soltakss

On 7/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, metcalph said:

Stasis is not associated with sorcery - Law is. 

Mostal was associated with the Stasis rune, I think. Mostali use a form of sorcery.

Lhankor Mhy had the Stasis rune in RQ2 and the Law rune in RQ3.

On 7/5/2019 at 11:34 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Does this imply some deeper truth about Lhankor Mhy, that their sorcery is just an optional part of the cult? 

Reading about Arkat a while ago, I came across something that said that he joined Humakt and Orlanth and gave the Orlanth cult his Brithini and Malkioni regalia for safekeeping. Now, to me, these sound like Artefacts and probably give access to Sorcery. Orlanth wouldn't want these, particularly, so could have given them to the Lhankor Mhy cult for safekeeping.

That might be one way for Lhankor Mhy cultists to access sorcery.

Alternatively, Lhankor Mhy might have come from the West and might have known sorcery right from the start.

On 6/30/2019 at 6:09 PM, klecser said:

4) The benefit of low strike rank weapons is that they may allow you to attack more than once in a round even though they have generally lower damage.

Troll Mauls have a low SR and high damage, combined with Trolls' generally higher SIZ and they can attack really early in the round and deal massive damage.

Lances have a low SR and attack with the charging beast's SIZ, so again do a fair amount of damage quickly.

On 6/30/2019 at 6:09 PM, klecser said:

9) Rune magic is almost always "more powerful" than Spirit magic on a point-by-point basis. However, it is scarce and significantly harder to regenerate and gain more. Examples of ways to increase POW include: casting offensive magic that causes a POW vs POW resistance check (because it procs a POW improvement roll?), meditating to a God in the right season, and...other ways that I'm blanking on.

We play that participating in a HeroQuest gives you a POW gain roll, as does participating in a High Holy day worship ceremony.

Agree with all the other points. They are what makes RQ such a good game for me.

I'd add that membership in a Cult defines you are a PC and gives you a sense of belonging and lifestyle rules to follow.

Drinking Dragon Blood might allow you to gain a small measure of the power of the Dragon.

Bathing in Dragon Blood might give you natural Armour Points, with tough skin, or some permanent Shimmer effect, or something similar.

Dried Dragon Blood might form Powered Crystals, perhaps with some Draconic bent.

Bottling up Dragon Blood might allow you to have a link to the Dragon, perhaps even to control it, but good luck with that.

On 7/9/2019 at 1:36 PM, klecser said:

I was trying to be helpful here. And people are essentially indicating that I've committed some sort of Board faux pas simply by asking a designer for insight? It makes me feel like attempts to help aren't welcome. It makes me feel like I'm not part of the "Club." I'm here on loan as a newbie or something, but I'll never really get my "cred" until I'm here for X years. 10 years? 15 years? Until I'm angry about a new ruleset?

I wouldn't read too much into that.

I have found your posts to be insightful and interesting. It is good to hear from new players, to get their thoughts and insights about the game. There are things that old players just ignore, handwave or change and we are so used to doing it that we forget that new players might struggle with some of the rules that we ignore.

So, please carry on posting and ignore the likes/sad faces and so on.

On 7/9/2019 at 1:47 PM, styopa said:

Fwiw I'm looking forward to the answer, but I expect it will come from @Jason Durall, not Jeff.

You must be psychic!

On 7/9/2019 at 12:47 PM, klecser said:

So, clearly my comment above is considered "Sad" by people, and I don't understand why. I was just trying to be helpful. Why is it "Sad" to ask a designer to give insight on the design process? It's a rare privilege that we have from Chaosium designers. If you don't want me to be helpful here, I'll stop commenting.

Two people put a sad face on the post. I don't think that is any reflection on your post.

I'll like it to balance it out.

I don't have any links, but the excellent Etrugrul:Resurrection has music that could be from Gloranthan worship ceremonies. The first series had Sufi chants and music from worship/magic ceremonies. Later series have shamanic ceremonies with drums and chants that could be Praxian or Pentian.

On 7/8/2019 at 2:13 PM, klecser said:

1) What angle could I take that could explain why Elder Races would associate with humans? For the Green Elf I was thinking that they could be an emissary for Green Elves trying to work with humans even if their people won't? They either wouldn't go into human towns, or is there some kind of glamour that they could cast that would allow them to do so?

Elves are generally friendly to Yelmalio, so the Elf could belong to Yelmalio, or be seeking help from a Yelmalian.

I don't think that Elves particularly don't like human towns. Sure, some people say that they don;t like stone, or straight lines or whatever, but I've never thought that. They might be unhappy bout the amount of trees used without using Food Song, though.

For me, if a Player can come up with a valid rationale, then it's fine by me. In our RQ2 campaign, we had troll, dwarf, elf, morokanth, duck, centaur and minotaur PCs, they normally banded together among storm or light lines, so the trolls adventured with storm bulls and Orlanthi and the elf adventured with light cultists.

If you want a rationale:

• Trolls like killing chaos, elves and dwarves, if you are doing that then they'll happily join you.
• Elves protect the forest, like killing dwarves and trolls, like Yelmalio and may be rootless adventuring elves
• Dwarves might be from Pavis, in which case they are very special dwarves, or they might be Openhandist or have been sent on a mission
• Ducks are just people, so they might be fleeing the Lunar Empire, fighting Undead, be simple adventurers or be bandits trying to go straight
• Baboons are pretty much adventurers, when outside their family units, looking for fame and fortune
• Tusk Riders are thugs, heavies, Tuskers for Hire, they could be mercenaries looking for payment, or could just be tired of the mercenary life looking for adventure
• Wind Children are a bit difficult, they could have the same motivation as anyone else, looking for fame, fortune, adventure or revenge
• Minotaurs are chaos-fighting thugs, always happy to fight
• Centaurs away from their herds are just adventurers
• Newtlings that are bachelors are sent away from the Nests to become adventurers, gain experience, skills and magic, to strengthen them when they return to the Nests to mate

On 7/8/2019 at 2:13 PM, klecser said:

2) The stats for armor for Elder Races are frequently very low numbers in the Bestiary. For example, a Duck has average armor values in the 2-3 range. Does this mean that Ducks CAN'T or DON'T wear the heftier armor value pieces of humans? Or is that a "commoner" value? It's going to be a hard sell for one of my players to "really want to play a Duck" and then find that Ducks have no armor and they have basically chosen a mechanically less effective character.

These are just typical values. There is no reason for them not to have better armour if they can get them. PCs generally get the best armour they can.

There may be reasons for having light armour. Ducks swim well, so they might have light armour as plate isn't designed for swimming. Were-Creatures might have to change shape, so light armour is better for doing that. Wind children need to fly, so might not have armour on their wings.

On 6/30/2019 at 9:22 PM, Casey said:

I am designing a sandbox low-magic fantasy setting based on the BRP basic rules. I understand that combat is generally far deadlier than in D&D, but is there some quick metric or rule of thumb to help balance combat deadliness to the party? I'm thinking a formula based on primary attack, ac, and hit points?

Not really.

You could use Treasure Factors, as mentioned previously, to give a very rough idea of how powerful or dangerous a foe is.

My own guidelines are:

• Tough Armour - The more armour a foe has, the harder it is to defeat. This applies exponentially, so a foe with 4 point armour is not a lot tougher than one with 2 point armour, but a foe with 8 point plus armour is a lot harder to defeat than one with 4 point armour. 
• High Damage - This really takes PCs down. Someone with a 3D6 or higher damage bonus will be really dangerous, as most average hits penetrate armour. A D10 weapon is slightly better than a D8 one, but not overly so, however, a D10 is a lot better than a D6.
• Multiple Attacks - This can be a killer, especially when combined with a high damage. A big cat with claw/claw/bite can be deadly. A Scorpion Man with weapon + Sting can be deadly. A Walktapus with several tentacles can be deadly.
• Special Attacks - Any foe with a special attack is dangerous. This can be poison, harmonise, love trance, breath weapon, gaze attacks or whatever. These are hard to counter and make the foe more dangerous.
• Special Abilities - These can make a foe dangerous. A foe who regenerates is hard to kill. A foe with an allied spirit can cast healing or other spells in combat. A shaman with spirits can be very dangerous.
• Magic - The more magic a foe has, the more dangerous the foe is likely to be. This counts double for combat-related magic.
• Numbers - Facing more foes is always more dangerous. I'd rather face one big bad boss than a number of foes.
• Hit Points - Not really an issue, as even really tough creatures have a fairly low hit points per location value. Once you penetrate armour, perhaps with a critical, if you can do 12 points of damage then you can take most things down.

14 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

(p.s. I didn't buy the original back in the '80s, I was too poor)

I did, even though I was poor.

14 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Am I right in thinking that a spell drops if the target of the spell goes outside of the spell's range from the caster?

No, I've never played that.

In my RQ, the spell range is the range up to which the spell can be cast. If the target then moves out of range, the spell continues.

There may be some exceptions, if a spell is Active then it is possible that it must stay within range of the caster to be maintained, for example. 

Lokarnos used to have Hie Wagon, which allows a wagon or other wheeled vehicle to move faster.

Mobility has been mentioned, but I am not sure about how RQG handles Endurance, so it might tire you out unless you have spells to counter that.

Some cults have specialist magic that can help, Guided Teleportation has been mentioned. Frog Woman has Jump that takes a party of people in an extended Teleport that takes 24 hours to complete. River Horse has something similar that takes you to the Headwaters of any river, so can be used for fast travel, but I can't remember the spell name.

Magic Roads are another way of doing this. You perform a minor HeroQuest to move quickly to another fixed point. Orlanth's Ram has been mentioned, but in my Glorantha I also have the Rainbow Bridge, which allows you to call down a Rainbow, so you can travel up and along it, to come down at another place. Some Chaos Nests have ways of magically transporting you, but you might not want that.

Boats are good, especially along a river, you can use Undines to help power them, moving them faster. Ships with sails can also use Sylphs to fill the sails with wind, allowing them to move faster. Using undines and sylphs gives you a very fast ship. Winged creatures allow you to fly, sylphs have been mentioned, but Giant Hawks, Griffins and so on can be used. Pegasi are extinct, but could be brought back by a HeroQuest. Lunars use Moon Boats, Wyvern Riders and, in emergencies, the Crimson Bat, although the Crimson Bat is quite slow. Enterprising PCs might be able to fly on Dragons. 

22 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Hey, hey, hey... spoilers my good man, spoilers!

There you go!

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

Orlanth is friendly to Elmal

Only Friendly? I thought they'd be Associate...

Maybe he is an Associate cult, Jeff seems to say that. It depends on whether they exchange Runespells, I suppose.

52 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think it's entirely legitimate to say that one simple spell in the rulebook is not enough to take down Delecti.

Isn't Slay Delecti in the main Rulebook? It must be in one of the supplements, then.

The way I see it is that Elmal is Yelmalio as worshipped by the Orlanthi and Yelmalio is Yelmalio as worshipped by the Solars.

Orlanth is friendly to Elmal, as he was the Yelmalio who stayed behind and helped the people of Orlanth, but is neutral to Yelmalio as he was the Yelmalio who left the people of Orlanth.

How to insert links to other threads on BRP Central.

How to put text in a spoiler.

[spoiler]This is a spoileroo[/spoiler]

There have been some example recently where someone has asked how to do nifty tricks in the forums. Rather than having them spread out across lots of posts, it might be worth consolidating them in one thread.

These are inside spoilers because they are really Cult Secrets, so don't go passing them along to just anybody ...

Spoilers

The spoiler tags no longer work, so there is a much easier way of having spoilers, as found and implemented by Scotty.

Click on the eye button on the toolbar and it gives you a little spoiler box where you can type in your spoiler stuff.

Linking to Posts on BRP Central

To get the link without the summary text, copy the URL of the thread in question, then click on the little chain icon, the 5th icon from the left, paste the link into the section marked link and you get this: 

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/8203-crowdsourced-old-characters-and-1610s-family-history/. If you want some pretty text instead of the link, then type something in the Link text field, to get this: Crowdsourced Old Characters and 1610s Family History.

To get the link with the summary text, just copy the link and paste it into your post:

Summoning a BRP Central Member 

put a shift key number 2 or the @ before the user name that you wish to send a flag to alerting them of a need to looksee. This being a powerful rune spell, use with care, The summoned entity might be pissed at being interrupted and summoned frivolously!

Quoting small sections of a long post

Choose and select some text, ah this will do...now hover your cursor for the briefest of seconds and a black thick lined rectangle with the words Quote Selection will appear allowing you to click and quote just the relevant sentence of nose loper lore you seek from the 15 pages of nose loper goodness. Voila...

  On 6/22/2019 at 6:24 PM, soltakss said:

someone has asked how to do nifty tricks in the forums

On 9/3/2019 at 10:47 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

is that why we have no Rune font

Writing in Runes

Open up Word and choose the Rune Font. Write something in Runes. Use the Windows Snipping Tool to copy the section of Runic Text. Paste it into your post.   

On 6/14/2019 at 8:03 PM, Arneberg said:

Hi i love runequest but i´m not so much for the barbarian settlers things with the background of herders and so on i like the mythology but think they have overdone this things i want more city things with better opertunities for thiever and so on i love all the background and allt the stuff but i still think it is to locked on the tribal thingy but hope they do some west things backgrounds(glorantha) and maybe some from Jrusteli a campaign maybe so one not feel so locked in with the bison riders and so on Otherwise as said i love runequest best regards Arne

You are not the only one. I remember the fond days of RQ2 when Orlanthi weren't all backwoods farmer clans, most of the Orlanthi in my parties were townsfolk, far more sensible and civilised. When Hero Wars and the farmer Clans came out very strongly, we reasoned that these were the hill barbarians, the Orlanthi that we were used to came from Sartar's cities or from the Holy Country, so we had a split between civilised Orlanthi and their hillbilly clan-based cousins.

12 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

If you do not mind a little handwaving and arbitrating spells and skills that are a little different (BRP rules which I believe are based on RQ 2), I truly must recommend the original urban setting for RQ, Pavis and the Big Rubble. Though they are for RQ 2 (again, BRP) they are available as one PDF under Glorantha Classics, and they are cheap (ish). Comes complete with an urban sand box with a massive dungeon complex very near at hand and ruins inhabited by am elder race or three (with interesting and shining things carelessly left lying around for the right fingers to come across). and a couple of cults for your urban adventurer with loose morals and a couple of ready built adventures for such folk. Might satisfy until the real thing comes along. 

I would definitely second buying the RQ2 Campaign packs, Scenario Packs and Background Packs. You can put together truly impressive scenario arcs just using published material, plenty to go through until the new RQG material comes out.

4 hours ago, klecser said:

Tonight is my rescheduled first Runequest game as GM. I'll be running Cattle Raid for players experienced with 5E and Call of Cthulhu, but completely new to Runequest. This will be my first time running Runequest too.  I have lots of handout resources to make things run smoothly, and all character Spirit and Rune magic printed out for them so we can focus on fun and decision-making. I'll post a report with some photos and then get to making my last "I Make A Runequest Glorantha Character!" video!

I hope it goes well.

4 hours ago, klecser said:

Quick question: Quickstart says "Those moving up to half of their usual movement allowance may also participate in melee, cast a spell, etc."

If my move is 8, and I move 5 (5 SR), why can't I use my readied 6 SR weapon and attack on SR 11? 

Update: Reading the ridiculously detailed Strike Rank master document, it is clear that the answer is: "because that's the rule."

If you don't like it, then house rule it so that it works how you want to. That's the point of house rules, if you say "I don't understand why this is the case" and don;t like the current rule, then change it.

Some people always play Rules as Written, but I pretty much never do.

Whatever makes your game fun and enjoyable should be celebrated. If you feel that someone with Move 8 who moves 5 should be able to attack on SR 11 then do it, it's what I allow. Nobody is going to kick down your door and drag you away screaming into the night because you change some RuneQuest rules.

17 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Ok, Joerg description made it sound like something that would not interest me very much.

Try it, if you like it then thank me, if you don't then thank Joerg and blame me.

5 hours ago, Minlister said:

I was thinking to describe a special troll cult to a "Dark stallion" or"Dark seed" hero, reputed for always fathering proper dark Trolls instead of Trollkins. Obviously the object of intense rivalry between competing Kyger Litor high priestess! Is there anything like that already in existing publications?

I don't recall anything - You could be the first!

On 6/16/2019 at 9:17 PM, Ian Absentia said:

Those rows of dice in the lower front-and-center are far too tidy.  You need to keep that trouble-maker busier.

But doesn't everyone line up their dice like that? All my D20s are lined up, then my D12s, then D10s, then D8s, then D6s, then D4s, then D3s, then D2s, although the D4s are sometimes put into a little hexagonal shape instead. Sometimes, to spice things up a bit, I pair my Tens D10s and Units D10s into pairs of D100s, but only if I have matching pairs.