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It's tough to pull off. Historically such a woman had to be very strong willed and have a strong following of her own. Often becuase there was no stone male up to the job. The latter might be the best way for her to keep her power. If she marries someone who is a little below her station then she would be the more powerful of the two and might still retain influence. It would work out to her having more knights loyal to her (or her deceased husband) than her would be husband does. The trick to this though is that Uther probably won't like it and could take action to put a stop to it. The knight she marries would, from a prictcal standpoint, have the power and forces that go with her lands, even if he might not have the pretgue and such that goes with it. Uther would certainly want to be sure of such a man's loyalty and abilities. One thing to watch out for is that Arthur later restores lands lost during the Anarchy. So if you want the lasts to be lost permanently, you probably need to come up with someone with a stronger claim. Maybe a lost relative or child who was presumed dead resurfaces? Either that or somehow discredit Sulwyn's claim.

I recall reading that eventually they were supposed to migrate over here. I don't know if that was an offical plan or just something I read somewhere, though.

I'm not bothered so much by as a case by case, but am by how KAP has kept Paganism yet it doesn;t work in the increasinly Chrisitain setting. Mine too. There susally is. But it doesn't change the rules. Which flies right in the face of thier Relgious beliefs. If the setting was that close to the Middle Ages then the Pagans wouldn't exist-at least not openly. And everyboy who had a high worldy score would have the Chruch cracking down on them. No problem there. I didn't claim that the bastards would have and rights under a feudal system- just that there shouldn't be the same sor tof scoial stigma in a Pagan Culture as in a Medieval Christian one. Yes, but in order for the two to coexist people have to be able to follow those beliefs. I'm not saying that illigetimate children would have any special rights. Just that I don';t see how they can be good pagans and not be lustful. As I mentioned eariler, this is mostly a case of Pendragon moving further away from the Celtic sources to more Christian ones. Even Merlin has changed from a Pagan Archdruid to Christian over the editions.

Ah another new rule. But in RQ some of the damage could slip past the parry. And the Broos could always throw the spears as javelins, backed up with a little speedart. It just doesn't strike me as the overwhelming ability that some claim. It seems like it can let a PC wreak havoc a couple of times before somebody takes the Humakti down with numbers or ranged attacks. While I admit I'm not thrilled with some of RQG's rules, which seems to have compounded each other in cases like this, I wouldn't say Sword Trance is broken.

What can't a bunch of Broos just stab that the guy with spears? I don't recall getting unlimited parries.

Page 60 under COMBAT BENEFITS for becoming a Rune Lord: 2. An opponent’s parry is also reduced against a 100%+ attack. Thus a character with a normal parry of 75%, fighting a Rune Lord with a 120% attack, has only a 55% chance of parrying the Rune Lord (120-100 = 20,75-20 = 55).

It's slang for the effect that a high attack skill has in reducing opposing parry skills in RQ2 and RQG.

Yeah, that's pretty much my take on it. IMO RQ3 is generally better. There are some features of RQ2 that I prefer, such as 12 SR instead of 10 (but now how the SR and run in RQ2), but overall I think RQ3 is an improvement. Probably because RQ3 was a deliberate attempt by the author(s) of RQ2 to fix the bugs in RQ2 and improve it. If I were to run Gloratha, I might buy RQG to port over the new stuff, and maybe shift the focus to and pace of the game, maybe use rune point pools, but I'd almost certainly use RQ3 for the core rules. In fact the "anti-parry" stuff from RQ2 seems to be the biggest objection to Sword Trance in RQG, so RQ3 rules would "fix" the issue. But then I think "anti-parry" was deliberately dropped from all of Chasoium's post RQ2 RPGs for a reason.

Only 190 MP? That's a lot more magic points than I've seen in a RQ game. Certainly a lot more than I've sen for characters at the 100% level. Woundn't there be a better use for 190 magic points than beating a dead horse with 1000% skill? And couldn't somebody with 190 MPs points take this guy down with missile attack and spells? Or just come back on the next day? THe whole, Sword Trance is too powerful argument seems to hinge entirely upon everybody allowing the character to use the tactic against them, or being unable to prevent it. Which seems highly unlikely. Sure a PC could run rampart with the tactic for a bit, but eventually the word should get out and someone is going to set the character up for a huge fall. Then what does he do? What does he have to fall back on if Plan A fails? Does he even get enough time to react to that?

Sorry, but I kinda have to back up Tywyll here. Since RQG is based odd of and is partially backwards compatible with RQ2, then something that actually 'breaks' RQ2 rules would be of significance to those who play RQG. The critical point here is "something that actually 'breaks' RQ2 rules", which I do not believe has been established. I might just be the last RQ3holdout on these forums too, and even I can't justify claims of RQG being 'broken'.

Yes, definitely. The results could be all over the place, depending on circumstances, the people involved, who tells the story, and so on.

True, but not all player characters count as intelligent opponents.

It did, but mostly as far as balancing the adventure tot he partly. specially the relationship between character level, dungeon level and monster hit dice. Balance between characters started to come about when thieves started to pass fighters on the combat matrix. It started to figure more prominently in D&D 3E in part as a tool to simplify the job of DMing. It got out of hand, though and Challenge Ratings were used in place of judgment.

Oh, okay. I got Jagent from The Book of the Warlord, page 19 37 Sir Sulien, Count Bedegraine, and Baron of the Field of Doves (Bedegraine), Castle on the Shining Stream C (Jagent). Sulien is a northern lord, newly defeated, now loyal to his conqueror Uther. And Book of Knights & Ladies made Jagent Pict/Pagan Not even considering the armor. But even if it were ture, the rest of Pendragon draws quite heavily from Celtic sources. The problem I see is that a sizable proportion of people, including nobles and noblewomen are not Christian. Pagan Noblewomen will have Lusftul as a religious virtual and social custom. I can't see holding them to the Christian values. This all stems from the fact the over the years Pendragon has drawn more and more from Mallory and later romances and less from Celtic sources. In KAP1 Gawain was Pagan (in part due to his Celtic Orgins as Gwalchmei), now he's Chrsitian. Same with Merlin. I think if Pagans are going to have as much of a influence over things as they do in Pendragon, then we need to allow for differences in culture.

Yeah. I can see the need not to continually throw players into impossible (or near impossible) situations, both to maintain interest and to promote some sort of sense of a campaign, but the modern belief that everything is a game has to be "balanced" with everything else is not only wrong, but not even actually possible. So much depends on the capabilities of the players that what one person might considered balanced another wouldn't, and vice versa. I can see disagreeing with RAW at times, or thinking that something is too powerful, could disrupt a campaign, and taking steps to deal with it. But a lot of "broken" rules aren't. For instance, I'm not fond of high attack skills reducing the opponent's parry chance and consider that rule to be unnecessary, but I wouldn't call it broken.

Since Sulien was a Northern lord recently defeated by Uther, and that he rules Jagent, which is populated by Pict Pagans, the fact that the could be Pagan is a distinct possibility. As could be the Baroness. And considering that we are talking Uther reign we are hardly at at the high middle ages yet in the game. So how solid can that worldview be? Pendragon does have Pagans roaming all over the place with Lustful as one of their religious traits. By solid high medieval worldview all those pagans would have been converted or killed. Everyone in High Medieval Britain would have had to have been Christian or face severe consequences. Yet Pendragon has the Ladies of the Lake and other Pagans practicing freely. The problem here is really the fact that high Medieval feudalism was an entirely Christian institution, but the lands of Pendragon are far from being entirely Christian. Neither did anyone else who wasn't spamming a porn site, sadly. It's a shame what happened to the site. I only hope that whatever custodians exist manage to sift through and save posts from before the deluge of spam. There is some useful stuff on the site, buried under all that trash.

Balanced with what? And why does it have to be balanced? IMO it's a pretty weak ability, and I gravtitate towards playing Humakti. Frankly I';d rather use something else. One big problem wioth the "season long spell" is that people will eventually find out about it, and once a character is known for doing it, it will be factored into his tactics by his enemies. So it probably won't last the opening melee round. Again, why do they need to adress it. And you haven't showen that it "breaks" the RQ2 rules. Not for a Humakti. See what a Bladesharp 10 can do in 2 minutes. Most fights are done in under 2 minutes, and the spell can always be recast. How abotu Fanatacism? Thats' your claim. Just like the idea that Sword Trace breaks RQG. And you haven't proven either. I'm a big opponent of RQ2 category modifers, as large creatures get huge attack bonuses, but I never claimed they break the game. The game is still playable, it is just one flaw in RQ2, and more of an issue that Sword Trance is in RQG. For your claim to hold water someone would have to play a Humakti, have to use the spell exactly as you suggested, they would have to stay up and fighting, they would have to face foes who would engage them in melee, and then the would have to reamain up and active all season long, without anybody every doing anything about it. Frankly, I just don't see all that happening, or making enough of a difference that it would break the game. The Humakti own parry isn't all that great early on, so there is a really good chance that he could get killed in melee, especially against someone or something with a better SR; the spell is easy to knock down; and anybody with any brains would use missle weapons against the Humakti unless they had some sort of nice melee boost themselves, such as Fanatacism. Not really. A +3d4 that hit 30% of the time is more telling than +1d4 that hits all the time.

Glad you liked it. Maybe not. It could be viewed as a spoils of war sort of thing, and blame Uther. In most versions of the tale Gorlois is noted to die while attacking Uther's camp. Somebody killed him, but he doesn't seem to have been singled out for hatred and retaliation. I think Mogan hated Uther for the betray and unnecessary death of her father, and the trick played on her mother.

Not always, especially if they aren't at rune level. The loss of resurrection is a trade off for being a Humakti. On the plus side, they don't get suckered into taking on threats over their head because of a lightbringers summons. Frankly I'm not all that enamored with Sword Trance for Humakti. They probably already have a high sword skill and lots of bladesharp (they are Humakti) anyway, and would probably be better off saving the rune points for something else. I look at it like: 1) If the Humakti already overmatch their opponent than the spell is a waste. 2)If the Humakti are even with their opponent, the spell is useful, but probably a target for being blown down with countermagic. 3) If the Humakti are in over their heads, then the spell is a desperate measure to survive. I don't really see keeping the spell up long term as a good option. It seems to me that eventually an enemy will become aware of it and plan for it, leaving the PC's in over their heads.

When a game is mostly about chasing bonuses stacking and and limits become an issue. Depends. In RQ2 it was set by the spell, but in RQ3 it became whatever the characters could manage to find, which turned out to not be much higher than in RQ2. After a point, the situational and magic point costs usually outweigh the benefits, or to put it another way,if a PC actually needs Bladesharp 12 or Heal 10 then things are going horribly wrong, and if they don't need Bladesharp 12 or Heal 10 then learning (or casting) them is a waste of storage and magic points. The most powerful spirit magic spell I saw "regularly" carried in a campaign was a Bladesharp 10 spell, but that was in a matrix built into a sword.Nobody had to learn that, though, and the sword was something the player quested for before fighting a dragon. The player wasn't exactly happy when the sword still bounced off the dragon's armor.

Hold the phone there Tywyll. I don't think there is a consensus that the spell is broken. You might have things about it that you don't like, at least in conjunction with some of the other rules in RQG, but that doesn't mean that everybody is up in arms over this. I'd say the reaction about this so far is mixed at best.If you feel the need to houserule this and want to post your houserule that's fine, but it's hasn't been show to be "clearly broken". At least not yet. Functionally it works, and seems to be fairly easy to understand an implement. So I would say it isn't "broken" per say. You,(and others) might not like how it works, but it does work. Plus even if you implement your fix for this, what will you do if someone shows up with lots of bladesharp? You got the same anti-parry "problem" in a easier to use format, that can be cast on others. And the +1d4 per point to damage is going to be far more broken than what you are trying to fix. That's a game changer. Just three points of this (+3d4) would be like adding 16 points of Strength (+2d6)!

That depends quite a bit on time and place. In the Middle Ages in a primarily Christian world that was true, but in the dark ages in a partially Pagan land, it's not quite so cut and dried. So a lot of this would depend on how feudal and how Christian the campaign has become the campaign has become. BTW, Welcome to the "new" Pendragon forums, nice to see you here.

Yes, it was part of the Lover's Solo rules for Courtly Love and has been around since KAP 3-4. It probably wouldn't apply in this case though, since this is happening in the time of Uther, and Courtly Love hasn't been introduced yet.

The issue might be that there is no "Parry Trance". Or the carnage if two "tranced" people fight each other. Yes it did work very differently in RQ3. Quite a bit worked differently in RQ3, and IMO, much of it was an improvement over RQ2, mechanically.

Or every other character. That's pretty much the math behind any form of RQ, play long enough and eventually a bad die roll will take you out, if nothing else does. The story of Rurik and the Trollkin comes to mind.