RosenMcStern

15 hours ago, soltakss said:

If both are OGL, why can't you use the Open Game Content in 13th Age Glorantha, refer to it in the OGL Section andamend for revolution? That's the great advantage of publishing under the OGL.

Advice noted.  And it may be the right thing to do, in fact.

Okay, before going on with the task of quick generation of NPCs, let us review the basic information needed for a "goon" in a game. Below are two sample opponents I will post on the Rise of the Yokai Koku campaign - something very basic, to use in case you need generic guards for a castle or temple and you have not prepared them before.

Is this stat block format adequate? Can you spot anything missing? Anything that should not be there? [the Basic Combat score is only useful in BC, and will probably be removed in RotYK, which is more Advanced Combat oriented]. Is it clear and usable?

Note: the final version will include also the note field for weapons (impale, slash, etc) and hit location stats superimposed on the picture.

More interesting commentaries by Simon:

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Things I don't particularly like about Revolution (Sorry, Paolo):

• The over-fiddly rules on armour and weapon modification/creation - When I asked Paolo why we needed 4 pages on modifying armour, his heartfelt repsonse was "Because we can't do it in fewer pages", whereas my response would have been "Why do we need it at all?)

The problem is that Rd100 is not a setting but a toolkit. A weapon list or armour list encompassing all items used in history would be simply huge, and lead to anachronisms that some groups do not mind, while others dislike. Giving instructions about how to personalise equipment to your taste is the best way to solve the problems for those who care, whereas those who do not care can just skip those four pages. You appear to be part of the "do not care" group.

Supplements, of course, can provide a more specific equipment set which bypasses the need to design items. The "build your own" rules are there for when you do not have a supplement for your setting.

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Having both a Wealth and Credits system and using both at the same time - Better just to use Wealth as an attribute and forget that a sword costs 50 Credits, or whatever

This is a characteristic that only exists in the core rules. In your campaign, you use one system or the other, not both. Same for supplements. For instance, Merrie England uses currency (advanced currency rules, I would say ), while Rise of the Yokai Koku will only have values. But the core system must explain how to use both systems.

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Sword Porn (Swords are better than any other weapons and you can use all of these Stunts only with swords and other weapons have harldy any stunts, because Swords are great) - OK, I paraphrase very heavily and unfairly, but that's the impression I got, I would use most of the Sword Stunts with other weapons anyway

Historically, the sword was the weapon with the most special techniques developed/taught. However, please note that unlike it happens in other games, axes and maces are better in Revolution when used by a fighter who has no special stunts. This was a specific design choice to counter the fact that swords have more special techniques and more "high quality" versions in the weapon list.

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Advanced Combat is like Mythras in many ways - This makes it very fiddly with lots of options, great for tactics but when we tried the same thing, our players were paralysed by indecision

As many people said, effect-based combat is a love it or hate it thing

All in all, it sounds like a big "You will find some options that you find unnecessary in this book: remember that it is written with multiple tastes in mind, so ignore the parts you dislike" warning at the start of the book, and the equipment chapter (where in fact there is already one) would be a good idea.

Tanaka has posted some relevant observations on rpg.net. However, the thread there is a sell me / tell me and I do not want to clutter it with details which are relevant only to whoever has some play experience. Better go on with the discussion here.

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Oh I know, but even so, there are some leftover artifacts that arise from the powers being written for advanced combat first and basic second  :).

For example, take Damage Enhacement, it adds a point of damage per level of might, and it´s counterpower, Protection, which adds an AP point for each level of might. In Advanced combat both powers cancel each other out mathematically, since they follow the same linear progression; but in basic combat Damage Enhancement outperforms Protection since the bonus to AP is capped at 2, in fact, when you factir in that a second character can also use Element Blade and further boost damage, a simple combat with casters quickly devolve into a game a of rocket tag.

Case in point, two equally skilled warriors face fight together, let´s say that both of them have exactly the same AP (2)  weapon damage (D8), and RP 15 (which is quite a lot), now let´s say fighter A is buffed with Absorb Fire 4 and Damage Enhacement 4, while B is buffed with  Damage Enhacement 4 and Fire Blade 4.

Fighter A will be dealing on average 8,5 points of damage per round, 12 points if they net an advantage. Fighter B will be dealing 12,5 on average, 16 with an advantage. The way how AP works, since armor is so low, they both have the potential to one shot a dragon (RP 18, AP 2), hell, several dragons in fact.

In Advanced Combat those averages wouldn´t even break through the scales (unless they get really lucky).

Partially true. First of all, Fire Blade is not variable, and Absorb Fire would completely negate the Might of the Fire damage: the effect is the same in Both Advanced and Basic Combat. Should the Fireblade take effect, the rules do not specifically tackle this case, but I would say that since Fire Blade adds 1 might of fire, then it provides only 1 Might to damage in Basic Combat. Still relevant, but not a showstopper.

Damage Enhancement is more powerful than Protection. True. However, this was thought of, and intentional. Do not forget that damage in BC is not "wounds", but also tactical advantage. In AC, there are several ways to bypass armour, and the person with Damage Enh. has a higher chance of winning over the one who is only using Protection: the Protected warrior can still score a hit and not do enough damage to win, the damage enhanced one will certainly end the fight with the first use of Choose Location, Maximum Damage or Coup de Grace. This is reflected in Basic Combat by the fact that Protection is only worth 1 or 2 points.

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Example B, Hinder and Haste, both really powerful in advanced combat since extra Strike Rank means more combat actions. The extra movement is pretty much disposable in Basic combat since the range bands are so broad.

This is more relevant. Haste is very powerful in AC, and hardly effective in BC. For groups which use mostly a narrative approach, Haste is recommended as a tool for chases, not for battles. Consider that a Haste 2 automatically ends the Chase with the spell user winning.

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Example 😄 Heal would only work on a very specific case (rolling it as a defense and netting an advantage)

The rule is misinterpretable, it seems. What I intended is that you need to have Heal available to regain RP on an advantage defense, not that you must roll Heal. Like many other spells, Heal is useful in BC to justify a narrative, rather than for rolling. In BC, you are supposed to roll only for spells which have the Overcome Trait, (or for a buff if it is useful to add damage to your weapon roll). Not for Heal: the healing roll is subsumed in the roll for defense.

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And let´s not forget that the magic´s handbrake (exertion points) is not present in basic combat, at most they lose 1 RP on a miss, I could keep on going, but I´m in a hurry :),

Unlike BRP/RQ/Mythras magic points, Rd100 exertion points are meant to let you cast at least a dozen spell in combat before being forced to stop. The case when you cast 20 spells in Basic Combat, outdoing what your character would be able to do in AC, is extremely rare. Believe me, in all spellslinging battles I have run, magicians ran out of Channelling long before they could drop to zero Exertion Points.

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I mean, theire is still an incentive to take some of these powers for out of combat purposes, but my point here is that the interaction sometimes is iffy, and my players have felt it and gotten really bummed out by it.

This is legit, as I suppose players expect their magic to be effective when their characters take the time to learn it

However, I have a feeling that they have still to depart a little bit more from the usual BRP paradigm of HP attrition. Basic combat is based on attrition (advanced combat is not), but not attrition of wounds. Once you think in these terms, things make more sense. Provided that powers cannot be 100% equivalent between basic and advanced combat, in any case.

6 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I might put together a spell/rune matrix to see which are the munchkin runes to go for!

Be warned: if you open a blog with the subject "How to be a munchkin in RuneQuest" or "PowerPlaying in Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha", I will NOT suggest others to read it

After a long meditation on the subject (well, maybe not so long), I have decided that we will publish a revised, cleaned up version of the ritual rules in the Rise of the Yokai Koky campaign. This will take place even if the crowdfunding does not succeed.  It makes sense for the campaign, as rituals are central to the storyline, and we had at least one case when the player characters made their own ritual. At the same time it will be an important complement for the core rules. It shuold not take more than a couple of pages. The SRD will be updated during the course of Summer, too, and will contain the clarified rules.

This is not the beginning of a "let us split the rules among various books" phase for Revolution D100. We are still supportive ot the "one book with all you need to develop your own game" approach, with packages and supplements providing game worlds you can play "out of the box", not essential rules which did not fit in the core book. A hypothetical second edition will see the new version of the rules included in the core. All references to the recent polemics about "one other game" not containing the disarm rules in the core book are absolutely coincidential, of corurse. The problem with rituals in RD100 predates "the other game".

And for those who had not understood it yet, one information that we cannot include in a published book: rituals in Rd100 are like rituals in 13th Age. Oh yes.

In some cases, i suppose so. But not in the average case.

The rule about unengaged movement occurring First does. Once free to move, the feeling character goes faxter and moves earlier.

This reminds me of my times in the 80s, playing RuneQuest with people who had played too much Fantasy Trip.

The point is that some games - nominally those which use a grid, like D&D 3.x or the aforementioned TFT, have the concept of "engagement by grid position". Once you are adjacent to a melee-capable opponent, you can no longer move freely. Please note that this is a direct derivative of the wargamey concept of Zone of Contol (ZOC), and TFT even explains in which hexagons a character projects a ZOC and allows a one-hex shift in the ZOC like many wargames do. It is a perfectly effective way of handlng combat, if tactical combat is what you are after.

However, RuneQuest, which is a game that does not expect players to use a grid, treats engagement as a matter of "fictional positioning*". This means that you are engaged in melee when you have narrated an exchange of blows with another guy, and you are no longer engaged when you have narrated a disengagement. The simple fact that the other fighter can move at the same SR as you after you have disengaged does not trigger engagement again, as there is no "adajcent figures are engaged in melee" rule in RuneQuest.

* fictional positioning is a forgie term introduced, or at least used mainly, by D. Vincent Baker.

Yep, as I wrote in the other thread, this is the point which is most in need of clarification. And it is a very important point, not a marginal one.

To explain this with an actual play example, now that I have made some details of the Yokai Koku playtest public: the second playtest group used a ritual to win the campaign by defeating both enemy armies, whereas the first one had to resort to the good old frontal assault technique and got TPKed.  I hope that this clarifies how important rituals can be.

One of the big problems is that ritual casting can be applied to non-magic powers (Psi and even superpowers), so the term "ritual" may become misleading. However, "improved activation" is not particularly clear, either.

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While we organize a big errata for this, let us try to solve Zit's doubts in a quick way:

• all powers can be pre-activated so that they take effect in Adventure Time and last till the end of the next conflict in Adventure or Combat Time; Channelling limits the amount of powers you can pre-cast in this way.
• Arcane Magic and Psi can be pre-activated for indefinite duration in Adventure or Narrative Time (i.e. they do not expire at the end of the next conflict), but they use up double and triple their cost in Channelling in this case.
• All powers except cantrips (and even cantrips in some environments, for instance the Yokai Koku) can be extended in duration, range and scope of the effect by ritually casting it in a conflict. For instance, Project Lightning can be used to create a thunderstorm by improving its range, duration and scope. Fire magic could create a drought, etc. However, this requires a different casting procedure which requires a Conflict against the full Value of the effect, multiplied by the time scale, which means a very high Value to defeat.

For instance, let us say I am a magician with Channelling 7, Focusing 8. If I know Protection. I can keep Protection 9 active in Narrative Time on one single target at a cost of three Channelling points (Arcane Magic costs one point of channelling per manipulation, not per Might). This means me and my bodyguard have Protection 9 always on, without any need for a ritual casting: very convenient!

Now, if I want to shield an entire castle from harm because it is undergoing catapult fire, the effect cannot be so strong. In this case, I need to calculate the Value of the effect (Target 1, Range 1, Might 8, for a total of 10) and multiply it by three if it has to last more than a few hours. That makes 30 points of opposition to beat, something that even a powerful magician cannot hope to achieve without suffering Consequences. A wise magician would not attempt to use more than MIght 4 in this case.

The summoning of the creature is the Effect of the successful Conflict, so it should follow the rules for "Duration of the Effect of a Conflict".

However, it is possible that this specifica paragraph got snipped in editing and I did not realize it. As it happened with the "Advantage allows recovery of lost RP" rule that we put back in the hardcover edition.

The more we go on, the more I fear that the rules for rituals have been published in a format which is vastly different from how I intended them.

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

 I just realized what this rule does for Berserk and Fanaticism. In the old rules if two characters were at 100% and one went Berserk, he had a 200% attack, but couldn't defend. In RQG, his attack stays the same and neither character can defend (okay, the second guy gets the default 5%).  

Forget Berserk, atg. As Hannu Kokko pointed out here

the real showstoppers are Axe Trance and Sword Trance, as you do not need to start from 100% level to reach a point where you can drop the skill of rune-level opponents to effectively zero. If I read the rules correctly, I mean.

I have yet to see how it works in actual play, and this has such a low priority on my to do list that it could never happen. But one of my eyebrows is already raised after reading this thread.

it is a matter of keeping the characters integrated in their social environment. The old training rules assumed that the PCs were adventurers with nothing else to do but train (apart from initiates/priests) and the money and abilty to focus on training was the only limit. A character who is an active member of his/her community cannot, of course, do that much training.

That said, one trainig roll per season can be a problem in the cases Phil pointed out. And a funstopper for parties which like to develop strong characters.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

So the DM is controlling our characters and insisting what our responses "should" be?  I hate that.

Furthermore, if you insist on calling the Holy GM as "DM", you might suffer the consequences of the also-widespread-on-these-boards "Hate (That Other Game)" Passion. Geek has appropriately suggested that you could suffer limb removal as retribution. 

6 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Just to clarify, Simon suggested that there could be errata that corrected mistakes in the examples, and your reply seemed to be saying that there were no mistakes in the RQ3 examples. Clearly someone has misunderstood what someone else wrote.

Does anyone else feel it's getting a little warm around here?

It is because of the Love (RuneQuest) 90% passion that many members share.

17 minutes ago, simonh said:

I vaguely remember some of the SRs being off, but it was a long time ago.

This is indeed possible. But if this problem did exist, the errata neither caused it, nor did anything to fix it. 

The errata are available on the download section of BRP Central. And they do not contradict the examples. So RQ3 did not have this problem.

20 minutes ago, simonh said:

Seconded. One of the risks of a long combat example is it getting out of sync with the rules text, especially as revisions, clarifications and typos pour in during the gap between publishing the PDF and the print edition. How many games have been burned by this sort of problem? 

To my memory... one: Mongoose RuneQuest first edition. And saying that this was the least of its problems is a perfect example of British understatement.

Here is the SRD.

Here is the free QuickStart scenario.

If you want to learn about the generic conflict engine, go for the SRD. If you want to learn about the crunchy bits, the quickstart scenario is more newbie friendly.

3 minutes ago, prinz.slasar said:

I am one of those newbies who came to this "corner" through RQG. More specifically, it was the prospect of an updated rule version for RQ/Glorantha and the wonderful artwork.

Only a few months ago, I knew Glorantha only by name, and now I bought the PDF just on 1st june.

Welcome to this fine assembly of aging grogn... er, I meant to this elite of roleplayes in the evocative world of Greg Stafford's Glorantha, then

Jokes apart, welcome to the club. If the amazing artwork by mr. Fetisov and others has inspired you to try a new dimension of roleplaying, this is a Good Thing.

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

I ran RQ3 for 10 years.  Not a single player ever used Disarm.  They did maim or sever weapon arms.

I suspect that your players were of the kind that does not bother to read the rules well, then. In RQ3, Disarm and intentional damage to weapons work even when your opponent parries, unless he has a shield, whereas cutting a weapon arm requires an unparried blow (or a blow so powerdul as to bypass both parry and armour). With combatants of skill level of 90+, aiming at the weapon is the quickest way to end a fight in RQ3, rather than waiting to see who is the first to roll 96-00 on a parry.

Hmmmmm......

Methinks you should try Mythras or Revoulution, then. The level of crunchiness is the same, but the approach to combat is more simulationist and cinematic.

23 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Fighting big monsters is part of the genre of Glorantha, and was far more possible in RQ2 than in RQ3.

Jeff

Neat. This is indeed a perfectly viable approach to the problem. In other terms, a coherent design choice. However, I cannot but notice that it goes along the "hit points as your capability to survive a fight" route: my warrior has a number of HP that is on the same order of magnitude as the giant's, so he can battle him.

While the above does not bother me at all in, say, 13th Age, it is not what I would expect in a BRP game, where hit points are more like what D&D grognards call "meat points". 

As for the 63 hit points of the RQ3 version of Bigclub, they still leave him in the 21-point range in the head, legs and abdomen. This means that a critical with a weapon enhanced with basic Gloranthan magic will still one-shot him, barring a CONx1 roll (arrow with speedart 21 points on a critical, shortspear with Bladesharp 4 22 points on a crit, bastard sword wiht truesword 22 points on a crit, and so on). Joe Humakti can still overcome BigClub if he sacrifices that one-use (in RQ3) casting of Truesword he has been saving for special occasions, and manages to never miss his parries. In fact, I have never seen a giant or a fiend last more than a couple of rounds against seasoned adventurers in RQ3 Glorantha. YGWV.

13 hours ago, styopa said:

It's not that they don't state what they're DOING, it's that they don't declare it at the beginning of the round.

For us, when their initiative comes up, they just do what they want at that point.  

How do you calculate their Strike Rank if they do not declare whether they move, strike, fire a ranged weapon or cast a spell? Initiative is decoupled from statement of intents only when you use DEX ranks or Mythras Initiative. With "classic" Strike Ranks*, your initiative depends on your intents.

* and Revolution D100 Strike Readiness, FWIW