Mugen

Another very important difference is that HQ allows for critical success chances far beyond 5%. Not counting the fact HeroQuest ability scale is not the same as RQG skills scale divided by 5. But, yes, Masteries are an evolution of Pendragon's way of dealing with skills over 20, which is an evolution of RQ2 rule.

Duplicate post

You'll need the Magic Book.

Sans Détour had a huge CoC line, and I think it will be difficult for EDGE to propose as many books as they did. I'm quite confident we'll see better production values, nevertheless, as ESD books were in black & white. Concerning RuneQuest, no Gloranthan game has really been successful in France. First french edition was a translation of RuneQuest 3, but contrarily to AH edition it was sold as a purely Gloranthan game. The only Fantasy Earth supplement published was Land of Ninja (under the name "La Voie du Sabre" - it seems L5R opened a "Japan" trend in France, as GURPS Japan had been translated the same year). Oriflam put a lot of efforts in the game, and published a gorgeous (for the time...) line of books including Gods of Glorantha, Glorantha: Genertela Crucible of the HeroWars, Elder Secrets, Sun County, Trollpak and Dorastor. But the result was the game setting seemed very intimidating, with no "beginner-friendly" entry point. I can tell by my own experience it's very difficult to do anything out of Genertela alone... The very complex nature of RQ3 didn't help. It seems Multisim's translation of HeroWars line was a complete failure, as only 6 books were published (including the two core books). Once again, I think the lack of focus on one area of Glorantha was a mistake. Mongoose did translations of their Glorantha 2nd Age line, but was horribly expensive. It didn't help their translations were done by a french Mongoose employee, and not by a professional translator...

I think the reason why 2 handed weapons are not mentioned is because they don't need a special treatment, and follow the normal rule of 1 attack unless you split your attack skill. Don't forget that in order to attack twice while holding 2 weapons, you need to develop a skill with your off-hand weapon. Also, 2-handed weapons tend to deal more damage with each hit. Allowing 2-handed weapons to do so with only one skill would not be fair. I agree with this, and that was my first understanding of the rule on page 224. But I think RQG already makes off-hand and shield use too difficult to use and, as a result, favors 2-handed weapons.

My own wording would be something like that: 1) You can attack once with your main weapon, unless you split your attack skill. If you have an offhand weapon, you can also attack with it at SR equal to the sum of both weapon's SR, if it is lower than or equal to 12. 2) You can parry or dodge multiple times. Each subsequent attempt suffers a cumulative -20% penalty, no matter what skill or weapon was used. If you hold two weapons, you can chose your main or off-hand weapon to parry without any restriction.

Well, in the pdf collecting changes made, the rule on page 224 seemed to be still very confusing.

Sure, but if I remember correctly, not all shields provide good missile protection and have more HP than weapons.

I disagree merging Attack and Parry in one skill is a problem here. After all, the problem would be the same if Sword Trance had an effect on both Attack and Parry skills. It is a problem, though, for people using a shield or an off-hand weapon, as it requires them to build 2 separate skills. Pendragon didn't have this issue, as shield use was incorporated in the weapon skill.

Another side effect of mixing RuneQuest 2 and StormBringer rules n RQG is the impact on splitting attack. Say you have 120% skill and are facing an opponent with 60% skill, would you try 2 attacks at 60% versus 60% and 40% parry respectively, or only one at 100% versus 40% parry ? The chance to have at least one unparried successful attack is far better in the second case (57% versus 32.64%-including a 5.76% of a double hit).

Well, that just means you have to adapt the number of MPs you spend depending on your opposition, and you don't spend the same number when facing 3 Trollkins and 3 Rune Levels.

D&D 4th edition called this "Temporary Hit Points", and put a limit on it that you should use : if a character should benefit from 2 or more sources of THP, only apply the greatest one, to avoid too much stacking. EDIT: I realize RQ already has a solution to that problem, as spirit magic spells don't stack... Funny how D&D 3+ had a problem RQ2 addressed years before.

I would not give too many of your "ablative armor" per MP spent, because they're basically a way to apply "preventive healing" on a character, and extend a character's hit points. 2 per MP sounds right to me.

Yes, but there are many cases when a tie is just as good as a success. If you're hiding from someone, for instance, you're happy if nothing happens.

For what it's worth, RuneQuest 3 version of the spell only worked with Sorcery spells. You could combine it with as many spells as you could multispell with it.

As a matter of fact, the difficulty to find a satisfying rule for skill opposition is one of the reasons why I prefer Roll-Over systems nowadays. Skill opposition in Roll-Over is simple : both characters roll and add their skill, the highest one wins, period. In Roll-Under, skill opposition either require subtraction between roll and skill to compute margin of success, or a comparison between roll and skill that is counter-intuitive to many people, because they tend to think "lower is better". The drawback is that you lose the simplicity of Roll-Under when you're facing standard difficulty, when you just have to compare your roll to your skill.

For such cases, I would require a minimum difference between rolls to have a winner. Again, the idea is to avoid that draws are more frequent with low skills.

My reasoning here is I don't like the idea that a contest between 2 characters with low skills will result in a draw much more frequently than if those characters had high skill values. If both characters have 25%, you'll have ~50% draws. With 90%, it will be close to 5%. I'm sure it's possible to find many ways to justify it, but I just don't like it. :)

I would add that, in case both characters fail their rolls, the one with the highest roll should also win the contest. This is something that is done in 4th edition of Warhammer FRP, and a good thing.

I see no reason why it would not work with RQG. As a matter of fact, I think RQG runic affinities would be a nice addition to a Mythic Iceland game, even though you'd need to adapt it to Futhark runes.

There aren't category modifiers in Mythras. My guess is the names are those from the skill modifiers option in BRP Big Yellow Book from Chaosium.

Highest roll win ties is definitely my first choice. Success Margin means more maths for little benefits. Low roll creates strange cases where a character's higher skill will make him lose a contest (as it is the case when you roll over your opponent's skill). Least favored is the one that was chosen for RQG : nothing happens on a tie. It basically means "defender wins" when there is a "defending" party.

In a way, equivalent spells in Elric! and Mythras can be seen as fixes to Bladesharp. I don't remember the spell's name in Elric!, but I remember it adds X (= MP spent, max 4) to weapon damage, but it can't make it go beyond weapon's maximum rolled damage (that is, if you cast it with 4 points on a 1d8+1 weapon, it would deal 1d8+5 (+db) with a maximum of 9 (+db). Mythras' Bladesharp bumps by 1 the weapon's damage die, and, as all Folk Magic spells, is a 1 MP spell.

I think the spell was meant to temporarily transform the target weapon into the equivalent of a +X D&D magic weapon. So, basically "it's magic"...

Yes, it affects the weapon, but in which way ? Does it make it easier to use, or does it magically enhance its wielder's skill ? Obviously, you consider it's the former, and Jason Durall thinks its the latter. As for myself, given the rule that high attack skills reduce defender's skill, I think splitting attack is already a bad idea, so I'd rather give the full bonus to both attacks.