Atgxtg

Then you've got more than enough to run a campaign. The Book of Knights is pretty much it. Just go with one training per Winter Phase and you got it. Other than the magic system, 3rd and 4th editions are the same, so you know what 3rd is like too. It won't The basic chargen in 4th edition is (practically) identical to the one in 5th, so if you run 5E with BoK for chargen you are pretty much running 3E-4E. It can be. Just remember that all those things can take time, and you want to fit in an adventure too. Oh, and in case you haven noticed it yet, healing can take up quite a bit of time. Expect characters to miss a lot of stuff while they recover from their wounds-make that if they recover from their wounds.

No, K&L is a 5th Edition supplement. No, if you got the one I'm thinking of it was for 4th Edition, but..at the time that the old Chasoium broke up into different companies (Chaosium, Issaries, Green Knight), Greg Stafford was with Issaries, but Green Knight had control of Pendragon. They made a few tweaks to the rules, namely getting three trainning opportunies during the Winter Phase instead of the usual one. Yup, that about sums things up for all the "Book of" supplements. You get a lot more detail, but it a double edged sword. More stuff to do, more choices to make, more interesting possibilities, and it takes more time to do it all. BTW, what Pendragon stuff do you have now? That would help in deciding what the priority stuff would be, and what you don't really need or even want. .

Not really. Most versions of the game came with the complete chargen. Only 3rd edition and 5th took the simplified pregen system, and put expanded stuff into a supplements. If you want one complete game then 4th edition is hard to beat. It isn't the latest, and doesn't have quite the level of detail that 5th does, but it's close. Besides not all the changes in 5th edition are necessarily improvements.

Not many did. TFs were very artificial, and necessary. They are also something of a trap. Once players know that someone of X ability should have Y amount of treasure they might start turning the place and people upside down looking for the treasure that they "know" is there. If Tabby is a Rhino Rider, and Rhino Riders are TF 4, then where is Tabby's share? Just like in D&D, if you run into a 10th level fighter you expect him to have a magic weapon, unless you just rescued him or something.

It already did, with treasure factors! The whole CR thing is a myth anyway, since it doesn't really factor in for specific character abilities or tactics. The reason why it is so important to D&Ders is that D&D revolves around combat, and "balanced" (read "rigged") is how you show a tough adventure with a attrition hit point system. The idea is that several minor encounter wear the party down, upping the tension along the way. It's much like how video games play out, even with "Boss" encounters. People don't fell like they have been challenged, or the game seem exciting unless they can see it somehow, and that's done by taking damage and seeing hit points drop. I know some D&Ders who don't think it was a good fight unless they have been dropped down to below half hit points. That mindset has led to a lot of problems when trying to run D&D players in other games, as D&Ders will often shrug off injuries because they still have most of their hit points left. What would be considered a sign that things aren't going well in a game like RQ, is considered just part of the fun of fighting, and leads to dead characters and shocked players.

That's not balanced either. That's actually not balanced. The whole point of CR's and such is to make sure that the threat doesn't balance out the party. If it did, then the party would die off every other encounter. But is is a good idea for a GM to be able to gauge how tough an opponent is going to be for his players, before he runs the adventure. While risk is good for the game, even necessary, few things are worse for a campaign than to continually kill off player characters.

Wow! Was the old art that bad?

Thanks. I guess with the passing of Stewart Wieck things are a bit delayed.

Where?

Answers: 1. Yes, but you are only going to go through about 80 years on so, meaning that you are going to play three or four generations of characters, depending on when you decide to retire a character and move on. Note that you might play another character of the same generation (a brother, cousin, etc.) depending on the fortunes of play. That typically happens when your main character dies while his heir is still underage, or worse still, when he has no heirs. 2. Typically each game session covers one year, and there is one adventure during that year. Some times, when nothing much happens, several years might pass in one game session. Other times, like during the Boy King Phase, when Aurthur is fighting lots of battles to secure his position as High King, you can have several "adventures" (i.e. battles) in one year, and the year might stretch out over more than one game session.Battle, tournaments, and such usually take up that years, adventure because of the time they take up. But most things (adventures, tournaments, battles) have "short form" versions that can be used to quickly resolve them, for whn you got something else that you want to spend time on. 3. Oh, yeah. Tournaments can be both dangerous, and very costly/rewarding, depending on the type of stakes. Most tournaments use jousting lances and rebated weapons, so injuries are minor, but accidents can happen, just like real life. Also, in most tournaments, the winners get to take the arms, armor and horse of the ones they defeat, as well as charge a ransom equivalent to 3 years upkeep for the vanquished. So, as you have probably already guessed, fortunes can be made or lost on the tourney fields. In one of my own campaigns, there was a player knight that excelled in jousting, and amassed so much wealth from jousting that he eventually outfitted all his man-at-arms in the obsolete mail armor the he won in his younger days. Some tournaments are for "love" meaning that the knights are doing if for the love of the sport, and as such they use rebated weapons, and take no ransoms. Others are blood tournaments where real weapons are used, and the whole thing is a real fight. 4. That can happen, and in fact to some extent will happen. Most characters are not only vassals to a lord, but also vassals to the High King (Arthur) and it might lead to a conflict in loyalties. Some other such conflicts are possible. That why players should be careful just who they swear loyalty to (you get a passion trait from it). In one of my own campaigns, the aforementioned wealthy player knight wound up as a vassal to a fellow knight, after the latter had become King of a a minor kingdom in an adventure. Unfortunately the kingdom was in a bad state, and the player was suffering financial hardship. The wealthy PC, with others, as an act of loyalty, snuck a considerably amount of wealth into the castle of the poor King while the latter was out hunting. Then someone reported the wealth that was "found" hidden in the storerooms. 5. Each fifteen year "phase" of the game is analogous to a 100 year period of history. Thus, technology advances. In the early part of the game, the best armor is mail armor (10 points), followed by reinforced mail (12 points), and escalation continues as as time goes by. What a given knight might be wearing depends on his wealth, status, and luck. 6. Each "Book" supplement expands upon some aspect of the game. None of them are necessary, although if you are playing 5th edition of latter the books of Knights and Ladies is, in my opinion, close.

Yeah, but what I mean is the scale of those effects. We saw this to some extent with BRP Mecha. It looked like you originally wanted to be able to rate everything on the same scale, but had to use two different scales for power (MW and GW), depending upon which anime you wanted to run. Oh, and speaking of Macross, one of the house rules I came up with for BRP Mecha to help match up performance with listed data was an "Overtechnology" ability. All it did was bump up the stats for an item a step. It was good when dealing with advanced era items that had the same "stats" as modern items, but performed better in the anime. Conversely I had an "Obsolete" houserule that bumped stats down a step. That way I could put WWII era Maus Tanks (with 126 mm cannon) and a 70s era Leopard 2 tank (120mm cannon) in the same battle without giving them the same "120mm gun.

That is the double edges sword of rules for a particular setting. The better the rules are tailored to the setting the harder is is to take them out of the setting to use elsewhere. Conversely, the more generic the rules, the easier they are to adapt, but the more work will be required to use them for any particular setting. High-Tech (Mecha included) is worse than most genres in this regard, since the assumptions on what technology will be able to do vary greatly from one sci-fi setting to another.

Something else to consider, is just what settings are affordable? I'm sure a lot (probably most) of the setting discussed might cost too much to be cost effective unless or until they can be done on a wide enough scale, and for a large enough fanbase, to make them profitable for whoever does so.

Yeah. Best case scenario for most slaves is that even if they do use magic and escape, their problems are just beginning. They will be have limited resources, and somehow have to not only survive but also evade capture, and make their way to where they either have allies who can back them up, or where they won't be seriously hunted. I think that if some one is, for whatever reason, so powerful that they can't be held or coerced effectively, then they shouldn't, and probably won't, be enslaved.

I'm more concerned about the extra 2 Strike Ranks. I think that would end up adding another attack for quite a few weapons. You might reach a point where the bigger, heavier weapons become obsolete.

Yup, and it's a big pain in the gluteus maximimus. Ironically this isn't a debate! For one, we're not really arguing about how a rule should work, but are are scrambling to try and figure out how a rule has been working for the last 4 decades. I think we're all on the same side here. No one really likes the idea that a sufficiently boosted Detect Enemies spell could potentially blow down a dozen Countermagic spells and work like a a faster, cheaper, multispelled, Dispel. I suspect that in actual play this probably won't be as much of a problem as it appears, due to the fact that this will only work on Countermagic cast on those considered Enemies by the Detect spell, and that Countermagic is incompatible with other spells like Protection. That would mean rolling Detection Blank into Countermagic. But then Xenohealing isn't in RQG, is it? I was happier about this back when I was working under the mistaken impression that Countermagic didn't apply because the Enemies weren't the targets of the spell.

I'd figure that most people/most slaves just don't have enough "worrisome" magic for it to be a bother. I don't think anyone minds if their slave knows a couple of points of Healing, Repair, or a point of Bladesharp. Even something like Disruption isn't any worse than their carrying a knife-something that most slaves probably do. Even if they know Mobility 10 and make a run for it, they can still be hunted down. The magic doesn't make that much of a difference. Those who know a lot of magic or the big stuff, get the slave collars, if necessary, but I'd think that anyone with that much magic is probably more valuable doing something other than manual labor. It would make much more sense to either ransom them off or make some sort of deal with them, since anyone with that much magic probably has a cult and powerful friends that will come looking for them. Putting a slave collar on a Rune Priest is probably more of a spite move than an efficient one. You do it to show him, and everyone else, who's boss, not because you need an extra farmhand.

It's primary use is what it always has been, a way to spot ambushes and hiding foes. Really, if intentions weren't part of the spell description (and they are) then you'd end up with situations where it always detected someone even if they have no particular interest in harming you. Should all Lunars automatically be considered enemies of Orlanthi, even the ones who have have nothing against them?

No, it doesn't. You see the way Detect Enemies works, you target someone and those beings who intend to harm them glow. The "enemies" aren't targets but simply caught in the area of effect. It was the actual intent, and is noted as such under Detection Blank. Basically, the idea is that if your Detect Enemies spell gets, blocked, you know it. What you don;t know is how many more undetected enemies you have. That was the advantage of Detection Blank, as PhilHibbs pointed out. Well you're wrong, simple as that. Just reread my post: So the nearest someone isn't currently intendeding to harm the specficed target, he gets skipped. Under those specific circumstances, there is no "enemy" to Detect. And yes it is possible. But I think your disagreement is as to if someone could intend to harm multiple characters at the same time, which it is, but I didn't claim that it wasn't possible. For ambush certainly. In melee, possibly.. You probabl ynot going to be spending much time thinking about what you are going to do later on, to some guy 30 feet away, while the guy in front of you is trying to lop off your head. It's like "intending" on doing the laundry when you get home. It might be your intention, but it's probably not on your mind at that moment. Now under the right circumstances someone could be thinking of harming more than one person at a time, but probably not so much while engaged in melee. Is very unlikely. You don't have the time to divert your attention on that when you're trying to prevent that sucker from dropping you. It's not like daydreaming at the office. Your mind mind wander for a moment or two, but if you don't keep focused on the guy your fighting you probably won't trip a Detect Life spell for much longer. Think of any sort of game or competition you been involved in. Now, while you might intend to kick everybody's butt at, say, Monopoly, you don't keep thinking about it constantly. You too busy with what's happening at the time. It's not what they wish, it's what they intend to do. As far as Detect Enemies goes, they're not. It's not like they Lunars are sitting there thinking, "Two hours from now I'm gonna kill George, then an hour later, kill Sam, then, after lunch, I'll kill Thomas, oh, and Joe too. etc. etc." And they certainly can't be thinking that while focusing on casting. Likewise, if a Lunar Kill Sqaud Leader has Detect Enemies up, and one of the other Lunar Soldier wishes that his squad leader was fed to the Crimson Bat, he doesn't Detect as an Enemy because the solider doesn't actually intend to harm him.

No so much. The sorcerer gets the weapon or armor. Stolen items aren't much of a thing, simply because whoever graps them has to go POW vs POW with the demon, and most characters don't have a 16+ POW, making that much more risky. LOL! Yeah, it is much more toned down with Magic World. Also, MW adds things to the game that old SB lacked, that help to balance things out a bit. That's where binding demons actually works in the sorcerers favor as far as POW gain. Since 17 POW scores are more common than 18, let alone 20 or 25, it is in the sorcerer's best interest to to bind demons and keep his POW on the low side, so he can get more chances to improve. That in turn gives him more POW to spend to bind more demons, and so on and so on. Pretty much every Stormbringer campaign I've ever ran on played in, to some degree. First edition was the worst in this regard. Sorcerers were very powerful in SB1, as were the demons. A weapon with a +7D6 damage bonus is virtually unstoppable in this sort of game system, and the old demon armor made a character practically invulnerable to normal weapons. Agents of Law were simply outclassed, too. It actually is a problem when trying to account for Elric himself. By the RAW, he "should" be wearing demon armor. It doesn't make sensor for him not to. It's kinda like a high level fighter in D&D not having magical armor. It's a bit of a disconnect between setting and game mechanics. Later versions toned this down , and from Elric! on it becomes less of a problem. Sorcerors and demons are still overwhelmingly powerful, a weapon with a +1D8 damage bonus is still going to chop through armor and inflict a major wound most of the time, but it's not quite an autokill anymore. And the magical spells help to level the playing field for those characters who don't have demon items. A normal weapon that does an extra 4 points of magical damage can offset that +1D8 weapon, and the spell can be cast on multiple weapons. Toss in things like special successes and demon items aren't the only "deciding factor" anymore. Swipe Ki skills for Land of the Ninja for Agents of Law, and things can actually get challenging.

The target is the spell is the character it's cast upon (or the caster), not the ones who want to hurt him. So there is only one target. That's also why Detect Enemies works even when you are unaware of the presence of person intending to harm you, like when you suspect an ambush. No, because none of those 10 guys are "targeted" by the spell. Detect Enemies is very clear about who the target of the spell is. It's who you cast if for, or the caster himself- not the "enemies". You don't actually check to see if that mean looking guy lurking in the alleyway is an "enemy", you cast the spell on yourself (the target) and the spell Detects anyone in range who intends to harm you. If your friend has Countermagic up. Now, according to RQ3 (the only version that tells us the sequencing of the spell) the Detect spell will "ping" enemies closest to farthest away, and interact with Countermagic spells sequentially.

Minor concern. It just means you only get items one at a time over time. Depends on what version of SB your are playing. In early versions no, the demon armor will make the character virtually invulnerable. In later editions demon armor isn't as powerful. No all that risky. in all version of SB, there are POW rolls when dealing with demons. While any dealings with demons are dangerous, as the sorcerer gets to build the demons he summons, he can minimize the risks. He can summon something with a high POW that isn't otherwise all that formidable. And he can prepare for it ahead of time and have items, spells and even other characters ready in case something goes wrong. In later editions of SB, all you really have to do is to try and cast a spell on an unwilling target in battle. This is basically the same as tossing a disrupt in RQ for a POW gain roll. Yeah, it's technically dangerous (it's combat) but not all that dangerous, or uncommon in an RPG.

It's also fairly cheap. For a couple of points of POW you get a nasty item. The only real concern is keeping your POW above 16. On top of that, it only takes a couple of items (weapon, sword) to make the character overpowering. Not so much. POW gain rolls aren't all that hard or risky. Especially if you have the bound items to back you up.

Somewhat. The way Detect Enemies is worded the beings detected have to be intending harm on the target of the spell (or the cast if he doesn't pick another target). So if the nearest Countermagic on on someone who isn't currently intending to harm the specified target, it gets skipped. With a group of adventures, it's possible that no one is currently intending to harm the target of the spell because they are all busy intending to harm someone else. So if the caster target's (or is) a Chalana Arroy healer most people won't detect as an enemy, and no one's Countermagic would go down.

I think this might be one issue where everybody agrees. But, based on previous wordings, especially RQ3 where they went out of their way to spell it out, it appears that it's supposed to. I guess, once you get used to it, that it could just be considered another tactic. In play, only a few opponents would trigger Detect Enemies under normal circumstances. A character won't really clear a room unless he is the only one that the opposition is aware of. How would those work with a Countermagic? Is there some sort of precedent we can latch onto? I think the worst part about this is that it permeates all editions of RQ, so it's not something that can be fixed or avoided by playing a different edition.