Psullie

I feel the biggest paradigm shift for new players is to abandon the 'murder hobo' mindset. Your characters are an integral part of a community, be it clan and/or cult. The passions are the rule mechanic by which that effects play, but when writing scenarios think about these wider motivations. Kill the tusk raiders because they are threatening YOUR village, partake in a hero quest so YOUR family benefits, find the Headpiece of Frin  so YOUR cult becomes more powerful.

There are many situations where a Passion diminishes, Love (Family) for instance, being cut off financially, a sibling feud or scandal involving a family member would reduce your opinion. Working on phobias too would work. Spending time with Trolls could reduce your Fear - possibly requiring an augment from another passion or Rune to increase you chances of Failing and there by reducing the value. So both of these could happen within game time or as part of the downtime activity.

Just to rock the boat, I believe that there are places where the Spirit World overlaps the Material World. Spirts can use these to view through the veil, and likewise a Shaman can use these to access specific places beyond. I also play that spirits and discorporate Shaman can sense the material world like a double exposure; and creatures with POW are bright objects. However traveling to another place in the material world via the Spirits World is fraught with danger especially as neither time or geography are consistent, You may eventually get to the enemy camp, but the 'when' may not be certain.

There are occurrences from WBRM where enemy spirit are sent behind enemy lines to attack Commanders. So I defiantly think it falls under MGF. There is far more to the Spirit World than the souls of the dead...

That's a shockingly small list of articles, 7 in 14 years!

I feel that the simplest solution is increase the Base chance for using shields. They are all currently 15; perhaps 20, 25 & 30. It should be fundamentally easier to parry with a shield than with a sword (more than the 5 extra base points you get)

Originally I wrangled with the shield rules, but then realised that highly skilled swordsmen probably wound't use one where as your basic foot soldier would rely more on their shield. When creating stock NPC's I tend to drop more points in to Shield than attack

2 hours ago, Thaz said:

Initiate of none of the Gods and happy that way. 

lovely portrait, but he's not going to get far with that attitude 😄

I've uploaded some characters icons to the Downloads section

A hawk is small, SIZ 1 or 2 which has a -2 to HP, low POW could also cost 1 HP, and I'd be inclined to keep their CON at 2d6

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

The established sequence for releasing a bound spirit and then commanding it back is to use the Command, Control or Dominate spell on the creature in the binding. That way it has no resistance against the spell, and for the duration of the spell the caster of said spell can change the command, including a last minute "return to your binding".

Yes of course, thanks

RQG p366 adds: "The binder of a spirit can use any spirit magic the spirit possesses and the magic points of the spirit to fuel spells."

So I'd say you good with 1-4 & 6. With 5, the binder has access to spells and MP. If you want the spirit to cast spells or use it's powers, it must be released followed by a control spell.

Hi Garwalf

I'm hardly an expert on VTT but I do find Roll20 works fine as it has a usable RQ character sheet. However you will need to upload your own resources, maps etc, 

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

Is that how it works? Does that mean that a 1:1 spirit combat always involves 2 opposed rolls (each combatant attacking the other) unless one of the combatants is trying to do something else (and most likely having to roll a concentration check)?

So far that's how I read it... 

Thanks guys, some food for thought. I signed up for Astral but my old pc wasn't too happy with the WebGL so I'll stick with Roll20. Also wasn't aware of MapTools so thanks Rosen for the tip!

P368: "Spirit combat is always resolved on strike rank 12 of each melee round, regardless of any other actions taken by the characters. If a spirit is attacked with physical weapons or spells, that is resolved on the attacker’s normal melee strike rank."

To me, this suggests that physical and spell attacks are in addition to Spirit Combat. The melee attack occurs on the appropriate SR followed by Spirit Combat on SR 12. Say Bill and Bob are jumped by a nasty Spirit, with the Spirit choosing Bob. Both Bill and Bob can attack with swords on SR 6 and 7 (for example). As this is an Opposed Roll, there is a risk that both could receive damage*. Bob then has to survive another round of Spirit Combat on SR 12.

*I play that as Spirits are not bound by physics, they don't suffer penalties from multiple opponents, multiple attacks, etc. In some cases it might be safer to just use Spirit Combat.

I'm looking at running an online game soon. I've used Roll20 in the past and it had some nice features, tough we'd usually end up using Discord for audio, I'm not too keen on multiple solutions. Lately Astral Table Top looks interesting, with some immersive options. My main beef with VTT is that it's challenging to get players engaged with each other - too much solo play and not enough teamwork (I've actually encountered adversarial play, which is perhaps it's a hangover from playing online FPS??).

I really enjoy the collaborative element you get with a bunch of people actually sitting around the same table. So, does Astral bring anything to the virtual table that would help? And, from those with more VTT experience, what tips would you have for promoting supportive play?

PS: I'm not looking to go Pro with any options yet, so FG is off the table.

For convention games I provide a single page synopsis of each PC's magical abilities - but that can overwhelm some players with too much info. Having all PC's cast magic is a big thing for some coming from the 'other game', I've heard the "can't I just play a regular fighter" more than once. Still I find the reference sheets very useful.

I once created photogrammetry 3d models of some of the NMS collection of the chessmen, along with some Skara Brae artefacts. The pieces biting their shields are referred to as berserkers  😄

On 5/20/2020 at 4:08 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

If you are on a Mac

Or just Command+Shift+4 and drag the crosshairs around your graphic 😉

the map on p29

Hill Pear to the East of Wilmskirk, should this be Hill Pearl Inn?

Just thumbed through this, and it looks great!

thank you both for the clarification

24 minutes ago, Joerg said:

How long do these Boosting MP linger, then?

For the duration of the spell. Nowhere does it say that Boosted MP's fade, in fact by saying in the example that they effectively become higher value spells, suggests to me that they stick around. 

For Dismiss Magic could you not Boost with 10 MP plus the 1 RP?  But that does open the possibility for Boosting Dismiss Magic 1 with MP's rather than needing Dismiss Magic x? I'm not so sure... In your Axe Trance example do these boosted MP's count for defence as they are consumed by the spell effect? If, as you suggest, these extra MP's don't count against Dispel, then it only takes a Dispel Magic 2 to cancel, the extra MP's don't count. 

On 4/25/2020 at 11:40 PM, Joerg said:

In most interpretations of the rules, the additional MP don't linger long enough to have to be overcome by spells like Neutralize Magic, Dispell or Dismiss Magic.

I don't see anywhere where this is supported. Adding 5 MP to Bladesharp 1 "making it effectively a 6-point spell" (p248), would by my interpretation make that casting of the spall a 6 point spell for it's duration, therefore requiring a Dispel Magic 6

Boosting a spell is not the same as going from Bladesharp 1 to 2. You have to know the higher value spell to get the more powerful effect. 

Boosting allows you to overcome magical defences. For example, adding 3 MP to Bladesharp 1 still only gets you +5%, but counts as a 3MP spell for resisting dispel magic etc,

and 131+ pages too, I love the pic of Zhoulshia - using a great troll as shade!