Martin Dick

I think any 17 year old Humakti initiate with just Sword Trance is going to be wiped by an Orlanthi WindLord, but even if I assume that you are correct, it doesn't matter. The fictional world we are playing in is Greg Stafford's and Greg spent 50 years approximately writing his fiction and Jeff and co are writing the game to be true to his fiction. Greg was an amazingly creative guy and its his fiction, so if Greg wanted Yelmalio to be a substandard mediocre warrior, then that's how Jeff and co are going to present him. Now, if you don't like it, then change the fiction to suit you and just house-rule like you've done. YGWV has been an important principle in Glorantha for a very long time, so nobody minds if you do that. But you don't get to change the canon, only Chaosium gets to do that (which is not unreasonable) As well, I really don't think you can validly say that you don't get to complain about it, you've posted 19 times to this thread alone complaining about it, not counting the numerous posts that you've made on other threads complaining about it. I think you've stated your point again and again and again, you just don't like most people's answer.

As you say, because RQ is not a balanced game world, it's easy to min/max and just say that you are just following the in-world story. But, intention and the overall campaign context does matter here. If every time someone decides to be a warrior, they choose either Humakt or Babeester Gor, not because they want to play a taciturn killer who lives by the saying that 'Violence is always an option' and who will take that option, but because that's the game-mechanically best option to maximise your combat power and if every warrior in the campaign is either in the cult of Humakt or the cult of Babeester Gor and there are no Orlanth or Heler or Odaylan or Yinkin or Yelmalio or Rigsdal or Storm Bull warriors (in a Sartarite setting), then I think its fair to say that the broader expectations of the fiction are not being conformed to and that it is min/maxing. And that is okay, I would be a hypocrite to say I don't min/max, my current character had the goal of being clan chieftain, so I definitely designed the character to be able to do that, but I also designed it to be a decent warrior and to fulfill a role in the party that we had. So, most players do some min/maxing, it's fairly rare in my experience for someone to come up with a character that is a complete dud in their choice of a roleplaying concept

Being down with - is okay with Being down on - is not okay with it Sorry about the confusing phrasing You pick something else to be a warrior, other than Humakt/Babeester Gor, because your roleplaying concept for the character is not a devotee of death or a blood-crazed avenger and yes if your definition of well-built is min/maxing the combat potential of the character, then yes, anything else is poorly built. I'm not saying its wrong to do that, it's just a different approach, but it is min/maxing. You know, it's just like how not everyone in the army is an elite SAS killing machine My experience as a GM is that: "A good min/maxer can always come up with a perfectly valid roleplaying reason why their min/maxing should be allowed" A final comment is that you say you play the published scenarios, so your way can't be too different from the designer's way, well there is a saying in the programming world, that a Fortran programmer can write Fortran code in any programming language.

Picking Humakt/Babeester Gor as your cult, making sure in character creation that you get your weapon skill as high as possible and choosing Axe Trance/Slash or Sword Trance/True Sword is basic warrior min/maxing in RQG, so yes, it sounds like min/maxing is going on

Based on this, I'm really not clear why you are so down on Yelmalio, give them a decent array of spirit magic and a power enhancing crystal and they'll be reasonably competitive with Humakt/Babeester Gor.

Pretty close, it's not rocket science 😆

Start with base RQG character at 90% Broadsword - Be relatively lucky and increase it to a natural 128% from experience rolls over a number of seasons, do a HeroQuest and get plus 10% to your Broadsword, use Bladesharp 6 and have a Power enhancing crystal that boosts it to Bladesharp 12 (+60%) and have the magical broadsword Wrath with a +20%, adding up to 218%. I haven't really even been trying that hard or using Runes/Passions. And when the HeroQuest rules come out, then there will be even more ways to boost something. Which is entirely something a Yelmalian player character can do 30 points armour - 6 point plate, 8 points of Shield (=16 points) Protection 5 with power-enhancing crystal = Protection 10 = 5 + 16 + 10 = 32 points of armour Of course this all when supercharged, he can only do this once per season as he has 10 RP, so it's got to be something epic for him to go all in. of course, a Humakti/Babeester Gor with Trance and True Weapon would still be able to take him down pretty easily, assuming they had 30 magic points or so. And that damn Lunar sorceress can take him down pretty easily with a Madness spell and there are a bunch of others. So, he's the tank of the party, with a shaman, a Chalana Arroy, a Yinkini, an Odaylan, and an Orlanth Thunderous farmer, all of who are extremely dangerous in general. But you know, despite being a bit of a killing machine, his Orate skill has probably been more useful and just as much fun to use as his Broadsword skill. PS. it was a Fiend, not Cacodemon himself, though he did fight Gagarth for two rounds and survive

That's not really an an answer, with my current Orlanthi thane, when I stack my character, I'm hitting and parrying at around 220% without using runes or passions, have 30 points or so of armour, does 1d8 +1d4 +12 points of damage, so I think I'm okay at RQ maths, though obviously there are many people better at it than me. But it doesn't make a game particularly fun, the most exciting combat I had in RQG was fighting a Cacodemon for the second time after it had revived from its first death, as I had used most of my RP the first time and I now knew that it would explode on death and that explosion had a very good chance of killing me, so I couldn't just kill it, so I had to rely on the rest of the party to save me from the explosion when we finally got in to a position where I took it down without killing us all. The fact that I was completely overkill on it, turned out to be not that important. And of course the other reason that min/maxing to the nth degree is pointless, is because the GM generally just min/maxes back at you, so the chance of dying doesn't really change whether you are 16 year olds fighting trollkin or RuneLord/Priests fighting Chaos monstrosities. But some people like a powergaming campaign (e.g. Secrets of Dorastor) and the various RQs are well-suited to that style of game and obviously that's MGF for some people, but you shouldn't assume that we all prefer that sort of game and that maybe the design decisions of Jeff and Jason are not jokes etc, but just aiming at a different type of game than the one you play.

YMMV, but in 45 years of roleplaying, apart from maybe the first year, I've never found that to be the case, why do you need to do clever play if you have a stacked character sheet and can just bulldoze your way through the opposition.

No magic at all, everyone is a lay member and it provides no training or skills. All the priestesses of the cult are actually priestesses of other Lunar cults usually other Seven Mothers

The one way I thought that a Teelo Norri character could work, would be in the role of Tripitaka in Journey to the West, with a range of Seven Mothers companions who are required to protect and obey them and them being naive and idealistic and of course always wandering off in to trouble. But it would be a pretty difficult cult to play in most campaigns.

It's basically the rulers, so if you want to be part of the ruling class with your character (and take the Noble occupation), then that's going to be easier to make work with a character who's in the Great category as opposed to the Okay. Or as you say, in a Praxian clan, a Waha initiate normally has more ways to alter the world (opinions/policy of the clan) than an Orlanthi and vice-versa in a Sartarite clan, where who's going to listen to the local butcher about what we should do about those damn Grey Dogs. Which is not to say that it wouldn't be fun to play a Waha initiate in Sartar who was aiming to become the clan chieftain, but it would be a real challenge for a beginner who was just looking to be a noble thane of the clan.

Which is why I did all the various types of occupations/goals, it's not actually aiming to be a power level list, it's just pointing out that an Eurmali noble while potentially lots of fun, probably isn't a good match, especially for a new player and GM. It's like Eiritha, who power wise is pretty much down there, but if you want to have the biggest herd in Prax as your character's goal, then that's the cult to go for IMO. I really can't see how it takes roleplay out of the game. It helps new players to get some guidance and anyone who has played with a serious power gamer knows that they'll be focussing in on Humakt/Babeester Gor with very little need for power lists to tell them where to go.

I'm not sure that's really correct, the magics of the GodLearners and the EWF seem to be far greater than what happened in the First Age and the magics of the end of the Third Age with the Lunars and Argrath are clearly world-shaking as well. I would think any competent Ernaldan priestess can heroquest to delay menopause and/or conceive at any point up to joining Asrelia/Ty Kora Tek

So lots of discussion about which is the worst cult and how awful the cult of Yelmalio is. Personally to me, it's a meaningless question, the lack of balance is a feature in my opinion and this is something that has been inherent and fairly well-trumpeted for over 40 years of RuneQuest of all versions and clearly stated by Greg Stafford. And of course, if the lack of balance doesn't suit your campaign, then YGWV and you just have to make the changes you think are necessary (e.g. give Yelmalio Shield and True Spear and some Phalanx magic and Bob's your Uncle). So, lengthy discussions about how Cult X sucks are pretty pointless IMO. But Eff and others did raise a constructive point, which is that for newcomers to RQG, a cult's description doesn't necessarily give a good guide to whether a particular cult is suited to a particular character role, e.g. Yelmalio as a standalone warrior. The interactions of the rules and magic can be very complex. So I did the following table to give a very rough draft idea about what cults are good at things and not at good at others with the following provisos: I'm sure I'm wrong about some of these Some of these are arguable, even if I'm not wrong This is primarily based on rune magic and position in the pantheon, I haven't gone in to detailed access to spirit magic And yes, Shamans are best Cult Rankings.docx

I think this is a much more constructive issue and I agree that it's important in an unbalanced game, for it to be clear what you are getting in to when you choose a cult for your character. I just read the Yelmalio cult in the preview copy and it wouldn't be clear to a new player that it doesn't really rank up there with the other warrior cults.

Glorantha is not a balanced world, RQ Glorantha is not a game which tries to balance all the various cults, magic systems, combat skills, weapons etc. Jason and Jeff have made it clear that the materials they are producing are based upon Greg's vision of Glorantha and if that means a cult sucks, then the cult will suck. And yes, Yelmalio sucks more as a warrior god in RQG than he did in RQ2 or RQ3 (as RQG has way more rune magic available and that leaves him behind). But anyone who has looked at Sun County or Tales of the SandHeart Militia will know that there is a huge amount of roleplaying fun to be had with this cult and a lot of that comes from the fact that it's not a balanced cult. If you don't like that, that's fine YGWV and you can give Yelmalio the power up that suits you and I don't think anybody is going to complain. But if you want to be constructive, then write up your version of Yelmalio with associated myths and then he won't be sucky for you or anyone else who doesn't want him to suck.

I'd never really looked closely at him, but you are not wrong! A starting character with 100% Broadsword, 80% Medium shield, 1D4 damage bonus and wearing plate armour, that's pretty damn special. Give him some Bladesharp and Protection and he's basically a weaponthane. He's even up there in terms of spirit combat. Add in some judicious spell trading and you're hot to trot against the Big Bad. But, I don't really think that he's typical of an Issaries initiate, most of them aren't duellists

I never said Issaries wasn't a good cult to play, it's great IMO, which sort of makes sense that I think that given that I've played them a lot. But in terms of combat in RQ2 and RQ3 and being an initiate, they are mostly insignificant in combat, so in a combat-centric game that isn't at the Rune level, they would be pretty useless. Having never played an Issaries rune priest with Spell Trading, I'm not sure whether they would turn into much of a combat monster, but that POW budget limit is a pretty hard limit in my experience

Sorry, Crush was a mistake, I meant Bludgeon, I never had Crush and of course in RQ3, getting Rune Magic as an initiate was very hard, so Spell Trading was never an option.

I was referring back to the opening post: "Everyone laughs at yelmalio, but it seems to me that the sun domers run circles around WAHA."

RQG clearly has a design philosophy that throws game balance out the window in terms of the mechanics, Jason, Jeff and co weren't trying to ensure that every 11th level character was roughly equivalent in combat power. Personally that's how it's always been with all the versions of RQ and it's one of the reasons I like RQ. I mainly played Issaries characters in RQ2 and RQ3 and I never was the combat monster, but fortunately I had GMs who always made sure that our scenarios were diverse and required all sorts of strengths to complete, so none of the characters were ever sidelined and even an Issaries initiate can be a useful spellcaster in combat and when you got your staff parry up and had some Crush going, you could occupy a bad guy until one of the combat monsters got around to them. Game balance in RQG is all about the GM adapting to the players that they have as opposed to making everyone equal. Now, if you are running a combat-centric game and you want Waha to be a useful option in such a game, then just add a few appropriate combat rune spells that you think will make the cult comparable with Orlanth/Yelmalio, have Eiritha give them some of her survival spells, add a few relevant skills and you're done. We can then talk about what could be done about upping his combat power and what myths are associated with this combat-upgraded Waha. As a Butcher, Slash sounds pretty appropriate and is likely to be sufficient in itself. I think playing a Waha initiate could be lots of fun, so I'm far from thinking it's the worst cult. if I had to choose a worst cult, I'd probably go for Humakt as it is so wide open to being a refuge for murder-hobos and potentially harder to develop a broad array of characters, but of course there are heaps of people out there playing lots of fun Humakti characters

I don't really think that RQG needs Sanity rules, it's perfectly easy to roleplay the consequences for the exceptional circumstances when your character is overwhelmed or use Passions, but my Orlanthi RunePriest was as terrified as any of my CoC characters have been when we ran in to the Crimson Bat and that was at a distance of kilometres and the immediate consensus was to get the hell out of there. The Sam Wood picture (twitter) shows just how terrifying it would be to meet some of the ancient terrors (True Dragons, Cwim, pretty much anything in Dorastor) for even hardened adventurers and some will break when meeting them. But as Darius said, RQG is mostly not played in a horror mode, so our valiant protagonists can overcome their fears and face up to even the greatest of terrors, if they want to!

It really depends a lot on the party and the opponents that you face. In my campaign, the party consists of an Odaylan hunter, a Yinkin hunter, a Chalana Arroy healer, a farmer who is in Orlanth Thunderous and a Kolati Shaman. The hunters are lethal with their bow and sling and Mobility, the others are all dangerous ( the farmer has Thunderbolt and you really don't want to get in to spirit combat with the shaman and even the Chalana Arroy if you are undead), but none can really face something tough in hand to hand combat for long. So my Orlanth Adventurous thane fills that role and when the party is facing off against a Cacodemon or an Undead dinosaur, having 20 plus points of armour is a necessity for survival (sometimes running away is not an option from a roleplaying perspective) And being the target goes with the role of frontline tank, he even has Distraction in order to keep enemies from attacking other party members

I have to say, I read Secrets of Dorastor and was boggled at how tough these creatures were and I couldn't imagine how these creatures had been defeated by any possible RQ2/3 character in the campaign. But isn't this a bit more relevant to mainline campaigns than might be thought. Don't the Lunar bring Cwim to one of the battles in Prax? And down the track in the Hero Wars, Dorastor level opponents appear from my reading of it and of course Harrek, Sheng and Jar-Eel are at that level too, so won't there be some Super RQG in our campaign's futures?