JonL

Unit Action During the Round During each round, the Unit Commanders for PK units make a Battle roll. The GM makes an opposing roll with a TN of the Intensity determined by the previous AC roll results, modified by the Unit's position on the Book of Battle's Battle Zone track. Based on the results of that roll, the UC may chose among many maneuvers per the BoB. If their maneuver leads to a melee engagement (most do) the result may provide a modifier to the AC's Battle roll at the end of the current Battle Round. Attached to this post is a Word doc listing the BoB maneuver options with the results modified to fit into this framework. In a large battle with many PK units, or where the GM is tracking NPC "Enemy Hero" units the GM may decide to resolve some melee rounds by a quick opposed roll rather than playing out the skirmish. If so, use the following mapping to interpret the results of their maneuver: Critical Success: Triumph Success or Partial success: Win Failure: Loss Fumble: Crush In small battles, destroying a unit via melee may also remove a token from that side's committed force if the army is small enough for that unit's troops to have accounted for an entire token. In larger engagements, individual unit losses are noise in the overall battle. Similarly, the GM should decide based on the size of the engagement whether multiple PK units on the field should have their melee result modifiers summed or averaged together when applied to the AC's roll at the end of the round. If the PK units are a tiny part of a vast force, average them. If their units are proportionally large enough to represent a token's worth of troops, sum them. If the GM wishes to track the actions or position of significant "Enemy Hero" units independent of their interaction with PK units, optionally resolving their melee via a single opposed roll, the above modifiers can be used with their results as well. BBB_Maneuvers.docx

Army Commander Battle Rolls Army Commanders (AC) make an opposed Battle roll at the opening of the battle, after commiting their initial force tokens) to determint the Intensity that the GM rolls vs Unit Commanders' in their battle rolls that round. At the end of the first battle round and every round thereafter, ACs make an additional opposed battle roll to determine casualties for the round and the Intensity Unit Comanders face in the upcoming round. ACs battle rolls are modified by the difference in their commited tokens, the performance of PK units during the battle round (details in follow-up post), and other tactical factors advantages such as terrain that the GM deems relevant. Tactical advantage due to troops and equipment is already factored into their Foot Value to a large extent. However, if there is a significant capability mismatch such as one side having no cavalry or archers that may warrant a +/- as well. As for how to gauge how significant a given advantage might be, recall that starting with 2:1 FV advantage is worth +/-5, 5:4 is worth +/- 2, and 5:1 is worth +/-8 (assuming both sides commit all their forces). Ballpark things from there. Compare the success grades of the ACs end-of-round battle rolls according to the table below. Lost tokens represent forces either wiped out or too wounded to continue the battle. Routed tokens are set aside separately, as they may be rallied and returned to the fray with via recovery results on subsequent battle rounds. (Such recovered tokens do not generate the rested bonus that reserves do.) Army Commander Battle Roll Results PKArmy/Enemy Critical Success Success Partial Success Failure Fumble Critical Success Lower crit loses 1 token, higher crit may recover 1 routed token if any.* N/A Loser loses 2 tokens, victor may recover 2 routed tokens, if any. Loser loses two tokens and has two route. Victor may recover 2 routed tokens, if any. Loser loses three tokens and half of remaining tokens route. Victor may recover all routed tokens, if any. Success N/A N/A* Loser loses 2 tokens, Victor Loses one token. Loser loses two tokens. Victor may recover one routed token, if any. Loser Loses two tokens and two tokens route. Victor may recover one routed token, if any. Partial Success Loser loses 2 tokens, victor may recover 2 routed tokens, if any. Loser loses 2 tokens, Victor Loses one token. N/A N/A N/A Failure Loser loses two tokens and has two route. Victor may recover 2 routed tokens, if any. Loser loses two tokens. Victor may recover one routed token, if any. N/A Both lose 1 token. Victor Loses one token, Loser loses one and routes one. Fumble Loser loses three tokens and half of remaining tokens route. Victor may recover all routed tokens, if any. Loser Loses two tokens and two tokens route. Victor may recover one routed token, if any. N/A Victor Loses one token, Loser loses one and routes one. Both lose one token and route one token. * In the case of exactly tied successes, both sides loose one token. For exactly tied criticals, neither suffers a loss In addition to the force token impacts, the result of the AC rolls also determines the base Intensity that the GM rolls opposing PK Unit Commanders' Battle roll during the following round: Unit Commander Base Opposing Intensity Next Round: PKArmy/Enemy Critical Success Success Partial Success Failure Fumble Critical Success 13 N/A 9 5 1 Success N/A N/A 13 9 5 Partial Success 17 19 N/A N/A N/A Failure 21 17 N/A 13 9 Fumble 25 21 N/A 17 13

Here's something I came up with a few years ago. Our group was playing through the GPC, and became disenchanted with some of the dynamics in Book of Battle's framework. We found that repeatedly using Push Deeper to advance on the enemy camp became something of an I-Win Button due to the way it interacts with Intensity ("The Enemy Camp is down."), and the random rolls for intensity/events dwarfing other factors at times. This mixes the basic framework of Book of Battle (BoB) with a HeroQuest-inspired opposed-roll result matrix and force-tokens inspired by Savage Worlds's mass battle rules. It also allows meaningful choices and rolls for an overall Army Commander (AC) as well as individual Unit Commanders (UC). In a nutshell: Army Commanders make initial opposed Battle Rolls to determine field advantage for the first battle round. Each Battle Round, Unit Commander(s) roll Battle opposed by an Intensity roll based their Army Commander's success grade modified by field position (per BoB), and possibly other factors from BoB like being On Flank. Based on those results, UC(s) chose maneuvers as per BoB and fight their melee rounds. Based on the outcome of the melee rounds, apply a modifier to the AC's battle rolls at the end of the round. ACs make opposed Battle rolls at the end of the round, assess casualties. AC's success grade at the end of the round determines UC's base opposing Intensity for the next. Battle ends when one sides forces are all either casualties, withdrawn; unless one side surrenders or similar narrative outcome occurs. Details below... Before the Battle Identify the PK or NPC who will be the overall Army Commander for each side. Decide which Player Knights (PK) will be on the field as a single unit, commanding seperate units of their followers, or some combinations thereof. Designate a PK as Unit Comander for each relevant unit. (Usually the PK with highest Glory will be the UC, though other considerations might take precedence when appropriate.) Identify the order of battle for each side (including PKs, but generally not their Squires) , and compute the Footman Value (FV) for their forces according to the table below: Unit Type Green Regular Veteran Elite Knight 3 5 6.5 8 Sargeant 1.8 3 3.9 4.8 Hobilar 1.2 2 2.6 3.2 Ranger 1.2 2 2.6 3.2 Armored Foot 1.2 2 2.6 3.2 Footman 0.6 1 1.3 1.6 Bowman 1.2 2 2.6 3.2 Slinger/Skirmisher 0.40 0.66 0.86 1.06 Bandit 0.3 0.5 0.65 0.8 Peasant Levy 0.15 0.25 0.33 0.4 Berzerker 3 5 6.5 8 Hoerthgneight 2.4 4 5.2 6.4 Coerl 1.2 2 2.6 3.2 Fyrd 0.9 1.5 1.95 2.4 Assign the larger force ten tokens (stones, poker chips, etc), the smaller force gets a proportionally smaller number, i.e. if larger force has 500FV and smaller force has 250FV, the smaller force gets five tokens. Either Army Commander may initially commit some or all of their tokens. The margin of difference between committed tokens is a bonus to the larger Army Commander's Battle rolls and a penalty to the Army Commander of the smaller force. These tokens are removed when the AC's battle roll at the end of the round results in casualties being assessed; permanently when lost or maybe-temporarily when routed. Tokens not initially committed are held in reserve. Tokens held in reserve cannot be lost, but do not add to the force margin for determining battle roll modifiers. When reserves are finally committed, add +1 to that side's Battle Roll (total, not per token) for each round they were held back. ACs can also choose to Orderly Withdraw force tokens at the end of a battle round in lieu of inflicting casualties, one token for each enemy casualty they decline. Withdrawn tokens cannot be lost and do not add to the force margin for determining battle roll modifiers. unless re-committed by their commander. If a Withdrawn token sits out one or more Battle Rounds and then re-enters the fray, they add a +1 to their AC's Battle Roll that round, similar to fresh reserves, but to a lesser degree. Alternate token allocation when longer battles are desired: Determine initial engagement and reserve force breakdown first, and then asses tokens based on the initially engaged forces. This will give a slightly larger pool of tokens without changing the overall number scaling much. Downside: rounding, whether clever or incidental, can make some for +/- 1 token depending on how you split your force. Example: General A has 1500 FV of troops. He commits 1200 and holds 300 in reserve. General B has 1000FV of troops, commits 900 and holds 100 in reserve. Initial tokens: General A - ten commited tokens, 3 in reserve. General B 8 committed tokens, 1 in reserve. The original (and simpler) way, General A would have 7 tokens committed with 3 in reserve, while General B would have 6 committed with 1 in reserve. The token total proportions are about 1.4:1 either way though. (More to come in subsequent posts. I don't want to time out while typing this.)

I have sometimes considered a Kargzant:Yu-Kargzant :: Orlanth Adventurous:Orlanth Rex parallel. One could reasonably see Yu-Kargzant as a preservation of Jenarong's cult legacy, to which Plantonius would understandably never apply the Y- prefix in compiling TGRoY for Kordavu.

Gloranta-variation: Since the Opening of the seas, "Kralori-towns" have developed in major ports such as Nochet.

Heck, the Norman victory at Hastings wasn't through charging the Saxon shield-wall. They used ride-by-javelinings to get the Saxons riled-up, faked a retreat, and then wheeled to attack when the less disciplined among the Saxons broke formation to pursue them. The surviving texts on Knight tactics are all about facing foot against foot and then circling around the battle line to pounce on your enemy's flank while they're tied up with your foot. Even with heavy cavalry, direct charges were for use against disorganized rabble, not men at arms.

Half-skill is probably overstating it for most things, but I suppose the degree of benefit/hindrance for the kit (or lack thereof) it depends on the nature of the challenge, as well as how accustomed to that riding approach both you and your horse are. In practice, I'd just make the baseline roll assume whatever the normal riding approach in your setting is, and give bonuses/penalties for hardware/tech above or below that baseline in situations where it's relevant. If everyone just has blankets, no need for harder rolls. (Also, paging @Ellie: this ostrich thread has taken an equestrian turn.)

Great. While you're at it, use that Rage like a Flaw if somebody wants to stay calm under provocation, avoid creeping out animals, date non-Kinfolk, etc. I suppose you could do the same for Gnosis as well, if you wanted to mechanize that side of things too. I might just roll that into hypothetical Auspice/Breed/Tribe keywords though, and have Theurge, Philodox, Metis, Lupus, and the more mystical Tribes will face lower resistances for spiritual matters than their more worldly kin. Man, Werewolf: the HeroQuest would be really easy now that you've got me thinking about it. Keywords for Breed, Tribe, and Auspice. Gifts as breakouts under each. Breed can also include your pre-change life/background. Rage and Renown as resource-type abilities. Septs are communities, though you could have an ability representing a strong tie to a tribal faction as well. Garnish to taste with a few more discretionary abilities and points and you've got yourself a Garou. Follow the fiction WRT healing times/regeneration for physical consequences. You could maybe allow a Rage roll to self-Assist during an extended contest if you really want to get fiddly with regeneration. I'd probably just narrate it though, and set either set higher resistance for silver/fire/etc threats (if you're leading with credibility) or introduce those in-fiction elements to justify higher resistances and physical consequences (if you're leading with story-flow). I'd make Renown rating thresholds requirement to challenge for next Rank, Cubs start with 10 (maybe more if they're Silver Fangs or something) maybe: 0:10 1:15 2:1M 3: 10M 4: 1M2 5: 1M3 You could roll your Renown to convince elders/spirits to teach you Gifts, augment social/political contests, etc. You could treat a Pack Totem like a friendly community with resource abilities as well. Maybe tick its ratings up when pack members rise in Rank or otherwise do great deeds.

If I were looking to simulate the Rage Point mechanic, I'd actually look at the rules for how community resources fluctuate when drawn upon. Role your Rage as an augment and you risk depleting it, but things can also increase it over time. You'd need to work out the time intervals and amounts, but the basic framework is there.

There's a bit of rules-mastery possible in deciding which things to group as breakouts under umbrella keywords and which ones to keep stand-alone. They player who loads everything under a couple keywords will find augment opportunities sparse, as breakouts can't augment one another (or their parent). Knowing when and why to invoke things like Phyrric Victory or Risky Gambit can also be rewarding.

Ostrich riding skirmish cavalry aren't going to do well fighting Lunar hoplites & peltasts supported by Crater Maker artillery. They'll do a great job though of avoiding a stand up battle, falling back deeper into the chaparral, and if pursued having some of their toughest volunteer to keep harassing the main Lunar force for a couple days while the rest of the Ostrich Riders circle back and wreck the Lunars' supply train while the Moon is dark. Lacking the power of the Covenant, the Lunars' pack animals can't survive off the land. With their water amphorae spilled and rations scattered or burning, the Lunar army now has big problems. Ostrich Riders and similar don't win by fighting battles where they cant win. They win by not fighting those battles, and helping the enemy fail.

I'm reeeeealy picky about dead tree purchases at this point in my life. My shelf space is mostly spoken for. Adding things probably means getting rid of something else. I bought both Red Cow volumes in hardback.

I can find no reference to Elmal being called "the Cold Sun" prior to this comment. All references to "the Cold Sun" in the Guide are explicitly to Yelmalio or Sun Domers, while the Storm Pantheon entry lists "Elmal: Sun God". The term "Cold Sun" appears in SKoH only in the Sun Domer entry, starting with, "We are the warriors of the Cold Sun." followed by "What the Sartarites think: The Sun Domers are a strange cult who betrayed Elmal for the Cold Sun." The phrase is completely absent from TGRoY, Sartar Companion, The Book of Heortling Mythology, Arcane Lore, and King of Sartar. Having the keys to the kingdom, you're certainly within your rights to change things as you judge best, even things you wrote, even after saying that The Guide would be the foundation for official published works going forward. I gotta ask though, what's the upshot to this? What value do you see in this change that you find to be worth going back on all the above, having published Gloranthas contradict among current game lines, degrading the usefulness of existing reference materials, and so on? How do you see this revision leading to Maximum Game Fun to an extent that justifies the downsides?

While there is clearly a Little Sun archetype that these beings all embody, to say that they are thus the same entity creates a great many more contradictions than it resolves. It's a very God Learner perspective, in that while it does reflect a deeper truth, it is also incomplete in application. If embodying the same archetype means that deities are in fact the same being, the Goddess Swap would have worked. This new assertion that all Little Suns must also have Light rather than Fire is also at odds with tons of existing sources, not just Elmal's HQ writeup. The Little Suns are all missing something compared to the Great Ruling Sun, but they have not all lost the same thing. Truth replaces Stasis among the Little Suns. In the broken world in which they arise, the perfection of the Great Ruling Sun is lost. They can only strive for it by inspiring Truth/Justice/Righteousness. Antirius is referenced in The Glorious Re-Ascent of Yelm again and again as being not only bright and just, but also fiery. His warmth sustains the people beneath the Roof beneath the glacier, he melts the frozen rivers to bring fresh water. Even upon his deathbed, having been mortally wounded in his second expedition to the Hill of Gold, his body self-ignites as his spirit departs. When the prophet Avivath incarnates Antirius, his enemies are repeatedly burned. What Antirius does seem to lose as he is wounded by various miscarriages of his Justice is his brightness. TGRoY describes him as becoming dimmer and lower in the sky with each injustice. By the time of the Roof, the Orb of the Eye was no longer above his head (held instead by the Cruel God upon the Hill of Gold). He lacks Yelm the Rider's closeness with horses, but is connected to birds. What he embodies that Elmal, Yelmalio, and Kargzant do not is his father's Mastery. Antirius embodies and blesses the correct emperors with righteous sovereignty. He prevailed against the rival Little Suns in the Suns Swirl, and overcame Sedenya's challenge. When the people of Nivorah chose to embrace their horse-loving Little Suns rather than join Manarlavus and Antirius beneath the Roof, they were driven from the Rich Land, and while Kargzant's followers would later rule, most emperors enthroned by the Jenarong/Kargzant rites were not righteous and could not maintain order. Kargzant references also have no indication of being Fire-less. Kargzant in particular gathers together the remaining bits of fire & starlight scattered around the broken world, and Jenarong's funeral pyre inflamed the Wandering Sun so as to be seen throughout the Empire. His connection to horses is obvious, but he despises birds. What Kargzant lacks are Stasis/Truth and Mastery. He wanders wildly through the sky and his followers are nomads. The seize power through force, and even after completion of the Ten Tests, their rule is seldom a blessed one. Elmal shares Fire and horse-affinity with Kargzant (though the latter to a lesser degree) but maintains Truth. What Elmal lost is Mastery. Despite being chief of the Hyaloring Gods during the Gods War, he eventually becomes the Loyal Thane. Thus do his people find lands and homes of their own rather than being forever nomads like Kargzant's.

How does this square with differing runes?

What's tricky about the Lunars is that most of their openly Chaotic members are also going to be Illuminated.

Per the Guide, Pelorians "tend to be light-skinned (ranging from pale to olive), with brown to blond hair. Brown and blue eyes are prevalent." Pale Dara Happans wouldn't be particularly remarkable. (@Jenx does a great job following the above direction when the Lunars show up in Prince of Sartar.) Look at higher magnification. He's got multiple parts in his hair between big braid/lock/cornrow type sections that are being held back/down by that wide leaf-designed thing. Overall, they look like Etheopians to me.

This link should work https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YHrlqbe9XvrDYXrDmPN886B2GetxG4AwM2Mr1soxw3Q/edit?usp=drivesdk

You're in a vary different mechanical space at that point, more like how Pendragon plays. Here's a Google spreadsheet that charts the result space for HQ rolls. It doesn't support masteries, but you can enter a PC ability rating and resistance value and see the distribution of results.

Her assessment here is actually incorrect. Because all rolls in HQ are opposed, the distribution of the net Victory/Defeat results are a ramp-like curve rather than a flat distribution like you see rolling a single die vs a static TN. Perhaps let her roll her own resistance die next time so that she can see the effect in action.

To add to the chorus, "What is it you're trying to achieve, which of your abilities are you using to do so, and how is using that ability going to achieve that goal?"

Let's look back to where I was two years ago, in a similar position to the new players. At the time, I'd read HQG, SKoH, PGtA, parts of the Guide, and dug around on the forums some, so I wasn't coming in completely cold. OTOH, I never played or read RuneQuest (though knew some concepts from CoC & Pendragon) and had only previously known Glorantha by reputation. The post below was specifically asking things about sorcery, as for theism looking at the break between Initiate & Devotee effects at least gives some context about magnitude, etc. However, a lot of those questions are fairly open for other magics as well. The boldings are new. Here's the whole thread, for reference, including many helpful answers & corrections. Of particular note to my question about teleportation, and the subsequent mentions of it in that discussion. The word "teleport" does not appear when searching in the HQG PDF text. Here's a post I made a year later, that gets into what someone needs as a practical matter to handle things like magic and superpowers: HQG provides some of the answers to the above, but not all and not evenly. I'm curious as to whether the development and playtesting process included (m)any outside readers who didn't know Glorantha at all - particularly as gamemasters. Studying RQ is helpful in some ways, but not in others. Apart from the fact that you shouldn't have to read (or buy) an entirely different game to understand your intended game's world, RQ also bends the fiction to its mechanics in many places. RQG lists Storm Bull as having Air, Best, and Death rather than Air and Eternal Battle because there's no Eternal Battle rune on the character sheet. Having all the various cults picking from a common library of Spirit Magic spells also creates a level of standardization and mechanistic-ness that bleeds into the setting (ah, yes, they also know the secret of "Multi-Missile"), as does the POW/RunePoint economy.

I suppose blood-drinking and immortality would not particularly stand out in a Vadeli community.

For myself, I wouldn't put too much weight in the calibration of niche RQ3 mechanics when drawing inferences about subtle setting matters. However, the overall setup you describe there made a lightbulb go off in my head: Belintar