flynnkd

Totally agree with this. A week is a long time, and having my players sit around for the rest of the season resting is not what 'heroic' fiction is about. Although there will be a tendancy to do that because all the training rules require a season to complete... experience ticks are infinitely faster and suggest a far different game style. To me RQG rules tend to be quite 'multiple personality syndrome" in places, and even have a few personalities left over from previous editions. It is annoying.

There was a post on G+ that was interesting also.... p.366 "Spirits may be bound into a magic crystal, or into a specially prepared object or animal as described in the Binding Enchantment section (page 249). The binder of a spirit can use any spirit magic the spirit possesses and the magic points of the spirit to fuel spells." +Alexei McDonald So the implication is you get access to whatever spells the spirit already had, rather than being able to "store" your own spells in it. Fine by me, I expect cult spirits are available to provide this service, in return for diligent cult service. Does it say anywhere that you can access a Spirits CHA to store spells, or is that option gone now? What about spirits with INT?

I am simply commenting on a problem I have discovered, and one solution that Chaosium could have solved by providing a guide. They went to the trouble of providing a conversion guide so they must have identified the issue. As to how they provide this I have no opinion, other than I would like to see one, mainly because my players are very unlikely to absorb the new book in a period less than months. So that means I will be solely responsible, which means I will miss things (like this very point), which means my players will gleefully spring it on me at an appropriate time that causes the most discomfort... bastids that they are

I have never played RQ3, never liked it, so my comment, for me and the many of us the same (a totally unsubstantiated claim), it is a problem that does not need to be dismissed because we do not conform.

My problem is that we have played with limits for so long that this sort of change unbalances your game mind, and takes a lot of effort to to rebalance. You can learn spells from Runelords now, and they are very likely to have high variable spells, because they are so powerful. I suppose Prot8 is countered by Bladesharp 8... my brain is hurting. The other point is that its not even mentioned in the book as a change... they need a small chapter on "What was before, but is not now - preconceived play".

So variable spells have no limit now? You can have Protection 8? SRs are the only limit for casting... have I got that right? And cost is per point, no accumulation cost?

But thats not what the new rules say, they quite explicitly say 1) Attack and defend normally or 2) Defend normally and cast spells. Yes the attack can be physical or magical, but it does not say Attack (mag or phys), cast non-attack spell and defend. I don't want to reference the implied, or understood, old rules and translate them into these rules. Surely they can say exactly what they mean, and 1&2 do not allow an attack and some other spell. That would also imply that I can magically attack AND cast a non-attack spell, its the same logic (like throw disruption and a bladesharp on your sword). I would prefer to think the bladesharp comment as a hangover, mainly because it is an exception to the rule and life would be easier without them.

p195... Defend normally and cast spells p194... However, casting a spell such as Bladesharp... This seems to be a contradiction, and possibly a hangover from the old rules. In Classic you could cast Bladesharp and attack, but in the new rules it sort of vacillates between the two. Gah was supposed to be in the corrections post, sorry.

You need to do 3x to decapitate in the new rules, not 2x. Which is a good thing, allows you to heal it back, especially with the unlimited healing changes. A few things seem to be missing from the lethality of weapons arguments - in RQ2 protection spells were almost a must for a startup character, that adds 2 pts to your armour pretty quickly, and as soon as you have enough money it will be 4pts. The other is Healing, in RQ combat healing is an integrated part of combat. Especially now that they allow you to repeat the casting every round, unlike RQ2 where it was 10 rounds apart. Even a Heal 2 is sufficient to make a difference, considering you will be able to cast it as part of your attack (Heal2 DexSR+1, attack DexSR+SizeSR+WeapSR <12). Heals are self targeting so I always assume the focus is on the weapon or behind the shield and readily available (no 5SR to prepare), similar to a Bladesharp as is listed. Good reason for the archer to have a better Heal and sit in the second line. If you are assuming your players are wearing plate armour, something very few if mine do because of cost or weight, then I am assuming they will have Prot4 and Heal 6 as well, because these are a pretty essential part of RQ combat. If they are new characters then perhaps you need to re-think your encounters, there is a reason Prootwaddles exist (very low power monsters). RQ is deadly and you need to scale your game to your players abilities very carefully. Your players also need to understand this and not only have Heals, but understand that each time they go into melee they are risking everything.

There must be different versions around, mine mentions nothing about doing damage to the attackers weapon in the Parry rules, may be listed elsewhere...

So when an encounter of trollkin, which are all identical as the GM is busy and doesn't have time for details, all attack the same person (well 4-5 of them), all at the same SR, the first guy sucks up your parry and the rest hack into you? Doesn't that imply that SR are a static measure of exact time? The 20% penalty is bad enough, and pretty much takes care of this for you. Sometimes you can't avoid these sort of situations, and being taken down by a swarm is realistic I suppose. :). However, it is another piece of book-keeping you have to deal with.

Just for opinions sake: does roll weapon damage twice for a special success include your damage bonus twice or not. And does it include any +1 (Broadsword) doubled or not? And, an Attacking weapon cannot take damage from a Parry anymore (for now anyway with the QS rules).

Had a game last night where I noticed something I had never noticed before, which is that if your total HPs drops to 0 you die at the end of the round unless healed, same in the QS. The problem is with how on earth you would get healed by the end of the round if you use statements of intent? You would need to be sitting behind the lines with a statement of "I heal anyone who gets hurt". With statements of intent + die in the same round at the end of the turn it is not possible to save anyone? So either you say 'you die if you go to 0 hps' or you delay death one round to allow characters to make a last ditch effort to save them (which is what we have done). Myself, I have become pretty disenchanted with statements of intent, they are too rigid for a free form game, and they are too hard to recall the more players you have. There can be 20 mins between your statement and actually doing your turn (in my games). It has become increasingly difficult to use them (with 6 players) due to the mental attitude of the group (they are there to relax and have fun bashing things). YGMV.

+Kaydet, you are playing HeroQuest. However I agree, there are some really neat narrative mechanisms in HQ that could be easily converted to RQ mechanics, and fit beautifully.

My main problem with it is that you have 50% (for eg) to cast, and then 50% to resist, which means attack spells are half as effective as all other spells. It wasn't there before, why are they bringing in more rolls when most games these days are trying to remove them. Anyway, its just an opinion, and not less valid for that.

It would be better called Soul Magic, and Spirit Magic left for shamans. Also I don't like having to roll to cast and then roll to resist... too much rolling, get rid of the casting roll, nobody wants to fail a spell casting. Its an archaic mechanism in this day of playability. (well, for me).

Love to see this soon, starting a new campaign in about a month....

Daredevil allows you to remains standing after an evade. But there is nothing linked to how good you are at this, no skill roll, you just get it. Do other people add in skill tests for something like this, what do you use? The Style % or some other value (athletics).

Medium Fatigue is caused by "Manual labour". As Vigour used the term "labour", I linked them. If they wanted it to include Combat why didnt they just say "All forms of effort". I can go either way with it. Do you actually use this part of the rules though, making END rolls every 2-4 rds and track levels of fatigue? There is already a lot of work going on with APs and special effects and wounds etc etc. I would be interested in seeing how other people manage it all.

I think you need more info about longspears and short spears and pikes. A 9ft short spear seems rather contradictory. One definition I have seen is human height, if its taller than you are then it is a long spear. It is quite possible to use a longspear one handed, with a hoplon, thats why they were called hoplites. Nobody in their right mind would tell a spartan he was using a short spear (this is Sparta! ) Yes you suffer a loss of length due to having to balance it, but they all included a heavy butt spike to help with this, plus if used underhanded you can brace it under your forearm to gain extra length. I suppose it comes down to definitions of length. In ancients rules long spears are 6-10ft long, pikes are 11ft+. Anything less is a short spear. Most of the time it is HOW you use it rather than how long it is. Macedonian pikemen did have a small shield, strapped to their forearms (passive). Most Macedonian pikes of Alexanders time were 14-18ft long. Later period pikes were longer, upto 21ft, but you eventually get to a point where the wood cannot support the length without bending. My take would be to make Longspears heavier (ENC) and allow either 1H or 2H use. 1H they do short spear damage and have short spear reach. 2H they do 2H damage and gain extra reach. Short spears are lighter, shorter and easier and less costly to throw. Interesting to watch this:

My initial reading of the rules indicates that combat (any kind or just melee? shooting?) causes a fatigue roll after 2-4 rds (depending on CON). Is that actually part of the combat system? It would add a lot of extra tracking. I'm happy to use it or not, just wanted to see if people actually use it. Also the Vigour folk magic spell seems to avoid saying combat, so I am assuming it doesn't work on fatigue suffered due to combat? But Tire does, that would make it very powerful?