Akhôrahil

“The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.” —Terry Pratchett

While I would have to look, I would be shocked if there wasn't any number of old loot - or new loot that you take from a newly slain corps, for that matter - that includes bound spirits in published adventures. The Windsword has a bound spirit, for instance, although I suppose you could argue that artifatct-level items like those are special cases.

I'm also in a situation where my players are of different minds as regards rules complexity. Probably the easiest Initiative system would be something along the lines where you still calculate SR for your action (this is pretty clumsy, but doesn't require a lot of re-writing), and then you get D&D-style Move Action, Standard Action, maybe Minor Action. Standard Action can be used as Move, and any Move action allows you to make a regular move. The easiest SR system would be where you get to intermix actions freely in a turn (I cast a spell [2], then move to take total cover behind the tree [2], then prep a new spell [5], then peek out [1], then cast a second spell [1]) and the length of a move depends purely on how many SRs you commit to it. You could even have a system without turns and just a long SR track where each one is a second.

I think RQG strike ranks are a mess, probably because they can't make up their minds about whether they're an initiative system or an action point economy (they look like an initiative system at first, but then you can get multiple attacks and spells cast, the ability to squeeze preparations into the round, and so on). I can't make up my mind in what direction to rewrite it (a strict action-point economy is interesting but fiddly, while a pure initiative system offers a lot less tactical interest), but I'm going to go in one of these directions. Otherwise you get a lot of incoherence. Should I look up RQ3 to see how it handles SRs?

Are they, though? In an ongoing manner? The process looks a lot more like beating them up, once, and then locking them into an enchantment. No obvious reason to why that would break upon death. (Spirits kept in your fetch is another matter, I will agree.)

I also wonder why a spirit would be released upon the binder's death. It's stuffed into an enchantment or crystal, and other enchantments last past the caster's death. If I put coins into a lockbox, it stays locked up even if I die. It also doesn't seem very MGF, as there wouldn't be any really old items with bound spirits in them, and it's non-obvious how heirlooms with bound spirits would work. Although it would be kinda fun that upon the death of any shaman, people will have to yell "run!!" as dozens of spirits get released, all at once...

Falling back this way might be bad for your attacking, though - I could easily see a rule that if you do this, you don’t get to attack with a shorter weapon than your opponent’s (as doing this would mean that you have to be closing instead of falling back). But yeah, even though my fighting is limited to boffers, it’s pretty damned hard to get anything done if the other guy keeps backing away.

I agree that this is at least a case where both readings are reasonable (although we seem to agree that the one not supported by ruling is the more intuitive one?), while I'm just stunned and agog at the ruling on cost of variable spells, which isn't even hinted at in the rulebook but is apparently now what it's supposed to be like. Or the "clarification" on two-weapon fighting, which was a 180-degree contradiction of the actual rules text. Or the time required for practice/training. The "ruled" game is drifting increasingly far from the RAW game. I really hope for a new edition that says what the designers meant it to say (and includes all the errata that we still don't have). I was also genuinely surprised about defensive boosting - I long argued, "hey, I'm sure this isn't intentional, but it's what it says" only to get confirmed that yeah, it's intended, at least retroactively.

True, it's not completely unsupported (but the last quote doesn't really establish which it is, or even if (third option!) you track dodges separately from parries but combine all parries.) I think p. 200 main text has the stronger wording: The text strongly seems to indicate a connection between the first and second sentence. When I read the rules the first time, I saw that there might be grounds for uncertainty, but leaned towards penalty per weapon. There have been designer comments that this was considered during game design but made defence a bit good in playtesting, but it's easy to guess that some pieces of rules text could be remnants from that period of the rules (I mean, considering that the rulebook has RQ2 legacy text that escaped editing...). Plus, from a balance perspective, it would make two-handed weapons a little less overwhelmingly good if you had some parry benefits from a sword&board (I house-ruled away the Greatsword both on historical and especially balance grounds - it's just outright the best weapon choice, and even moreso for Humakti - and even the dagger-axe is a bit too good, honestly). (I really wish that when doing this "both main text and box" rules, they would at least state the same thing... and don't even get me started on how examples tend to introduce confusion more than anything.)

I’m looking to fix the shield rules, and separate the size of the shield from the material, so that you could have a large hide or wicker shield that covers a lot but doesn’t protect too much, or a small wooden shield that’s sturdy but covers less body. Not sure how period a buckler is in the first place, but a smaller thick all-metal metal shield should be all but unbreakable. Compare a dhal, you would have to work it over with a sledgehammer in order to even dent it. This way, a small shield would still make sense, and the material would be an actual trade-off and not a no-brainer.

Your reading is the one that makes most sense from the actual rules text, but the official ruling (as in so many other cases) goes against this direct reading of the rules. The ruling is -20% per any block or parry. (Use whatever you like - at this point, the actual rules text and the ”rulings” are becoming pretty divergent, with the rulings being fairly decoupled from any rules text, and more a set of official house rules.)

I would rule that as that you experience the sudden thought and belief, but then your experience of your actual emotions will prove the belief incorrect. This isn’t different than telling someone the sky is green and orange plaid - they will believe you only until they see the sky next time, and even while they believe you, they will still remember that it used to be blue and that this new state of affairs sounds really unusual.

Considering that there are heirlooms with bound spirits, at least in these cases, they must be easily transferable.

Lie can achieve things I would not allow even on a Fast Talk crit.

And then he had to go and show her his stick! http://etyries.albionsoft.com/etyries.com/folktale/loststick.html

"When the Gods War perverted the world, the earth brought forth its own grim defender. Babeester Gor was born from her mother’s corpse, axes in hand, body ritually scarred to carry deadly magic. She destroyed all kin-slayers, all oath-breakers who swore by her mother, and everything which desecrated the sacred places of the earth. She was merciless and cruel. Once she slew so many defenseless residents of Healing Valley that she waded breast-deep in the gore, drinking the blood of victory and slaughter. Eurmal saved some of the healers when he turned the blood to beer, which Babeester Gor drank to blissful oblivion." https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/prosopaedia/deities/b/babeester-gor/ (Murdering innocent people in Healing Valley seems to be a regular activity among war gods - Humakt does it as well.)

Only saw this now - RQG has a hide as worth 500 L for tax purposes. Since this also makes perfect sense compared to flocks, I’m pretty sure it’s the most basic number to use.

RQ isn't quite the right kind of game for it, but as rule, Player-Facing is a good design. Players like to roll for things, but the GM rolling is mostly just a chore.

I don't believe "Passive Search" is a thing, unless perhaps there's some declaration from the players that they are going to take everything very slowly and carefully in the ruin (which is basically the declaration "we search everything!"). Remember, "Search takes one melee round per 2×2 meter area searched", so it can't happen if you just walk at regular pace (and actually, just one melee round is really generous in the first place!).

Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to use Lie would be to make people believe you're an authority figure that they don't dare disobey. "I'm the Red Emperor in disguise" may not be mind-control, but even completely unreasonable requests are likely to be granted by people who genuinely believe that this is the case.

The bond is a just legal and social construct, isn’t it? The chief says ”hey, this trickster is under my protection, and I will cover the costs”? It can be recalled at any moment (and a sign of a wise chief is one who does so before the sudden but inevitable betrayal).

If you use Lie and say "this statement is a lie", Mostali will have a meltdown. Or so I've heard.

We must have had very different Malk experiences!

A Gloranthan Molotov Cocktail would be a very angry small Fire elemental captured inside a magically sealed clay jar that will break on impact.

I would imagine it matters a lot what the surface is. Hay or threshing room floor, sure. Stone tiles, not so much.