Bren

On 2/28/2023 at 11:19 AM, Atgxtg said:

In T&T there is a race of living skeletons that are basically normal people with transparent organs, bodily fluids and skin, which doesn't exactly go over well in a medieval fantasy setting, and they are generally assumed to be monsters.

They sound like they were inspired by the ghouls in Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales.

7 hours ago, svensson said:

So I honestly don't see why some folks are griping.

I think Jeff answered that. 🤣

Those covers look beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing everything.

2 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

This is exactly right. There's no value in drawing owls for new RQ GMs.

🤣 This and Jeff's Battle Size and Intensity table made this a nice surprise.

My physics is well into the last century rusty, but a falling body has constant acceleration increasing the velocity up to the air resistance. I don't think air resistance is the reason why a knockback has a limited distance and I don't think the deceleration is constant. And some of the damage is going to occur from the initial impact of the knockback rather than from the landing, as it were. I'd use something simple like:

Assume half the damage occurs from the initial blow, then reduce the remaining damage by 1D6 for every meter traveled before the victim hits a solid object.

Or if I want comic book physics, assume no damage for the initial blow and reduce damage by 1D6 per meter traveled. So bodies fly through the air, but not much damage unless they hit a solid object.

Ah ha! Now I get it. 😁

Thanks all, for the various answers.

On 2/9/2023 at 9:38 PM, Macronaut said:

3.  With regard to the "for each meter traveled," how does this work if the solid object stops the target early?  If the troll above knocks back the elf, but there is only 1 meter between the elf and a wall, does the elf take 1D6 or 5D6?

I think a 5m knockback into a tree that is 1m away should do more damage than a 5m knockback into a tree that is 5m away.

On 2/10/2023 at 3:24 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Ah, I hadn't spotted (or had forgotten) that.

🙂 The wording doesn't definitively state that Spirit Combat should be decremented for each subsequent use so I don't know if that is what the designers intended. However, given that Spirit Combat has the word "Combat" treating it like melee combat seems like a reasonable interpretation.

Totally off topic, but now I am wondering if additional missile attacks in the same round should also be decremented. At first blush it seems reasonable to do that.

On 2/10/2023 at 12:55 PM, g33k said:

@whitelaughter was talking sorcery.  It generally can scale upward to obscene levels, if the sorceror has enough MP's to feed it, time to cast, etc etc etc.

I'm still confused. I knew it was Sorcery, but as far as I can tell, Sorcery doesn't have a spell for Resurrection. What sorcery spell is it that the Sorcerer is scaling up to Resurrect the dead?

12 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

If the multiple opponents rule doesn't apply, then any battlefield can have a sorcerer throw a magical circle over all of the friendly dead, and then a single Resurrect used to bring back hundreds or even thousands of allies.

I'm confused as to what you are envisioning here. What spell or ability would this be? The Resurrection 3-pt Rune spell doesn't allow multiple resurrections, just one.

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

• If you just allow it with no modifier, then one powerful individual can take on an army of spirits.
• If you allow it with -20% then one target can be dog-piled fairly easily.

Phil, you nicely laid out two alternate issues. I will need to think some more about which alternative I prefer the least. I hadn't considered this as, for some reason*, I was thinking spirit combat would be 1-on-1, but the rules clearly state,

Quote

If an entity is attacked by more than one spirit, they
must roll their Spirit Combat skill separately against each
attacking spirit. (RQ: RiG, top left column on p. 368)

Regarding the "one powerful individual" - there are some limits on that tactic that some may not have considered.

1. Only Discorporate spirits can initiate spirit combat. So the one powerful individual would have to first be discorporate. That usually takes time and preparation.
2. Spirit Dance can be rolled to disengage and that happens at any time in the round, most importantly it can happen before SR 12 when Spirit Combat rolls are made. If successful there is no spirit combat that round. I assume weak spirits would choose to try to disengage from a powerful spirit.
3. If the powerful individual wants to continue Spirit combat they would have to pursue a disengaged spirit and re-engage on a subsequent round. That should automatically disengage any previously engaged spirits. If enough weak spirits are around, many will probably be able to disengage and escape or escape when the powerful spirit decides to chase down other fleeing spirits.

* I believe that is how the folks I played with played it in the RQ2 days. That belief was influenced by the statement in RQ2 that "The spirit englobes the challenger." We presumed that meant only one spirit could englobe at a time so only one spirit attacking at a time. And for us, that situation did not come up very often.

On 2/2/2023 at 10:00 AM, Akhôrahil said:

I don't think the rules actually support the outnumbered penalty in Spirit Combat, but I also think it makes sense as ruling that it applies.

I see the logic, but I'm very reluctant to implement this since the situation is mostly going to occur to the disadvantage of player characters.

I agree the names of foodstuffs cannot be exhaustive. A quick search of the Guide to Glorantha Volume I shows many non-specific references to edible fish, but no entries for cod, herring, mackerel perch, trout, tuna, or whitefish. There is one entry for sea salmon on p. 97, and a few entries for a monstrous "black eel." 

On 1/14/2023 at 7:45 AM, soltakss said:

For me, I would suggest the following:

• Sneaking into their camp, dragging them from their beds, giving them a weapon to fight with and slaughtering them is not honourable.
• Sneaking into their camp and fighting them in combat is honourable.

What do you see as the key difference between the first and the second bullet above? Other then your use of the term "slaughtering" instead of "fighting" the two situations seem similar to me.

7 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Would a Humakti ever act as an executioner, or is that dishonourable, killing an unarmed defenceless person with their head on a block?

Not without losing Honor. I could see a Humakti killing a prisoner who was first armed and unrestrained so that they are no longer defenseless. But then what happens if the prisoner surrenders to the Humakti or falls from a non-fatal wound? Now killing them breaks the Humakt honor code.

Seems like a job for Babeester Gor or Storm Bull initiates.

On 7/1/2022 at 2:54 PM, David Scott said:

(to echo) Encumbrance is not weight, it's things. There's no change as it's still the same number of things.

Yes, two things. But the encumbrance for those two things is 6 ENC, i.e. 3 ENC per thing. This is equivalent to saying that a jacket and a pair of pants (2 things) when worn is twice as encumbering as wearing a pair of coveralls (1 thing). That seems off to me. If an armorer attaches the skirt to the breastplate with rivets and straps does that then become one thing and thereby half the weight? 

If all that matters is the number of things than cuirboulli greaves and plate greaves would have the same encumbrance. But they don't.

If the rationale is 1 heavy scale thing is always 3 ENC regardless of size or mass then I understand the rationale, though I disagree with it. Of course I can change the numbers when I'm the GM. But I'm curious if anyone who has experience wearing different types of actual armor can explain why the hauberk (ENC 3) would be half the encumbrance of a properly fitted scale shirt (ENC 3) and skirt (ENC 3).

What is the explanation/rationale for why a scale armor skirt (which only covers the abdomen) and a scale armor hauberk (which covers the chest and abdomen) have the exact same encumbrance values? (Light scale = 2 ENC, heavy scale = 3 ENC, see the armor table in RQ: RiG p 214.)

I know this is the same encumbrance as that in RQ2 (and I wondered about it then too, but didn't have a handy source for answers), but it seems odd that halving or doubling the area of protection results in no change at all to the weight/encumbrance. 

I've really enjoyed this thread. Wheel Shield, you have asked questions that I too have had for a very long time. And I greatly appreciate Jeff taking the time to respond and give clear answers. Many thanks to all of you who have participated in the thread.

Going off my memory, I recall the Humakti, Garan Grimseeming, giving a relatively large non-living item gift (I think it was at least 100L). As he did that, I remember thinking - why didn't he by some bison and sacrifice them it'd be way cheaper for the same bonus.

Then the player failed or fumbled his worship roll (which I believe was boosted up to 100%+). The rationale mentioned for the failure was that Garan should have known that killing something would have been more pleasing to the god of Death then some treasure.

I've been reading and enjoying a series of blog posts by a historian named Bret Devereaux. His posts on Polytheism and Oaths (specifically the section: "So what is an Oath? Is it the same as a Vow?") both relate to questions of sacrifice and worship in the real world.

The very large bonus from expending quickly renewed MPs also strikes me as a bit off. I'm tempted to find a way to tie the MP sacrifice bonus to also providing a material sacrifice. So to be able to get that +100% bonus from sacrificing an additional 10 MPs (over and above the 2 MP minimum for Worship), you would have to sacrifice something material, like say, a cow (which gets you another +20% bonus).

Another option is to limit the bonus from MPs to no more than the bonus achieved from other things (location, holy day, material goods, etc.)

On a related issue, looking at the tables on p. 316, I'm surprised that non-living, material goods give so much less of a bonus than living sacrifices a cow that costs 20L and bronze armor panoply costing 300L each give the same +20% bonus to Worship. Why the order of magnitude difference in cost?

18 minutes ago, Storm Khan said:

I will write-up what I am planning. It is pretty direct. Why, btw, this enthusiasm for Lunes? Should I just lie? OK, OK, HERE's YOUR %^$&#$g LUNE! HAPPY NOW? 😏

Because Lunes add all sorts of crazy PC fun. 

If you don't want Lunes, how about a blood red, imp demon. Make it 1 meter tall and fat like a Buddha with a big grin...and six arms and fangs dripping with poison and a weird, giggling hyena laugh. Let it follow the character around for a while, sending disturbing nightmares and giggling in the shadows and dark places, disturbing the apostate's rest. Have it do this for a while with increasing frequency and effect. By the time it finally attacks - of course it swells up to 3x it's previous height - the character and any friends will likely be relieved to finally have something to fight.

I'm surprised at how many people (almost everyone it seems) thinks there is no need for a skill for the chariot rider who is fighting from a chariot. But I'm enjoying seeing how different people analyze the situation. Thanks everybody.

On 1/29/2022 at 8:08 PM, Mechashef said:

If someone is fighting on a raft do you limit their skill to their boat skill?

If someone is fighting on a ship in rough sea conditions do you limit their skill to their ship handling skill because the waves are moving the ship?

It would depend on how much motion is occurring. But in your second example doing that makes some sense. People unfamiliar with a ship in a rough sea may be lucky not to go over the side, much less accurately fire an arrow. People who are very familiar with ships would be both safer and better able to account for the effect of the waves and the roll of the ship.

I don't like using a DEX roll as that completely ignores training and practice in favor of base ability. A noble with an average DEX who has spent years practicing fighting from a chariot ought to be better at fighting from a moving chariot than a noble with an above average DEX who has never even ridden in a chariot.

Another alternative would be to use a disadvantage mechanic (roll twice take the worse roll) for someone who isn't experienced. It's not something RQG uses, though I think the latest version of Call of Cthulhu does and of course there are numerous other systems that do. Pro: It's mechanically simple to implement. Con: It can only model a binary outcome of is or is not experienced, which loses the greater range of outcomes available with the D100 skill system.

On 1/29/2022 at 8:29 PM, g33k said:

Not exactly; the rule is a general one, for combining skills.  Want to climb a wall, quietly?  Roll the lower of Climb skill or Move Quietly skill.
 

What you are proposing is a whole new rule specific to the case of combat from within a Chariot.

Not a whole new rule, what I'm proposing is that fighting from a chariot should be similar to fighting from horseback in that degree of familiarity with the mode of transport should effect one's fighting ability. What I see as missing from the Drive skill and current rules is a method of differentiating the ability of a practiced and accomplished chariot rider from an inexperienced rider when fighting from a chariot. Using the Drive chariot skill as a proxy for training and practice for the chariot rider isn't a perfect solution. However it does have the virtues of not introducing a second skill like Ride Chariot while allowing us to differentiate the abilities of an experienced rider from a novice. I'm certainly open to other ideas.

On 1/29/2022 at 10:52 PM, Shiningbrow said:

I think the problem here is simply not applying appropriate modifiers.

As mentioned above, you don't modify the roll while on a raft or boat... Unless the water is choppy or there's a storm.

So, I suggest - while the chariot isn't moving, no penalties at all, and base weapon skill. When it starts to move, chariot driver's skill.  And when it hits bad ground, terrain penalties (plus Dex rolls just to stay upright), such as the modifiers for the chariot driver listed on p221 - cumulatively. (NB, mounts don't need to have this penalty as they can simply avoid those obstacles... Although, I'd still introduce them anyway)

In view of this, introduce a new skill for chariot missile weapons, similar to Kuschile archery.

Modifiers could be used. But that creates a different case for riding chariots than we already have for riding horses, bison, sables, etc.

We could create a chariot archery skill, but I don't want to end up with a Chariot version of each weapon skill and it seems difficult to argue that archery needs a separate skill, but throwing a javelin or using a lance or spear does not.

21 hours ago, David Scott said:

The Driver only has to roll if on bumpy ground or worse, otherwise chariots would be pointless.

Yes, you don't roll every round just like you don't make a riding roll every round, only if the situation is unusual like a rider trying to fight from an untrained mount, jumping an obstacle, etc.

16 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I'll also take this opportunity for blatant advertising - lots about chariots and using weapons mounted in Armies & Enemies of Dragon Pass.... 

 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296535/The-Armies-and-Enemies-of-Dragon-Pass?src=hottest_filtered

I already have my copy and I am very pleased with it. This quote from p. 19 very nicely states why I think the current rule that ignores the skill of the chariot rider is lacking when the chariot is used for combat rather than just for transport.

Quote

 

Driving or riding in a chariot is no easy task, requiring training and practice.

The driver must be accomplished at handling and controlling the animals; both the driver and passengers must keep their balance and brace for turns and jolts. Chariot archers must be especially proficient, setting and shooting arrows accurately from a bouncing and swerving platform. Warriors using javelins and spears from a moving chariot must be only slightly less accomplished.

Regular and rigorous training and drill is essential. A close bond develops between a charioteer and their team, which is essential for their performance on the battlefield.

 

Martin, I'd be interested in any thoughts you might have and whether you've created any house rules to better model fighting from a chariot in RQ.

For the people who dislike the randomness of box ticking and random rolls to improve skills and want a more directed character development, do you use the training rules and do PCs get much training?

On 1/29/2022 at 9:19 PM, Bill the barbarian said:

Hopefully handing the vote to the table overcomes this.

Funnily enough, the example I had in mind used that exact method. That guy and his friend and I think one other person at the table voted for that guy and the rest of the people at the table split their votes. So Hammy McScenehog got the win.

In general, handing out rewards based on a popularity contest isn't a very good method of allocating rewards. In RPGs it often rewards broad roleplaying over subtle displays and can intensify the benefits for outgoing players over the shy. Now the stakes for rewards in an RPG are low, so it's not a big deal if people want to vote on who gets more XP or all the shiny benefits. It's just not a method I've seen work particularly well in practice.

On 1/29/2022 at 6:27 PM, soltakss said:

Don't forget that RQ2 NPCs list Common Runemagic among the spells that they know. Also, they have multiple castings of Runespells and have multiple stacked spells.

I did not forget. Counting all that is why the total is so high, but that is the number of points of power one would have had to sacrifice in RQ2 to access those spells.

On 1/29/2022 at 6:27 PM, soltakss said:

Whilst you could simply take the Rune Points across, that breaks the RQG rules on Rune Pools.

Yes. That cap on Rune Pools is my least favorite rule change in RQG. Initiates became rune magically much more powerful in RQG and that's fun to play. But I find it counterintuitive that rune magically powerful characters from RQ2/RQ3 become weaker in RQG - and some become much weaker. That doesn't seem to fit with the magically powerful units in the board games or the exploits of the heroic NPCs. Philosophically and mythologically I don't like a rule that forces a worshiper who is focused on a single deity to have a much lower magic potential that one who worships multiple deities. Especially when there is no corresponding mechanical benefit for their focus.* Join lots of cults to get more Rune Points sort of fits what we see of Arkat's progression where he joins one cult after another. However, the game system doesn't support being able to regain points from unfriendly cults/deities so the counter example doesn't hold mechanically.

But it's easy enough for me to ignore that rule should it matter in play.

* This is just another manifestation of the anti-Humakti bias I saw creep in with RQ3. 😉 I'm kidding. Mostly.

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

It has, and it is.  The correction IIRC was posted in the subsequent WF issue.

I did not know that. I don't have the subsequent issue. Anyone know what the corrected date was?