Hello.

As everybody is most likely aware, when all is reduced to basics, battle (and
eq mob related battle in particular) in BatMUD is a dps game. The more damage
per second you dish out and the less you suck in, the more succesfull your
party is.

At the moment there's a feature(at least I hope it is) in runemagic that
greatly hinders the damage dealing potential of runemages. The spells of
runemages have an increased starting duration compared to a mage (or anybody
else) casting the same spells. This increase is one or two rounds, depending on
the situation. If one doesn't score a haste on the first round of a runemage
spell, the duration is normal duration+1 rounds. When one does succeed in
scoring a haste the starting duration is normal+2 rounds. Examples below
illustrate my point.

Without haste on the first round:

You start to channel the forces magical by chanting the runes.
$HP:544/544 SP:1200/1200 EP:299/299 EXP:3344 >
Chaqu Siac Aida Othelar: #####
Your quick chant allows you to chant the runes considerably faster.
Chaqu Siac Aida Othelar: ##
Chaqu Siac Aida Othelar: #
You declare with a booming voice 'Chaqu Siac Aida Othelar'!
You try to channel the magical energies but lack a target for them.

With haste on the first round:

You successfully conceal your intent of channeling the forces magical.
$HP:544/544 SP:1200/1200 EP:299/299 EXP:3344 >
You are casting 'cold ray', runewords 'chaqu siac aida othelar'.
$HP:544/544 SP:1200/1200 EP:299/299 EXP:3344 >
Your quick chant allows you to chant the runes considerably faster.
Chaqu Siac Aida Othelar: ###
Your quick chant allows you to chant the runes considerably faster.
Unburdened by weapons you manage to weave the spell with greater finesse.
You declare with a booming voice 'Chaqu Siac Aida Othelar'!
You try to channel the magical energies but lack a target for them.

I understand that runemages can't be as powerful blasters in pure damage as
the normal magical backround mages and psis are and I certainly don't expect
them to be. Runemages have versatility to counter that. Having 5 round duration
in high end single target spells would be in line with folklorist single target
spells for example and I could live with that just fine.

Even if you factor in the occasional cheap sp point cost from the free hands
bonus, the lack of reagent requirements (and the assorted benefits of power
reagents) and the non-offensive nature of runemagic, a 1 round duration
increase would imho be sufficient in all situations. This change shouldn't
unbalance things.

I know it would be an uptune and I realise that this might sound like the
whining of a minmaxer, but I genuinely appreciate Nalle's (and Shardik's) work
on this guild and would like to get some more (semi-)active members into it
than me and Daria .

P.S. Please don't reply to this by "get more quick chant eq". Having
140+ qc helps a lot, but 6 rnd single target spells that can be resisted are a
bit frustrating .