SDLeary

A fair point, but other than Gandalf (who really isn't part of The Party), most of the high powered individuals are firmly in the NPC realm. Parrying exists, but it is subsumed into the actual interaction. Partial Success (under skill, under opponents successful roll) allows the character to interpose their shield or weapon. Remember that combat is a bit more abstracted than RQ; Striking and Parrying are part of each interaction. And remember that PendragonPass has been used for several successful long term campaigns among the Gloranthan Grognardica. SDLeary

In 4e you do have flexibility. The advanced character generation basically shows you what you would need to do to develop other cultures (or even non-humans), and if one of your players insists that they want to play a magician, then those rules are there as well. If that interests you, then keep an eye out, because someone is supposed to be working on a Samurai version of the game too, though this news was old and my have been delayed or fallen off the map. Paladin is certainly interesting, and I think that it might form the basis for 6e Pendragon when its released. In fact, I just looked at Drive Thru, and they have a nice bundle of the 4e material! SDLeary

While certainly not DnD-like, the tropes between Arthurian Fantasy and Tolkien are very similar. It would be somewhat trivial to cross over into Middle Earth with Pendragon, just need to figure out starting skills for non-warrior types, and beasties. SDLeary

Fantasy. The system can be used as historical, certainly nothing preventing that, but all supporting material places things firmly in Arthurian Fantasy. A very large portion of Mallory goes with this, though any of the literary sources could add flavor. In the current version, magic isn't very well defined rules wise. Magic is placed firmly in the hands of the GM to provide Wonder and Excitement, as one would find in the sources. Greg is supposed to be working on a Magic supplement, but if you want something more well defined now then your best bet is to find a copy of 4e. That has actual rules for character generation and casting. Mind though, it is certainly NOT Vancian style magic. All the versions are somewhat the same overall, with 4e being the standout for flexibility because of magic and expanded character generation. The most current version, 5.2, is the most cleaned up of the bunch, but the streamlining goes extreme, and pulls out a lot of the flexibility that you fine in 4e. A spin-off is PALADIN: Warriors of Charlemagne, which deals primarily with the Roland cycle. There are a few changes that tailor it for its new focus, but I'm still going thru it so don't feel quite versed enough to comment on how effective they are. Most newer supplements that are out focus on things that really do not hold any interest for me: manorial management and large set piece battles. The best supplement of course, is the Great Pendragon Campaign. A couple of the supplements expand this to an earlier time to cover the reign of Uther. Older supplements for for 4e and earlier extend the world and the magic. Beyond the Wall, Pagan Shore, and Land of Giants are the standouts here. In addition to this, you can find PendragonPass by Dave Dunham. This is (as you can probably figure from the name) a Glorantha focused adaption of the Pendragon rules. In my estimation, this probably should have been the core for the New Chaosium Game, as with a little tinkering (Masteries from HQ), it could scale much easier from gritty to heroic. SDLeary

Come now. If you have access to "ancient texts", then anything is possible! SDLeary

As there is supposed to be a Supers genre pack coming out for it (Superworld), that would be very apropos! SDLeary

You would think, but "short sword" was both Gladius (cut and thrust), and Kukri ("normal" usage); and while it can, its not really designed for thrusting. Also, "broadsword" was more a "migration/frankish/viking" type blade with a point, or an arming sword. Remember the time period that Fantasy Europe was occupying. SDLeary

Yes, its pretty straight forward. Essentially a tweaked version of Stormbringer 5. That boils down to DEX based combat sequencing, attack and parry as single skill, hit points with no locations, Major Wounds... and on. Pretty much as easy as core Cthulhu without Sanity. Some complexity can arise if you use magic from the Advanced Sorcery supplement, but magic in the core is pretty straight forward. SDLeary

I'm not sure if it was the wait, but the books actually look quite a bit better than the PDF does (and thats off an iPad Pro). The only thing that I have found a little off so far is that they have followed a path similar to oldChaosium, that is to say Body Text that looks good on a tablet, but is slightly too big in print. Not as bad as some of the last oldChaosium products though. SDLeary

The Delta Green set has finally arrived! Woo Hoo! SDLeary

Hey David, if you are the Rune Master, would it be possible to get all the older rune packs posted in a single area? A lot of them seem to have vanished from the intarwebs! Specifically I'm looking for the regional ones, ex. Sartar.ttf (I still have this one). SDLeary

I would like to second this. Even if its just an appendix on how to take thing and convert. And while Anaxial's Roster is still available, I bet things will have changed a bit in the lasts 18 or so years. And to extend this to HQ and its future in general, I would like to suggest this type of adaption for ANY Gloranthan supplement, and perhaps any Chaosium supplements (thinking of things like Malleus Monstrorum, though I might like to see something like Masks with this too). It would at least give people an idea of how differences of scale might progress, even if they modify said scales for their own games. SDLeary

Fair... we used the Blue Box until 2e came out. SDLeary

True, but the group I played with didn't have the GMs book for some time in those early days, we played almost all from the players book (which had all the core rules in it). And one of the group had the MM. We were all early teens with little money to spend. Its only that you should expect the rules in a core rules book. Advanced rules, optional rules, special circumstance rules, world building, detailed world description, place them in other books, sure. But core rules should be in one place. And again, with as much as the deadlines of combat is emphasized, and alternatives to killing advised, less-lethal methods of succeeding in combat should have been included in the main book. Now, do I expect them to fix this? No. Layout is done and last minute error-trapping/fixing needs to progress. However, I would suggest that they at least take the section that describes Disarming , format it as the book is formatted, and place it on their site for download. SDLeary

Yes, or perhaps they are the last alive and you need them for questioning. Though I don't like the mechanic, Mythras/RQ6 has the Combat Special Effect of Compel Surrender. SDLeary

Go to the end of the line or where you want to split the conversation, and hit your enter key twice. SDLeary

OK, I'm not that far into the PDF yet (have to work 😐), but scrolling to that area I can see reason for the frustration. With as much as the deadlines of combat is emphasized, and alternatives to killing advised, less-lethal methods of succeeding in combat should have been included in the main book. You have no guarantees that players will have access to the other books. You have no guarantees that GMs will buy the GMs book. The new book already has tons more info that any previous edition, they might just go with that. The lack of less-lethal methods is an oversight. While the breadth and description of the languages are very nice, much of that information (at least in this detailed a form) should have been someplace else, such as the Bestiary (Auld Wymish, Beastspeech, Darktongue, Aldryami, Mostali, Seatongue), or perhaps the Cults book (Earthtongue, Firespeech, Seatongue, Stormspeech). Now should anyone think that I'm not a Gloranthan fan, I can say that my Guide sits proudly on my bookcase. I may not be able to There are other areas as well that could have been trimmed (moved to downloads) if fitting other rules were an issue. Should anyone think that I'm not a Gloranthan fan, I can say that my Guide sits proudly on my bookcase. I may not be able to recite chapter and verse as may can, I still love the world. Now all of that that being said, this book is beautiful, far beyond my expectations in presentation. I will be buying it. SDLeary

This was my thought, and why I started checking out a progressive table. I chose /10 originally because it allowed damage to exist in roughly the same range as RQ3; similar average and similar max for a "normal" adventurer with a +1d4 bonus (based on a 1d8 -ish weapon). Variation would be minimal enough that compensating would be almost trivial. As noted though, the higher end especially with beasties becomes a real issue. Yeah, using Heroic HP or simply bumping locational values on the table to the left a bit. SDLeary

Oh, by the way... Damage = (STR + SIZ)/10 is the formula that i'm using to determine number of d6 if I end up going the Pendragon route. SDLeary

I've thought of other tables; in fact my first thought was the Mythras damage bonus table, simply shifting things down. I'm shooting to have 1pt be the minimum throughout almost the entire human range, if not the entire human range. The next "step" being a minimum of 2, and this would probably be for a beastie of Dark Troll stature. Adds always complicate this. SDLeary

Sadly, the critical bit still bounces around inside this armor, causing issues. I want to try and capture that, primarily in effect having people KOd more often. This falls in line with my thinking that long term consequences are almost non-existent when using locations. Locational thresholds leading to locational effects in the Major Wounds Table. Yes! Thats actually what I'm doing here. I have 2300AD on the mind, with a healthy dose of The Expanse. And sadly, for some reason, River of Heaven is not scratching that itch at the moment. SDLeary

I agree, but I was trying to go the Pendragon route with damage (nD6), based on characteristics. nD6 – (n-1) being my first inclination. Using a table with multiple die types is another attempt at seeing this from another angle, and to make things easier when stat-ing missile weapons and firearms. Trying to make the minimum 1 is an attempt to make sure "flesh wounds" are possible even with unarmored foes. Another option, of course, is to use Heroic level hit points, kicking up all the thresholds. SDLeary

I thought those were all on this site at one point! SDLeary

Yes, hence the -1 on the die formula in the first post, or using die progression as far as I can to maintain the minimum at 1. SDLeary

I have a prototype table that starts off a 1d4, moves to 1d6, and then so on. It doesn't ... look right though. I need to play with the breakpoints I think. Currently breaking at every five, then iterating to the next die so that minimum damage sits at 1 (not using the formula from the first post on this table). SDLeary