Tywyll

Is that in the book anywhere? Are there rolls detailed for it (as if you can't abstract it, it feels like you are forced to run a seperate session for the player every time they want to do it)?

So, to gain a new shamanic ability, a shaman must "bargain with a Greater Entity".

How does a player do this? What mechanics are involved? How long does it take? I can't find anything beyond sacrificing ability points/taking taboos. Which I'm fine with if that's all there is to it, but I just want to be clear that's all ther is to it.

22 hours ago, soltakss said:

You don't, or it is hard. Even if you smash the idols and deconsecrate the temple, the wyter hangs around, waiting to come back if the temple is reconsecrated. At least it does in my Glorantha.

I give wyters some form of Heroic Casting in my games, so they can cast some Runespells using their Magic Points, leaving their Rune Pool for other spells.

Also, in a Major or Great Temple, each Subcult or Hero Cult worshipped has its own little Wyter and they tend to work together. So, a Great Temple to Orlanth would have a number of Associate Deities and thunder Brothers, each with wyters that can cast spells in their own little areas. 

So.... how do you destroy them? Surely you can wipe out an enemy temple in some way?

14 hours ago, Kloster said:

In RQIII, Resist  Damage and now, Ward Against Weapon  are described as having damage matching the spell on the resistance table before removing armor (RQIII Magic book p45 and RQG p401). YRWV.

True, but RQ4 (the unpublished one) did it Soltakss way, which in play I've found to be the only way to really make the spell worthwhile.

Granted, the spells in RQ4 were gated at  1/10th of skill, so you would end up with a smaller defense. 

3 hours ago, Byll said:

If a former human establishes a hero-cult under an elemental pantheon and defends a place in the god plane, do his bones transmute into metal?

That sounds like a cool heroquest power, pre-transformation into a demigod.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Destroy the object it's in.

Bind all Wyters in giant, solid blocks of stone...check!

On a slight tangent...how do you defeat a Wyter like that? I mean, in the current rules, ignoring houseruled heroquest abilities. I can see an extremely powerful shaman maybe challenging one, but 42 POW pretty much makes it immune to magic. 

"

Stall

2 Points

Ranged, Temporal, Nonstackble

Stasis

If the user overcomes the target’s POW with their own, the target seems to slow down dramatically. Every action in combat the target slows in that any action that doesn’t take more than 1 Melee round of Strike Ranks takes 12, and are only able to perform one action that costs Strike Ranks per round. They also only have Movement 1 and can parry once per round.

Incredibly powerful. Suggest 1 point spell, stackable, adds 1 to target SR per point but target can still take at least one action per round in SR 12. No movement effect (since moving is an action that takes SR, no Parry reduction)."

I don't know that I agree it is too powerful. A 3 point Rune Spell can outright kill a target (Sever Spirit). A 2 point spell that dramatically slows a target seems fair. I would probably just double the SR cost of their actions though, for simplicity. 

19 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Page 371 (my emphasis)

Using Summon Cult Spirit and Command Cult spirit, (as has been mentioned) any cult spirit could be commanded to fight the spirit.

So what would a generic cult spirit look like/be statted as? 

Weird, the quick start references an Exorcism rune spell I think. 

Is there an exorcism Rune spell?

32 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I let the apprentice shaman (and "man" here is not the same root as our word so "shamans" is better) in my game just attack the spirit after discorporating with the rune spell. I'm not sure if there should be more to it than that.

I don't use shaman at all. So how do theists exorcise a possession?

Maybe dumb question...how do non-shamen break possession or exorcise spirits who possess targets? 

18 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

 

But... would they allow the guy to wear his Bear shirt so he could transform? (ie, go Berserk) Some things in some situations are acceptable. At other times, not.

If its a duel to the death, good luck getting the Bear Shirt to not use it. If he's challenged in a duel, he'll probably work himself up into a frenzy regardless of social ettiquette. And if you can't take him as a Berserk, you shouldn't have challenged him. Ditto challenging a sword master to a sword duel. 

18 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I don't disagree. The have nots aren't always pleased to be so, or to have the haves showing off.

Of course not, but they can't usually enforce rules that prohibit the haves from benefitting from their have status. Since community leaders typically would be haves in Glorantha (or society really), they hardly are going to agree to rules that prohibit them from using their own gifts...especially when those gifts are literally granted by the gods. 

19 hours ago, gochie said:

I really don't. If they agreed to a magic-free duel and one of them obviously used magic, he would be called out.

Yeah, I would, because this would be exceptionally weird. its the kind of thing a gamer would do, but not people in the real world. Prayers and supplications to the gods before a duel were pretty standard. That's invocation. That's magic. The fact that it is hokum in the real world doesn't mean that people didn't do it, or that they were like, 'Hey, he's praying! That's cheating!'. The whole idea behind medieval dueling was that God would choose the righteous person. Equally, depending on era, duelists brought their own weapons which may well have been 'enchanted' by priests or master smiths. That's not forbidden. People aren't going to fight a duel without doing everything they can to change the odds in their favour.

It's merely have and have nots. 

9 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I don't want to drag things entirely off track but, for most of our game a Ward against Weapons has a 5% chance of doing something no matter what Strength it is cast at, practical ones anyway. My Humakti PC does BONKERS average damage of something like 4d8+2d6+2d6+8 when in Battle Mode. No Ward Against Weapons will slow that down very often. We have decided it just isn't worth remembering or rolling extra dice every swing for it. We telecommute, so efficiency helps. 

Wut???

I get the 4d8+2d6. Where does the last 2d6 and the plus 8 come from???

50 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

We have been playing it so that all of the Humakti gift multipliers apply if and only if damage penetrates to flesh/body parts.So, we would have it roll on the resistance table with rolled damage versus the strength of the Ward Against Weapons before any multipliers for gifts. If the damage penetrates the Ward then it would perform as normal.

 

Now I will note that Ward against Weapons is pretty much Garbage versus anything other than newbies or woodland creatures. A new Humakti can hit for 2d8+2+1d6+4 which averages 18.5 or something crazy? you would need an epic Strength Ward against Weapons to matter much past character gen, and I just cannot see it scaling. that same sorcerer probably has Boon of Kargan Tor on his weapon for lets say +2d6, his staff does 1d8+2d6, even the philosopher can get through his own Ward. Weaksauce. 

Agreed. I have always hated how sorcerer defence magic works. As you say it's garbage. But I am not sure how to fix it. It's only real advantage is that it can stop a crit, but again the damage value had better be low. If you dump a bunch of POW it can be strong but...what doesn't get strong with a bunch of POW added?

So, if a Humakti has a gift to double damage past armor, and they hit a target warded with the sorcery spell that compares damage on the resistance table...how does that work? Since the damage the target takes is figured after armor, but the spell triggers before armor...?

Is it rolled damage vs Sorcery, the armor, then double remainder? Even if the sorcerer is wearing no armor and all the damage would get doubled?

I reread the section on DI in the book and the example had the character gain a 6 point Lightning Bolt. Which got me thinking, a six point Shield spell would 

A) Protect him

B ) Have blocked EXACTLY the amount of damage that dropped him.

C) Okay, it wouldn't undo the Dominate by RAW, but I figure it could, why not? It's freaking DI.

It does mess with causality a bit, but meh...

Yeah I reread and saw the reference to unspent points so fair enough.

6 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Maybe you can sacrifice the first permanent RP from "spent" RP, I'm not sure if I'd allow that or not, but the 1D10 is definitely going to come straight off your POW.

Any particular reason for this beyond GM's call?

On 4/9/2019 at 10:55 PM, lawrence.whitaker said:

That isn't quite how they work. 

You need to score a level of success better than the opponent, with each level gaining an additional effect.

Thus, if A and B both attack and parry at a normal success, there is no effect awarded. If A scores a regular success, and B fails, then A gains an effect.

Mythras has Fumble>Fail>Success>Critical as its succession path; Specials aren't used. 

Yeah, I know that. But since successful hit is blocked by successful parry/dodge, what I meant was every unblocked hit, or every successful hit in the normal sense of the word rather than the game term. 

It also didn't really help answer my OP. Anyone try it?

So one of my players just got knocked to -HP in the head. He asked for DI from his draconic ocean goddess to protect him (he is currently being attacked by a lich/vampire). His mates are fighting the creature.

What happens?

He's grappled by the monster and dominated, so I was thinking he would get turned to water, splash away and reform, healed and undominated. However, he is still squishy and vulnerable to further attacks from the creature (i.e. he's not really being protected, just temporarily restored). 

On the topic of lost Rune Points...do they count against unspent only or can spent be included? If I've got 5 RP and I've spend all of them, can I still ask for DI?

In addition to heroquesting and Hero rules, I would like to see rules for quickly upgrading/creating foes. The Bestiary is great...but the baseline monsters are (often) no match for experienced characters. And as a time-short GM, I'd like to see some easy power up options/templates/whatever to help me when I'm running the game and suddenly need an enemy RL or something.