Pentallion

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Don't forget that Ganderland existed in the GodTime, a mythical homeland for both Durulz and Keets.

I read somewhere that some Ducks of Dragon Pass were brought back by EWF HeroQuestors trying to recreate the GodTime beasts. I don't know whether all Ducks are descended from them or whether there were already Ducks in Dragon Pass. I cannot remember reading about Ducks in the First Age.

But did Ganderland always exist in the God Time or is that a GL construct?

I disagree with Joerg and Peter.  I don't think the ducks existed at all prior to the Dragonkill.  Neither do I believe Delecti made them.  His zombies ignore ducks as he didn't word the spell so that the zombies would attack them.  Thus the ducks, so long as they don't attack zombies, are pretty much ignored by them.  This tells me ducks could not have existed when he cast the spell.  But supposedly, he would have been surrounded by the little nuisances no?  So it really is too much to believe he simply misworded his all important spell.  He'd obviously known the Dragonkill was coming and had prepared for it in advance.

What's more likely is that the local Orlanthi who lived in close proximity to him either discovered his foreknowledge as well and using God Learner tricks, they managed to change themselves to ducks to avoid the Dragonkill just as Delecti changed himself to undead to avoid it or God Learners did it themselves to an Orlanthi tribe as revenge against Delecti, who had forsaken the God Learners.

The transformation of the Orlanthi required extensive rewriting of their religion such that Humakt became Hueymakt, etc.  This is obvious God Learnerism at work here.  I don't believe they existed prior to that event.  I certainly don't believe Delecti screwed himself over.

The optional rules in RQ2 are basically just variations on impale.  Slash is impale that auto gets stuck.  Bash is tossing in damage bonus instead of weapon damage.  They're all well and good, but compared to allowing maces to Stun Location and great swords to Sunder, also easily added without adding any complexity, they are kind of outdated.

Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes has an excellent campaign for Orlanthi on Starfire Ridge during the period you're playing.  And an Ernaldan priestess plays a major role.  You might want to buy it.  Get the companion too, it's well worth it.

If it's not too late.  Just a minor tweak really.

On special to hits, impaling weapons get impale and all other weapons get knockback.  some weapons you can choose.  However, one thing in RQ 6 that my players liked was that different weapons did different things.  So why not allow impaling weapons to impale on specials and crits, while hammers Stun Location and Great Swords Sunder, etc.?

My players fell in love with this innovation to our RQ 3 game.

It's not as complicated as the special effects of RQ 6.  It's simple and the game already accomodates it with special successes.  Impaling weapons impale, hammers stun, etc.

On 4/18/2016 at 6:56 AM, TRose said:

 I do remember reading his Mother was a Dryad but forget from where.

 Races in Glorantha are not supposed to interbreed , except for Broo and a few special cases, except with powerful magic.

  Delecti is said to know such magic, but  I would prefer not to talk to him.

Well, Delecti wouldn't have been a vampire back in the day.  Perhaps he met a dryad......?

Where's that Pavic Trickster Thief?

Lovely story.  Very enjoyable, though I must say I thought it was going to go a different way with the Trickster when he was full of Heler's water.  An immediate and very Tricksterish method of relieving himself of the water occurred to me.  But I see your trickster didn't go that way.  Great tale.

On 3/19/2016 at 10:48 PM, Iskallor said:

There's a submarine out there too.

 

Speaking of the dwarven submarine, in one of our adventures I had a Kraken attack the sub.  I screwed up big time.  the Kraken did so much damage in the first attack that the second attack would destroy the submarine.  The dwarves could not kill it.  I thought, oh oh, I just party wiped.  Better think of some Deux ex machina to bail them out.  Cursing my own lameness, I was totally surprised when my friend playing the chief Engineer told them to vent all the steam and release all the fire and water elementals into the engine.  "All fo them!  Release all of them!"  He said, kinda mimicking a famous scene from Star Wars.  We knew exactly how to calculate how much damage that would be in intense heat from the steam venting into the ocean.  The Kraken was wrapped around the sub.  Rolled for hit location.  They took out its head.  The creature was disabled, but the ship had lost its engines and was setting at the bottom of the sea. 

I was like, wow!  that saved my butt.  And now we have a real submarine adventure!

These were all orthodox Mostali, btw.  They'd been tasked with taking Tora's Hammer by submarine to Magasta's Pool and from there down to the center of the lozenge to be destroyed at Mostal's Forge  deep in the earth.  Riding the submarine down Magasta's Pool seemed a suicide mission, but orthodox Mostali don't question orders.  Besides the Engineer, there was a tin dwarf "I make cans."  A gold dwarf was in charge.  A silver dwarf manned the Navigation Helm that allowed him to see everything outside of the ship.  Some iron dwarf marines.  Everybody had a job to do to keep the submarine operational and safe.

It was after they'd survived the Descent and had to abandon the submarine and proceed on foot that the true test of these dwarves mettle occurred.  They were outside the box, so to speak. 

Throw them straight into Monster Island, tie Book of Quests into it.  Good to go.  It will be terrifying for the adventurers to be so small and insignificant, but you can play to that.

Nice.  I tried to register to respond, but never got a confirmation email.  He mistakenly says trolls are bound to the Darkness and Chaos rune.  Obviously, he doesn't understand that Trolls are an Elder Race and hate Chaos perhaps more than anyone.

On 2/23/2016 at 1:37 PM, Al. said:

So I'm cobbling together my go at 'newRQ2' for a game this Sunday (as someone here said we want quality not deadline, we can all cobble together our house rules anyway)

I reckon I've got workable opposing pairs of Runes/Traits for most of the key ones

But what about Plant? What Rune is opposite to that?

 

 

Al

Page?

To each their own but I will always use the tick box system.  Rosen nailed it.  that character sheet tells you something.  butchery?  How did I learn that?  So many unique and memorable characters developed skills they'd have never gotten good at using the RQ 6 method. 

I love Eldarad because you can take all those treasure sites and fill The Big Rubble with them. 

My entire group loved a lot about RQ6, especially the devotional pool.  One thing they hated, though, was the lack of skill checks.  They hated being doled out 3 each.  The game as it was intended was that you get good at what you do.  This allows you to become anyone you want.  That shaman Runeblogger speaks of?  He gets rolls based on what he did.  It isn't a contest of who gets the most roles, it's about getting good at what you like to do.  Along the way, maybe that Agimori shaman makes a Stealth roll or two and starts getting better at being stealthy.  So be it.  If he doesn't, then that's just not him.

On 2/29/2016 at 2:24 AM, Jenx said:

While they might look rather dodgy, we all know that the Orlanthi are very calm, rational and understanding people, so just because you're in an Orlanthi neighbourhood doesn't mean there's a high chance to get your face punched in or something! (That's just the kind of propaganda the Lunar occupation would like you to believe!)

Yeah, just because the lyrics of the favorite ballad at Loud Lilina's goes something like this:

Humakt, just killed a man, put a sword against his head, just another Lunar dead.  Humakt, death is so much fun!  And now I've thrown another life awayyyyyyy.

Humakt, ooooo-oo-ooo  did you make Lunars to die?  I sometimes wish they'd never been born at all.

How does the rest of that song go

Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me

Thunder and lightning, very very frigthening me.

Stuff like that.  So no, wouldn't worry at all.

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Conan has his bleeding hearts backstory of enslavement as a kid, years on the treadmill, broke his chains and lives for revenge, slowly discovering that life can offer pleasures, and can I have all of them pretty please or I kill you? He still swears (or rather blasphemes) by Crom, more so than your average D&D cleric who theoretically receives his magic from that entity.

 

Actually, that's the movie adaptation.  That's not Robert E Howard's Conan.

I think changing increased hit points for luck points was sheer genius on every level.  When one reads "that other games" excuse, I mean, explanation for what increased hit points represents, one realizes that Luck Points are exactly what they're talking about.  It's the perfect conversion.

As an aside, I started playing RQ in the early 80's.  I had a bunch of friends that played Stormbringer.  They wanted to play "that other game" as well.  We played Dragon Lance and Temple of elemental evil.  I hated it.  I managed to get most of my friends to fall in love with RQ and never look back.  My best friend, however, never really got into it.  We got separated for about 15 years and he came back into my life again a couple of years ago.  I got him into a RQ campaign.  Yesterday, I told him about Classic Fantasy.  He wants to play DL and TOEE with RQ characters.

I told him: "Your journey to the dark side is complete."

My group put a lot of time into RQ 6, but in the end, we went back to RQ 3 for the very reasons Jeff gives for why they chose to: pace of combat.  RQ 6 combat just took too long.

Giants?  That's what Vingans are for.

3 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

It must be all the runes. Weird. I definitely thought I was quoting Rosen's text. Must be the Chaos rune.

The Chaos rune would have deleted your message.  The Disorder rune is definitely at work here.

I'll tell you right now one broken thing about the old shaman rules in RQ3.  Something RQ 6 fixed.  The old shamans would just go out searching for Magic Spirits in the hopes of finding Str. Enchantments.  Always have a shaman who knows Strengthening enchantments and you can break your characters right there.  RQ 6 got rid of that spell and Armoring Enchantment too.  But they came up with my house rule (quite independently)  What I called Blessings, they called Gifts.  Robust was one such gift.  Bestowed by ones God, it was basically a Str Enchantment.  Only now the GM had full control and didn't have to wrangle with greedy shaman PCs or PCs who spent all their time seeking shamans to buy them from.

yeah, I would like to apply to play test as well.  well over 30 years of RQ experience.  I'd try my damndest to find a way to break something if that's what you need.

yep, divine spells go off on your Dex SR regardless of cost.  This is because you sacrifice permanent power for them and the effect is granted at the time of the sacrifice.  It's what separated Divine from battle magic and sorcery.

All I know is, I have a lot of players who have a great time roleplaying and make memorable characters, but there is inevitably a time when they haven't the slightest clue what to say and fall flat on their faces, whereas their silk tongued trickster, polished politician, barbarian warlord, whatever, wouldn't be having such difficulties and so I just make them roll for it and keep the game moving.

And we've all encountered that situation I'm sure.