soltakss

I'd say the scale is off somewhat. 18 is the best a normal person can be, without training. 21 is the best with training. So, a Ninja Master would have DEX 21+, probably higher than 21 because of magical improvement, a Professional Gymnast would have a DEX of 19-21. Master Swordsmen don't necessarily have a high DEX, but it helps. My rough guide is as follows: INT = IQ / 10, so add a 0 to the end to get the IQ classification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - it is as flawed as the IQ Test, but gives a rough guide, especially when using 3D6 INT. SIZ uses tables that are in the RQ2/RQ3 books for height and weight. Add in extra effects for body shape and you get an idea of what SIZ 15 means. However, a short fat man and a tall thin one could both be SIZ 15. STR allows you to pick up the equivalent SIZ, so STR 15 allows you to pick up a SIZ 15 person 50% of the time first go. Work out tjhe mass of the person and that shows how strong you are. CON is trickier, as it is a nebulous idea of health. I don't know houw you would scale this. POW is similar to CON. In one way it denotes luck, which I don't like at all - why are all magically powerful people lucky? It makes no sense to me. On the other hand, it denotes magical strength, for which we don't have a measure in the real world. APP is a measure of how attractive the person is. As this is subjective, the best way would be for 100 people to give a score between 3 and 18 for a person and take the average. CHA is a measure of personality rather than attractiveness. This is the intangible attribute that made Napoleon a leader of men and helped Rasputin seduce the Russian Court. [[[ Edited by the Moderator ]]]

One of the major annoyances about Glorantha was that Sartar was clearly a really important are, for Orlanthi and the Hero Wars, but virtually nothing was written about it. We had Apple Lane and Snakepipe Hollow, but that was it. Then came HeroWars, which had a lot of focus on Dragon Pass and Orlanthi culture, with 2 culture books and 4 scenario books, but again virtually nothing about the places. Then came the Gazetteer, which covered all of Dragon Pass in exquisite detail. Finally, came Sartar/Sartar Companion for HeroQuest, which is why some people complain that it has been done to death. So, Griffin Mountain was a culture book/scenario pack combination, but the Dragon Pass Gazetteer was simply a description of the places of Dragon Pass. Sartar would probably be a better book to compare with Griffin Mountain.

There are two "Login" buttons on the login page, one actually logs you in and is hidden right at the bottom of the current screen, the other is a shortcut that takes you to the login page, i.e. the same page that you were already on. Guess which one I kept pressing? Nothing to see here, move on please ...

I can't log on to the Mongoose forums. Windows reinstalled Google Chrome and since then my login (soltakss) has not worked, despite requesting a new password twice. There doesn't seem to be an email address to ask for help ...

There wouldn't be much point, in my view. There are unauthorised PDFs available, if you know where to look. They are perfectly acceptable in terms if quality, but are not searchable. Obviously, I would not condone selling or buying such PDFs. My point is that it is possible to produce them at a reasonable quality.

No and probably not. From what I have seen, some things made it into Sartar and Sartar Companion, but in a limited form. Some things were expanded on, though. I would expect the same to apply to other works. However, I have not seen the text of the Guide to Glorantha.

I recorded this on Friday and just watched it. It would make an interesting, if frustrating, scenario for the Clockwork and Chivalry setting, just throw in a clockwork soldier and you are ready to go. Is it a boy or a girl?

Spotting the trap would take a Perception roll, maybe Hard or Difficult. I'd make a Luck Roll to allow weapons to be retained, if the PC was carrying one. Making an Acrobatics roll should allow an attack on the vines, albeit a Difficult one. People with magic might be able to burn through a vine. People with plant magic might be able to control the vines to order them to let go.

Yes, many of the creatures in Gateway Bestiary have been reprinted for RQ3/CoC/BRP. I can't think of any reason to buy All the World's Monsters, to be honest. I bought a copy years ago and regretted it as soon as I saw it.

I agree! But, if you do go along the no hit locations route then the game plays a lot like the old Stormbinger/Elric games, which would suits Magic World, so I'd use Magic World rather than RQ6.

I agree, but that's what the OP was asking for help on. I throw in challenging encounters every now and again, but am always surprised at how weak even the very strong ones actually are.

Here's what I actually do. 1. Prepare a quick set of guidelines as to how powerful certain people are (Town Guards, Rookie Soldiers, Experienced Soldiers, Veterans, Young Bandits, Grizzled Bandits etc) 2. Quickly work out the strength of the party compared to what is being encounterd 3. Adjust numbers accordingly So, if a party of 6 beginning characters meets a group of veteran soldiers, I would use 3 soldiers for a fair fight, 6 for a party defeat and 1 or 2 for a party win. The same party meeting a group of young bandits would need 6 for an even fight, 3 for a party win and 9 for a party defeat. Most of the time the party surprises me with their tactics and usually win fairly easily.

The player said afterwards that he realised he'd made a mistake when he saw my face upon him attacking Uzarl, but he'd made his decision by then.

In my experience, there is very little that a determined and well-organised party of PCs cannot defeat. Perhaps not the first time, or the second time, but eventually the PCs will come back and defeat the foe. Combat autopilot mode is something that a lot of parties fall into. It is very dangerous. The way to beat it is not to put a hideous undefeatable foe against them but to give their kill-crazy actions consequences. If it makes them outlaws or puts them in peril then that should work. Ha! Suitable prompts beforehand do not always work, believe me. I ran a scenario where the PCs went against a group of vampires, led by Uzarl, a Mistress Race Troll Vampire who was several centuries old and who the NPCs in the campaign repeatedly warned the PCs against engaging. One Dark Troll PC was late to the party and missed all the warnings, so when he encountered Uzarl, he was so indignant and furious that such a thing could exist that he went hand to hand with her. The first thing they did was Sever Spirit each other and both died and came back with Divine Intervention, then they killed each other with Fear and Basilisk Gaze, and their allies used stored Divine Intervention to come back, then they fought hand to hand and used pretty much all their traded/drained healing magic to survive, before he killed her. The funny thing is that I designed Uzarl to be able to defeat the party of Rune Lords single handedly, yet a single very determined PC defeated her. I also had a recurring NPC, a Giant Broo, that lasted approximately 3 SRs in combat with the PCs, as they were so terrified of him that they instantly killed him on sight. I couldn't work out why they were so scared of him as he had never posed a threat, but they continued to be terrified of him throughout the campaign, no matter how many times he turned up and no matter how many times they killed him. In summary, no matter how gross you make an NPC, the PCs will always find a way of killing him/her.

This is actually quite tricky, especially if you want every encounter to be balanced. Treasure Factors could give a very rough level, but I have found them unreliable for this. In my opinion, a group of organised PCs can take down a smaller group of far more skilled NPCs. Here is what I do when working out encounters. 1. For one on one encounters, the NPC should be pretty much the same skill, within 20%, with similar levels of armour and magic. Giving more armour will make it more challenging, more magic might make it more challenging depending on the magic, more damage will definitely make it more challenging. 2. For group encounters, NPCs can be within 40% skill, as PCs are capable of absorbing a higher level of differences than a lone PC can. Individual increases in damage/armour/magic might make a slight difference, but not a great deal. 3. For group encounters, being massively outnumbered might pose a problem, unless the foes are made of tissue paper. A 2:1 ratio of NPCs : PCs will be very difficult to beat, unless the PCs get into a position to minimise the numbers attacking them. A 3:2 ratio should be beatable, though, but will be a tough fight. 4. For a group of PCs against a single monster, unless the monster has so much armour that the PCs cannot penetrate it, the PCs are likely to win. Even then, the PCs will struggle on until they score enough critical hits to take it down. Things that help PCs defeat far stronger opponents: 1. Healing each other 2. Ganging up on opponents - multiple attacks on the opponent, splitting attacks against different PCs 3. Using clever tactics 4. Missile weapons can soften up any opponents before the hand to hand fighting starts 5. Different combinations of spells can be used to a party's advantage

What setting are you looking for? Some settings don't have all the weapons, so a Dark Ages Earth wouldn't have firearms and a far future game is unlikely to have self bows.

Yes, Legend would be perfect for that kind of game. What you would need, though, is a set of backgrounds and professions, cultural weapons, special magic rules, stats and rules for various types of djinn/genie and a lot of talk about atmosphere.

That's why it's got a knob on the end, after all.

I don't know. Perhaps we weren't using them right, or we misunderstood them. Our group played HQ for 3 or 4 years, including performing the Lightbringers Quest in Glorantha, and in that time we rarely used Extended Contests successfully, despite using 2 Narrators. Other people have played a lot more HQ2 than I have, so they would have better ideas of how it plays.

Thanks for the kind words. I am halfway through converting it to Legend, or rather converting Legend to SciFi, using many of the ideas in that document. However, it looks as though this will come out some time next year, in the grand RQ tradition.

The magic section in HQ1 was butchered to make it "realistic Glorantha", which made it quite complex. I use Affinities as scores or augments, Feats to cause effects or augments, Wizardry to cause effects/augments, Animism to cause effects/augments and that's about it. I'd also use Mysticism in the same way. For all of them, if you have a relevant spell/feat/ability and a skill then you can use it to augment or to have an effect, no matter what is being used. I also don't differentiate between magic types in terms of power - so, common magic is as powerful as feats or wizardry. I really don't like the idea behind HQ2 magic, for several reasons: 1. Using Runes as the basis of magic doesn't work for me, because Zorak Zoran's Death Magic is vastly different to Humakt's or Hunter's Death Magic. 2. Feats are too high level - sure, have HeroQuesting abilities, but call them something else and keep feats as powers 3. Deities are not differentiated enough for my tastes (I really liked the idea of each Deity having its own powers and abilities) In HQ1, if you have a skill of 10M then you know roughly what that means in the grand scheme of things. A Clan Chapion might have a M2 skill, a Tribal Champion an M3 skill, dragons might have M5 skills and so on. In HQ2, this seems to go out of the window and your skill seems to be roughly the same no matter if you are a farm boy just out of short trews or a superhero taking down dragons. It is probably something that I don't understand properly. Again, I don't really understand it and haven't internalised it. Again, I don't really understand it and haven't internalised it. I have hold-over benefits from a good roll or action that last for a bit, which is probably the same kind of thing. Through the narration and through the action. Mythic Russia uses Chained Contests, which are far easier to use than Extended Contests. So, in a complex situation, we break it down to a series of contests, each of which is augmented by the PCs and each of which has an effect on the whole contest. That is quick, easy, more exciting and saves messing about with APs, bids, changing tactics and so on. It seems to me that Extended Contests in HQ1 were a way of bringing crunchy tactics back into a game that doesn't need crunchy tactics. It felt wrong to me, didn't play well in any of the games that I played in or Narrated and just bogged the game down too much. Obviously, these are my opinions and shouldn't be treated as a critique of HQ1 or HQ2. Other people love Extended Contests and love HQ2 in general.

There is one at http://www.soltakss.com/rq_scifi.doc

Hi Mikuel Have a look at Simon Phipp - RuneQuest/D100/Glorantha - Home Page for all the houserules that I have used in my RQ games, and much more. Mechanics-wise, I use the following: SuperCrits at 1 for every 100 in your skill HyperCrits at 1 for every 500 in your skill Reduced fumble chance at higher skills Use of Hero Points for rerolls etc (As Legend and HQ) Use of Hero Points as Experience Points (As HQ) Use of hero Points for plot changes, special features, interesting effects Not dead at 0 HP, instead dead less than HPs negative (So, if you have 13 HPs then you only die once you pass -13 HPs) No, as pointed out it is my houseruled version of RQ3. It would probably work, but is better with Legend/RQ6 as they just have Fumble/Failure/Success/Critical which mirrors HQ skill results. Using Hero Points to bump would work OK, as would bumping an opponent's result down. Using mastereys to bump might not work as well, as you would have to work out how many 90%s to use as a mastery and then work out criticals based on the leftover skill. Success Levels are probably a better way of doing it with RQ3. That way, you work out the relative number of levels between results and use that to show the effect. So, if I critical and you fail a roll, then I have 3 levels of success better than you. Use a Hero Point to bump the success level one either way and it becomes easy to use.

I thought I saw something that said that other things that were not mentioned were being delayed. Since Mythic Briton wasn't mentioned, the implication was that it was not in the current queue and hence was being delayed. For what it is worth, I am glad that it isn't. Obviously, I claim full credit for galvanising you into action following the earlier post. A Pyrrhic victory is still a victory. So what if the streets are filled with disease and corpses and there is nothing left in the city to sack as it has all been destroyed. At least we will have won!

Hmmm, Mythic Greece and Mythic Arthur have been delayed/shelved, but the Fall of Byzantium is scheduled, so that is bad and good news for Alternate Earth. Not a happy ending for the PC besiegers? So, the city doesn't fall in the end? Glad to see more RQ Gloranthan supplement, of course. Many people think they systems are too close, but that really isn't the case. It would be good to see Glorantha as one of their supported systems.