styopa

Fantastic. Very evocative.

RAW the only way it's going to happen is if someone was already planning on healing you that round. For YEARS we used statement of intent and were happy with it, but it led to a pile of convoluted rules for reaction time and changing your intent. After playing some D&D5e, honestly, I bagged it. It doesn't detract materially from the realism, and is a crapton smoother to run. We - roll random initiative (we go backwards down from high to low; long story...) - as we count down, people state what they're doing FWIW we've ruled too that if you're at a "die at the end of the round", you actually DIE on that same SR in the next round. Otherwise it's actually better to hold action and whack someone at the end of the round to prevent their healer having a chance to move/cast heals, which is a little gamey. My players have, after doing this for probably 6 months, agreed that we'll never go back to SoI.

Who wrote such an obvious disregard for the ethnic purity laws of Dragon Pass? Clearly, some schmuck who didn't respect or understand how Glorantha REALLY works. In fact, I think I just decided there's going to be a seething ethnocentric & irredentist movement starting in Duck Point called the QQQ.

Nice catch. Normal hiking rates are at least 3x that; rule of thumb is hiking 3 miles/hr (5 km/h) + hour per every 1000'/300m of elevation climb. 2 miles/hr (3km/h) for backpacking, (probably closer to what PC's are doing most of the time) +1 hour per elevation climb. And actually, walking with a horse really isn't much faster, particularly over broken ground or long distances. They can just carry MUCH greater loads and be almost unaffected. Plus, you arrive far less tired than if you walked yourself. (Note, unridden horses canter most places if they're in a hurry, and they can do that - about 2x speed of a human walk - for hours and hours. Nevertheless, in LONG distances, humans on foot actually outdistance horses.)

So much was wrong about Elder Secrets. To give him his due, my guess was that Dobyski was hired as an artist to get art on the cheap. We all hash on him for the terrible art (and it is) but he is extremely talented in his preferred context: AFAIK he did the maps and layouts for Sun County and River of Cradles, two of the most highly-regarded products in the large Gloranthan oeuvre. Notwithstanding the discussion above in the thread, I discourage new players from playing elves and dwarves because new players commonly carry a lot of baggage into the discussion that doesn't apply in Glorantha. I try to explain that they're downright ALIEN in outlook and have their own motivations which can be frankly inimical to humans generally. Those that aren't are pretty clearly exceptions considered insane by the rest. Trolls, baboons, etc aren't so much of an issue because they're not so freighted with D&D and popculture.

I think it would be great and appropriate if subsequent campaign books presented the various elder cultures (kind of like Elder Secrets did, but ...better art, at least ) and then provided PC-generation stuff for campaigns to use. The 'background generation tables' that have gotten good commentary in every 'insider' comment really would have to be pretty carefully crafted for each, obviously, and that's a big task.

Nah. Some fish in barrels not worth it.

Well played.

I thought your answer was silly and reactionary. Why would it merit a serious response?

Oh noes! It's not canonical? How will I live with myself? Oh, btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Sounds like most RPGs. You can either relax and have fun with it and everyone have a good time, or you can be That Guytm who pisses and moans because you're violating canon lore as described on page 204 of some book written by a putative expert 15 years ago. Don't get me wrong; one of the things I like about Glorantha is that it's a far more fully realized world than other fantasy systems', but it's backdrop: I *cheerfully* disregard whatever gets in the way of my players and I having fun. Sacred cows aren't my thing.

Actually, I've always thought that RQ NPCs being so much a pain in the butt to generate, the HQ method of generalizations works great. It's the one place that I think weapon styles actually make sense. (Then again, remember that RAW Greg said that NPCs and monsters should also get skill gain rolls if they survive player encounters.)

It depends which is more important in your game - MGF, or canonical accuracy? It's not binary, of course.

I have plate armor and shield 8, I'm being attacked by pixies with toothpicks that do 0-1 damage. I wouldn't need some special circumstance to feel completely safe from harm. Again, I'd say leave it to the PLAYER to decide their own survival instinct. If they want to throw caution to the wind, I'd say it's an extraordinarily intrusive DM to say 'you wouldn't risk your life like that'... (As I've mentioned before, because NPCs rarely care about "tomorrow" I would definitely restrict NPCs from using it unless they had some sort of special circumstance ie Minotaur berserk rage, etc.)

And I'm saying, let that spear wielder decide if their self-preservation is a priority. Don't take that choice away from them with the patronizing ruling that "well anything else is absurd". If they want to be able to deploy defensive actions on their own behalf (as most sensible people would, in most situations), then sure, they get that one melee attack unless they're over 100%. IF THEY DON'T - as can be the case for, say, berserkers, or people who believe themselves immune to harm, like say an archer at range - then let them act according to SR availability.

Not sure why the strawman. Nobody's saying they want to roll for every swing, thrust or riposte. But wait: We do track every single arrow fired, in detail. We do not resolve missile fire as "the meaningful results from 12 seconds of sustained fire". It's pretty clearly perceived to be each shot is a roll of the dice. We do track every single spell cast, in detail. We do not resolve the results of magical attacks as "the meaningful result from 12 seconds of casting". It's clearly modeled as each spell = a roll. We don't roll for every riposte (because that would be 'absurd', right?) but we DO roll for every parry and dodge... Yet melee attacks, for some reason, are treated entirely differently. And in RQG it's even more evident - you get to keep parrying and dodging repeatedly as needed. The attack is the 'decisive result of 12 seconds of (whatever)', but the dodges and the parries aren't? I've been the one saying all along that what's broken isn't the rationalization of 12 seconds of melee activity into a single resolved roll. SRs are - as Jeff has again laid out - ordinals; they establish order of resolution, they don't count seconds. ...Which is why allowing spells and missiles (only) the luxury of second shots without >100% skill is so completely inconsistent. It grossly overpowers missile and spell combat for no real reason.

Well, actually, a round is very clearly stated as a set amount of time: about 12 seconds. From RQG QS: "Melee Round: About 12 seconds long, this is the basic unit of time used in combat" Your other comment (that 1 SR doesn't equal 1 second) is true of course. Nevertheless it doesn't change my point: even if the SRs are a time-independent unit of measure (nobody thinks it takes 5 ACTUAL SECONDS to draw a sword or nock an arrow, it doesn't take 1 full second to take a 1m step, etc), they're still ostensibly objective units of measurement that we inject into the event-ordering system to determine who acts when. What I object to strenuously enough to keep writing about it is that 'some ticks are more equal than others' (apologies to Orwell). I object to the inconsistency. 5 SR to shoot an arrow or throw a spell are precisely and only that. Once a character has completed that action, they are free to use the other 7 SR in the round to do whatever they like even if it's to do the same thing again (if they have the SR available). That seems pretty clear & simple. 5 SR to poke a stick into someone is treated ENTIRELY differently. Those 5 SR are for the action, of course, but then (hand-wavy bit) the other 7 SR in the round in this case only have certain subsequent actions precluded because the act of stick poking inherently requires (more hand-waving) the rest of the time to be spent square dancing or moonwalking or whatever to "protect themselves"... even if they don't want/need to protect themselves! Aside from being redundant - we have a great system that in fact already simulates the very act of defending oneself (dodge or parry) as a distinct thing - why are we rationalizing it into the melee mechanic only? It doesn't make logical sense: 1) archer shooting immobile target butt can strike as fast and frequently as SR allow. 2) spell caster casting at immobile spell-target can cast as fast and frequently as SR allow. 3) spear wielder pokes a combatant that cannot harm her, the rest of her round she is unable to attack again, even if she has the SR for it. Huh?

That's pretty cool!

RAW, perhaps - but honestly, why not? If you're willing to forego protecting yourself by dodging or parrying, why not let the player have that choice? Maybe you're being attacked by trollkin with daggers and with your plate armor and Shield 8 you really aren't worried they're going to hurt you even if you totally ignore them. So you stab one with your sword and toss a spell at another. IMO I think this rule exists only because it runs aground on the (arbitrary) everything-goes-on-a-rolling-SR-count-except-melee reef. If doing X takes 3 SR, and the 'between action interval' is 5 SR, then you can do X on SR 3 and again on 11. This is valid as long as X is casting a spirit magic spell or shooting an arrow. But in RAW *not* if X happens to be poking someone with a stick? The rules as quoted by jajagappa are extraordinarily loose semantically anyway. Technically, an archer firing at an enemy is "engaged in combat" (just not in melee). Technically, an arrow shot IS a "physical" attack. So could you shoot a bow and cast a spell? If a mouse attacks me, am I "in melee"? Seems like a lot of the handwaving exceptions and special case interpretations could easily be simplified-out by treating spell casting, shooting missiles, and physical attacks consistently. All those things are actions. You get two a round, as long as you have sufficient strike ranks to do so. Other details I'd apply: Defensive actions cost 1 SR by default (so yes, if you're being attacked in your SR, you have to choose do I defend this SR and delay my attack by 1SR, or do I attack simultaneously, forcing my opponent to make the same decision? In a given SR, highest dex chooses first). You have to have 2 weapons to attack twice. A high skill allows you to perform 2 attacks with a single weapon at the cost of only 1 action that round. (for simplicity, I'd say those two attacks happen in subsequent SRs) So yes, as well, a very high skilled attacker with a very low SR could indeed split her attack for each attack action, and end up attacking 4 times a round....regardless of whether this is a missile attack or a mace attack. You can parry or dodge twice a round, or one of each, with no penalty (but of course, you have no attack actions left either). If you defended at least once this round, and have no actions left, you may perform that same defense again repeatedly, with a cumulative -20% modifier for each time you use it this round.

May be RAW but I don't know anyone that used that...

Our read on this is simple: barring high-skill splitting, you can perform 2 actions in a round. Attack, defense, or spell casting each count as an action. You can do two of any them as long as you have the tools (ie two weapons for two attacks) and sr available.

That rationalization worked with D&D's 1 minute combat rounds, where the collection of attacks, parries, dodges, trivial hits, etc was all rationalized into an "attack" roll against an "armor class". It is less persuasive in a simulationist system with 12 second rounds where we're precisely rolling to check our success for individual missile shots, individual dodges, individual spell castings, individual parries, hell even individual blows against the specific amount of armor covering individual limbs...but somehow the attack roll (alone) is *actually* only the single effective blow out of many feints and strikes that come to naught? I concede, it might be slightly more credible if RQG was going with the 'defense' ability, but that conceptually has a host of worms if that particular can is opened.

Huh? Ernalda and Babeester Gor weren't "proper women's cults"...in what True Scotsman sense were you referring? I think going down that road would be very foolish, opening cans of worms thus far avoided. Personally, I think much of the ethos of Glorantha has been that there's LESS of the gender specificity (ie women and men don't have as rigid role exclusivity) than historical earth. In point of fact, the only gender-exclusive cults we've seen in Glorantha are ...women-only. Unless, of course, you believe that some animals are more equal than others...

That's why you don't want to learn spells from just any spirit off the street...you have no idea where they've been....

Really? I'd be curious to know which? In my view, from D&D5e and other peers, the systems are designed ever more NOT to be lethal, NOT to kill characters.