soltakss

25 minutes ago, Crel said:

Anyone have suggestions for traps and defenses trolls would make? I'm trying to get a little more creative than "rocks fall, everyone dies." A friend of mine suggested pits which only collapse under SIZ 13+ weight and then sending trollkin out to fight, which seemed plausible. I was also thinking sentries with Darkwall prepared. The more haphazard and improvised the trap the better, I reckon.

Many traps are common. A pit trap can be made by almost anyone and works against almost anybody.

What would trolls do differently? I think they'd use their special stuff. 

One of their special stuff is Insects and other critters. So, you put spikes in a pit trap with centipede venom on the spikes, you put some poisonous biting insects at the bottom of the pit and wait for people to fall in, you hang poisonous giant insects above a door and have them fall on people, you use sticky gunk from a Giant Slug as a glue to slow people down, you use a spider web to trap people, that kind of thing.

There's also the story of the Yelmalians who went on patrol in the Big Rubble. They saw a trollkin peeking out of a ruin and sent a couple of guards to sort it out, but none returned, then they sent half the patrol out and none returned, sending back for reinforcements, they sent out 10 men, then 20, then a hundred, but none returned. Finally, they saw a wounded Yemlalian crawl out of the ruin, shouting "It's a trap - There are two of them".

23 hours ago, Steve said:

Ok, this explains a lot. So all the time your dislike of Extended Contests has been referring to the much more complicated HQ1 ECs. Which is fair enough, though it does mean there's been a lot of cross-purposes confusion about this discussion (since most others have been talking about the HQ2/HQG ECs).

How do they work in HQ2, then?

I have looked through the original HQ2 book in the past, but couldn't see how Extended Contests had changed. HQ2 Glorantha just confused the hell out of me and I could not understand pretty much anything it said.

23 hours ago, Steve said:

Edit - hmm reading it back, this could come over as snarky but I didn't intend it that way at all.

Not at all - I can usually tell ...

On 11/30/2018 at 6:42 PM, Atgxtg said:

It could be kinda neat if there were certain cirumstances where the 3 agument limit was relaxed. Maybe add other characters together  as part of some sort of Leader skill? 

Oh, I don't limit augments in HeroQuest.

Originally, in HeroQuest 1, there was a problem where the PCs had too many skills. So, you took the Warrior Keyword and expanded it to 5 or 6 skills, then could augment with those skills. I don;t do that, instead they get a Warrior skill and can have Breakouts from that, they can use the Warrior skill to augment. So, someone with SlimeSlicer 5M (Cut through Chaos +1, God-Forged +1) and Warrior 1M (Sword +1, Broo Tactics =1, Bladesharp +1) could use his Warrior 4M when fighting Broos and using Bladesharp, giving him a +2 Augment, increasing SlimeSlicer to 7M. That's probably not how you do it in the rules, but that's how I play it.

Where other PCs augment, it gets a little bit more complex. The standard rule is "One thing, one augment", so each Skill is One Thing and each PC is One Thing. However, Magic can be used to augment slightly differently. So, a PC with Death 9M (Truesword +1) could cast it on SlimeSlicer, giving a +3 Augment. A Donandar Cultist with Drum 1M (Inspire Comrades +1) and Good Voice 2M (Battle Song +1, Rouse Anger +1) could use Drum 2M to augment Good Voice 4M, increasing to 6M, providing a +2 Augment to SlimeSlicer. All together, the 2 other PCs add a +5 Augment, increasing SlimeSlicer to 12M. 

22 hours ago, womble said:

The paranoia about stacking starts in the rules in RQG: No augment stacking; restrictions on frequency; spell combination limits (countermagic/protection/shimmer; bladesharp/fireblade; speedart/multimissile/firearrow).

I can see some of them making sense, for example Bladesharp and Fireblade, but perhaps the skill-boost of Bladesharp might work with the Firebladed weapon. Countermagic/Protection.Shimmer make no real sense to me, to be honest. Speedart/Firearrow probably should behave as Bladesharp/Fireblade if you allowed that combination. Firearrow/Multimissile might make the arrow burn but the multimissiles as normal arrows, again I have no real problem with that. Yelorna has the Shooting Star spell that provides a Firearrow/Multimissile combination where the Multimissiles have Firearrow, but that is fine as it is a Runespell, but I wouldn't want that to be available as a Spirit Magic option, as it devalues the Runespell.

22 hours ago, womble said:

I was making a more general point, rather than saying the bad guys should have exactly the same gear: they'll have abilities that should stack and 'synergise'. The argument not to give the opposition Nice Things because the players might get hold of them doesn't hold water. You can easily have 'powerful' enchanted things restricted to a subset of user which will exclude the party, or have the special maguffin be a thing that the players would have to work so hard at being able to use that they'd rather keep using what they're already good at, because the new thing will never catch up (how many Wind Lords would trade in using their 120% broadsword/shield combo for a +20% maul with a total chance to hit of about 40%?)

Troll Wind Lords would probably like that Maul.

But, it is a good point. It makes no sense for a bunch of trolls, that you have killed, to have a +10% Sword, where a +10% Maul would make more sense. Sure, you could throw it away, or you could go to the local market and swap the +10% Maul for a +10% Bastard Sword that a troll Rune Lord has got. Neither of you ask any difficult questions about where they got the weapons and everyone walks away happy. Alternatively, you just give those spare magic items to your cult, who give them out to people who can use them, lock them away in a vault or go down to the market and swap with other cults doing the same thing.

18 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Suddenly I'm convinced that the Waters are mostly enthusiastic partners in this project. They might have all kinds of political, economic or eschatological arguments for why they're participating but I think it boils down to Death (Magasta) taking a forced holiday. Water won't "die" while the drain is plugged. It keeps falling as rain and sweeping in from the outer ocean, but that final psychopompous journey back to the Dame Dark is interrupted.

Instead the Water rises and maybe in some places even leaps to reclaim its old favored spots. Awful waterspouts form, bride of the monster god carrying Water straight up to Sky. Gloranthan alchemists see an invitation to a divine wedding appear in their little flask. The rest of us know a grand banquet has been arranged. Blue Streak rolls up the dome, taking her people with her like always. But maybe she doesn't even drop this time but stays up there, a moon again. This time it's Tolat who dies, like Shargash who failed to fight the dragon.

Wachaza and a new Wachaza. Boats and Boat Planets. Unalterable hundred-lettered Styx words. Blue People. Dormal's Last Stop. Good times. If all goes well, Engizi may finally be healed. Of course there will be recalcitrants to deal with along the way but one way or another they'll eventually be convinced to go with the flow.

And they would have succeeded, if it wan't for those pesky PCs.

15 hours ago, Pentallion said:

I wonder, since Malkion is descending from the perfect Mind or Intellect and draconic lore is all about ascending to spiritual perfection with the dragon, which is a beast, if what we've got with the God Learners/EWF is a ying-yang situation.  at some point Malkion will be at a mid point just as the draconic mysticism reaches its philosophical midpoint and that seems to be about when both empire fall.  Or right about when Pavis is mucking about.  Pavis is where the western philosophy and the draconic philosophy met as they passed so to speak.  His city represents that mingling of Man, Intellect and Spirituality.

An argument can be made that Argrath gained some of his Draconic knowledge when he stayed in Pavis before its liberation. He could then go and look for the EWF Banner, cause Dragonrise, gain the Dragonteeth Warriors and so on.

15 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Only out of that could the perfect mixture of Man, Intellect and Spirit arise which became the Argrath.  Or Elusu the little shit, take your pick.  Either way, project complete.

Possibly. I am sure that Pavis cultists will argue that they made Argrath, leaving aside the White Bull Society, as that is just nomad bull.

15 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Doesn't it make perfect sense, then, that the Argrath first act upon returning from his circumnavigation isn't to become King of Sartar, it is to liberate Pavis and become it's King?

It makes more sense that Argrath used to live in Pavis, had a lot of connections there and that the Lunars in Pavis were cut off by a long supply line through Prax or by the recently-established Lunar Holy Country possessions.

I tend to think that Pavis was the easiest place to liberate and, with the Red Goddess courting Pavis as a husband, that gave him a HeroQuest that he could interfere with to break the Lunar influence. Breaking that courtship undermined the Lunars, allowing a rebellion to start and kicking the Lunars out. I like to think the Trolls were involved as well.

18 hours ago, Darius West said:

Draconic magic is antithetical to the whole idea of grimoires and sorcery.  The concepts don't knit together.  That is why the God learners could never really get their heads around it apart for the "interesting mess" we know as "the Cult of Immanent Mastery".  In fact Immanent Mastery has very little to do with actual Draconic Mysticism, and is more like a Hsunchen cult that treats Hykim and Mikyh as both dragons and animal ancestors, thus allowing adherents to transform into bestial facsimiles of dragons.  So it is no wonder that Pavis doesn't write Draconic grimoires;' it can't be done, because Draconic Mysticism is a spontaneous emergence of inner nature, and you can't put that in a book and turn it into a formula, even if you are a God Learner and well aware how many angels can dance on the head of a pin to 10 significant figures. 

There may well be hidden EWF schools in Pavis, long-forgotten by all but a small number of Pavic Survivors. Don't forget that Pavis was under Troll domination for centuries and only recently opened up. Those who stayed in Pavis often went underground and survived as isolated pockets of people, many dies out, but some survived. One of the best things about a Pavis campaign, in my opinion, is to piece these together and tease out the forgotten magic/lore. So, a clan might have some EWF knowledge, but it just manifests as a wyter, or the surviving handful of a Pavic Family can cast a Draconic spell, or knows a story about a White Dragon.

Initiation can be difficult. Some people like their PCs being Initiated into one Cult, others prefer multiple Initiations. I prefer no restrictions, so like my PCs to initiate into multiple cults, where appropriate.

As for the Starting Rune Points, my preference would be to allocate them across the cults your PCs is Initiated into. So, a PC belonging to both Orlanth and Donandar could split 3 RPs as Orlanth 3/Donandar 0, Orlanth 2/Donandar 1, Orlanth 1/Donandar 2 or Orlanth 0/Donandar 3. For me, it really makes little difference, except if you are playing a one-shot and, even then, it doesn't really matter.

For me, and again I emphasise that my answer is how I play, not how other people should play, being initiated into multiple Cults adds flavour and emphasis to the PC. So, for example, a PC initiated into Orlanth Rex is different to one iniated into Orlanth Adventurous, that is obvious, but two initiates of Orlanth Adventurous have similar goals, cult-wise, so how to differentiate them? Initiating into Orlanth Adventurous and Storm Bull means that you have emphasised the Chaos-killing aspects of Orlanth, whereas initiating into Orlanth Adventurous and Lhankor Mhy means that you have emphasised the Sword Sage part of Lhankhor Mhy. 

Membership of Cults is not all about the spells and skills they offer. Sure, you can say "Wow, Humakt teaches Bladesharp for free, I'll join", which can be a minimaxing aspect, but many people in poorer parts of the world, even in poorer parts of the USA,  join the military for the wage and education provided, which is the same thing for me. A Cult's spells and skills are part of the recruitment spiel, if you join Cults as just something to belong to.

The Orlanthi idea of undergoing an Initiation HeroQuest and choosing a Cult as part of that is a deeper thing, as that is what your soul reveals to you. In essence you are showing what your Inner Self is. Similarly, Mello Yello's longing to belong to Yelmalio isn't because it has big spears, shiny armour and Sunbright, but because Yelmalio calls to him and he knows that, in his heart of hearts, he is a Yelmalian.

It came from the Alien Nation film, but "Your Mother mates out of season" works as an insult for many Hsunchen.

26 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

The whole Quest wasn't one contest though.

Nope, it was a campaign, made up of scenarios, each Station was a Scenario and consisted of a lot of conflict, trouble, friend-making, enemy-making and so on. 

I've used the +n Sword in RuneQuest and it works really well. Basically the sword is enchanted with a Bladesharp N permanent effect, that is compatible with Bladesharp and other weapon-enhancing spells. So, a +2 Broadsword would do 1D8+3 and have +10% to hit, RQ2 Truesword would double rolled damage, so rolling 5 gives 8, doubled to 11 (max sword damage), but RQ3 Truesword would do 2D8+6 damage.

SlimeSlicer was a +4 Bastard Sword that did double penetrating damage against Chaos, in RQ2, so it did 1D10+5 damage, RQ2 Truesword meant the damage was doubled, up to 15, so rolling anything higher than 2 meant it did 15 damage, so everyone said it was too powerful, but nobody wanted it removed from the game.

14 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Not sure what 'bidding process' you're referencing, but maybe that's something from HQ1?  There's no bidding process that I've ever encountered in HQG.

To be honest, I have never played HQ2, or HQG.

HQ2 confused me and HQG, which was meant to make it simpler, confused me even more.

I think I'm easily confused.

17 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

Ah right. An earlier term Robin used, which we may bring back was a long contest, of which there could be scored contests (as current in HeroQuest)  or extended (old method with APs). TBH I think that you are using a long contest approach, just a chained contest in this example.

Yes, exactly, a Long Contest, I like that term.

It suits things like a long seduction, or political jockeying, something that has a series of events that build up to a conclusion.

Mongoose tried it, but it never really got anywhere.

It would be interesting to see how this could work.

20 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Will have to ask Jeff if I can.

Jeff's a pussycat really, I'm sure he won't mind.

1 hour ago, drablak said:

Man! Threads like this one make me wonder if I'll ever catch up! 😧

Threads like this make me wonder if I'll ever care!

On 11/26/2018 at 10:08 AM, Darius West said:

If you meet a Riddler on the path, kill them.

Unless you are a Wind Lord who has challenged a Fire/Sky Priest to a Riddling Contest, you'd have to kill yourself, then your opponent.

Soltak StormSpear used to love asking Yelmalians Nysalor Riddles as part of the Orlanth-Yelmite Riddling Contest. 

On 11/28/2018 at 8:42 PM, JonL said:

If @soltakss doesn't mind me paraphrasing, ECs take a perfectly simple and smoothly running mechanic and needlessly complicate it with point-counting, extra table look-ups and other unnecessary bits that break you out of the flow of play and don't necessarily make for a more fun game experience.

Exactly.

I can do anything I need with HeroQuest without Extended Contests and haven't used them for years. In fact, I ran a LightBringer Quest for around a year using HeroQuest 1 with no Extended Contests, traipsing through Hell.

This is completely a personal view and is probably irrational.

For me, Extended Contests are "We want people who like to play RuneQuest to feel comfortable with HeroQuest", so it emulates a big RuneQuest Combat. If I wanted that, I'd use RuneQuest, which I do each and every week.

Extended Contests bog the game down, in my opinion. They don't have a good feel and they end up with a bidding process that I don't understand and don't like.

I much prefer to have chained Simple Contests. 

In group combats, it comes down to a roll - Us against Them. "Us" gets a skill that is augmented by everyone, as do "Them", then we roll.

Sure, it loses a lot of granularity, but HeroQuest does that anyway.

Where the Players want things done in more detail, we break the contest down into steps and resolve each one individually, with the effect of one carrying over to the next. It is more rolls, but gives a nice resolution at the end.

17 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Will look out for it.

Hardcopies are now in my hands... and as is the way of things, have spotted four formatting errors/typos. There will be more...

[Cover not final.]

 

That's a big book.

Make sure you wave it about at Dragonmeet - Would love to have a look.

On 11/25/2018 at 11:29 PM, Archivist said:

Can you talk a bit about this? How do you handle group combats? Why don't you like Extended Contests.

Answered in the other thread - Sorry, just seen that it was moved.

1 hour ago, StephenMcG said:

Would I be right in saying that during an adventure I can run everything unrelated as simple contests and use the consequences after each contest as per page 70.  If I am going to use extended contests I should use the rising action consequence table (top of page 83) for the contests up to the climax and then the climactic consequence table (lower in page 83) for the final contest?  Am I also right to say that the contests in the run up can use a mix of simple and extended by utilising columns 1 and 4 to correlate consequences?  So this table can supersede the table on page 70?

My recommendation is Always use Simple Contests and Never use Extended Contests.

Not sure what the Rising Action rule is and I don't think I have the original HQ2 Rulebook as a PDF, but you can always use Chained Simple Contests, from Mythic Russia. 

2 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Shargash is a son of Yelm. Various goddesses are claimed as his mother. The heirs to the Artmali claim she was the goddess of the Night, was conceived in the Underworld with his sister the Blue Moon goddess. Most Pelorians instead claim that Dendara is his mother, although the Alkothi agree with the Artmali. All agree that Shargash is the war god of the celestial realm.

To me, they can both be true. Borne by Night but raised by Dendara, both are effectively mothers.

13 hours ago, g33k said:

We know that a Chaos-curse damaged the fertility of Kyger Litor, so I'm a bit dubious of claims the Uz can devour Chaos "without harm."

That's because Gbaji cheated and chewed his way out after he was eaten. 

The answer is clearly not to eat them whole, but to bash them on the head, dismember them and then eat them.