On Encumbance and Battle Magic

We didn't have a RuneChad session this past week. We did have an opportunity to explore the rules relating to Encumbrance a bit more and the exercise opened up the value of some otherwise relatively obscure bits of magic.

Malo is an Initiate of Arawn and a well armored warrior who primarily has fought from horse back. His bronze armor and helm provide excellent protection in combat (AP6), which is good because his CON is only 10 giving him relatively few HP. One way to augment his survivability is to further increase his armor with leather underpadding. His ENC with that increases from 13 to 15. This is fine because his STR is 15 and so he is not "encumbered".

Dang! This is heavy!

Wait, though. He has no weapons at ENC 15. Add in his enchanted iron broadsword and he is now at -1 to movement and -5% to hit, as well as -5% on all Agility skills including Dodge. Add a Large Shield and he is at -4 and -20%! Even worse, Max ENC is a function of averaged STR and CON...so his Max ENC is 13, not 15. Oh no!

Removing the padding gets him back to base 13 and only using the shield while mounted would limit the negatives in dismounted combat. How to better boost survivability at this point?

First consideration has to be elimination of the Agility and Manipulation penalties, so increasing Max ENC. STR and CON are the limiting stats, so what spirit magic (yes, I prefer "battle magic" to be less woo woo) is applicable?

Iron age GAINS

The obvious choice is Strength. A 2 point spell, it adds 8 points to STR. This would add 4 points to Max ENC eliminating the negative Move, Manipulation, and Agility modifiers. Moreover, in Malo's case with a STR of 15, it would further increase Manipulation and Agility modifiers by another 10%. His damage modifier would also increase from +1d4  to +1d6. Huge GAINS!

For survivability, staying power is important and the really limiting stat for Malo is his CON. At 10, he doesn't exactly have a glass jaw, but it's not far off. Is there a way to boost this? Of course there is! Vigor is a 2 pt spell which adds 3 points to CON resulting in +3 total HP and +1 HP per hit location. In Malo's case, it will also increase his MaxENC to 14 which would be enough to wield his sword without a negative modifier but not enough to carry a large shield. 

It would look like the best 2 point spell to increase survivability would be Strength which gives increased Attack, Parry, and Dodge while Vigor only partially eliminates the negative and only gives +1HP per location. The spells cannot be stacked so some other augment must be sought. Each point of Protection increases EVERY hit location by one, so 2 points of Protection would add +2 AP at each location and this spell can be stacked with Strength (or Vigor).

Did Malo choose these spells? Did Bran (who dat?)? And what of Manawydan's Not-Yet-Magical Myrmidons?

I hope we find out!