Tywyll

So, I was looking for something that explained you could use the MP of bound spirits like the good old days. Other than references to using Allied Spirits for their MP, I've not found any specific references to using their MP...just 'their powers' (i.e. casting spells, or healing spirits doing their thing). Has that been removed or am I missing it somewhere? 

If I've missed it, can you point me at a page ref?

17 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Black Fang is not a thief cult. It is a cult of professional killers.

 

Yeah, but bandit killers =/= trained warriors. 

So Sorcerers have the ability to create spirit traps and summon spirits. How do they get the spirit into the trap? Can they do it with the summon spell?

Another kick in the teeth...the fricking Blach Fang spirit Cult dedicated to a thief have the Shield spell... that makes plenty of sense when someone like Yelmalio doesn't. 😒

Interesting. I would really love a whole bunch of 'normal' folk stats, maybe ranged from normal to elite (like the old Vikings and Ninja set). 

What it says on the tin. Are all 18-21 year olds as skilled as a beginning characters are? Or are PCs 'special' somehow?

I'm just going with number 1. Though if the cult doesn't have it listed as Special, they can only stack it to level 4 (like old RQ2). Cults with it can go as high as they want. Not a huge difference, but gives it a bit of umph.

46 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Shield is a very powerful spell and only a handful of cults have it. YGWV, but we have tried to carefully limit who gets it.

Yeah, I know, but as I said, I don't agree with that idea. Not to mention, mostly I'll be running old RQ2 material for a long time to come (until Chaosium produces more for RQG) so lots of those characters have it. I think if everyone can heal, an arguement for Shield is similar. 

Edit: Also, I'm not actually running a game set in Glorantha so... *shrug*

14 hours ago, RHW said:

/begin rant

One thing I didn't love about RQ3 that continues in RQG is that Shield is no longer a common spell.

/end rant.

You make a very fine point and something I think I glossed over completely. Frankly, I disagree that non-combat gods shouldn't have it. It's like an investment in your resources. All Priests/Rune Lords benefit from protection and antimagic, and since they are your focal points in the mundane world, you want to protect those assets! I think I am going to put Shield back as a Common Spell.

16 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Gods and Goddesses has all-new write-ups for the Seven Mothers, Danfive Xaron (a new version, although Mike and Nick were both involved), Deezola, Etyries, Hon-eel, Hwarin Dalthippa, Irrippi Ontor, Jakaleel the Witch, Nysalor, Teelo Norri, Yanafal Tarnils, and of course the Red Goddess herself. Plus the Crimson Bat. 

That's awesome! I never understood how the Lunars who are obstendibly either the primary antagonists or the alternate player characters never had full write ups (or at least I couldn't find them in my books). Yet I heard people playing them so I was very confused.

19 hours ago, seneschal said:

Yes, Aslan are sex differentiated.  Males are the big, brawny warriors and landowners who — while sentient — may have less than human intelligence.  Females are much smaller and slimmer (but still dangerous combatants) but have all the brains in the family — conducting business, science and diplomacy on behalf of their husbands and other male relatives.  Because the Aslan are so large they don’t (in Traveller) get any bonus to their DEXterity.

That's funny! My Kzin race (name stolen from the Kzinti) always had that exact sexual dimorphism, but I don't know where I got that idea (or if I came up with it). Might have been my own love for characters like Tigra and Cheetara that influenced my 16-17 yo self (these go waaay back before 'Catgirls' became a thing). 

19 hours ago, seneschal said:

The Tiger Men From Mars (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) started out very much like bipedal tigers in medieval armor but gradually morphed into a much more human-like form (in sort of a Thundercats way), able to disguise themselves as human with the right clothing and cosmetics.  They weren’t necessarily stronger than humans but were very agile and sure-footed and were able to see in the dark — all of which made it easy for their scouting party to spy on and steal technology from the recently liberated Americans.  Their subsequent invasion of Earth launched Buck Rogers into interplanetary space and away from its previous post-apocalyptic storylines.

Oh interesting. Is this from the original books, comic strips, or some other source?

19 hours ago, seneschal said:

If the Kizinti and Aslan are savage brutes, the Tiger Men are the consummate conniving sneaks, talking friendship and cooperation while planning to stab those gullible humans in the back.  (Sorry about ruining your childhoods but all that heroic Lion-O stuff was just Tiger Man propaganda intended to subvert American youth!). 😱

😂

9 hours ago, Steve3742 said:

The Lankhor Mhy Defend Knowledge spell, given above, might help Sword Sages... though, if I were converting it, I might lean more heavily on the 'Defend' part and make it more like Shield.

As for Seven Mothers, the way I've always seen the cult is that it gives you a taster of each deity and makes you a Jack of all Trades (and master of none). And that this is done deliberately, to entice you into a 'proper' Lunar cult. So, if you're a Seven Mothers cultist and you want to be more combat orientated, you should join Yanafal Tarnils - the officials in both cults will give you every encouragement to do so. You'll get Shield, Truekopis and a whole lot more - but you'll have to give up Resurrection, Command Lune and a lot of others (though I've always thought that each of the Seven Mothers should get one spell from each of the other six as associate deities. Probably something from Etyries as well.)

To me, this is the point of the Seven Mothers, the reason the Lunars invented it. Give the barbarians a taste of Lunar culture and, if they like it, you can get them onto the hard stuff.

Yelmalio/Elmal... I agree that Elmal, as a sun god, should have some fire powers, but not as great as Yelm. He's the sun god of hill barbarians in climates where it's not that hot. Think of Scotland, Wales or Ireland. I lived in Wales for three years and it rained every single day between November and April inclusive (and a lot of days between May and October.)  So that sort of sun god. The sun god of a country where summer is a couple of weeks in July, if you're lucky. Everyone from the UK should know what I mean. Note that neither the Celts nor the Vikings were much into Sun Gods (now it's thought that Lugh wasn't a sun god after all). Nothing to match Apollo, Ra or Shamash, all from countries where summer is a lot more of a thing, countries a lot more like Dara Happa. So some fire powers, but nothing like Sunspear. Firearrow and Fireblade, perhaps

But Yelmalio should definitely have Shield. I agree with that.

Where are the Lunar Cults beyond the Seven Mothers dictated (in RQ stats)? 

12 hours ago, Richard S. said:

The main problem with giving Yelmalio Shield on RQG is that Elmal gets Shield in return for losing gifts and headed. Give Shield to the inferi- I mean Yelmalio, and Elmal gets crapped on even more.

I'm not sure how that's supposed to be a balance issue? I mean, all the gods that get Gifts are intrinsically more powerful (for their followers) than Gods that don't. Honestly, I wish all Gods had their own lists of Gifts and Geas as those would really enforce proper behaviour of the faith and I don't understand why X god gets Gifts and Y god doesn't. 

Has any version of BRP/Runequest ever had Cat folk/people statted out? I can't think of any but before I reinvent the wheel for one of my players, I was wondering if such existed out there or had been made for someone's homebrew?

It won't be difficult to make for myself, but just curious. 

5 minutes ago, Mechashef said:

This is unclear as the book is not consistent and depending on where you look it is either:

 

A: Maximum rollable plus the number of dice or 

B: Maximum rollable plus minimum rollable 

 

(Unless I haven’t noticed that it has been corrected).

 

For technique A, any addition is considered a whole extra dice.

 

So for option A, a stat of 3D6+1 would have a Maximum rollable of 19 and 4 dice, for a species maximum of 23.

 

 

Yeah, this right here is what's throwing me as I've seen those two different rules and it's not clear how you are supposed to deal with it.

Wish they would clarify.

I'm unclear on how you figure out Species Max for nonhumans.

What is the species max for 2d6+2? 3d6+3? 3d6+6? Do you count any modifier as a whole die? 

Has anyone tried using the Combat Maneuver system from Legend/Mythras with standard BRP? If so, did you make any chances to it and how did it work out?

I was thinking that if I did use it, I wouldn't give maneuvers on normal successes, but you would gain one on a special and 2 on a crit. I don't like the idea of giving a maneuver on a regular success...it seems weird that every successful attack should allow you to choose your hit location. 

17 hours ago, Nick J. said:

*Like a demon who hears his true name uttered*

This is a pretty slightly modified version from the stuff presented in Advanced Sorcery. Mostly I just tweaked the arrangement of the spheres to a more classical Aristotelian relationship , and made casting outside of your specialized spheres and glyphs less reliable and more dangerous (skill roll and a fumble table) and then added some fluff about how Deep Magi function in the setting I use.

Maybe it will be of some utility to someone?

Deep Magic Revised.pdf

Thanks! I will check it out!

23 hours ago, RogerDee said:

Incantation (Pathfinder Ultimate Magic and Deep Magic): There is a universal truth few spell casters would deny, incredible power exists in spoken words. They belong to a class of truly awe inspiring powers beyond ordinary spells and can be very powerful and frequently create effects beyond those of normal spells. It was a framework for understanding and altering reality based on words. They arrange these words of power to cast powerful and diverse incantations known as word spells. It should come as no surprise that most obsessively learn as many words of power as their minds can comprehend.

Scientific: This will be a mix of Sorcerer's Apprentice and scientific magic from Hawkmoon.

 Weave (Witchcraft RPG): To work magic, one must be able to weave magic energy into the right matrix. If no outside force is interfering, the desired effect will take place.

Then make a cost system per area the player wants.

So you could have-

Common Magic, Battle Magic, Enchantment, Necromancy, Evocation, Conjuration etc.

I also have Deep Magic which has been named Chaos magic, obviously.

Sphere magic a la Mage the Awakening, Ascension, and Pathfinder

Each would be priced differently per spell, or for any spell in the category. I tend to be a bit more freeform / Diceless which allows this kind of loosey goosey play style.

So did you write up any of these translations? Like I would love to see the PF Ultimate Magic and Deep Magic in BRP terms, as well as the Witchcraft RPG (always been a fan of Witchcraft and Armegeddon). 

On 4/1/2019 at 8:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

Uh String was from the troll hord in The Hobbit, while the Numenorian Blades were from the Barrow (different troves)

While I could make a case about there possibly being something to do with the nature of wraiths and evil magic, much like how silver is effective against vampires (yes I wrote vampires, the werewolf vulnerability\came later),  and such I'm willing to accept Merry and Pippin's blades as magical.

1

You could make that arguement but it wouldn't hold any water. It's clear that they were magical, Tolkein wrote them as such. There is no debate. And these were knives they grabbed off a random dead body in a barrow. Not the warrior's sword or axes, but their backup minor weapons. There is no telling what else was in that barrow. 

On 4/1/2019 at 8:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

Hmmm, I wonder how many magical items were carried by the fellowship in LotR.

Aragon's Sword (kindabroken but magical)

Gandalf had Glamdring, The Ring of Fire and his wizard's staff. I wouldn't be surprised if he cloak and robes were magical, so let's count them.

Frodo had String and the One Ring. His Mithral shirt is never stated as magical, although functionally it was very good mail.

Merry and Pippin had thier Numnorian daggers

A Palentir pops up.

Frodo get the vial of Galadriel at Lothlorian, Sam gets the Mallorn tree and the box of fertilizer (magical or just more advanced gardening tech?)and everybody gets Elven Cloaks (TM), Boots (TM),  and Rope (TM), not to mention  more than enough waybread (questionable if it was magical) to choke a Gollum.

Now I suppose someone could (and will)_ Make claims about Boromir's horn, Gimlis axe, Legolas' bow or even Bill the pony, but I don't see evidence of it in the books.

 

So we got what, a dozen items, before they get all the "Evlish  bling" at Lothlorian. And this is for a group out to save the world. What is that in D&D terms 4th level?

9

Compared to just about any other fantasy series that is not directly based on or set in D&D, that is a LOT of magic items floating around. I've read a ton of fantasy over the years and most series don't have a fraction of that much identifiable magic items show up in the story. So to say that ME is 'low magic' even by comparison to other fantasy fiction is false. 

The elven bling is a perfect example that you casually leave out. Cloaks of Elven Kind just given way. This is again, clearly magical stuff.

There is no metric beyond D&D in which you can argue that ME is a low magic setting.

Hell, Gandalf told Bilbo that there were many magic rings in the world, arguably so many that he couldn't identify the most powerful one after it had been right in front of him for what, nearly a century? This is the main thing they'd been looking for for an age, and because Magic Rings are so common, Gandalf missed it.

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! No, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. I Played AD&D and still got some old "modules" packed away. Magic was just as common and gold even  more common. I doubt there is a single AD&D adventure that didn't have a magical sword in it. Character advancement was a lot slower, and the opposition used to be tougher, as encounters weren't" balanced" the same way. 

PC couldn't make magical items back then, so magic was much more of a pot luck thing. So a player couldn't customize their magic to better fit their character's abilities in AD&D, but DMs were also more likely to put in magical items with a particular PC in mind.

I said people play the game as low magic. LOTs of people, myself included, ran their own homebrew, some of which were low magic. Not everyone uses modules. Sure, if you use the off the shelf stuff, you will find 'em loaded down with magic, but just because they are, doesn't mean that is the way everyone plays. 

And what DM's do is entirely dependent on the DM. Some regard the tables and randomness as holy writ, other's as guidelines, and some ignore them in favor of more story driven games. There is wide variety in the world.

On 4/1/2019 at 8:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

 

So we got what, a dozen items, before they get all the "Evlish  bling" at Lothlorian. And this is for a group out to save the world. What is that in D&D terms 4th level?

Absolutely depends on the edition you are playing. Plenty of people play(ed)1st and 2nd edition as low magic. It's only modern editions that have 'expected wealth' and that certainly wasn't from the time of MERP. 

On 4/1/2019 at 11:21 PM, g33k said:

Except that at the other end of that spear wasn't Any Ordinary Spearman, but a (in the book, not the movie) an orc big & strong enough to shield-bash / knockback Boromir (who is noted as both large & unusually strong, the preeminent warriro of Gondor, so no "pushover" -- except he was, vs. this foe).

The spear hit hard enough not only to bruise the ribs where it hit, but the impact-area where Frodo hit the wall behind him.  So that hit HARD... REALLY hard.

And it's light as cloth.

And quiet enough that nobody heard Frodo jingling as they tromped for weeks through rough country.

 

AFAIK... we couldn't make that stuff today, in 2019.

Indistinguishable from magic.

 

yeah, the Mithril shirt is clearly magical, or at least the skill to craft such is. Either way, it would count as a magical item in any game.

4 minutes ago, soltakss said:

We played that an Allied Spirit not in a familiar could intervene in Spirit Combat. However, that was always a House Rule.

Did you limit it to helping only vs things attacking it's owner or could it launch its own attacks?

Say a party gets attacked by some ghosts. Can their allied weapon spirits or animal familiars help if they are not attacked themselves?

Edit: Any allied spirit, item or animal?

What about familiars I.e. For sorcerers?