Tywyll

I disagree that Dodge worked well in RQ3. It was a trap choice and has been fixed in later editions of D100 systems so that a successful dodge still has some effect on an attack, even a special or a critical being reduced by a success grade. Parry still get in the way of a special attack, why does dodge have no effect.

I'm aware that training time takes downtime, but it used to be more flexible. Now as I understand it you cam only train four skills regardless of levels and not if you used them in an adventure. That also bothers me, a flat limit on one chance at improvement 

In older editions, you could have several short adventures and still get experience checks if you earned them.

As for regaining your divine magic, yes you are limited to holy days bit as I understand it, those are seasonal. Meaning again, you can't really adventure multiple times and recover your resources.

So I got RQG for xmas and there are a few things I'm not sure I'm sold on...

1) Rune Points/Divine Magic tied to the seasons rather than recovery via prayer

2) Experience rolls/training tied to seasons

3) Cha limits on Divine Magic (yes, I know this is a balance to more flexible divine magic, but still)

4) Dodge 'death lottery' (returning to the old version of Dodge where a higher grade success on the attack completely ignores your dodge roll).

Am I mising stuff? Can people sell me on these aspects of the new game?

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Given the track record at nuChaosium, I have no doubt that this is coming.

The project is already very-far-advanced, and the release of the RQG core book gave Chaosium their best retail sales ever... so they know the market is there.

I don't doubt the will is there, but I imagine Stafford had the will to do it to and never did. I'm saying we don't know, until a book is in our hand. The design team could get hit by a meteor, etc etc.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I don't think there are any mechanics there.  They are part of the source lore in the world of Glorantha, and give some sense of the powers than CAN come from heroquesting.

See I guess that's a problem for me. Where are they described? What do they do in fiction? What does Tree Leaping or Pillar of Fire even mean? The only examples I have seen are from RQ3 and they seemed to mostly boil down to ridiculous skill levels or innate armor or something similar.

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

If you approach heroquesting rewards from what we know of high level heroquesters, there are a few known ones:

 

- individual feats like Hofstaring's Tree-Leaping, Delecti's mass zombiefication, Cragspider's Pillar of Fire, Belintar's Land Raising, Sartar's Change of Nature

 

I'm unfamiliar with those. What are their mechanics?

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

These ideas are fun, and frankly have quite a bit of potential.  I think there is a LOT of potential in the various RQG magic systems I would personally prefer my players to develop, but provided you keep superpowers within the constraints of Glorantha Lore, and don't let them overpower the game, I would be interested how it works out.  On the other hand I am also with g33k on this; there will be official rules on Heroquesting soon, and I am very interested in what they will have to say.

I guess we've been waiting for 'official' rules for 30+ years...what if these also don't see the light of day for whatever reason?

So, last night I had a (probably stupid) idea for Highlevel/Heroquesting style rewards.

When making a POW gain role, instead of gaining POW, the character can gain Power Points to spend on Super Powers from Superworld/BRP Gold book. Obviously the player would work with the DM (or they would just spend the points on the player's behalf) to find powers that were suitable for the quest the players performed.

As to Skills...

So I'm using the Mythras difficulty levels for skills. So a Hard roll is 2/3rds your skill (for example). So I was wondering, should the experience check be against the 2/3rds rather than the full value? The character was tasked beyond their normal skill and it seems like that would be the kind of stuff that would drive them to improve. Conversely, an easy roll that increases a skill by 1.5, would be rolled against the higher skill to see if you improved. It would take a bit more book keeping, but...

So, how stupid are these ideas?

On 12/7/2018 at 6:57 PM, soltakss said:

RQ3ish, so RQ3 with a lot borrowed from other systems and a lot of houserules.

To be honest, these weren't that high-powered, their highest skill was around 120%. However, the magical adds for Runes meant they got high skills.

How did I handle them? Like HeroQuest does, so their main powers came from HeroQuest abilities, skills and spells were, to a large extent, irrelevant. If they had a spell, then I used it more like an ability, or modifier to a power. It was free-flowing, fast and exciting, allowing the players to do a lot more with their PCs than the "Sunbright only covers 15m" restrictions on spells.

 

That's cool. I would love to see those mechanics written up to help play at that level!

22 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Above 100% the chance for specials and crits increases so that is handled fine.  Of course, if you use RAW, you reduce the higher skilled person to 100% and the lower skilled person by a like amount.  So no problem there.  In fact, that works great in opposed rolls.  In combat, I absolutely despise reducing skills to 100%.

Why is that out of curiosity? 

8 hours ago, Pentallion said:

I've had TWO players be the next Arkat because I've played Argraths saga twice now.  Ask them if they can reasonably take on Tiamat and they'll tell you sure, there are levels to RQ, you just have to play long enough to discover them.  Everyone knows when the party just "levelled up" and they can even tell new players what they need to do to do so.

As for damage, lopping off PCs limbs can put a lot of tension into a game. Some of our most memorable moments came when the best warrior in the group went down to signal the start of hostilities and the party had an "oh S***!" moment.

I'm not saying that that shouldn't still be a risk, but what I'm pointing out (and was pointed out by others above) is that as damage is boosted, because of the way it works in RQ, extra d6 are more swingy the more you add. A character might have 12 or 18 points of armor, but if that soaks an average hit from foes they face, a good damage roll is almost guarenteed to be a serious injury. There seems to be little wiggle room...they laugh it off or they lose a limb. 

How did you address this?

9 hours ago, Pentallion said:

I am so looking forward to what Jeff comes out with, but in the meantime, I've run tons of heroquests using what I've gathered from official publications and things I've house ruled.  In my current campaign, it shouldn't be too much of a problem if Heroquesting turns out to be way different when Jeff comes out with the rules than what we'd have been doing up to then because of this wonderful little thing Glorantha has called "The Day the Magic Changed".  No one knows when this is, but for us it will be the day I get my hands on Jeff's Heroquesting rules.

So everyone is on board and we're all okay with plunging ahead using my long standing HQ rules.

They work like this if you'd like to go the same route:  Each heroquest is made up of stations built around a myth.  You give the PCs the myth and they make whatever preparations they think necessary.  Then the HQ mirrors the myth right up to the point where it inevitably doesn't.  Chaos always intrudes on the myth and no myth ever repeats exactly the same so HQing the same myth twice can turn out slightly differently each time.

After each station, if any power is marked or any skills are marked, the PCs automatically go up.  This is how characters can HQ to improve themselves dramatically.  It's also how they get skills well above 100%.  Power gained HQing can go above maximum, but it doesn't establish a new maximum.  So on the mundane plane they can't improve POW if it's already above max. 

If they crit on the HQ they get some small power related to the nature of the crit.  Example:  A PC critted climbing Stormwalk Mountain.  I ruled he can't fumble his climb when climbing mountains anymore.  Next time he did the same HQ he critted again same thing!  So now I ruled as long as he's lead climber on a mountain, no one on his team can fumble their climb.

If they fumble on the HQ, bad things happen.  We currently have a thief who can't succeed in a fast talk vs other criminals.  I never tell the player the nature of their disability if it's not immediately apparent.  So the thief has yet to realize his problem.

And of course, the heroquest itself generally can give out powers or treasures.  The PCs have some idea of what they're trying to get out of the HQ before they begin.

Could you share more examples of the rewards you gave them and how you decided what they should be? 

2 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I am writing them now. 

That's cool. Any rough idea when they'll see publication?

Just now, The God Learner said:

Sketches mainly, as Jeff wrote above. Here is an example reward (The Quest to Maintain Spirit, p. 85):

"... If the Humakti defeats his foe, as his prize he must take his victim's Sever Spirit connection with his deity. This is in lieu of any other prize. If the Humakti is beaten, he fails his quest and loses his Maintain Spirit gift. He may attempt the quest again, from the beginning.

The hero gains no benefit from this quest until he has conquered all the representatives. At that time, he becomes immune to Sever Spirit."

It walks through the Hill of Gold and Lightbringer Quests, though I'm not sure those are the canonical versions (if any exist). I would put Arcane Lore more in the category of 'inspiration' than hard rules and systems. 

Thanks, okay I'll skip it then. I was hoping it would have something mechanical to help represent characters who become heroes instead of merely mortal. 

So there are no mechanics or ideas for Heroquesting rewards?

17 minutes ago, Crel said:

Chaosium offers the whole Stafford Library in PDF and PoD. https://www.chaosium.com/stafford-library/

So does Drivethru. But I'm looking to hear from someone who's actually read it and has an opinion on it before i sink $10 on a pdf. Especially if its not really usable.

11 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Greg always had misgivings about publishing Arcane Lore - which I shared with him. It is a collection of notes and first drafts, many presented out of context and without other writings that would greater understanding.

So is that a 'not very good' then? Is it usable? Is it salvageable? If it's so rubbish why has it always cost so much?

Anyone have this? If so, how are it's Heroquesting rules?

Just now, Ultor said:

I have a rough draft of the rules that I need to discuss with my players and then playtest. I'll post them here if they seem to work once we've knocked the rough edges off.

If you decide you want an outside pair of eyes to have a look, PM me!

4 minutes ago, Ultor said:

 

So I have a small issue with this spell, which is so essential, funneling sorcery towards Fire rune spells. It's for this reason that I'm looking at replacing Free INT with a version of Sandy's Presence rules.

Honestly I was pretty shocked that they went back to Free Int. It seems so weird that characters are so bound to a single die roll no matter how experienced they are.

Of course I think it's dumb that INT can't be increased as other attributes can be. It's really out-dated thinking.

I would love to hear your ideas on how to use Sandy's rules with the new edition though.

Am I correct that Int spirits aren't a thing anymore?

If so, other than matrices and allied spirits, how do you increase the amount of battle magic/free Int a character can store?

One of Humakt's Gifts allows a weapon to do double damage.

True Sword allows a weapon to do double damage.

Do these things stack?

17 minutes ago, Jakob said:

I actually consider everything mentioned features, not bugs, with regards to mythic play. If you look at the Odyssey, it is certainly not characterize by Odysseus having tons of HP, killing cyclopses left and right and succeeding at resistance rolls against siren's song. It's characterized by him being a smart and somewhat ruthless guy who keeps running into trouble, but who also knows when to tie himself to his ship and when not to pick a fight with a giant monster.

I'd say that works pretty well with most BRP games.

But none of that is RQ. Real world mythic figures don't do the high action hijinks of Runequestors. It's not a fair comparison. If you want to look at Greek mythology then hercules is a better example, and he's still probably weak sauce compared to Arkat or Argatha.

10 minutes ago, Jeff said:

As adventurers heroquest, they gain abilities that enable them to do things like shrug off damage and lesser spells, increase their hit points, do more damage, project their soul at distance, return from death, and so on. The hero characters I've made so far actually have far lower chances to hit than say characters out of Rune Masters, but can tear through them ("hey check out my augmented Lightning that does 2D6 per Rune Point, my effectively permanent Shield 6 spell, or my heroically augmented CON stat!"). They've gained their powers not through Super Skills, but as a result of questing in the Hero Plane.

Cool. What rules do you use for Heroquesting? How do you determine those super abilities?

On 7/13/2018 at 9:58 PM, soltakss said:

Well, our current RuneQuest Gloranthan campaign has finally come to an end, after 13 glorious years.

 

Previously on The River Voices, Legend of the Arganauts: The River Voices had bumped heads with the Lunar Empire on and off for years. They raised the Sky Ship, brought back Tada, Tarkalor,  Sartar and Genert, drove the Lunars out of Prax, the Holy Country and Dragon Pass, raised a Dragon at the Dragonrise, purged the Crimson Bat of Chaos, dropped Harrek and a fleet of Wolf Pirates at the mouth of the Oslir and gated an iceberg to the Crater to block it. They had awakened their Inner Dragons, entered the Dragonewt Dream, visited the Dragonkill, rescued an Inhuman King and tied it to the Dragonship. They took a True Dragon to Dorastor, where they ambushed Ralzakark, awakened a Two-Headed Chaotic True Dragon by accident, and some transformed into True Dragons to fight it, purging it of Chaos and chopping one of its heads off, then they entered into the Dragon Dance, where they saw that the Draconic Powers of Peloria had been energised and were building in strength. They took Ralzakark’s Crown and Flargle incarnated Arkat by opening the pathways to Arkathome and breaking the God Learner Seals that held it. A Pentian Army ravaged the North of the Empire, Flarkat’s Army invaded from the South and Harrek’s Wolf Pirates attacked the centre. The Lunars had lost Prax, the Holy Country and Dragon Pass. The River Voices had converted Rist towards the White Moon and had founded a Yelmalian Temple there, directly opposing the Red Emperor. Something had to be done.

 

The River Voices saw that the Draconic influences had been gaining power and energy and divined that it was reaching a peak in an old abandoned Second Age temple. They looked there using Shan Agar’s Magical Eye and saw a number of Priests dressed in Second Age robes, carrying Draconic regalia. A number of Dragonewts assisted in the ceremony.  The Red Emperor appeared, dressed in Draconic Robes, dressed as the Dragon Emperor, and began a ceremony.

Mello Yello could not let him do this, as he thought the Red Emperor was an impure Emperor, so the River Voices jumped in their Golden Barge to the Ceremony. There, the Red Emperor recounted all the problems the Lunar Empire had faced and all the sins it had done. In response, Mello Yello transformed into a Golden True Dragon and recounted all the good things the River Voices had done. The Red Emperor finished the Ceremony and the river Voices could see that he was about to commit Utuma, as the Golden Dragon Emperor, which would purge the Lunar Empire of the sins and allow the Red Emperor to be reborn anew. Horrified, the River Voices attempted a bold and dangerous move. Flargle transferred the Utuma Wound to Mell Yello, forcing the Utuma Ritual to affect Mello Yello instead. Well, that was the plan, but Flargle rolled 00, a Fumble, spent a Hero Point and rerolled to a 10, then spent another Hero Point to flip to an 01, a Special Critical. Mello Yello then used powers of Harmony to die without pain and to follow the Utuma without Disorder, this time a Critical. Mello Yello then used the power of Dragonewt Rebirth to be reborn, another Critical. Finally, Shan Agar used a combination of her Magic Eye, Dreaming Powers, Draconic Powers, Mother of Dragons Power and a load of other stuff, to move Mello Yello’s Rebirth to an egg inside her, as she had transformed into the Chromatic True Dragon, you guessed it, another Critical.

So, the Red Emperor performed the Utuma Ritual and did not die, Mello Yello’s body spontaneously self-combusted, burning instantly without any ash, as the greatest Dara Happan Emperors had done, then was reborn from a golden egg that appeared in front of him. Mello had usurped all the Empire’s Draconic Powers and was reborn as Mello Yello, Dragon Emperor.  He was now Mello Yello, Dragon Emperor of Dara Happa, Son of Yelm, King of Dragon Pass and Ambassador to Monkey Ruins. The Red Emperor, weakened by the Iceberg blocking the Crater and the subsequent removal of the Red Moon’s powers, had gambled everything on the Utuma Ritual and failed, so he died on the spot. Presumably, he would return later, as he always had, but for the moment he was gone.

Now, at this point, we stopped for a breath, as the enormity of what had just happened slowly sank in. Then we started to discuss where to go from there, but the consensus of opinion was that the River Voices had achieved everything they had ever set out to do. Mello Yello was Emperor of Dara Happa, Son of Yelm, King of Dragon Pass and Ambassador to Monkey Ruins, he was also worshipped by those Beast Men who wanted to join the cult of Yelmalio. Shan Agar was Wife to Tada, had replaced the Pharaoh, united the Elements, proven that all the Waters of the World were one, had restored lost parts of the Agar Clan and become the Mother of Dragons. Flargle had destroyed several Chaos Nests, become Arkat, purged much of Dorastor of Chaos, led an Arkati army against the Lunar Empire and helped kill the Red Emperor. Karim Temris had found Yamsur’s Regalia and brought Yamsur back, ridden Yamsur’s chariot to the Dragonkill and back, restored Caarith and proved that she was a daughter of Genert, restored Genert, thus honouring the debt of the Desert Trackers, deposed the Count of Sun County and put his father in his place, founded a new Praxian Tribe, the Lopers, and set them up in God Remembered.

So, what was there to do? Where to go to from there? Conquer the West? Embrace the Kralorelan Dragons? Hunt down the Red Emperor and the remaining Lunar Powers? None of them appealed to the players. Retire the River Voices and start again in the new world? Doing what? Playing Lunars opposed to the River Voices? Nobody wanted that. Playing starting characters in the middle of the Hero Wars? Nobody wanted that. Then someone suggested bringing the campaign to a close and everyone agreed.

Sad times, in a way, but they went out on a high. I cannot say the words “Mello Yello, Dragon Emperor of Dara Happa, Son of Yelm, King of Dragon Pass and Ambassador to Monkey Ruins” often enough.

All we need to do now is to decide what campaign to run. Nothing Gloranthan this time, as we have done Glorantha, although we might return once the new scenario packs start appearing. Suggestions were Dark Ages, Robin Hood or Sci Fi, but we need to talk about that a bit.

So out of curiosity, what flavor of RQ where you playing? How did you handle such high powered characters?

42 minutes ago, Thyrwyn said:

@g33k the difference between Glorantha and early AD&D settings was that the big bads weren’t running around chewing on the scenery, following a timeline, and changing the setting canon.

@Tywyll that’s why I don’t set my games in canon Glorantha. Because especially in RQG, we aren’t playing with the full rule set (or, there are elements in the setting that are clearly beyond the current rule set). 

Yeah you nailed it. Most supplements in the old books showed beings that realistically had levels of power you couldn't achieve in actual game play. At least in Dnd you can reach 20th level in a campaign and reasonably take on Tiamat. RQ never felt like it allowed that. And you certainly could never hope to be the next Arkat as a Pc.

I appreciate that RQG characters are more powerful to start with than older editions, but they are still as chaff before the power of some older edition heavy hitters. 

Another issue I think comes from how damage is handled. As damage dice produce wide results, especially for large mythic foes with several dice damage bonus, but armor and protection exists in a linear line, the further you get from human expectations the more swingy combat becomes. Basically you either laugh off damage or lose a limb...there is little middle ground.