +5 people.

Review what enchanted does and how it fits into the system as with everything aledgedly taking blunt or sharp it is fairly pointless damage type (I understand there are monsters with stats that are exceptions to the rules). Enchanted used to be a big deal.
Make the damage types Blunt, Sharp, Enchanted, Artifact.
Enchanted weapons are neither Blunt or Sharp and strike through standard immunities. Artifact still has a place as it bypasses regen and strikes through the ritual of peace. Makes no sense that a magical protection can protect against artifact.
Immunties can either be to sharp or blunt you can not combine both. Any ritual effect that does make you immune to blunt and sharp will also makes you unable to act offensively. No ritual producable immunities to enchanted (however takes enchanted as subdual like effects are valid)
Exceptions are Incorporeal creatures who are immune/disrupted by Sharp and Blunt; and certain rare Armour Ward effects (which may require Enchanted or even Artifact to break through).
Add damage flavours to the system: Silver, Cold, Flaming, Cold Iron, Natural (i liked it), etc are all damage flavours. A single flavour can be optionally added before a damage type. These have no effect other than that certain monsters (and players) take extra effect from them. You can never take less effect from a flavour only more. In this system there is no such thing as immune to silver or flame as you can only be immune to types and effects).
Keep a single damage effect after the call, this rule is working fine.
Define what damage type spells such as Cause Wounds, Harm and Mage Bolt do within this system. Enchanted Damage seems reasonable for some. If you make artifact go through the ritul of peace then spells like Mage Bolt and Harm should do Artifact and retribution should do enchanted (or possibly artifact).

Add a level two ranged physical spell that does a point of enchanted damage to the named location (encourages helmets to be worn which is a good thing). Tanks protected by armour, casters can counter from game balance point of view this is no different to sleep, in fact it is weaker (although its a physical effect so that balances).

Add mages guild osp called Elementalist that add a single damage flavour such as flaming (restricted to a list that makes sense) to certain spells you cast (mage bolt, enchant weapon, direct damage spell above, etc).

List some standard disease effects in the rules. Diseases with effects such as:
Channeling takes double normal cards.
Casting causes caster to sleep at spell completion.
Bleeding time reduced to half.
Afflicted character can use skills or abilities.
These are needed in rules for consistancy and so that plot teams will then use them instead of being forced to have all diseases as the pointless unliving 1 hit per hour disease (which is a nightmare to ref overnight, "Time out, by the way you die in your sleep" ).
Also consider adding actual rules for diseases spreading. After a set time period (say one hour for most diseases) a victim of a disease may pass on the disease to someone by touch, or range depending on contagion type.

Get rid of confusing physical/non-physical calls and effects. For example a physical paralysis from poison and a patern effect of the same name; Physical strike down and magical strikedown; etc

Reevalute all of the requires invocation lammies so that something with an effect lists a time it remains invoked for. For "on use" items also specify on the lammy how many time it may be used per invoke (normally one).

Define "Mass" as a standard call. When applied to an existing effect all targets within 10ft or within 10ft in the arc specified take the effect. Avoids confusion when a ref calls something random like mass strikedown (should I fall over if I'm not within 10 feet).

Define "Global" as a standard call. When applied to an existing effect all targets that can hear the call take the effect.

Define "No effect" as a information call. This blow/spell/whatnot had no effect what so ever.

Define "Resist" as a information call. This had an effect on me but not its normal full effect. No more "no effect to the strikedown part" calls in the middle of a fight.

Define "Inate" and "Psionic" as standard calls defined in rule book. Make Psionics so they can be countered by Psionics.

Add a magical tick box to item cards so the effects such as "Detect Magic" and "Sense Magical Aura" can actually be used on unattended items.

Define what is a "natural creature" in the rule book, too many players seem to be unnatural despite not having a special creature card.

Add a rank 5 armourers guild OS that requires quick armour repair as a prerequisite. This skill allows you to fully repair an armour location, or shield. Using this skill takes 30 seconds. Lets have armourers be people who can fix things rather than do strikedown.

Add a low level armourers guild OS called "Repair Faction Gate". Repairing a faction gate takes 10 minutes of roleplayed work. Multiple people with this skill can work together and reduce the overall time accordingly. Makes no sense that the occupational skill carpentry has more effects than any other OS.

Add a rank 5 OS to the mages and incantators spell list called "Focus" that allows you to maintain concentration when hit.

Add a rank 2 OS to the mages list that grants +1 level one spell per day. Requires spellcasting one as a prerequisite.

Add a rank 4 OS to the mages list that grants +1 level two spell per day. Requires spellcasting 2 as a prerequisite.

Add an OS to the mages list that extends the time available to trace a ritual transport to 1 minute.

Add a rank 8 OS to the mages list that allows the mage to snap back a ritual transport if they get to the circle within 10 seconds of the transport.

Add a rank 5 restricted "Sorcery" OS to the mages skill list. It converts your spells to sorcery mana cards (A new card avilable at the mages guild). You can then cast spells by sacrificing a number of cards equal to the spell level. You can not cast level 2's unless you have spellcasting 2 and you cannot cast level 3's unless you have spellcasting 3.

Drop "Written Forgery" to a rank 5 OS so that players can forge documents and so that the recognise forgery skill has a purpose. As well as having it on the bards list also add it to the scouts list.

Add "Immunity to mute" to the mages list as well as the bard list.

Set up a system where the bards guild are able to stamp and lore code documents so that they can be considered IC.

Add a "Faction Oath Sworn" OS

Change the "Oath Sworn" family of skills so that the oath must be resworn each year to keep the OS. It costs no points to renew but you still have to present yourself to the the faction or guild and they have to let you.

Terror is a difficult call to get right. You could go with a mental forbidding...
While under the effects of terror you may not attack the source of the teror with melee attacks and if you find yourself within 10 foot of the source you are affected by a fear effect (cv). Duration 10 minutes.

To further encourage characters with different levels of Ritual Magic grant bonuses to characters with the following levels of Ritual Magic skill
3 - Contribute to Ritualist
5 - Invocation
8 - +2 Ritual Power (as current rules)
This should also give ritualists more motivation to make items that require the invocation skill.

Reword decay to the following simple wording.
Every minute a location under the effect of a Decay takes the following two effects in the order specified.
The Location takes one point of XXX damage.
Any Location at -1 inflicts a decay to all adjacent locations.

Define true magic and its effects in the rule book and take it away from the realms of flange. Make it require a little solo ritualette outside of a circle with a duration related to the amount of ritual power required to get the effect.

To be stolen an item must first be identified as worth stealing. The item must have a lammy on it and the taker must achieve one of the following criteria.

1) Achieve a positive response from one of the following OS's: Identify, Sense Magical Aura.

2) Achieve a positive response from identifying a lore code on the item.

3) Achieve a positive result from an item name guess.
(OOC you inform the owner of the item what you think its unique name is. This system requires you to move the unique name to the back of the item card to prevent people cheating when they look at lore codes. Only the owner or a ref may check the back of the card).

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From John Kearny

Transporting:

Make transporting by circle cost Spell or Incant level 1 cards, as follows:

1 person - no cost

2-5 persons - 1 card

6-10 persons - 2 cards (or one level 2)

10-15 persons - 3 cards (or one level 1 and a level 2)

The power can be drawn from any person in the group willing to give up a card.

Appropriate OSPs reduce the cost of using circles by 1; i.e. a player transporting a full group of 15 who has the OSP Zero Point Ritualist only needs 2 cards, or can transport up to 5 people for free.

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From Bryn McTaff

Decide under what conditions demons can be dismissed / controlled. Add dismiss/control levels to PC demon special creatures where appropriate.

Add dismiss demon as a mage spell, and appropriate OSPs (Discern Demon, Control Demon, etc.). Don't allow incantors to dismiss demons without a special power, OS , etc.

Make more level 1-2 spells physical.

Make scrolls/glyphs easier to use (perhaps an invoke scroll OS, etc.)

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And a last one (for the moment)

From Cormac

Interrogation, easy fix.
New spell "Speak to Living", same rules as Speak to Dead, but works on an unconscious living normal or ALP.

I am totally in favour of a more modular system anyway. Define "Speak to ", and allow speak to dead as an incant, speak to unliving as a DI, and speak to as OSPs.

Define Mass, Global and Aura and we can ditch a load of unique calls while allowing the spell effects to continue (Repel Aura replaces Forbidding, for eg). Plus you can get variations, and easily understood super-big-bad-guy uberspells.

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