Akhôrahil

Do the participants have good reason to believe this? If someone told me "I need your body, but I'll pack away your soul in a pocket paradise", I would at least be skeptical at first. Even if it was, in fact, true.

How good of a deal is this, really? If you lose, you probably die, and if you ”win”, you get essentially possessed? Especially since most of the participants would already be fairly successful in their own rights? Is there an actual choice whether to participate, because this doesn’t seem like a strong sell?

Hueymakt isn't the original? What fresh heresy is this!

In Sweden, this is exactly what happened with the original Magic World (the one that was part of Worlds of Wonder back in 1982). It was licensed, got onto its own dev track, spawned other BRP games, and so on, and become the standard fantasy RPG and BRP the go-to RPG system for decades. Games as diverse as Mutant: Year Zero, Trudvang Chronicles and Forbidden Lands can trace their roots back to it in different ways (even those that now run under a different system).

I think someone described the danger of Herodom as that now you have to get worshiped. You bind yourself to your worshipers. Maybe you don't disappear if you don't get worshiped, but you won't have any fun.

Just realized (in the spirit of the thread, too!) that Berserker is a perfect (well, it has some practical downsides...) Chaos detector. It objectively triggers on Chaos, without any concerns about detection or anything like that. Attack someone, and see if you get your attack skilled increased by 50%, or doubled. If doubled, you know it's Chaos, no matter how hidden or in an Illuminant. Otherwise, not.

One of my players quickly saw the benefit of having a bound spirit that can support spellcasting (Multimissile in this case) just as quickly as the character can attack at range. (In the process also realizing that Multimissile means that you fumble a lot.)

Bow Berserking. While Berserker states "However, the Berserker cannot cast magic, parry, or Dodge", nothing stops him or her from standing off at range with a bow or thrown weapons, which makes the downsides (no defenses) of Berserker a lot less dangerous.

You could even call for a Rune roll here in order to succeed. In game terms, it would work as an explanation for a Rune Augment.

Undead yes, unperson no!

Do we really picture either of those in the Cults book?

It also sounds pretty Shargash:y.

Jeff: "Belintar is surrounded by individuals who study his teachings and aid him in directing magical energies according to his inscrutable plans. Those are his initiates. The Tide Lord, the Constant Guard, the Reef Master, the Bridge Singer, the Keeper of the Book, the Red Destroyer, the High Priests of the Great Runes, and so forth, were all officials AND initiates into Belintar’s secrets." https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/wp-content/uploads/www.glorantha.com-forums/www.glorantha.com/forums/topic/holy-country-my-players-get-out/index.html

On the upside, you may be able to use combat encounters created for a 4-6 PC party unmodified. 🙂

Sum up everything first, then split. Anything else makes splitting way too good. Of course, you could even split the axe attack three ways, here... EDIT: Wait, you can’t do the three-way split by RAW due to the weird clause about ”natural” skill ratings (I don’t use that, because I think it makes no sense).

Due to its stats, it should come as no surprise that the Minotaur is a combat monster way out of balance with anything else. You should add all modifiers before splitting though, or it becomes way too easy even for minotaurs. Not using the skills over 100% rule also is great for making splitting better. So you’ve set up the perfect storm for yourself with these three items. Under normal rules, trying to do all this against an extremely skilled opponent, such as a Humakti (especially under Sword Trance) would likely end in total disaster.

It’s going to be a long fight if you depend on enemies critting in order to have any effect, especially since it’s only going to be on 01 in melee...

I completely support the idea of various Umbroli and the like turning up for Orlanth worship at temples, just as your Allied Spirits actually need to participate in order to both fulfil cult requirements and to regain Rune Points. Although the "regular" (S/M/L) elementals seem to be pretty close to mindless, and likely don't qualify. They might still be "inherent nature" lay members.

Allied Spirits are, so it makes sense that at least some cult spirits are initiated.

I have more than my share of criticism of the RQG rules, but I don't think anyone goes into mid-range RPG publishing (anything other than D&D, basically) in order to make a quick buck. There's an old saying: "the best way to make a small fortune in the gaming industry is to start with a large fortune."

Yeah, but the point of this thread isn't what you would actually like to do in play or what you expect to get away with with your GM – it's exploring the reach of the rules.

Yeah, it depends a lot on the game. in D&D, points-buy would be a given, but in RQ, I like the simulationist "work with what you got (although it shouldn't get too bad)". It should be noted that (the errata:ed) research rules for characteristics are super generous, so as long as you do the one adventure per season, salvaging poor stats is pretty easy (as long as it's not INT or SIZ, and those are 2D6+6 already).

My players got to roll two sets, from up to down (no free placement), and pick one, but could re-roll any full set lower than average. This resulted in somewhat better statlines, but mostly just avoided outright bad and boring ones.

Ablative Anti-Dispel Formula Because Dispel-type magic goes for the largest defensive spell first, if you have critical offensive spells cast on you or an item (like an enormously-boosted Sword Trance, a big Slash, or an extended Truesword), you can protect this important spell by spamming small defensive spells on the same target - these will consume incoming Dispels. Obviously there's a time aspect here, but getting a single one-point spirit magic spell in won't be too bad. (Be careful about using Countermagic for this though, as it's at risk of being popped by other spells.)

Elemental Zoo Since elementals have rolled characteristics, this means that they can be more or less good (and you might even hope for a low POW in order to Command them more easily). Summon Elemental: "Having once successfully summoned an elemental, the deity sends the same elemental every time the adventurer summons an elemental of that size and type. If the caster summons more than one elemental of that size, they can choose which one they summon in the future." This means that it will be beneficial to have a "stable" of elementals to choose from - depending on how your table plays it, you will either have to make estimates from what happens (like your Command roll for POW), or the GM may tell you to roll it up and run it yourself, but either way, you should be able to get an idea about its characteristics. Especially if you're unhappy with the one you got, make sure to find the opportunity to summon as many elementals of that size and type as you can handle at the same time, in order to create a better selection for future castings (when you can pick any one of them when summoning a single one). As a wise summoner once said, "Gotta catch 'em all!" Oh, and depending on what your GM thinks about these things, remember that an elemental you track for re-use might be able to receive a POW gain roll during play. (The same reasoning applies to Ancestors, by the way.)