styopa

I like this comparison, let's pursue the math? Javelineer with 60% skill, vs POW12 disrupt-caster. Both have 4 points of armor (they're ready for battle). The caster has a 60% chance to succeed, a 50% to overcome the target to do an average of 2 points ignoring armor a net 30% of his casts. Javelin does d8 or average of 4.5. With a 60% skill, that means that they have a 3% to do crit for double that (9) ignoring armor, another 9% to do 9-armor, and 48% more to do 4.5-armor. I'm arbitrarily adding a -1 damage for 2% of the strikes to recognize that the javelin has a chance to fumble, while the spell has no effective fumble consequence. It turns out that the javelin is a far better damage dealer up until the target has 5 points of armor, then they're about even, with disrupt pulling ahead at 6 points on the target. Now, taking into account that the caster only has that 60% chance to cast without armor on, and the attractiveness of tossing spells around in a fight becomes less attractive generally.

I just jumped into R20 to check it out. Nice sheet.

There's certainly a place for a "do damage at range" spell, but due to it's greater utility, I'd probably say it does only 1 damage per mp, and you have to hit (DEX x 5), with called shots possible. Thus someone could shoot a lock, but you'd get the penalties for small targets.

1) I always ruled out only affected living things (incl undead) because it disrupted their life/animating forces....this also then explained why it ignored armor. Giving players the ability to unerringly hit/damage anything out to range is WAY overpowered. 2) how to stop them casting? Yes, the methods in Glorantha to de-power someone with enchanted tattoos can be gruesome. To avid that too much, we said that spells require clearly vocalized (even if very quiet) verbal and usually somatic motions. Thus, a caster could usually be neutralized by gagging /binding. Incidentally, this made fetches, etc more powerful because they could often cast the users spells elsewhere.

I'd have to deep-dive in my storage stuff, I'm a packrat...I BET I have it, but I'm sure it's on some backup somewhere. Not like it's useful. From the RQ dailies circa 1993 On a related note (postscript laser printers), I have taken D.M. Ingram's RQ-III NPC generator and used it as the base of a postscript program that generates RQ-IV characters. It's not 100% the same as the draft, and some tweaking for ease of generation had to be made, but it gets the right feel I think. I have almost finished the basic careers, and after that will add the non-human races. The way it works is you edit the global parameters to the way you want, then send the file to your local laser printer. Want another set of completely different NPCs? Send it again. Every sheet is generated fresh. If you are interested in a copy of the file, mail me at BURT@VINO.PTLTD.COM.

I'd say it's what you get when you have Shamans, late nights, beer, and too much pizza. BRRT...."whups, pretty sure another 'soul wind' escaped" "That smells more like a soul wind of death, man, gross"

I'm 90% sure I've got what you're talking about, there was an ancient one that was IIRC something you actually sent as a script to your laser printer, and it spit them out - no screen display.

It's not a challenging task, programmingwise. Chargen since the early days has been a fairly linear process of dice rolls, table-results, and for RQ some trivial calculations. All the more reason that the *moment* it's publicly released, there should already be tools in existence so the first D&D5 dm convert to idly pick up the rules can generate characters and/or creatures/monsters/npcs on his or her ipad, immediately.

I see what you did there. I'm not sure "lay member" means the same thing to Uleria as it does to the other Orlanthi cults. Duck-Gigolos would be in demand with a certain...adventurous set of (likely high-caste, bored, noble) women.

If they're big former D&D players, as a demo I like very much to take some utterly pedestrian D&D adventure, B1 or the Village of Hommlet and convert it over. It's low powered, so conversion is a triviality. For such players, that adventure STUNNINGLY highlights how much more realistic, interesting, (and frankly, far more lethal) RQ mechanics are. It's the most fun, of course, when they've actually played the adventures but don't recall the details so there's still some room for dm surprises. The predictability isn't a problem, as it builds them a little extra survivability advantage, which I guarantee they'll need. If you want them, let me know, I'm pretty sure I have them already converted with RQ3 stat blocks lying around somewhere.

I think it makes a real world logical sense as well that the consequence of your casting (the loss of mp) follows the casting. To use a weak RW analogy: If you're throwing a ball, you throw it with your full strength. It hits with the force you imparted; if throwing it makes you a little weaker, that's nothing that matters in the force of the original throw.

Likewise, something particularly needed for RQ is always an npc/creature creator, as well. Hannu's (?) generator for Mythras is a huge benefit for that system in terms of practical usability. While I'm pipe-dreaming, It'd be great if Chaosium launched with these tools already running and available, not to mention a welcoming collaborative community (something a little more substantial than a forum or reddit) where people can upload/download the results of their creativity, review others works, etc. That's not easy, I realise; hell WotC still hasn't figured it out.

They'd actually need to get a RQ4 rules set published first, I'd think? Pretty sure you need the horse before the cart.

Not anytime soon afaik (Jeff or Rick would know, obviously). Unless something had changed, RQ4 will be focused entirely on Dragon Pass, with other regions ultimately being addressed in supplements/expansions.

Personally, I find the entire drift of Glorantha toward these alternate cultures rather needlessly revanchist and curiously, counter-intuitively homogenous. My Glorantha hews much more closely to the more common interpretations of the last 30 years...despite that probably being "dull" to Gloranthan intellectuals. But that's a subject for another thread.

I think this thread, and the number of well-informed Rq2 players that have read it and failed to respond with a clear clarification is already your answer to THAT. Simply: earlier rules sets were more about conveying concepts generally than being sure to clarify every edge-case mechanic.

That's funny, because I instinctively take an opposite position - I dislike that there's a special set of rules for "shield use" and a different set of rules for "2 weapon use". Why? I've always disliked arbitrary breakpoints like that. To me, using a shield is INTRINSICALLY the same as using two weapons, it's just that it's an offhand article that i) offers some passive protection (but if you watch people fight with shields it's *always* a pretty active process - moreso for bucklers, for example, less so for hoplite shields) and ii) is specialized for parrying, so it's good for that task and clumsy for bashing. Hell, a buckler can be barely more than a glorified armored glove. And I would disagree with you about "shields NEVER used in right hand" (main hand, whichever that happens to be). If the *only* thing a person has is a shield - say, someone surprised and only has a shield to-hand, or a noncombatant being attacked by raiders, I'd almost guarantee you that person would be using the shield in their MAIN hand because there's no better option. If a person is using a weapon AND shield, I daresay you're correct, I've never heard/read/seen anything about someone preferring to put their shield in their main hand and weapon in off hand....never.

Having DM'd my sons and their peers for the last 15 years or so, since they were about 7-8, I've recognized that, generally speaking: they know what "D&D" is conceptually. RQ is simply a 'flavor' of D&D to most. But in application? - growing up with video games, these young people really need a strong storyline and a linear plot. Deception is *way* too easy, and should be avoided: in video games, people rarely lie to the player. PERSONALLY, I've found their visualization skills generally surprisingly weak. When I have a very new group, I try to overplay that by encouraging collaborative descriptions - "It's a roadside tavern in a small farming village, with a fireplace, a couple of tables and benches, while the only worker is behind the short bar. What else would you expect would be there? Describe how you imagine it looks, sounds, smells..." letting them 'fill in the details" for each other. (I have a reminder on my DM screen top edge to *constantly* refer to sense-based descriptions other than visual.) - attention spans are short; plots need to be engaging and active; I've found the most productive model would be the tv-drama style: each adventure has its own micro-arc, but they're often sprinkled with references to a larger story arc to which they may or may not be related. Gone, I believe, are the old days where we (as teens/college age) would spend marathon 12+ hour sessions. I'm lucky if we can lock in 4-5 hours at a span. - there's a strong community of gamers in high schools and colleges, but this description is no longer as narrow as it used to be, now it includes CCGs, FPS-gamers, MOBA players, etc. I daresay their lives are more constantly interesting: There are so MANY other entertainments competing for their time and dollars, it's hard to convince them that spending that time sitting in a room doing X is worth it. I used to spend 2 hours setting up a board wargame and then 6 hours playing it. Almost never happens today. Once they do it, it's easy to get them to come back...but that initial investment is sometimes a hard sell. - I *love* DMing for younger people. Walking away from a gaming session, listening to them excitedly recapping what they did and how cool that encounter was, it's invigorating for someone who sometimes verges on cynicism. Plus, most of my DM tricks and gimmicks still work on them. These are of course only generalizations; we've found kids that are exceptions to all of these. FWIW when I was in high school (1984ish) we got detention for playing D&D during study hall in one of the separate study rooms not because of what it was, but because the librarian and school administration couldn't conceive of a game using all those dice that wasn't gambling. So yes, D&D got me in trouble for 'gambling'. Even my parents laughed at that.

As much as it was my suggestion, the only problem with using BRP as your 'core' is that it isn't any more, as far as I understand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but CoC7 and RQ4 bear only the faintest passing similarity in structure and mechanics, no? RQ4 is RQ2+ (with a little bit of 3), CoC7 as far as I know (I don't own it) has gone rather further afield from the core resolution systems born in BRP. If someone gets ahold of something that purports to be Chaosiums "Basic Game Rules" I guess as a consumer I'd ASSUME that set of rules would be the foundation upon which other more specialized systems are built additively (for example, BRP might not have hit locations, while RQ adds them) without much being taken away (a more complicated approach, conceptually). Is the core system that RQ, CoC, and (for that matter) BGB still have in common enough to even have a marginally playable set of rules? That said, it seems to me that Chaosium can't really hold BGB somehow sacrosanct. CoC was (again, AFAIK) overhauled with 7. RQ drifted far afield and is coming back to roots in BRP (yes, I know, historically it's actually the reverse: that BRP had its roots in RQ). Why should BGB be immune to likewise tinkering?

Maybe...

And yet, campaigns could clearly use CHA as APP, if they chose and the game would run perfectly well. Or they could even add an APP statistic if they felt it that important.

Nothing should be sacrosanct, but any substantial change to the mechanisms of RQ would likely take it one step away from still being RQ....how many steps actually cross that line will vary from person to person certainly, but I think Jeff's rule of thumb to change no more than 10% leaving at least 90% is reasonably safe.

Essene Carnivorous Morokanth or New Reformed Vegetarian?

FWIW - and I'm not suggesting this for RQ, but offering it for people who want to houserule such a system - the Harnmaster combat system is exactly like this. Defender chooses a style of defense (block, dodge, counter, or ignore), both roll against skill. Results are cross-referenced in a neat matrix of possibilities. http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf MUCH more granular but (critically) since it's all on tables, it's not more work; in fact, it's much easier to sort out in some cases than RQ (ok when I critically hit does that mean it ignores a successful shield parry?). Note some neat features like the attacker, instead of being presented with only "hit generally" or "called shot", has to pick hitting high/med/low, with different hit tables depending on that. Note some other neat features, like a NORMAL successful hit to the enemy leg compels them to take at least a minor stumble roll. I've always really liked this system and it lends itself so fundamentally simple to implement in RQ...the *only* problem I've had perennialy that's stopped me is that it's great for 2 humanoids, but there are a LOT of bizarre hit-location tables in RQ....more than I've ever felt motivated to try and port over. FWIW the other part I like about this is they dispense with hit points. You take damage, it means a roll of some sort vs your CON IIRC. Small minor wounds are trivial and functionally impossible to fail, but as you accumulate damage the rolls get harder and harder. This prevents entirely the "he hits you with a disrupt in the head" "No big, I have 4hp and he can only do 1-3" (which is, in variation, one of the main reasons I came to RQ from D&D)...again, nicely modeled for humanoids, but you'd so MANY special rules for all the bizarro creatures in Glorantha....

Sorry, I thought the big "smiley face" KIDDING was implied clearly enough. Obviously, you update when there's something to talk about, and when you have time.