soltakss

On 3/8/2016 at 8:47 AM, Jeff said:

By "guild" we mean quasi-kinship groups organized around a craft or occupation. Traditionally, one is "adopted" into a guild, offers regular sacrifices to their patron spirit or founder, and usually has some sort collective liability to outsiders (but also internally handles disputes between its members). Within many cities, you need to belong to a guild to have the right to practice a trade. In many cases, the guild membership is synonymous to belonging to a cult or subcult. Examples include

• the "Merchants Guild" and the Issaries cult;
• "Redsmiths" and Gustbran; 
• Boatsmen and the local River or Sea cult);
• Potters and "the Potter Goddess" (an Ernalda Asrelia sub-cult); and
• Brewers and Minlister.

 

While I agree that the local cult will dominate in a particular guild, I think that the guild structure lends itself to membership from multiple cults.

So, the Merchants Guild in Sartar would be dominated by Issaries but could well have members who are worshippers of Argan Argar, Etyries, Lokarnos, Carith or other trading cults. 

They come along to guild meetings, pay their dues and have their say. Membership also allows them to practise their trade in the area where the guild applies.

For me, a house is a house is a house.

Long houses are fine, square houses are fine, houses with big spikes in are fine. Stick in a hearth, place for the animals, place for the people and that's all I need.

2 hours ago, Iskallor said:

"No art is better than bad art" as my old Sage used to tell me before we raided Kakstan's Art Museum...  

You obviously haven't seen my art (Drawing 5%).

14 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

I experienced this twenty-five (actually, a bit more..) years ago, with the (in)famous RQ3 pike. The Final Weapon. Except that you cannot really use it in any situation that is not "the battlefield", and when the player invests his experience in it you need explain that he cannot use a pike in a dungeon. Simon had similar experiences, and explained them. Baulderstone certainly had, and he explained it from another point of view ("have them recover the skill spent" - a very wise piece of GM advice). You have a well known problem here, and we all pointed out a well known solution: use commone sense, persuasion, and only in case everything else fails do not be afraid to use your GM authority.

I played a Pike-wielding Yelmalian centaur who used it to devastating effect underwater, supported by several pig-bladder floats and a Breathe Air/Water spell. Set Pike against a shark attack was particularly effective.

I think the problem is using the Throw skill for throwing a halberd.

Throw is fine for throwing rocks or throwing a bag over a ravine, but not for throwing weapons, that's why we have the Javelin/Thrown Dagger/Thrown Axe skill.

I agree with Risen (Paolo) that you do not need a Thrown Halberd skill for a one-off attempt at throwing a halberd. However, if someone wants to throw a halberd then they should have  a base chance. 

Have a look in the rules for Improvised Weapons, I don't have a page number as I am at work.

I would be happy with Survival CON+WIL with First Aid under survival. You might want First Aid on Self under Survival and First Aid on Someone Else under Knowledge, so have First Aid under both skills.

8 hours ago, krzysztof said:

Now imagine the following: Standard Human ( STR 12 , SIZ 10 - thus no Damage Bonus ), is facing an enemy. The character has no skills in any weapon, but has halberd in his hand. Thus, he has base chance to hit of 15%. However, if he tries to throw a halberd at the enemy the chance becomes 25% (base Throw). Therefore, it is clear that throwing is more likely to inflict the same 3D6 damage.

To me, this is pure nonsense. Perhaps I do not understand something - please help!

In the same way that a thrown javelin doesn't use the Throw skill, a thrown halberd would be at a reduced  rate. I'd apply a penalty, maybe 20% or more, to the attempt. It's a desperation tactic at best.

I seem to recall somewhere that a basic default damage for something thrown was 1D6 (or 1D8) but cannot remember which set of rules, so it might be nonsense.

There is something in RQ3 regarding using improvised weapons, such as a table or chair, that might be more applicable.

You haven't stated which set of rules you are looking at, so it is hard to give an exact answer. I assume BRP, but am not sure.

11 hours ago, MOB said:

Absolutely! Chance of Divine Intervention is equal to the character's POW + current RP on d100.

If the DI is successful, the character loses the number rolled in POW plus all their current Rune Points. However, these RPs do reduce the POW cost of the DI.

For example, at the commencement of a battle Coriander Before-Whom-Even-The-Crimson-Bat-Trembles has a POW 17 and 9 Rune Points. During the fight he casts 6 points of rune magic, leaving him with 3 RPs. But things go catastrophically for his side, and he decides to call on Orlanth for Divine Intervention ("Orlanth get me out of here!"). At this precise moment, his chance of DI is 20% (POW 17 + 3 current RP). His player rolls 14 - success! Orlanth whisks Coriander away to safety on a divine wind, but he immediately loses 14 points of POW and all his current Rune Points. But he gets to add back 3 POW due to his RPs, leaving him with a new POW of 06. He also now has no RPs until they can be regained at the next holy day. At least he's alive.

We use the same mechanic at the moment, except the player chooses how much comes from POW and how much from their RP, so someone with POW 15 and RP 10 rolls 12 on a Divine Intervention, so he chooses to take 7 from POW and 5 from RP.

54 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

In my experience in a long RQ3 campaign, the POW gain system obviously rewarded players who are lucky with their dice. So I had this humakti with POW 15 or 16 who would only sacrifice POW whenever he got an increase (by ilogically casting Disruption/Demoralise in combats until he got the check) and the last time we played he had between 15 and 20 "runic points" (because we used this mechanic, only we called them "faith points"), and he even wasn't a Sword of Humakt! He was just an initiate.

So, even if lucky players are not the norm in your campaigns, why would you like to leave to chance how quickly do the PCs advance in magical power?

I think that the system presented in RQ6, where you exchange experience rolls for new spells, avoids the situation in which an unlucky player always ends up being magically inferior to her luckier comrades.

I'd be quite happy with that. Even though he is an initiate he is still a powerful Humakt.

The issue with unlucky players is still an issue for things like increasing skills. I had a PC who had half INT for non-swords and double INT for swords, but he kept missing his sword experience rolls, probably 20 times in a row. Unlucky players will have reduced skills, but we don't have a mechanism for that (Well, I do, I houserule that even a failed improvement roll gets 1 and rolling a 1 gets 2).

15 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

You cannot split attacks against the same opponent.

This is one of the things that I allow in my games. You get Water Margin-style combat where a master can cut an opponent open with a flurry of blows.

13 hours ago, charlesvajr said:

As the Thanatari has "incorporated" a part of the original person, raped the world of it's life/power, then I could see the Thanatari's rune power supplying the strength to continue to use the spells of Major Heads at least. Essentially the spells of Create Head fashion from the living person a still living Powered Crystal from which the Thanatari can drain/draw knowledge and power.

 

After all, wasn't that the basis of Thanatar.

Exactly, that's how I play it. Thanatar has ripped the magic from the god and a Thanatar cultist can repray stolen spells at a Thanatar temple. Imagine the spell itself as being a matrix of some kind, all you are doing is refiling the matrix with divine power, once the matrix has been set it can just be refilled. So, a Thanatar Head with Flight, for example, has, by virtue of the original enchantment, taken the Flight divine/runespell matrix and fixed it to Thanatar, so the Flight spell can be reprayed at a Thanatar temple.

It makes Thanatar priests very powerful and versatile.

17 hours ago, TRose said:

 I guess Im in the minority as I never liked the idea you needed to go to a large Temple to renew/get certain spells as it almost forces player to join the larger cults of their area.  For example if you want to be an Ax maiden of Babeestor Gor in a Pavis campaign there are no temple that I know of listed in either Pavis or Sun Country for Babeestor Gor in either place and you  are stuck to shrines in other Earth Temples for spells. So you have to travel to the Paps( IF there a temple there) while the Orlanthi just has to walk across the street to renew his spells.

  Perhaps we could have major temple set up to patheons instead of individual deities so a Worshipper of Heler and or Vinga could renew their spells at the Orlanth temple instead of having to travel to  a specific temple dedicated to them.

That's what shrines are for.

If you have a Babeester Gor worshipper then the local Ernalda Temple will have a Babeester Gor shrine that provides some basic spells. For more specialised magic you need to go to a shrine for a specific subcult/aspect or to a larger temple. A good-sized Orlanth tremple will have a shrine to Heler and Vinga, even smaller ones have a Shrine to the Thunder Brothers that gives access to some of their spells.

It made no sense for me that all Orlanth temples gave you access to all Orlanth spells. Breaking down by Aspect makes it more manageable, so Orlanth Thunderous temples don't give access to Orlanth Adventurous spells, for example.

I'm not sure of the official position, but I wouldn't have a problem with Malkioni familiars.

Each Malkioni sect might have views on what is/is not acceptable as a familiar, though. 

Zombies might be OK if they were covered up, perhaps in full armour or behind a veil. Herd Men are OK if they appear to be human, but mating with humans could produce Herd Men offspring. 

Having a sorcerous familiar as a mount is a bit odd, so horses, herd beasts and dinosaurs would be rare.

Familiars are often used as scouts, spies and for fine manipulation, so birds and monkeys would be quite normal.

1 hour ago, pachristian said:

Is RQ (in all of its incarnations) too dependent on characters being members of cults or social organizations? Your character is dependent on his cult for much of his training, and magic, and social position and expectations. But the classic fantasy heroes cited above were not cult members; they were rogues and outlaws.

So if I want to play a character who is not part of a cult, am I character-improvement screwed? 

The D20 system, by contrast, gives a character little or no reason to join an organization: Advancement is completely independent of any guild or cult affiliation - even for clerics!

How do all of you handle this issue? Or is it an issue in your games?

Generally, PCs who belong to cults get access to extra support, magic and skills. PCs who don't belong to these organisations don't get access to these benefits. So, it can be an advantage to belong to a cult.

However, it is not compulsory and character advancement does not depend on belonging to a cult. You can increase skills, gain Heroic Abilities and so on without belonging to a cult. 

Not belonging to a cult actually has some benefits. You don't have any tithes to pay, needn't follow cult restrictions, don't have any cult enemies or cult obligations and NPCs don't react to you in a certain way because of your cult.

If you are happy to not get cult special magic and don't want the structure of a cult then not belonging to one is fine.

13 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Yelm (version included in Cults Compendium and representative of Dara Happan and Pentan practices): Worshipers of Yelm are cremated on great funeral pyres, along with appropriate death goods. The barbarians of Pent sometimes show grief for a great chieftain by sacrificing servants or concubines with him.

As with Yelmalio, I'd expect Yelm's pyres to be purifyingly hot and smokeless.

There will be many other varied practices in Peloria based on ancient Rinliddi, Naveria, Darjiini, Kostadi, and other areas.

Wasn't there an emperor of Yelm who was so pure that a ray of sunlight consumed him rather than burning on the pyre?

Purely from memory, it varies.

Orlanthi used to be burned on pyres, so their spirit can fly the winds.

Earth cultists are buried within the earth, normally in catacombs.

I'm not sure about Solars, though.

That's where my memory runs out, so not much there really.

Yeah, the Form Runes don't have opposites, nor do the elemental runes.

Only the Power Runes have opposites and they are naturally arranged in pairs.

I would just use the RQ3 values - They are nice and easy to calculate.

The RQ2 values are a bit fiddly, as General Hit Points are not easy to calculate. Hit Points per location are very close together, so you get hulking giants with two points different between arm and chest.

On 2/22/2016 at 0:42 PM, Harshax said:

I hope to see a Hero Quest in the designer notes, soon. Something that illustrates how everything works together. 

I still have my copy of RQ2. I would love to have some demo material I could run through with some friends.

Seconded. With the new 13th Age in Glorantha concentrating on mythic adventuring, it would be good to see more HeroQuests in RQ, It is the Hero Wars, after all, when HeroQuestors change/break/fix the world.

On 2/22/2016 at 3:28 PM, styopa said:

"You didn't look hard enough"

-Mithras

There's a very similar statue of Pan and a goat, but I probably can't post it here - Good job you didn't use Pan as the base of the name.

It looks even better with the Mithras logo, less in your face than the RuneQuest logo.

Snappy name, I like it. Let's hope you can carry on producing more quality supplements.

The players in our game allocate spells to whichever rune suits them.

So, Heal might go against Earth or Life/Fertility, Fireblade usually goes against Fire/Sky, Bladesharp could go against Death or Air/Storm or Fire/Sky, depending on where the spell comes from.

I don't really mind, as long as the player makes a good case.

16 hours ago, pachristian said:

Do you use game mechanics of these rules, or do you work via narrative and story-appropriateness of the powers?

Games Mechanics to a certain extent, so the PCs have to roll beneath their Rune skill in order to do something.

The Runepower (Number of Runes) held has an effect on what the PC can do, but it is very fast and loose - they can affect things on/near themselves fairly easily, can affect larger things depending on how large their Runeower is. We also have Cult Presence, which is effectively generic Divine Magic, so they sacrifice POW to the deity that can be used to fuel the Divine Magic they possess (Orlanth Presence 6 and Teleport can be used to cast Teleport twice using Presence and then the spell can be cast as normal) and I play that Cult Presence can be used to boost Runepower for the cult's runes. So, Orlanth Presence could add to Storm, Movement and Mastery.

Opposed rolls are easy - two Masters of a particular rune both roll under their Runeskill and a critical beats a special beats a normal beats a failure beats a fumble, The victor gets the desired effect, a tie means the effect was watered down or countered.

They enjoy opening pits beneath people, blasting flyers out of the air with jets of water, floating boats across dry land, using a puddle of water they keep moving beneath the boat, using Air to deflect missiles and so on. The Master of Storm / Master of Death pumped all his Death/Storm Runes and Storm Bull/Humakt Presence into a ginormous lightning bolt that killed a group of Lunar Enchanters quite memorably.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

From the context above: self-guided anti giant missiles. A certain small chance for reusability. Pointy end goes first.

Apparently also peppery.