styopa

Just want to mention, Greg would have been 71 tomorrow. Walk proudly in the Spirit World Greg.

Mmm, while it's pretty unorthodox, I can see mindlink+self-only spell on the mindlinkee being (broadly) within creative reading of RQ2 mindlink. Particularly if one interpreted that one cast it on themselves AND the target simultaneously, as is implied from the text...of course, that would then be open for some pretty hefty abuse. Mindlink your party then cast all your protective magics?

Anyone interested in how tricksters are envisioned needs to read Sandy Petersen's Pamaltelan campaign writeup from ages ago:

And that's LOADED. All of the hand-waving about "well, it's moving cautiously around a combat area" (so what's my move if I'm just going shopping, then?) or "it's if they're heavily laden with pack and armor and gear" (characters don't necessarily LIVE in their full battle regalia; what if my toon is just taking a walk without all that crap?) smells suspiciously like extraordinary rationalization for what is ultimately just a mechanically wrong number. It would seem a big mistake to me to build character movement rates making all sorts of contextual assumptions, anyway. WHAT DOES A PERSON MOVE WALKING ACROSS LEVEL GROUND? should be the starting point. Then if you want to apply modifiers for running/sprinting, encumbrance, slope, setting, congestion, footing, surface, magic, foliage, footwear, their previous meal, or whatever....then apply them appropriately. That's how it should be done, as complicated or simply as one wants to do it. If the numbers in a game are mistaken, this is the opportunity to fix them and move on. It's silly to wrack yourself into contortions rationalizing what's ultimately just an error because of a slavish need to be consistent with a 40 year old game that had the same error.

And neither of them is better than Sever Spirit. (shrug) This is one reason the players in my campaign just BITTERLY hate trolls. Someone in a troll band always has that thing. Note that one thing RQ(any) players seem slow to recognize is how easy it is to STRIP targets of magics. In RQ3 and RQG both (not sure about RQ2) there's no resistance roll - dispel magic just strips the target at 1 point per point, dismiss is 2 per point, and is far more usable now with rune points. (Neutralize is still a resist.) Of course a 10 point spell is intrinsically harder to strip than a 5, obviously. Given lack of access to bigger spells and such, it's much more than 2x better in that respect. There are ample things a GM can put in a campaign that complicate this and/or make it more interesting too - nibbly 'spirit-sucking gnats' that in swarms chew away standing spells or ultimately mp. (The look of sheer terror on players' faces when the lovely, ethereal cloud of glowing motes like they're in a Miyazaki film ...turn out to start draining MP, is priceless.) A relatively low-power but nicely scaling magic item would be a ring or something that would let their dispel/dismiss magic spells partially strip down target spells, instead of having to wholly overcome them.

It's what we do and it generally works and is tactically fun, but then again we do most of our important combats on a hexmap where each hex =1m. Roll your init; add your Dex mod (we've inverted the SR system, so higher is better). GM counts down through the round, when it's your action, you move 1 hex per SR, refacings are free.* Moves are all simultaneous; if both NPCs and PCs are moving in a SR, the PCs can choose if they move first or last each SR. *run for 2x movement, but if running you have to move 1 hex forward and can only face-change by 1 per hex. It's rough, it's not perfect, but it's fast and tactical.

Meh, sure it's better IN SOME WAYS but then it also takes up most of their spell capacity? Takes a TON of time to cast.* A ton of MP. *note that the language on interrupting casting in RQG is pretty bad; "...If the spell caster’s concentration is broken in any sudden and unexpected way before they have finished with casting a spell (for example, taking damage), they cannot cast the spell and must try again." "AND Unexpected?" So as long as you EXPECT that troll is going to whack you with the stonking great maul, no interruption? Silly. Personally, as a DM I'd love the opportunity to illustrate to a character who believes his shiny new Bladesharp 10 is the be-all, end-all of great magics...that it isn't. Oh it's good, certainly. But IMO if you're at the level where you're throwing around 10pt spirit magics, your peer enemies are going to have a number of Rune points - maybe quite a few - and will likely cut you to ribbons in the 12 seconds you stand there staring at your sword.

That was just area-based? IIRC legs and chest were all considered 2/10 of a full suit, each other location being 1/10.

Just a note: 24m/RQG round (or 'likely' RQ3 speed) = 120m/min = about 4.5 mph or 7.25 kph 30m/RQ3 round = 150m/min = 5.6mph or 9 kph Both are pretty substantially over the commonly accepted human walk speed of 3.5 mph. Even a pretty determined (not speed-walking, mind you - think 'angry walk' speed) walk is about 4mph. Doubling that for an extended run speed is probably close, as marathon runners can do about 9mph. But for a short sprint which can hit 13-14 mph for a normal person (around 18mph for NFL linebackers, 28mph for Usain Bolt) you could triple it.

Not particularly RQG but relevant to any GM in any game in which you want to have an ongoing campaign. Ralph Koster (a relatively-cerebral MMO designer with some credentials) writes about what drives retention: in his case, it's specifically about MMOs and monetization (because retention = monetization in that space), *BUT* his points are broadly applicable to everything from the nuts and bolts of game design to the way GM's run their games. It's not a long read. https://www.raphkoster.com/2019/01/30/what-drives-retention/ For example, one point he discusses that RPGs have long since recognized in their progression systems. The community bit is something tabletop RPGs haven't really succeeded at, lacking a monoculture for delivery of game mechanics and homogeneity across the ecosystem ... BUT TSR and even now WotC has tried to run at it with their RPGA and Adventurer's League, respectively:

Sometimes the dice just want you dead.

Which, to be clear, it's going to perform in combat *nothing* like a d&d thief, in case that's what they were expecting. (I just think that d&d has artificially/mechanically enhanced the viability of thieves to fill a dps role unjustified in real life; RQ has never done this.)

Along with soltakss and plenty of others' good advice here, again, I'd counsel: go slow. Gloranthan lore (as you've already witnessed) can be like drinking from a firehose. PERSONALLY, with a collection of previous D&D players my first concern would be about it being so much more lethal and dangerous than D&D that they'd get discouraged. So when I say 'start small' I mean in all contexts. Look; most shepherds, or cattlemen, or or farmers *aren't* going to be well-versed in the Third Apotheosis of Arkat. They mostly won't care. Even a young sorcerer who might indeed be rather better-read than most, is still starting from a fairly small-scale very local view. Give them small challenges that are frankly speaking, easy to win at while they get their balance and start to explore your setting and world. (Contrapositively I've always been a firm advocate of teaching people the fundamentals of RQ by giving them basic pre-gen characters and having them fight a handful of wolves...and get killed. Yes, kill them. They're not their characters, they're pre-gens, and if you can scare them out of the heroic 'I can just charge in' mentality BEFORE they're playing their own toons, I think that's a win - plus you can work on MECHANICS and nobody cares with pre-gens if you forgot to apply Rule X, etc.) One method I really push with new players is to personalize it, and try like hell to get out of that heroic D&D mindset. "Ok Sarah, you look up from the carcass of the sheep you found, and you see the eyes of two, no, maybe three wolves in the shadows of the underbrush only perhaps twenty feet away, gleaming in the fitful glare of Chuck's torch. Don't think of what a VIDEO GAME character would do, what would YOU do, with your shield on your back and a stout spear in your right hand?" Really try to make it personal and immediate. Hopefully they take more care of their personal safety than most D&D characters bother to.

In mine? 6 I think. I can't recall anyone casting anything higher in 15 some years. I don't think there's any real cap in the rules, but RQ2's "you have to learn it by beating a spirit" was sort of a nice organic way to keep that in check...even if AFAIK few campaigns actually played that out more than a couple of times, instead just rationalizing it into higher prices. I think our current rule is (mp*10p) for same-cult. Associated cults are slightly higher, and 'free market' spell purchases are quite expensive, 3x-5x that, with spells 4pt and above generally not available to outsiders in any case.

IMO that's pretty confrontational? And I'm a fairly confrontational person in the first place. As far as I know they've been great about including edits in the pdfs, and then (insofar as possible) including the latest-possible version when it's submitted for printing. I'd guess insofar as they're able, yes, they will... but the simple fact is a dead-Aldryami edition simply cannot keep up with the stream of edits, clarifications, and amendments we now have access to in 2019. At some point you have to kick the product to the printer and say it's "done enough" to get printed. I have the first printing, and there's a ton of edits since then. It's the price of being an early adopter.

If it used less MP (and or took less mental storage space), I can certainly see times when it would be valuable. For example if it was half the mp of full protection, I can see A LOT of adventurers deciding they'd rather have 2AP in front than 1 all over.

Yes, exactly. Ours is a RQ3 campaign, generally. I think that's a fair point - 1mp=1pt protection not only for your Siz 0 weasel, but also that Siz 60 dinosaur. Should it? I know magic is magical and doesn't necessarily have to obey logic of conservation of energy, etc (and really shouldn't except perhaps sorcery which I've always seen as more formulaic). Seems like there would be SOME sort of limit particularly to spirit magic? I'd toyed IMG with the idea of capping the strength of spirit magic spell to caster's POW/3 FRU meaning only someone POW 16+ could even cast heal 6....Without it, we quickly discovered the moment someone in the party managed to lay a hand on heal6, the loss/reattachment of a limb became trivial... and I'm not sure it should be, ever? Absolutely, that's why I'd guess that I'd start with the premise that the default spell (let's use protection as the example) is the default because it is the most efficient or is the most scalable, or both. So maybe there's a special spirit spell that also for 1mp gives you 2ap in a SINGLE location, but it's scaling isn't 1:2, it's 1:1.5, so 4mp version would give you 6ap in a single location. It's certainly far, far more efficient to spend 2mp and get 2ap everywhere, but I could certainly see certain circumstances where an extra couple AP in a single location might have some utility? That's a very good point, actually...it's more like pre-healing than armor.

Just querying the crowd for general questions on spirit magic (and other magic) spell balance. I know what I think, but I'm curious what the general consensus is here as well. For example, Protection: 1 mp = 1 AP (durable) every location for 5 min. Using this as the baseline, then, if you were inventing a spirit magic spell that perhaps only protects the FRONT of a character, would 1mp = 2ap per location? What if the spell only protected 3 locations (front and back), or even just a single location; would it be worth more, maybe 3 or even 4ap per mp? What about ablative protection - ie AP that go away when hit...so if a loc has 5 ablative AP, and you take 3, the next hit there are only 2ap left? Would 1mp = 5ap or more? I like some of these ideas, but I can see them quickly leveraging - if the relationship is linear - into pretty big numbers. For example, if you had a spell that ONLY protected one location, only the front, and the AP were ablative, how much would 1mp be worth? 6ap? 8? More? The other one would be about healing...right now 1mp = 1 hp instantly. What if you were crafting a heal-over-time spell, that gave the target a smaller amount of healing spread out over time, ie 1mp might be 2hp but they are only granted to the target 1hp at the end of the next 2 rounds?

Re going back to Pavis and the Big Rubble, I genuinely hope: - this time, there's more to the rubble. I mean, this is a major city that is now fully monster-infested ruins! If canon is held to, there are whole communities and ecosystems in and under those ruins....truly that should end up a massive tome, enough to be comparable to Paizo's shackled city, for example. See Wizards TOA Omu as an example of a much smaller urban area made into interesting ruins. - ....that this is our last visit to these places. I understand the narrative draw, I do. But rather than rehashing places that have been so thoroughly trodden, let's find NEW interesting places for RQG to thrive in?

I've found great richness and character in using Sandy's Tekumel sorcery rules as well, considering how spotty the various Malkioni source material's been. Sure there's be ample (excessive?) verbiage about the lore, but in practical terms not much for game-players. http://www.tekumel.com/downloads/RQtekumel.pdf For example, the spell Tremulation: Tremulation (Karakan) (2) Creates a deep vibration which deafens all within the circle of effect and prevents orders from being given or understood. Affects a circle 1/10 the spell's Range (so a 10m range spell is 1m across). Intensity increases the effect. 2 as above 4 area is so shaken that those within it cannot fight, cast spells, or do any actions requiring dexterity. They can leave, though. 6 as above, but all items of glass, pottery, etc., are shattered 8 shatters bones and kills those within the circle if they cannot leave within 5 combat rounds

Except that poison darts in RQ mechanics are pretty sucky - basically, they do so little damage with no particular method of aiming for anything more granular than a whole hit location zone, even something with trivial armor is essentially immune (attackers HAVE to crit to do anything). I mean, IRL poison darts suck badly enough that nobody above stone age tribes use them aside from "fantasy" ninjas. IRL blowguns have a limited range and their light dart means the slightest puff of wind makes hitting beyond 1m impossible.

Well, Ostriches pretty much run around on their tippy-toes.

Thanks Rick. Any chance for those of us who bought the first printing, that there might be a "1st-to-2nd" PDF that (for example) might offer printable, formatted pages to 'drop into' our current books to carry the changes? I realize formatting, etc likely all cascaded through the book so it's not as simple as gluing a new page 75 atop the old page 75, but I'm thinking of maybe a "print both sides of this page to drop into your book between pages 75-76, as it carries errata for the previous chapter" or something? Obviously, my point is to try to get all the fixes between 1st and 2nd cogently and usefully into my book. If you don't have the time/editing resources for this, if you even have a single clear PDF that says "here are the specific updates from 1.ed to 2.ed" I'd be happy to put something like I'm suggesting together for you. Thanks!

Call me a quibbler, but IMO RQG has overcomplicated this. If you have a 155 vs a 50, in the various interpretations it would be played out as: RQG RAW: 100 vs 0% RQG Amended(better): 110 vs 05 or really 95 (with special of 22/crit of 6) vs 05. RQ3 results in 95 (with special of 31, crit of 8 I think) vs 50 While I agree that #2 is way better than #1, it seems like 3 is simpler, still gives the lower-skill the full 'value' of the skill they have and likewise acknowledges a diminishing return on super-high levels of skill - essentially you're just a) better able to cope with disadvantages, but b) mainly (slowly) increasing your special/crit chances...

The more I've thought about it I rather suspect (at least part of it is) a variation of the left-handed swordsman problem, written into the distribution of primitive weapons. In any population, you have an overwhelming number of right-handed swordsmen, and a small few lefties. Any right-handed swordsman fighting a lefty is at a slight disadvantage, just because they're unfamiliar with them. But a left-hander facing a lefty is the worst-off; statistically they're vanishingly unlikely to meet and when they do they're BOTH likely perplexed at the dynamic. Now replace "right handed" with spearmen and left-handed with swordsmen - I rather believe the astonishing majority of weaponusers (particularly in the Bronze Era) were spearmen. (And if you want to carry the metaphor further, add another tier - that the vast majority of swordsmen used shields for their parries, never would have considered wrecking their weapon to do so.) In the narrow context of my question, it starts to make sense - a crossguard would be nearly valueless on a sword vs a spearman, and would add no significant value to fighting if you already carried a shield. Only in the scarce sort of one on one with blades (only) might it have been useful, and who'd be crazy enough to seek THAT out?