SDLeary

True, it wasn't Gloranthan, but it certainly wasn't as horrible as most seem to point to. At least it never was in any of the games I was in. Even in the Gloranthan campaigns I was in, the Sorcerers were always top notch in terms of effectiveness. SDLeary

So you spend the time, and make your roll and BAM, you know the Rune or the Technique? No percentages on either to deal with? OK, this satisfies the "you know it or you don't" statement (paraphrasing, not going back in the thread to get the exact wording). What threw me off was you also used the term Mastering, as if it was something additional that had to be done. So, are there any differences for lower casts? Can a Soldier/Warrior still cast magic related to warfare? A farmer spells to enhance his yield? Etc. And if so, how are they limited, other than class strictures, from learning other stuff? Do they "know" enough general theory to use rituals? Is everything they do a ritual (using time as a cast limiter makes some sense). Or are they going to be using "lower magic" as I believe I read in one of the other threads? SDLeary

OK, I'll bite. How does the sorcerer either understand Techniques or not (I'm assuming that knowledge of Runes is based on the Rune tree we saw before). Also, if they are not skills, how does one "master" a Technique, especially if they "understand" it or not? FreeINT to memorize spells, but no Grimoires. Sounds like a contradiction of what you have already laid down for Malkionism. If Grimoires exist, how would you mechanically integrate them into what you have just presented us? Does someone simply have to be able to read the text, magical or otherwise? If this is the case, can anyone who can read the text cast a spell out of a Grimoire? Are Grimoires simply repositories of spells that the magician has to memorize? I'm with others. On first blush this sounds either like Advanced Sorcery, or a streamlined RQ3 sorcery, and NOT an RQ/BRP adaption of what is presented in HQ. SDLeary

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Happy Birthday Sir!

Actually, I was able to find that sheet in the downloads section. Its listed as "RuneQuest CS rev2", uploaded in 2008. SDLeary

If you are going back to 4e, yes. But they were very much sourcebook adventures, not full blown campaigns. Pendragon really only has one of those, but what a Campaign it is. An actual DragonPass campaign would be excellent. I think you'd have to have two separate ones to get both the Orlanthi and Lunar perspective though, or a mighty large book. As an aside, I've heard of people using the GPC with RQ3/BRP... I have no idea how well it would have worked though. I have to imagine the casualty rate among characters was high! SDLeary

Here is a brief survey of bronze to iron age swords. Some reproductions. And a Museum pic from Swordforum.com. As to how they were used... who knows. Its assumed as a primarily thrusting weapon, but as to use as a weapon of war, or a dueling weapon as later rapiers who knows. As many opponents were probably ill armored save for a shield, I suppose cutting as well. Some of the Mycenaean ones could get pretty long. As to applying "rapier" to a gladius, I suppose you could. Some later specimens come in with blades under 2" in width. And then there is the original Spatha that this will be based on. The phenomena of bronze age rapiers though does seem to be predominantly Minoan and Mycenaean. Most inland blades seem to follow a leaf pattern. SDLeary

WOW! That looks like one of mine, at least the front page does. It was uploaded here long long ago, and lost in one of the many updates. If others are interested, I can see if I can find it and re-upload it. SDLeary

And speaking of Pendragon... it has actually managed to survive on the back of a single campaign! We need a GPC type campaign for RQ. SDLeary

Many Bronze Age rapiers are much thinner than that, much closer in width to what would come later in the Renaissance, though they do flare as you get towards the hilt. Shortswords have a much much broader blade. SDLeary

Well, IIRC, the original intent was to recreate WoW as modern independent games. We got Magic World, but there were machinations in Ben's mind to push for Superworld and Future World as well. SDLeary

And by making a threshold, you can increase grain if you want to. For example, instead of one threshold level, you could have two: one could reduce as Mankcam has shown; a second higher threshold could lower the increase to 1% (or some other progression... say 1d6, 1d4,1d2). This somewhat reigns in insane skill levels and some of the pitfalls in bonus/penalties vs. lower skilled opponents. It also allows continued learning by the character, and lessens the likelihood that a player would simply drop efforts to improve in that category and move on to the next. SDLeary

I was presenting it as an option, because POW is the most swingy characteristic, and thus is essentially the cause of the vast majority of recalculation. You could, for example, pull it out of the category modifiers and apply it as the base for specific skills. Still a bit of recalc, but for a fewer set of skills. SDLeary

How big is your playtest group? How big a sample are you dealing with? Just for arguments sake, using RQ Classic as the baseline, what % of the total sold does the playtest group represent? If this is a small Alpha group, I would hope that you have't set in stone yet. If its a Beta group, then I hope its at least of a size that can actually register a sample of the opinions of the community, and thus of your fan/user/customer base. SDLeary

An option would be to pull POW out of most skills. Honestly, it should probably only be in a magic bonus (if one exists), or Oratory. SDLeary

I agree completely. In fact, I would consider something along these lines optimal: Primary Characteristic + 1/2 Secondary Characteristic (- optional 1/2 Tertiary Characteristic) Gives a large enough bonus to make characteristics matter, and when combined with base skill values provides decent starting skills without being too too high. SDLeary P.S. I appear to be at my Like limit, but would give your post one if I could.

Yes, but if skills are on 5% increments, there isn't really an issue implementing crits and fumbles anyway. Crits would occur on a 1, and impales/specials somewhere between 2 and 4. Certainly not as granular, but doable. In fact in Pendragon (BRP d20 essentially) crits occur on a 1; not great granularity, but doable. SDLeary

This is one of the reasons I think I liked RQ3 a bit more. % felt a bit more like %. Everything being a multiple of 5... just use a d20 for goodness sake! SDLeary

Mythras is a good choice, yes. I still have issues with certain things about it though that seem to prevent me from using it as my go-to. Specifically the Action Point economy and Special Effects. I don't consider these systems bad, but there is something about them that turns me away. SDLeary

Agreed about magics being culturally or setting relevant. With a generic system though you have to provide a basic system which people can use on their own until those culturally relevant systems emerge. RQ3 wasn't disconnected from a setting, it had Fantasy Earth. The spells and systems were bland because they had to function as a baseline for such a wide and diverse set of cultures. It certainly would have been nice if the setting had expanded beyond two supplements. Should have the magic of Glorantha been different in RQ3, sure, but for some reason it was never developed that way, perhaps because the Renaissance occurred so late in the timeline. SDLeary

I actually want to see what you guys come up with. Not just the base system, but other support materials. SDLeary

PenDragon Pass is a game which seriously needs more exposure! Jeff can you get Dave on that please? Break out the whips if necessary! Fatigue, clunky certainly. I'm not sure I would go as far as broken. Category modifiers... I preferred them. It meant that characteristics were more important, had more of a bearing upon skills even if it didn't necessarily give you as high a bonus. I also liked that you could end up with a negative bonus... A high size is good for damage mod, but utterly crappy for stealth! Magic suffered by being generic? <shrug> OK? In play I never really encountered much difference between Battle Magic and Spirit Magic, or between Rune/Divine in actual play. Failure rate was a bit higher, but I didn't think things suffered because of that. Sorcery at the time was unique. There was no other system out there (that I can recall) that tried to replicate the Wizard in the Tower (or library). The times I played a Sorcerer, I really enjoyed it. It felt so much different than the sorcerers in that other game. Now in hindsight... yeah, there were flaws and clunkiness. We see the flaws, we've moved on, but at the time it was GREAT! I hold out hope for RQ4, but at least as of now I'm still not convinced. You see, I like being able to use a rules system where I like. I lament that apparent lack of genericness in the rules, as presented so far. While I love what we've so far seen of the magic system and its integration of Gloranthan runes, this also means that RQ will not be my go to game if I want to run a quick series of games in Hyboria, or pull out my copy of the Thieves World supplement to use with it, or others. Now I can use my excellent new copy of RQ2 (thank you!), but there was a time I was hoping to be able to do this with a new rules set. SDLeary