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simonh

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Everything posted by simonh

  1. Magic Point storage is pretty much a must-have asset for any character that casts magic, which is pretty much any character in RQ. The problem is if they're common enough for all or most characters to have one, why can't some characters have more? But that can be seriously unbalancing. For crystals this isn't as much of an issue because you can only attune one crystal at a time, so its's self-limiting. Perhaps that could be extended to all MP storage sources, so you can only have a connection to one at a time? It seems a little artificial, but might do the job. We'd still need a mechanism along the lines of attunement to establish or shift the link. Simon Hibbs
  2. If it’s 3 per day then that’s easy. If you roll on the Urban encounter table, your chances of ending up rolling on the magical terrain table is 1 in 10,000. Since you get 1D6 encounters per day, on average that’s a bit over a 3 in 10,000 chance. Murphy’s Rules was just a bit of fun, and working this out was a nice trip down memory lane. IMHO it’s all good. Simon Hibbs
  3. I’ve also come across people citing examples of Gregging, where in fact they just assumed something about Glorantha and were wrong. Every now and then someone would join the RQ Digest and complain about something “in RQ2” being later Gregged by X, only for it to turn out that whatever it was wasn’t actually in RQ2 and anyway there was an even earlier source for X in WB&RM or an early copy of Wyrm’s Footnotes. Simon Hibbs
  4. I think it just grants skill bonuses and such that help you towards meeting the requirements for becoming a Priest. Yanioth has by far the highest Worship skill of any of the sample characters - about double that of most of them. She has the highest Cult Lore and equal highest Devotion to a god. She's also the only character that's sacrificed for an extra Rune point.I'd have thought all of those things would put her well on the path towards eventually becoming a Priestess and at least some of them may well be to do with her Apprentice Priestess status. Simon Hibbs
  5. It means if you live for 30 years, you've got about a 50/50 chance of it happening to you at some point or other. That doesn't seem completely unreasonable for Glorantha. Simon Hibbs
  6. I think it's extrapolating from the encounter tables in the Gamemaster's Book. Characters (and therefore presumably NPCs as well) in an urban environment roll on the Urban Encounters table 1D6 times a day. A roll of 96+ leads to the rural encounters table. A roll on that of 81+ leads to the Wilds encounter table. A roll on that of 81+ leads to the Wasteland encounter table. A roll on that of 96+ leads to the magical terrain table. Presumably they are classifying some of the magical terrain encounters as occurring on the God Plane, such as 00 - Demonic demigod, 01 - magical ruler of region, etc. Simon Hibbs
  7. I believe they’re starting characters, equivalent to what you can generate yourself. Think of them as the characters as they were at the beginning of Vassana’s saga. As such they’re are competent and capable, but with loads of room for growth. Simon Hibbs
  8. European two handed swords were used in a similar style. They only really make sense if you have really good all-over plate armour otherwise you’re just too vulnerable. Until armour gets good enough, sword and shield are far superior.
  9. Bear in mind I'm writing from a limited knowledge of the development of the system. I don't think the rules require that every combattant's skill to also be applicable with a shield, instead skills are gained in weapon sets. A weapon set might very well consist of a single weapon, or it might cover use of a weapon and shield, etc. For example a combattant trained in two handed sword might have a two handed sword skill that allows attack and parry with that weapon, while a wielder of a one handed sword and shield might have one skill for both attack and parry with one handed sword and shield. For details beyond that, we'll have to wait a few weeks.Specifically, I don't know to what extent being trained is sword and shield fighting would enable you to parry with a sword alone, I would hope it would be fairly generous because I think that makes sense. The fundamental principle is that you only need to have one combat skill to be effective, but attacking and parrying are separate actions in the game requiring separate rolls. Unifying the skills makes sense practically because many close combat manoeuvres include both defensive and offensive aspects. Attacking in it's inherent nature means extending towards or closing on the target, which provides opportunities for counter-attack. Therefore offensive moves are performed in such a way as to still provide defensive options and counter-moves and you train in sequences of these, not just single actions individually. You're quite right, it was a bit of a crappy thing to say and I wish I hadn't. Oh well. Simon Hibbs
  10. I was present at several discussions of these issues at conventions, including with Pete, so I had the good fortune to talk about this with many members of the design team. I was also involved in some of the early stages of playtesting, but I certainly can't speak for the design team. Simon Hibbs
  11. I think RQ3 gets a bit more flak than it really deserves, it was much more conducive to long term play and varied in-game activities than RQ2. I've got no beef with reverting to a more RQ2-like core combat system though. Combining attack and parry skills has nothing to do with D&D and everything to do with talking to people with experience of historical combat skills, such as HEMA. They talk a lot about building experience with weapon sets, and even point out specific design features of some weapons that are there due to common use with specific complementary equipment, often a shield. In the case of sword and shield fighting, many manoeuvres in that combination involve offensive use of the shield and defensive use of the sword. Check out this video where they show some of this. Also typical historical warriors would train to be effective in multiple scenarios depending on what they might have available. The hypothetical one trick pony that only ever fought one way is really a rather artificial and ridiculous caricature. I'm sorry if input from real world experience doesn't get any traction with you, but this was a carefully considered change with many aspects of it taken into account and seeking out expert opinions were a big part of that. It's definitely a tradeoff, but it was felt that on balance combining the skills actually lead to fewer unrealistic divergences from reality than keeping them separate, while sometimes having them separate and sometimes combining them was too confusing. Feel free to house rule away though. Simon Hibbs
  12. On the first point, in RQ3 I'd say a held spirit can cast spells on the shaman, but not on other corporeal targets because the spirit has no way to perceive them. However if the Shaman casts a Mindlink or Spirit Guardian spell on them (pretty much the same thing from Gods of Glorantha) then yes because then it can use the Shaman's senses. Really that's a big part of what those spells are for. I don't remember posting that, maybe it's from Sandy Petersen's house rules? The consequences of that would be that for new Shamans the fetch would have very low POW and be very vulnerable on the spirit plane, but for experienced Shamans the fetch's POW could be huge. It would make the Shaman/Fetch's effectiveness on the Spirit plane highly variable and potentially a bit over powered. Simon Hibbs
  13. RQG is a very different beast from RQ3 when it comes to Shamans. The rules there start similar conceptually at a basic level - Shaman, Fetch, Spirits - but it's a dramatically expanded, richer and more versatile system. I can't wait to get into the final version. Simon Hibbs
  14. I played a shaman character extensively under RQ3 rules, I'll just say how we ruled it. We tried to stick within the rules, but there are arguable edge cases. 1) Can a fetch cast spells when the shaman is not discorporate? 3) If a fetch can cast spells, can it cast spells on the mundane plane? We said yes *, but it has no way to perceive the mundane world or targets on it, so it can only cast spells on the Shaman through their magical connection. It should also be able to cast spells on people in Mindlink with the Shaman. This is contentious, the only place it explicitly says a Fetch can cast spells is in the section on Discorporation when the Shaman is on the Spirit Plane, but we interpreted that to be mainly talking about the ability to perceive and target beings on the mundane plane. It made sense to us that the Fetch on the spirit plane could cast spells fine, but had no way to target beings other than the Shaman on the mundane plane. IIRC we considered allowing casting Visibility on the fetch so it could function more usefully on the mundane plane, but disallowed it because the Fetch is supposed to be the Shaman's 'shadow' or counterpart on the spirit plane. Bringing the Fetch to the mundane plane would violate that special connection to the spirit plane for the Shaman which is the whole point of the fetch. Furthermore the section on Discorporation appears to forbid it "The fetch cannot manifest if the shaman is not discorporate". 2) Can a shaman and fetch send sprits back and forth between planes? It's pretty clear a Shaman can send spirits captured on the mundane plane to be held by the Fetch, it states so explicitly in the section "Captured Spirits" in the Magic Book. Many spirits you would want to use on the mundane plane can already get there themselves, as the Visibility spell states "some otherworld creatures possess this as a natural ability...", things like disease spirits, passion spirits, ghosts, etc. However a competent Shaman should always have the Visibility spell handy. EDIT: * I've got no problem at all with David's interpretation. It doesn't explicitly say the fetch can cast spells while on the Spirit Plane. We were extrapolating from it's ability to do so while the Shaman was discorporate. Simon Hibbs
  15. For myself, not really. The fanzines for most of the last 25 years or so have mainly been focused on Glorantha rather than RQ. Another factor is that RQ3 had much less common spirit magic than the battle magic in RQ2, and got rid of the most overpowered spells like Invisibility. There were a lot of fanzines around in the 80s with tons of stuff like non-Gloranthan cults, weird monsters and new spells. Simon Hibbs
  16. If you do want to introduce new spell there are several lightweight ways to do this. An obscure spell might only be taught by a particular holy man, or at a remote shrine, or by a spirit that is only contactable under certain circumstances. A visiting foreign magician might be able to teach exotic or unusual magic. Characters might come across a spell focus or matrix for a 'lost' spell, perhaps in the form of a holy or cursed relic. The Egyptians used to soak magical scrolls in beer then drink it, so maybe a potion or magical plant might grant the ability to cast a new spell for some period of time after consuming it. All without permanently altering the 'magical economy' of the setting. Simon Hibbs
  17. I think the battle magic in the RQ2 rulebook is really only intended a sample of what's possible, and what is commonly found in the Dragon pass area. There's no way it's intended as a comprehensive catalogue of all possible Battle magic. In fact specialist Battle magic is one of the ways the cults in various supplements offer differentiation and specialisation to their members, through access to exotic spells. If they'd come up with every possible variation of magical effect and piled them all into the basic rulebook, firstly it would have ballooned the page count, then there wouldn't have been any way they could have play-tested it all, and finally it would have left little scope for exotic or specialist magic to be presented in different contexts. They needed to keep scope for alternative magical effects to be available to different elder races, cults and cultures. Finally, bear in mind that in Runequest the magic flows from the myths and metaphysics of the setting. A character in Glorantha can't just imagine a magical effect and then 'invent it'. It's not science. They are more like religious or spiritual experiences expressed in practical ways. Simon Hibbs
  18. I thought the EWF were largely Orlanthi, or at least Theyalan in origin, though being an Empire I'm sure it incorporated multiple cultural influences to some extent. Simon Hibbs
  19. Can't wait to get to Eternalcon. Only a week to go!
  20. RQ2 or RQ3? It was much more viable to go that way in 2 because Battle magic provided such as wide range of abilities, some of which were frankly pretty OP (Invisibility). Simon Hibbs
  21. That’s the easy bit. There was still looking up or memorizing the ‘Attack, Parry and Dodge Results’ Table, special rules for knock back, grappling and such, and the fumble tables. Even after playing for several years the quick reference sheets were regularly used. To be fair to RQ3 though, even RQ2 while simpler in some ways still has its complexities and I’m sure a few quick reference sheets for RQG will come in handy. One of the main problems with RQ3 in the very early days though was the fragmentation of rules across multiple rule books and boxed sets. The all-in-one-book edition was a revolution. Simon Hibbs
  22. simonh

    A sense of scale

    I think the Pendragon comparison is a good one, with its kings of just about everywhere. If you read up on England during the Viking invasion period it was a hodgepodge of Saxon kingdoms with Wales, Cornwal and Scotland and certainly Ireland pretty much Terra Incognita for most purposes. As for Rome, it wasn’t always a continent spanning super-Empire. Look at it during the Punic Wars and it looks a lot more closely scaled to the Lunar Empire. I think that period is a much better analog. They were still a hegemonic force, dominating various previously independent Italian states, with controlled and vassal territories on the periphery. Simon Hibbs
  23. 12 feet seems a bit short. It would put their back height at only about 8 feet, not enough to provide a significant advantage over a Bison or Rhinoceros. It seems to me they are likely based on Aepycamelus Major, which was significantly bigger per my post above. Their back height was 13ft! Simon Hibbs
  24. The Gloranthan Bestiary had Alticamelus riders rolling 1D10+10 for hit location even against other mounted foes. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/627267054323406025/ Although most of the online sources only put Aepycamelus (same thing) at 3m to the head, but that may have been in a resting posture is which case the back might have still been over 2m? However the Florida Museum gives Aepycamelus Major a back height of 13 feet, plus 5-6 feet to the head. Simon Hibbs
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