Psullie

3 hours ago, davecake said:

The history of the elves is quite Genertelan focussed, and it is interesting the Genert is treated as an obvious ally of the Aldryami whose death is a disaster etc - but Pamalt, who cheerily burns elves forests, is not mentioned. 

Perhaps fire is an important part of forest ecology, like the controlled burning of sequoia woods to kill ants and promote seed scatter

whenever I have players new to Glorantha one of my go to lines by way of introduction is 'and elves are plants' and usually it is at that point they realise they are no longer in Middle Earth/Faerun/Kansas and you can see the imagination start to kick in. 

What I'd like to see with the cults is something similar to Pendragon's Religious Virtues, gaining game bonuses if the certain traits are kept at high values. Establishing which Runes are Primary, Secondary and Adverse for example with required minimums (or maximums for Adverse Runes) and granting suitable boons; access to Rune Magic, extra HP, natural armour, faster healing etc.

Of course this would only work if the GM made use of Runic traits during play to 'encourage' players to follow their faith.

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Actually, I don't think that models Rune Magic.  As noted in the Quickstart p.20, "When an adventurer casts Rune magic, the caster acts as the deity. The caster imitates the deeds of the deity and thereby evokes the deity’s power. The caster always exhibits some form of manifestation of the deity while casting the spell."

Hi jajagappa, I referring to how one acquires the magic rather than casts it, in that a religious functionary 'introduces' you to the knowledge.

I like how the QS describe the awesome nature of a Rune Spell, even momentarily taking on aspects of the deity. However I find it odd that channelling your divine power, which should be a momentous occasion in a game warranting attention, seems to take no time at all. I get the MGF and that the power of Rune Magic means that it kicks off first, but I can imagine many a future discussion with players who upon seeing their arch nemesis channel Thed or the Red Goddess shouting I attack before she finishes etc. 

1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

A curiosity question:  If the focus is visible (on weapon, shield, skin, whatever) would another practitioner of the same spell be able to recognize it as such, or do foci vary by cult?  (I would think that at least someone with that spell from the same cult would.)

This could have some minor effects on strategy.

I generally saw foci as aide de memoire, something you used to assist concentration. Other peoples foci would have no resonance or meaning and therefore useless to anyone but themselves. As for the recognition, I imagine many would be runes or stylised runes, for example the Air rune on your sword might be your foci for Bladesharp, but on my spear could be a foci for Mobility.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I really REALLY love the flavor of this!  It has that "Gloranthan" feel to my sensibilities.   HOWEVER ...

IMHO, it adds too much complexity / bookkeeping to "Battle Magic," which should be kept simple/playable...

• THESE spells have their foci set into a bracer on the fore-arm, and can be lost/stolen/etc
• THOSE are tattoo-foci, and cannot be removed without a knife.

Player should (and if they don't, GM should) keep track of which are which...?

• This spell has "Taboo:  must not have eaten meat within the past 24 hours."
• Those spells have "Taboo:  must have (intentionally) eaten insects within the past 24 hours."
• That spell has "Taboo:  never wear green."
• T'other spell has no taboo at all.

Again -- the bookkeeping to track that wonderful Gloranthan color becomes onerous.  LessGF.

Again -- I REALLY love the "Glorantha-ness" of this idea; and if I can find (or be shown) a non-onerous way to incorporate these ideas, I'd love to do so!  But also, if this made it into RQG... 'cos I'm not likely to HR it in...

I think this models Rune Magic rather than BattleSpirtGarden Magic

But yes very Gloranthan

Here’s my take on all this, pages refer to RQ2 original print edition

P10: ‘Hit Points are a measure of how much damage one can take before dying.’  - this sets up the concept that Hit Points are a finite resource reduced by damage.

P17: ‘Each of the above areas has a certain amount of hit points’  - this is a clear statement that locations also have hit points

‘when a character has taken sufficient damage to surpass his Hit Points […] he is dead. ’ - the ‘death by many cuts’ rule, multiple small injures can lead to death.

The Notes on Damage Results points (P17 - 18) clearly sates that locations take damage and that this damage is also deducted from total HP - ‘Thus a 2 points arm hit for 5 points will only take 4 points of damage off the total Hit Points, the remaining having no effect. Further blows to that arm will effect the Hit Points.’ It also stats that if the damage to a location 'equaled or exceeded' suggesting damage from either cumulative minor wounds or major wounds. Point 3 goes on to say that ‘a 2 point arm struck for 8 points […] only takes four points of damage against his Hit Points.’ this implies locations can have a negative HP, subsequent hits pass directly to main HP but no more than Location HPx2

In Fight In Gimpy’s Tavern Rurik takes a 2 point wound to the abdomen, and a 3 point wound to the leg. Neither of these impair him, and combined the 5 points of damage are well below 16. Poor Herkan is killed by massive damage to one location. Herkan has only 4 HP in the abdomen, the damage rolled is 10 which is 6 more than he has, even though his total can only be reduced by 4x2=8, the shock of the blow killed him even though he has 3 HP remaining, 

Note that this ‘shock’ only applies to Head, Chest and Abdomen. An arm taking 25 points of damage can only effect total HP by the Arm HPx2, even on subsequent hits 

In the Rumble in the Rubble example Horus take a 6 point wound to his 3 point arm (reducing is total by 6 to 5) taking his arm down to -3. This is important because later when he cast Heal 2 it states that he’ll need to wait 5 rounds to cast it again to ‘get back in the fight’ meaning that his arm went from -3 to -1, needing a second Heal 2 spell to get use of his arm.

While I agree it’s not the clearest, I feel that the when taken in their entirety the rules suggest that locations take damage up to twice their HP.  And that if the total damage ever exceeds total HP then your character is dead. Also that twice location HP is the most damage you can ever take, but if this is greater than 6 in key locations, shock will kill the PC.

As for bookkeeping, you need to record HP loss by location and total HP. The example above Horus ‘ left arm dropped to -3, his total Hit Points down to 5. After the Heal, they would be -1 & 7

1 hour ago, Oracle said:

From the RuneQuest II Classic Rulebook, p. 43, right column

 

Thanks Oracle, perhaps I should invest in a copy. But I see too that this was added later in the errata

I absolutely agree that a game system should reflect the world it models, but on a much more meta level than +1 v's +5. CoC's Sanity, Pentagon's Passions, are core to the world in which we play. Remove this and we're playing generic 

Glorantha has it's roots in WB&RM and RQ1 & 2. Fundamental to RQ1&2 was the concept that all intelligent beings has access to limited Battle Magic which was only available from your cult. Spirits with spells etc was introduced in RQ3. Battle magic was "the forceful alteration of the fabric of reality by using one's POW". It had nothing to do with spirits. Personally I feel calling it 'Spirit magic' is misleading unless it refers to one's own spirit (POW).

These 'cantrips' were fundamental to RQ and Glorantha. Anybody with cult affiliation would have access, it underlined the importance of cult membership in society and gave players a reason for their adventurers to be part of something. Community has always been a major theme of Glorantha

The binding of spirits as suggested by kaydet was also open to all adventures, not just a shaman. Your adventurer could acquire bound allies which you could teach battle magic as an 'external hard drive' or uses as a source of POW. But spirits were limited in how they directly effect the mundane world.

Cults of Chaos introduced Disease Spirits which (AFAIK) would be developed into the wider spirit types in RQ3 including the option of learning magic by mugging spirits rather than from your cult - something I'm sure your gods wouldn't be too happy about. 

To me battle magic is the technology of Glorantha, from cooks using bladesharp to gut fish, partygoers using Glamour at a soirée to kids using Speeddart to knock apples off a tree. 

my 2c

8 hours ago, styopa said:

It's astonishing, but you're correct.  In fact, reading it with that interpretation in mind, RQ2 Hit Locations and Wounds actually reads a fair amount clearer.  Even the bit about healing reads better.

*mind blown*

I even looked through the examples, to see if in any of them there was a 'deduction' of hp from a limb as a result of damage.  As far as I could tell, no.

The only refuge I could take on this would be circumstantial: by that measure (assuming the hp value of limbs is only a benchmark, and not a pool from which points are deducted) essentially trivial wounds could eventually kill.  Someone with 19 hp and thus 6 hp arms, could be killed by four 5-point hits to the same arm.  That seems...odd.

 

Steve Perrin is frequently here.  Someone get him in here STAT!

 

I think the Notes on Damage Results on page 17 (original RQ2) strongly suggest that Locations take damage. While notes 2 & 3 refer to damage from a single blow, note 1 does not.  Also the fact that Healing works by location reinforces this.

1 hour ago, Iskallor said:

I think that made it into the RQII reprint.

does the reprint differ that much, I though it was just typos etc

One thing that the Resistance table does that the straight rolls doesn't do is modify your chance based on the resistance. As only once dice is rolled, the active participant, it is for example easier for your spell to work on a POW 8 target than a POW 15 target, how much easier depends of your POW.

Let's say your adventurer has a POW of 12, in CoC this would be 60%. Two possible targets, POW 8 (CoC = 40%) or 15 (CoC = 75%). In CoC your adventurer would need to roll 60% or less on the first (regular difficulty), or 30% on the second (Hard Difficulty). In RGQ your rolls are 70% or 35% respectively (taken from the table). 

Now if your adventurer had POW 18 (80%) the difficulty levels are the same (80% on the first, and 40% on the second), but in RQG it would be 95% and 65%

Also with regard to Skills, RQG has adopted the 'high-roll wins ties' from HeroQuest rather than higher Skill, which IMO provides a better mechanic by allowing weaker opponents a chance to win. 

I also think that this is just a nod to RQ2 which has the same title on the table

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I think the idea is, a shield can become impaled (foe's weapon stuck in it) -- indeed, capturing your foe's weapon by "parrying" it and getting the weapon stuck in the shield is one of the intentional uses of a shield! -- but another weapon cannot be "impaled":  you cannot impale an axe with a rapier.

Also, any damage in excess of the Shield is carried through to the arm, but not when parrying with a weapon.

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Actually, in RQ a Parry didn't reduce the opponents level of success, but it usually made living with that level of success easier. For example, a 12 point shield plus 5 point armor took most of the sting out of an 18 point impale.

RQ2: Yes a simple parry still applied its AP to the attack as you say, but a critical parry deflects all damage from a normal hit and reduces a critical hit to a normal hit. Also parrying an impale with a weapon (as opposed to a shield) deflects the impale completely.

How about...

GM: The troll attacks (rolls dice), um and misses, what do you do?

Player: Well as he missed I can try to parry and hope to break his sword, but then I might fumble and lose my own sword, but um I could dodge, but if I fumble the troll will get an automatic hit, so I do nothing!

The point of declaring your response BEFORE the dice are rolled is to create tension and uncertainty.

Do you offer the same options for the NPC's?

Also your example just illustrates why, even with the advantage to your Dodge, parrying with a shield is the safer option because it can reduce the level of success, where as the Doge is all or nothing.

39 minutes ago, styopa said:

Of course, you could dance or sing which are also ruled as ways to help spellcasting, which actually give you on average a BETTER augment than meditate at equivalent skills.  Just sayin'.

You haven't seen me dance or heard me sing then !! 

But yes, you could chose to Augment your casting chance and roll the dice or play safe and guarantee smaller bonus but the Resistance roll can only by augmented by Meditate if I read the relevant bits right

49 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Quickstart p.13:

Statement of Intent: All participants in the melee round declare their actions. These intentions do not need to be precise, but should be clear. Consult the strike ranks to see who goes first, if there’s any question.

You have to decide at the start of the melee round what you are going to do.  You are not going to know how well the attacker performs before deciding whether to parry with your weapon or dodge.

I'm with jajagappa, during your statement your declare that you are either parrying or dodging. RQ3 clearly stated that it was an either/or situation, sacrificing all your attack or parries that round to Dodge. 

I feel that the Dodge skill is not instinctive ducking, but a planned keeping out of harms way tactic. 

5 hours ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

 

Sure, if everyone defends with full POW that's certainly possible, but it need to be clear in the text. Similarly if magic can target different resistance abilities (a la Fire Elemental) then the resistance section might need to say so.

The Resistance Roll section also says an adventurer may try to augment their chance of success with resistance roll by using and appropriate spell (presume Countermagic) or through the use of the Meditate skill. The Meditation sidebar says that mediation takes 1 hour and returns 1 MP, so I'm guessing that this is an indirect use of Meditation to give magic resistance, rather than actively doing so. Can a meditating character go above their normal MP using this? It used to be that you couldn't go over double MP AFAIK. If it means the section "Increasing the Casting chance", that says that the character can take no other action in the round that they use meditate, and that refers to casting chance.

Also, under "Increasing the casting chance" and Meditation it is defined that a mediating character can make a POWx3 roll to resist loss of concentration - however the Spirit Magic section on p18 just says that "If the caster's concentration is broken (e.g. by taking damage) they cannot cast the spell and must try again. It seems to me this would be a good place to also mention POW x 3 to avoid losing concentration as it's easy to miss otherwise.

POW doesn't change (except when sacrificing for your Cult), it's your MP that go up and down so any POW roll would be against it's full value.

I agree that at first reading the Resistance Roll on p18 is misleading by implying that the victim gets a roll, but this is not the case. The augment is to improve the strength of the spell by the caster. For example if your casting a spell and you have POW 16 and the target has POW 18. You have a 16x5 = 80% of casting the spell and a 40% chance of overcoming their natural resistance. You could Meditate first for 2 melee rounds and get either a +10% to the casing chance bringing the total to 90%, or get an augment roll on your Meditation Skill to get a modifier to the POW resistance roll, a +20% on a success for example, giving you a 60% chance to overcome their resistance.

IMO Meditation and Casting require different levels of attention but it would be your call as to what constitutes an interuption during casting, for me taking damage wouldn't even require a roll to say start again.

Strike Rank has always been about who goes first, not who goes when. I think the mistake with RQ3 was that it tried to make a board game out of combat by implying that SR was a 'when' matrix, I even what as far as using it as a skirmish miniatures game, 

RQ2 was all about the order of events only in so far as does it happen before, during or after another event that might impact on the result. The clearest example is melee, where a dexterous individual can dispatch his opponent first, but he's still spending the round fighting as per the statement of intent. It is not meant to be read literally that in the 12 second long combat attacking as SR 2 being the 2nd second and our nimble fighter just hangs out for 10 more seconds.

With regard to other actions, spells, movement etc. the 5SR penalty with DEX SR is just a mechanism for saying that somethings are quick and if you are nimble enough you might get to do extra stuff so long as your not engaged in melee. But again it's about the order of things, snap off Disruption before the troll whacks the fighter and again afterwards.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

NAFAIK.  Opposed rolls have nothing to do with the resistance table at all.  In such an opposed roll it would be the 60 & 80.

From the QS rules text:

(emph mine)
 

Ture, but that applies to abilities not Characteristics...

17 minutes ago, styopa said:

Not sure what you mean here?  I don't believe there's a "both roll on the resistance table" option.  

Did you mean opposed rolls?

If two adventurers are arm wrestling each other BOTH get to roll based in the different of their characteristics. This is how I've always interpreted the ruling. If my character had STR 12 and yours had STR 16, I'd be rolling against 30% and you'd be rolling against 70% (rather than 60% & 80%) 

55 minutes ago, styopa said:

Afaik the debate isn't STR roll vs resistance table, we're struggling with the choice of OPPOSED rolls using STR x5 vs resistance table.  

Frankly, since Jeff's comment rightly mentioning the more bell-curvy results you get from more dice in play, I'm inclined to use opposed rolls far more often whenever there are active agents opposing each other.... I'd still use the resistance table math for simplicity/speeds sake in simple things involving passive resistance like breaking open a door or lifting something heavy.

So in the end, for me, arm wrestling would certainly be opposed rolls.

the clack drops 

My take was as follows:

Character rolls (POW, STR etc x5 or whatever) were only used if nothing else fit. The traditional example is the luck roll or POW x5. 

Tests of characteristics using the Resistance table is the preferred option where the the GM assigns a value for the test, POW v POW etc. Where the 'defender' is passive only the 'attacker' rolls, e.g.: bashing down a door, the GM assigns a STR for the door and the player rolls the dice. Note that using POW to resist magic is passive, the defender does not roll dice.

Active tests, where both parties are actively resisting each other, means that both roll on the Resistance table where the difference in abilities matter more than their base value

I believe that the through behind this is that with an opposed Resistance table roll, you chance of success is effected by the opponents. On a straight roll of STRx5 you have the same chance of success regardless of who you're up against. The resistance table highlights differences in characteristics to skew the odds rather than the core ability.

Consider an arm-wrestling tourney at Gimpy's. your adventurer has STR 16 (80%), you are up against 3 contestants, STR 12 (60%), 16 (80%) and 18 (90%).

On the straight roll you are relying the opponent loosing (admittedly with the higher roll winning rule you have an advantage over the 12)

However on the Resistance table, you have a  70/30 advantage over the 12, 50/50 on the 16, and a 40/60 challenge against the 18. 

I guess it all boils down to how you want to stack the odds.

14 hours ago, styopa said:

Except that's been revised, as a crit is now a special that ignores armor.

Thanks styopa, I must print out those as I keep loosing track