soltakss

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apparently also peppery.

That's what spears are for - Stick it in the giant and get an impale, the giant can't regenerate damage while impaled, so keep on pressing it in until the giant falls over. Then cut his head off just in case.

In the gunpowder example, they'd have to make an Alchemy roll to be able to find the ingredients. I like the INT characteristic as it allows me to ask for an INTxn% roll, where n depends on what is asked. If they fail then they don;t know in game. If they succeed they've had a flash of inspiration.