Dissolv

You know what? I'm still in that old paradigm where Rune Magic is rare. Scorpion men, and most chaotic creatures, I can very much see not having enough of a social structure to really be common in the "lower ranks". A point or two sure, but not PC levels. On the other hand, why the heck not? Adding a single Rune point to the soldier types could indicate a particular nasty spawn, and would stress the players a ton more than a basic "50% attack/parry skill, 3 points of armor everywhere" scorpion man. Time to bring back the terror!

Well again, this edition is EXTREMELY generous to the PC's. When I started RQ your weapon parry was a wholly difference percentage than your attack, and many characters weren't nearly as good with their weapon parry compared to their shield parry -- because they got lots of experience with parrying with their shield, and it took time and Lunars to train backup skills that were really a bit of a luxury. And of course Rune magic was for Priests only, for the most part. This really is a case where Scorpion men literally were much more difficult opponents "back in the day".

Scorpion men used to be worse -- you had to choose what you were going to parry. In this edition you can parry both attacks, although the second will be at -20%.

Victrix Dacians are out, and look like fine Orlanthi to me!

Okay, it has been way too long since someone posted on this thread! First up, some of my Broos. These are GW beastmen figures, but they literally stole the concept from Runequest, so it seems more than fair to steal it back. This is a small portion of my guys, and I do own several other manufacturer's broos, but they are lower on the totem pole to paint because I have about 50 of these completed.

Gratz guys! I definitely helped out. 😀 But seriously, this is more Glorantha stuff than has been released.......ever? Since the Guide? It's great to have the resources, and kind of disturbing to realize just how many places, even in or near Dragon Pass, that have yet to be covered in any way.

Mechanically I generally proceed like so: I decide what the location and/or theme of the starting zone should be. Read up on it. Often I work something up in writing for the players, "Stuff everybody knows" sorts of things. This goes triple if no one is familiar with the rules and/or setting. I read the rules, to make sure that I've got everything down. Read up on the starting setting one more time, and try to "script out" a couple of basic initial encounters to set the tone. This is often extremely important to get right. Have everyone roll up characters and play! So pretty much a couple of homework sessions and two written assignments. One is a handout to the players, the other a quick set of notes to myself. My experience has been that once the players hit the ground running trying to actually do things, as opposed to figure out the core rules, the world quickly becomes very dynamic and I have to ready for any sort of wonderlust that may or may not strike the group. Having strong NPC's, including villains, mentors, community leaders, and even hapless fools is really critical, even if the players seem to be mainly interested in become strong enough to topple Orlanth himself by whatever means necessary. Lifting heavily from all sorts of fiction (myth, film, novels, sagas) helps put things into narrative focus. Taking the time to flesh out a character for them to interact with is hit or miss. Often they just shrug and move on. Other times the NPC becomes beloved and should return frequently. But as long as the depth of character is there, and the situations are interesting, it pretty much tends to go well. Some groups are more self-starter than others. These days I see a lot of "where is the question mark above the NPC's head?" type looks, but YMMV.

Interesting! The sorcery comes from the profession, not the cult, gotcha. Definitely a great example of munchkinnery in action, especially with the party wide effort feeding the magic point requirements. I'm still not sure by what means all 17 INT were freed, but I'll look that up.

Are you sure that's correct? Boon of Kargan Tor requires 8 intensity to get +2d6. Any spell requires 17 intensity to get 1 year duration. 20 intensity to get 8 years. That's 25 Free INT at the minimum, and 28 free INT for the currently reported level. And let's not forget the sheer magic points needed to buff a party. Assuming that the Lhankor Mhy sorcerer had Death Rune and Summon techniques, which are not freely available even in the LM temples that teach sorcery, iirc, he is still burning a massive amount of magic points per party member. Unmastered runes and/or techniques double or quadruple the cost of the spell, and that really throws off the calculations. So those spells could require anywhere from 25 through 112 magic points for each casting! You might want to check out pp. 386-387 of RQ:G to make sure that no mistake has happened. Even the best case human, 18 INT, zero points of spirit magic known, zero points of sorcery known (everything cast from an item, technically possible although again, not within normal roll up parameters, and highly impractical to get there in play -- I know because one of my players is trying to juggle this problem right now). If your player somehow got to this point, AND learned the Death Rune and Summon techniques, he could cast an 18 point sorcery spell at most. That would be +1d3 for 1 year (very reasonable actually), or + 2d6 for 1 day (also not a bad option given circumstances). This is very much how my old Griffin Island Greek sorcerer used to work. Low level long lasting stuff on everyone all the time then forget about it. But if Trolls, Draugr, or Thor-help-them Giants were involved, then he'd burn all his power that day on massive buffs, and trust that the Vikings could carry the day with them. It took several real life years of playing a sorcerer before he was able to item enchant enough extra intensity to move up to "mid level buffs on everyone for a full year", and the sheer magic point output required serious math. A Glorantha character might get to Coder level magic points eventually due to the greater ease of getting bound spirits, allied spirits, and POW crystals, but this is a long term goal, and the free INT barrier is real, and it got worse in this edition. First the spell item matrix enchantment is gone. You can still manage something like this for buff type spells with Enhance INT, but now you also need Fire/Sky Rune as well. An 18 point INT caster can do +5 free INT for 10 minutes, which is nowhere near as good as a magic item you keep increasing in power month by month. It also doubles the magic points required per buff, unless the reserves are extremely deep. (18 points for Enhance INT, and then 23 points for Boon of Kargan Tor. 41 points to get the first buff on there -- and then an additional 23 per buff after that.) Second, there is a limit on number of Runes and Techniques for a sorcerer, which didn't used to be a problem. This is manageable in my opinion, assuming that you've got the huge INT to start with, but requires a campaign where a sorcerer is both physically around and willing to teach to a theist. In other words the player has to take the time out of his way to go and get it, and who knows what the knowledge may cost him. So your starting "Lanhkor Mhy" initiate needs to have the skills of a talented sorcerer to do what you are describing, a wheelbarrow full of magic points to toss around, and they had to have been learned outside of character creation, as literally everything he is doing is not from the LM cult spell or rune list. Runes of Death and Fire/Sky Technique of Summoning Spells: Boon of Kargan Tor, Enhance INT Not to mention a wheelbarrow full of POW. +2d6 for a year is a thing in Glorantha, but it is an end-game thing. Something may have gone horribly wrong.

Well, the Issaries merchant might be a long time companion of his, or he owes a favor for, say for his shiny new iron Greatsword. However you can get the same basic effect with Lightning, Mind Blast, or a couple of other spells, but they are either limited in some way (must have a mind to effect), or require more Rune points to deal with huge creatures (lightning). The nearly automatic POW vs. POW versus human species maximum is the lever with which you can move the world. It also is what allows you to play in the big leagues against things like the horrors of Dorastor, for example, which tend to have stupid and unattainable amounts of POW and hit points. The limiting factor for Shamans has always been getting enough POW to get up to that stature, honestly. And honestly I haven't had a problem with the game being this way........yet. But my PC's are all theists, and no one has discovered shamanry yet.

Spell trade....Sever Spirit. One use, but ends anything unless reflected, blocked by sufficiently high Countermagic/Shield (which a Shaman I expect to have the ability to both discern and dispel), a Chaotic feature, or is nullified by Divine Intervention.

Shamans were always super amazing. My usual hack when a player lost a long running PC was to give them a shaman with a 22 Pow fetch. This edition however, they are off the rails powerhouses. If the PoW thing doesn't convince you, the self-rez probably should! I am reconsidering the role of arch-bad guy in the Rubble. It seems to me that a Broo Shaman fits the bill as a serious threat.

A major thing to consider here is that the adventurers are at a serious disadvantage compared to a traveling army. Basically lack of safety in numbers, unlikely to get a day or more prep time before an engagement, and generally they have to be on their toes in hostile places all the time, or risk seriously bad consequences. It is very reasonable to assume that they wish to keep their armor on as much as possible. It is up to the GM to enforce some type of penalty if they keep wearing it under very difficult conditions, such as Fire Season in Prax. I would suggest Homeland Lore to avoid negative consequences when at home, and Survival when not. And only when the conditions are established by the GM as to be detrimental. Personally, I do enjoy Man vs. Nature type challenges, especially it makes full use of the RQ skills system and other game mechanics, and also giving a non-fiat reason to prefer lighter gear. But I'm not seeing anything really in the core rules related to wearing armor a lot or in difficult circumstances. My inclination is that it is not really a big deal in Sartar, which is cool and where one frequently wears layers anyway. But Prax or Pavis, or Sun County......yikes. Some options: Simply take away X number of maximum ENC points due to heat. Cold can work the same way, but this is through the temperature demanding more ENC in clothing/gear. I favor this as it is easy and gives the robust PC's an advantage for having that huge CON/STR. Weaker types can downgrade to leather. Apply a penalty of some type for not enough resting. This penalty is increased by the average armor ENC worn. Example Fire Season in the Big Rubble, a group is adventuring in the noontime sun but is frightened by signs of Chaos and presses on without a break. -10% to all skills multiplied by the average ENC worn. Downside -- fuzzy time for breaks needed plus more maths. Assume that the players are heroic in nature and simply withstand the discomfort, like Knights of old. Currently the default if you don't think about it in advance.

I'm also not a fan of the Pike being the only suitable weapon in this discussion. Yelmalio also has a strong secondary in bows, which I assume is what the Praxian Nomads who follow him are using, for the most part. However except for the "90% of one cult weapon" or "+10% in one cult weapon" -- which could be the bow, Yelmalio does literally nothing for his archer followers. Less than nothing actually, as his worship takes away the option for Firearrow. Shame he can't get Starfire (is that the correct name) from his sister. You'd think you would see that in the Pavis area, since the two cults are so close.

haha, my source works:

I'm not a fan. Anyone who has sparred has encountered that guy who is notoriously hard to hit. Or the blitzer who wants to always be the guys attacking. People are not uniform in their attack and defense skills by any means. Sure, they might get trained the same way, but they come away with different lessons. "Oh no, I got hit, have to attack faster to keep that from happening!", versus, "oh no, I got hit, have to tighten up my guard and improve my footwork." This happens even in the same style of fighting, at the same gyms, with the same instructor even.

A great resource for those interested in old school combat. I listen regularly. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt14YOvYhd5FCGCwcjhrOdA

Well, from a GMing perspective, my current (low power) campaign seems to have resolved the balance issues with 1h and Shield vs. 2H weapons, as described above. The real question is as the campaign progresses, will the players feel a need to "up-arm" and ditch their shields like Gothic era Knights, and is that a bad thing? I"m torn. A magically armored hero with a great iron Greatsword is indeed a spectacle. But should the players think that set up to be "more powerful" than the standard cultural weapons that got them that far? Or can missile combat remain serious enough the whole campaign to encourage shield use? The game does eventually change and the first PC to get enchanted Iron Armor more or less breaks the curve. 9 points of armor is enough to render that player nearly invincible to the lower tier threats, like farmers or militia -- Javelins + Speed dart = 13 maximum damage, Broadword + 1d4 strength bonus = 13 points max as well. So the 9 armor guy only has to have access to Shield 2 or Protection 4 to be immune to all non-special or critical attacks. Combine this with his likely 100%+ Parry, and melee is a great way to lose half the Sun County militia. If there are enough of them, and they are for some reason willing to fight to the death, they can win, but the odds keep going way, way down. Nomads may fare better, as they can safely empty their quivers on such a warrior (killing his mount if necessary), but at 12 points maximum damage for an arrow, there is going to be a lot of rounds before they can put him down. Backed with enough healing magic (because critical hits happen, and will eventually defeat any amount of armor), the heroic warrior might be able to literally outlast their arrow supply. But.......isn't that what we want? Does that first full iron plate armor PC stick with 1 handed weapons? and why or why not? Can fights between two such heroes be fun, or will they be a "clink"-fest while rolling for specials and criticals? And is that bad if it is? Having established that the lower level gaming seems more or less fine the way it is, it all comes down to how the upper end works in RQ:G. To me, at least. Hopefully my players stick with this campaign and we get there, but it will take some time, especially since none of them have ever played any RQ anything before. My main goal is to present the world to them in a sensible, believable way, and allow for interesting combat strategies to be developed. So far none of them have noticed anything with the combat mechanics like the old time veterans and or HEMA people might have. Then again HEMA guys are using medieval technology, and in Glorantha we are not.

This I find interesting. My current PC's have a major ENC problem. They want to wear good armor (scale to plate), and carry shields, 1h weapon, missile weapon, and about 1-2 ENC of misc gear like cash, food, rope, etc. Most of them only have 1 to 2 ENC left after that, and have had to abandon good loot for fear of going to far over ENC in hostile territory. A spare weapon is right out the window for them, and several of them have taken off multiple seasons for stat training (STR). I haven't hit them with inflated costs of wood in Pavis yet, but that's an issue. Leather/root type shields are a thing, of course. Economics may encourage them to go "native" sooner or later, but I suspect that they'll pay twice the usual cost for proper Sartar style shields.

Interesting discussion. The main arguments for one hand and shield fighting in Glorantha are simple: 1) Shields cover missiles -- you really notice this when you hack off a group of elves or a party of Yelnora 2) Shields are a "disposable" weapon, as you can still fall back on parrying and attacking with your one handed weapon if (when) it breaks 3) Shields are mainly wood, so cheap in many areas, versus metal swords, for instance. 4) Fireblade can be used to greatly increase the damage of a one handed weapon, but not as much a two handed. The real problem comes with the fact that a two handed weapon does nearly twice the damage as the one handed version, and there are several doubling effects with magic spells and Humkati geas. This extra damage is able to straight up defeat the normal defense to melee attacks -- parrying and armor. It also helps to defeat the really monstrous opponents that you will certainly encounter in Glorantha, from time to time. These facts generally trump the utility of the shield, unless your campaign is both hard on equipment, and features a lot of missile combat. Thinking on it, it seems like a buckler, especially a metal buckler (sure this is not a common bronze age thing, but neither are two handed weapons -- this IS Glorantha), should be beefed up over the wooden variety in hit points. 10 AP seems reasonable, heck even 12. That sucker is metal! It should have the hit points of a metal weapon, like the broadsword. This would make it a decent dueling item, not optimal at all, just usable, at the cost of weight. Thinking on it, it seems to me that most shields of the bronze age era were the large type, intended for hiding behind during the missile barrage. Second thought on it -- campaigns should see more weapon damage and extended missile exchanges. Sartar has the cultural weapon of javelin, so the old "throw two and then charge" seems natural. 1d10 is not to be scoffed at, and impales are a major problem, even from angry farmers. Praxian nomads lack metal gear for fighting ,so missiles are deadly. They should come naturally to any desert encounter, probably annoyingly to both sides. The players probably want to come to grips like good heavy infantry, while the nomads are probably wondering why these "walkers" just won't fall. So basically for every encounter with something that has 8-10 AP everywhere and a 16 point parrying weapon, there can easily be 3-4 encounters where multiple rounds of missiles and spells are the order of the day. This might change player attitudes a bit, and mollify the somewhat odd values of some of the weapons. At least a javelin does real damage in this edition -- it used to do the same as an arrow, despite being multiple times the mass. My current zoom campaign is seeing more bad guys drop to javelins + speedart than every other weapon combined. Factors involved: party is fresh, so low skill, enemies are generally poorly armored, and many lack shields. They drop like flies, throw lots of rocks/improvised weapons, and a two handed hit would be overkill on. More advanced combat encounters are likely not survivable by the starting characters, so we'll see if they decide to start shifting towards the more specialized two handed weapons later. Most of my PC's have over the years, sadly.

That's quite the premise, and I find it a stretch. Orlanth went to save the world sure, but total eradication of all Chaos or failure? Seems way too binary. Orlanth wasn't about to put everything back to the Green Age, or the Lesser Darkness. Why go back to a system that doesn't work for you and yours, or return to a time where the excesses led directly to the Greater Darkness? Orlanth is more about moving forward with something new, and what they came up with was the best that the various powers could do with what was left. Considering the alternative was oblivion, and the case was so dire that only the IfoughtWeWon held things together in his absence, it's tough for me to characterize the Lightbringers Quest as a "failure".

Purchased. Sad for no POD. Will read it tonight.

The biggest impact on a young me was all of Cults of Terror. Lived up to its name. The most impactful on the players was definitely a run against a Thanatar temple, before they understood what what was... We went from fantasy gaming to horror very, very quickly. Still my favorite was the final Divine Intervention of a Broo Rune Priest for...Plague. Someone in the group had it, no one knew who and they all fell out with each other over it.

I always look at those things as a factor of the difference of the fantasy environment. In the bronze age the penetrating power of a spear was enough -- more than enough -- to get the job done on a human opponent. But a Gloranthan warrior may have to tangle with trolls, CON 17+ Broos, heck, even dinosaurs. Or more typically have to penetrate a protection spell plus armor, or even a Shield spell plus an actual shield. Sometimes you just need a bigger beat stick. Similarly, dwarves are clearly vastly ahead technologically of the rest of the rest of the community, and crossbows are a legacy of theirs. At least they control gunpowder weapons better. However it is only a matter of time before I let the some PC's hire out the Cannon cult to blow away some Hoplites. They've been in their since the beginning, and I've never allowed them to show up "on screen". Although goofy, I am regretting not including something that is part of the lore. Sometimes Glorantha is a little goofy. Bonus points: a death match between the Black Horse troop and the Cannon cult. My god, I have the figures for that already........

You mean besides what is listed on page 176? I had a couple of PC's told to form in the middle of the shield wall, and battle skill was the only way they could figure out what was going on. Because they are used to RPG's where the action is generally only small gang fighting, they haven't yet really figured out