So, this thread is pure speculations on my part, just for fun.

Runic magic looks cool, but I wonder how much time it will take to make weapons/armour/talisman with runes inscribed. If the process is fast, everyone in the gaming group will soon have magical weapons, which doesn't feel Warhammerisch at all as I feel runic/magic weapons should be rare as hell (my group for example has aquired two magic items total over their adventures and one of them was profane and cursed). If on the other hand the process is to slow the players won't like it (I recall that Runefangs of the Empire was crafted as gifts from the dwarves to the cheiftains of the tribes that now make up the empire after the first battle in black fire pass where they aided the dwarves, but all cheiftains had passed away of old age before the runic weapons was completed).
But what happends with the game balance (mainly in combat) when everyone in the group has 2 runes on their weapons, armours, shields, talismans? (In addition to the bonus fortune die since all items with runes are superiour).

Might there be any other limits? The runes are bought with talent advancements, so sure an apprentice runesmith can "only" learn 4 runes during their first career (plus some during character creation). A thought might be that the rune cards are actually "attached" to the weapon/armour/talisman and thus cannot be inscribed on any number of items. I mean if makes sense to inscribe for example rune of cleaving on everyones weapons if it is possible, to increase the combat power of the group.

Any other ideas?

I can't help but feel that a proud Dwarf wouldn't just dish out those Dwarvish secrets to just anyway - certainly not just travelling companions. They'd save those for their closest friends surely - Gotrek/Felix, or Gimli/Legolas...

Also, perhaps you could say that too many runes in a close area draws the attention of some nasties - attracting to the lure of power (Tzeentch or Slanneshi beasts)...

In my opinion the Runesmith has to buy every rune he inscribes, so it is one xp for a talent for a rune. That would make those runes very valuable and rare.

I think that zwoobot, once again, speaks in truths. I think that every individual rune costs an advancement point, so a Runesmith would be wise to be wary of over exhausting this. An Apprentice Runesmith can only acquire up to 4 runes during his apprenticeship. This, to me, makes the most sense from a balancing standpoint and I feel that this could very well be the way they work.

I'm with Zwobot on this one. Having to expend x.p. for each rune would be a brilliant idea. If they don't do it in the core, I'll probably institute it into my own rules.

In relation, the announcement post shows promise .

jh

zwobot said:

But the idea makes sense from a "power" standpoint as the runes seem to give quite powerful and constant bonus effects (as they should).

Also in the sample text they mentioned that a small number of "spell" actions for the runesmiths were to be included in the box. I wonder what these might be. An "Inscribe rune"-spell problably, but maybe some kind of "disenchantment" as well? Giving the runesmith the oppurtunity to remove runes and re-apply them to something different.

I really look forward to this box, I believe it will be very cool.

In the Warhammerverse mighty Runesmiths can work instant "magic" to tip the balance of a fight or something. So those effects could be aomething like that, destroy none dwarf forged weapons as an attack and spell or shatter the shield. It would be very cool, but with 10 (+1) Xp in an aprentice runesmith career and another 10 (+1) in Runesmith career you have not much room to develop your char.

But Let us wait and see.

I would venture a guess that the runesmith careers will have some similar concepts to the previous 2nd edition ones from Realms of Sorcery. Having each rune purchased with xp totally fits, as Zwobot and y'all have mentioned.

The time it took to inscribe a permanent rune was on the order of 1month+ crafting time per rune. The process was also something that didn't allow the runesmith to chisle their work out in the bushes. They needed an actual smithy with the best materials and their superior tools just to have a snowball's chance of succeeding. Also, the rolling done to test for success was carried out at the end of the time frame with failure resulting in the scuttling of all that time spent. If FFG carries this process methodolgy through to 3rd editon I'm sure this will bum out players who want to be the next Alaric the Mad...especially when they make their inscription roll at the end of the time-frame and have it fail. The non-mechanical fluff-related management of magical items is already pretty cooked in here. Of course some groups may wish to run a more high-power game, and that's probably okay too (just not my cup of tea).

Temporary runes and effects are where the runesmith is going to be able to effectively charge up their weapons/armour (and those of their party). The time it took to inscribe a temporary rune in 2nd edition was something that could be done on the time scale of minutes-hours. The temporary runes were effectively the same as the permanent versions they just wore off after use, or over time. In my experience this was the most troublesome, and required careful timeframe management on my part to ensure that the party could adequately prepare for a fight (assuming they knew what they were getting ready for) without allowing them to beef up every weapon, armour and trinket they had in their possession. In-play I rarely had the issue of heroes bristling with all sorts of temp-magic, but I suspect this will be a fairly prominent source of forum discussion IF FFG carries through with temporary runes as they existed in 2nd edition ("My players take a month off and buff up their weapons and then blow up my adventure" or "My GM won't let me do anything with my runesmith why does this class even exist for players...").

Rune-spell Effects are something I'm most excited about. This could emulate a bit of the WFB effects (assuming the 7th edition WFB stuff still holds somewhat true), and will help to allieviate the weapon/armour augmentation issues if the player has some more immediate gratification at their disposal. Zwobot already touched on that a bit. I would imagine a runesmith will be able to choose runes or spell-effects as they progress (as types of actions). This is the most interesting potential outcome for me, because it allows a person to advance along more than one theme with their character (previously it was pretty much weapon and armour augmentation or bust). Sure they won't have everything but it will make for some fun-to-play variety which is always welcome. In some cases you will have a Dwarf-wizard-priest-who-is-certainly-not-a-wizard-or-priest and on the flip side you might see the Dwarf-smith-who-rocks-when-we-have-a-few-hours-to-prepare. The runesmiths in the middle of that spectrum is where the fun will hopefully lie.

FFG has done a fair job thus-far with their treatment of rules, setting and such, so I'm trusting them to carry it off better than I could.