Pete Nash

As Raleel says, there is no such thing as Spirit Combat 'Size' when parrying. As it stands, a successful parry blocks all damage. You could come up with your own house rule to mimic attack-parry size based on the comparative Intensity of the spirits involved, but it would make spirits of Intensity 4 and above exceedingly dangerous to player characters.

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Voted, but not for myself!

Sweet!

It is there to provide an alternate option for GMs creating schools of Mysticism (depending on the power level or campaign setting), and to also sync with the Creature Abilities.

I've been working on my own little project on these lines. You seem to have picked me to the post however...

Looks like they digitised the information of the physical copy I have and placed it online for free!

It is extremely difficult to find city maps of Republican Rome. The best one I possess is from a specialised archaeological journal covering the Augustan period (so after the Republic has fallen), and whilst the detail of the map itself is still sparse, the 275 page catalogue of entries which accompanies it contained some fascinating details. However, its pretty dry and dense for those not grounded in academic publications. For those who are interested and can afford such things, it is Supplement 50 available from the Journal of Roman Archaeology. (http://www.journalofromanarch.com/)

Its back up, albeit slow.

When I'm at the top of my game I can reduce that to 5cm.

There's also the fact that the foe can always ward unprotected or previously injured locations with their weapon or shield... and with the new Special Effect of Prepare Counter, the foe can sucker attackers who are too predictable.

Mycenaean, with gods and heroes thrown in.

Its great until your 10th shot and need to replace your heat eroded barrel at the mere cost of $5 million.

Its a straight conversion from Paolo's excellent BRP version to Mythras. So other than rules changes there's no new information... but it does come as a hardback and the pdf is fully indexed and hyperlinked.

Yep!

If you could somehow get your hands on a copy of RQ6:AiG, it contains all the converted Rune Spells and Battle/Spirit/Folk Magic from every official Gloranthan supplement. Which would save you an awful lot of work...

Um, I did actually point that out in my post, and included two other examples concerning RQ3 which contradicted your original observation.

Sorry to interject Jeff, but our version followed the Chaosium tradition and only said 'RuneQuest' on the front cover. The words '6th Edition' were placed at the bottom of the spine, unlike the Games Workshop versions which placed 'Third Edition' on the front cover, or even the AH box set which placed 'Delux Edition' on the front. I know everyone simply calls it RQ6 and understandably so, yet the cover title of our version was always RuneQuest, not RuneQuest 6.

I would counter-argue that armour, even minimal armour was absolutely a result of economics and functionality, rather than an attempt to look awesome. For example, the trefoil, round and square pectorals of the Latins, Samnites, Volsci and others were used from Villanovan times to the mid Roman Republic. They were definitely functional, despite lacking full coverage. Beyond simple tradition they were limited in size for a multitude of reasons: Firstly, bronze armour at the time was expensive, so making a full size cuirass would have often been beyond the means of tribes and towns constrained to less fertile regions. This was so much the case that Polybius and Arrian even claimed the Republican elite troops only wore a greave on the left leg (the leading one behind the shield), which would have saved expense and ensure enough of their wealthier class could fully outfit themselves. Secondly, whilst a pectoral looks inferior to a full cuirass, it is primarily designed to deflect spear thrusts whilst in formation, where a thrust from your (opposite or near opposite) enemy that landed to one side of the pectoral will likely glance off the ribs (or shoulder) due to the angle of the torso. Thus it would likely result in a superficial wound rather than a lethal one. Throughout most of history, armour has been designed to be just good enough to save your life - not to make you invulnerable. Thirdly, these troops were often fighting in mountainous regions where full panoply seriously hinders mobility. Too much weight and lack of ventilation would exhaust the warrior, leading to reduced combat effectiveness. Fourthly, a cuirass or pectoral does not cover the genitalia, because if it reaches much lower than the ribs it hinders the wearer's ability to move and fight. A warrior needs to be able to bend and lean. The vast majority of iconography show cuirass wearers with short tunics, aprons or pteryges to grant additional (if minimal) protection. Although we have images such as this... ...its not about waving your balls in the face of the enemy. Its more to do with the fact that upper thigh and genitalia armour is superfluous as they are already well protected by your shield when fighting in formation. Remember these sort of vase paintings are showing heroic legends, not battlefield warfare. In fact, once spears begin to be replaced by pikes and sarissa you don't need to armour the lower legs at all, since its near impossible to be struck there when maintaining formation. Fifthly, we have plenty of examples of pectorals which are fairly plain and others that are elaborately decorated. So whether or not the armour looked cool, they maintained the same form and functionality. Now that's not to say that some armour is exaggerated to look impressive to the point of seeming impracticality; ancient helm crests, feather holders and plumes are an obvious case; but remember they also served a vitally important function too, to identify rank and allegiance in the midst of battle. Once armour became mass produced (thereby providing a standardised appearance) and troops began to face more swung weapons like swords, crests were abandoned for smooth topped helms.

No, it is a straight adaptation. Expanding the time period would expand the page count massively, and confuse the book's focus.

Whilst the GM and his setting can foster certain directions for development, skill improvement in RQ6 is ultimately based on the focus of the players. Loz has just returned from our annual PeteCon over here, where he ran a RQ6 campaign set in Tudor England. Over the course of seven days we had just a single fight with weapons (the 2nd only involved lots of shouting and a thrown water jug) and the most outstanding skills used in play were Art, Glassblowing and Blacksmithing - which were all increased by the respective players, despite only three chances for skill improvement during the week. As ever, its not what you have (RAW) but how you use it.

Well, you have to remember that TSGB was originally written for D&D, where lots and lots of killing is the done thing. Does a S&S campaign mean that you must kill everything in the most brutal efficient way possible? Well going by the Conan tales themselves, it actually is not. Conan is often captured - either by being disarmed or knocked unconscious - so if killing was the best option, he would have died very early into his career. Now you would rightly point out that Conan is the protagonist of a series of stories, so he cannot be killed when he loses. Yet the tales themselves provide perfectly valid reasons for his survival: the need to interrogate him, the desire to torture him, to use him as a living sacrifice to a 'god', sell him as a slave, out of respect earned earlier in his career, lustful desire, to make him an offer he can't refuse etc and so on. Conan himself doesn't kill out of hand either. Can you imagine him slaying a woman just because she attacks him with a knife? No his personal ethics generally forbid it, and anyway he has other plans for most of them. Picts are his mortal enemy, as are those who betray him. Soldiers who he faces on the battlefield may or may not be killed depending on whether he truly considers them his foe, or if he has a chance to turn them to his side. Yes some of the Special Effects are lethal in the right circumstances, but it is the circumstance which makes all the difference. Most SEs can be used to end fights without death. Whether your players want (or even need) to use them all comes down to the genre and setting. Let us just say that the conversion of The Spider God's Bride is perhaps not the best place to showcase the entire range and their in-game value.

Its still ours and will remain so.

Mutated human. After several random rolls I ended up with thick reptilian skin, some sort of radiation resistance and could breathe fire once per day. Called myself Zillar...

I played in an RQ6 Mutant campaign, I didn't run it. However, all we really did was create RQ6 characters from scratch with some more modern professional skills and used the Mutant source books as is. Anything which didn't translate smoothly, we created off the cuff. Oh, the RQ6 firearms rules were pretty heavily tapped too.