Atgxtg

Uh, yeah. Didn't 1st edition CoC use CHA? But let me try to condense all this: STR, CON, SIZ and POW: Are all pretty much useless against most Mythos nasties, since most Mythos nasties outclass humans in these stats.☹️ APP: Is pretty much useless since it isn't used for anything (credit rating?)😡. INT and EDU: Are important for determining the ratings in various skills, most of which aren't of much use. 😖 DEX: Is important as it determines the initiative order, which could allow an investigator to run away before he gets eaten by some nasty, or at the least, outrun the other investigators so that they get eaten instead.😱 It can't be that bad, can it?

It can also vary a bit based upon the GM and what sort of adventures he tends to write. If he wants to use other skills or not. If the GM has the PC exploring the deserts of Egypt, or scuba diving in the Caribbean, then skills like Riding and Diving become more important then they would be in New England. This topic is very similar to something written for the James Bond RPG years ago. One of the authors made a list of a half dozen of so skills that every character needed, noting that the importance of the other varied based upon the GM and adventures ran.

Fast Talk for one. Maybe a combat skill when facing off against cultists and the weaker Mythos creatures. But I think I get your point. Because of the focus of the game and the nature of the Mythos beings (way above the PCs ability to deal with head on) most of the PCs abilities and skills are moot. It's only when a GM expands things beyond the typical "Investigation of some Unspeakable Horror" that other abilities get called into play. Attributes are probably even less useful than skills in CoC. STR, CON, and SIZ don't mean all that much when dealing with nasties that are many times as strong as a man, that inflict multiple dice damage with one attack. Ditto POW, since most Mythos nasties have humans outclassed in that department. So really only INT (because it nets you all those skills), DEX (so you can run away before it eats you), and CHA (To help when dealing with normal folk-at least in theory, in reality it pretty much a dump stat) have much value.

Cool. That might just smooth over the whole Yelmalio/Emal thing.

Yea to the long form writeups! Iwonder if there is going to be any info on regional variants? I recall that quite a few cults exist in multiple areas but in slightly different form depending on the region and culture. .

Referring to a unit as "You" and more specfically as "construction unit 30" reinforces or even creates a sense of individualism, proving that the problem originates at a higher level. Well when there is hardly any efficiency to begin with, how much of a decrease could there be?

I think the Mostali have a "Spare Parts" Rune Spell that can clone, memory dupe you. I meant that as a joke, but thinking about the Mostali and their world view, it would make a lot of sense.

Yes, it's one of the drawback to trying to rate skills as both a success chance, AND as a rating of overall knowledge and ability. Real world experience would have both combatant's closer to a 95% chance of hitting. it doesn't take a lot of know-how to hit someone with a bat. But, likewise, it doesn't take a lot of skill to step out of the way or block an attack either, and eventually it turns into a contest of ability, relative to each other, instead of some absolute scale. Most modern RPGs can handle this test of relative ability with oppose rolled. Unfortunately, this is where that 4 year old game engine sort of lets us down. It's just not designed to do so, and doesn't really adapt well to doing so. I have an idea for fixing this, but I think to make it work smoothly requires dumping the low roll special and critical chances.

Well, one variant that I've been working on, off and on, is to allow someone to spend damage points to bump the hit location. The idea being that you give up a better hit to call your shot. Although I do like the roll two dice and take the closest. It could be expanded to 3 dice for a special and 4 for a critical.

Nah, that's roll 4 dice for hit locations and drop the lowest.

I think there is some variation between different versions of the rules, too. IMO none of the called shot rules are all that great. Halving skill doesn't factor in for the SIZ of the location being targeted (targeting the chest should be easier than an arm), and waiting 'till the end of the round is probably a bit too severe. Bumping hit locations by delaying Strike Ranks seems a bit better, but makes it all about speed and not about skill. I'd like to see something better, as long as it isn't too complicated (and that's very subjective). One of my favorite variants is to pick the location targeted, roll 2d20 for hit locations, and go with the one closest to the area aimed at. I suppose that could be adapted so that taking a penalty could grant another d20 to roll for hit location.

I disagree, not all penalties should be linear. I think it's completely fair that penalties are a faction of the skill score. as it penalized everyone proportionally. I think it would be nice to do that for all penalties, but it isn't feasible. Otherwise you end up with silly situations like master archers setting up fights in pitch black conditions, since the 75% penalty in the RAW hurts them less that in does most everyone else. Realistically every attack should be targeted towards a specific location, and the skill roll determines just how far off the mark someone is. That's why most missile weapons are targeted towards the chest (biggest target area and best chance of getting a hit, even if the shot if off the mark by a few inches) and why most melee attacks tend to go after limbs (arms are in the way, and legs are harder to defend).

The significant bit here is that once you use hit locations not all the locations will necessarily be equally armored.

Becuase they had iron to use. Historically, it's not so much that bronze mail isn't possible but that by the time a culture had the metallurgical skills to manufacture mail, they had discovered how to work iron. Bronze mail is quite possible in RW, but as iron is generally lighter and stronger than bronze (and often less expensive), it's preferable to make armor our of iron. In Glorantha, runic Iron (not really the same as terrestrial iron), is a rare, somewhat divine substance, and armorers are forced to work with Glorantha Bronze (again, not really the same as the terrestrial metal) due to the relative scarcity of Iron.

Oh the shot could head off in a lot of different ways; into you, your opponent, a friend, the controls, handy bundle of dynamite, recently recovered master tape of lost Doctor Who episodes, signed copy of RQ3 rules. The possibilities are endless. I'd probably just say if you pull the trigger make a luck roll or roll on the fumble table. But now try imagining any of that happening with a bow.

They could probably pull the trigger. It might not be pointed at anyone, but...

Virtual are nice but not on the same level. For example a virtuous greatsword would always do 156 damage, but a fairly minor demon greatsword might have a +3d6 damage bonus. One idea that I liked was to add Ki skills (for Land of the Ninja) for the followers of Law, especially agents. Basically Ki skills represent doing an action perfectly (which fits in well with the Lords of Law ), and in game terms lets a character raise his critical chance in a mastered skill (90%+) as if it were a separate skill. It would do a lot to make Agents of Law a viable threat.

If you can find the Superworld Boxed Set (from 1983) I think it would solve most of the problems you are having with BRP. For example in Superworld, Flight was 600m/MR (straightline) or 120m/MR (combat movement). Additional levels increased the speed. SIZ only factored into the Hero Point cost to buy the power or Energy cost to use it (both 1/2 SIZ per level).

Hi Folks, Just a heads up to let people know that Amazon is giving away H.P. Lovecraft the Complete Fiction kindle edition for free right now. Great way to get all those Mythos stories.

I could see bonus dice used to reflect they way some Gloranthan magic is supposed to work. Rather than a Bladesharp spell, per say, the character gets a bonus dice. Quite a few spells could be dropped for some sort of Runic association use to get bonus dice. Kinda like bring Heroquest's magic to RQ without being so abstract.

I wansn't aware of that.

I believe so, it was just that there wasn't much room in the core rules for such info. Yeah, and I think that is a major reason why the elder races looked the way they did. It was more a case of artistic license and interpretation rather than a true representation of how such beings were supposed to look. It was probably something along the lines of getting an elf drawing for the book. Plus I doubt Greg really had how the looks locked down. He might have planned for elves to be plant people, but there are lots of ways for that to look.

I agree. I think pretty much every fantasy or FRPG idea that Greg and his group liked and wanted to try out got incorporated into Glorantha/Dragon Pass. They just kept adding new things "down the road" a few miles, and then, eventually altered and adjusted things to make them fell more like a natural part of Glorantha and less like a transplant. I think it helped to give the cultures greater depth, as there was something of a layered approach to the cultures. First the original transplant, then adapting the it to RQ game mechanics, then "Gloanthizing" it, then finetuing things to better fit the area it wound up in, and finally letting it grow organically into something that "belonged" there.

Yup, and that can result in their doing things that cost them money. Back when the whole Palladium thing went down, there were quite a few people who were ticked off with Kevin Siembieda over his actions and stopped buying Palladium products. So by going after some people who were playing his games without buying a given supplment or two, he ended up with fewer people playing and buying his games overall. He probably would have been better off to leave things alone. Besides, one of the reasons why people were sending each other game stats was that the stats were ususally the only thing you needed from a supplement. Yup. I once got a bit of a slap on the wrist thing from a company because of such lawyers and idiots. I downloaded a fan-made alternate DVD jacket cover for a Doctor Who DVD (from a link on the BBC Doctor Who website) and some lawyer from some movie company contacted my ISP claiming that that downloaded some movie called "The Jacket". I had never heard of the movie, but my defense to my ISP was that if I had figured out a way to compress a feature film down to a 3MB file, I'd be so fantastically rich that could buy the movie studio and fire the idiots who sent me and my ISP the email. That gave the guy from my ISP a good laugh. The end result of the whole thing was that I ended up boycotting that stuido's DVDs for about 5 years. Cost them money, made me feel better.

So that's why they call them Army Ants. They're not just for picnics anymore!