icebrand

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

 

Yeah it's not great, but the Disrupt test is useful against the chaotic feature that works regardless of the POW v POW roll. I gave my group a freebie on that by having the humakti-standing-next-to-them cast Sever Spirit on the Cacodemon and drop down dead on the spot.

Yeah, the chaos feature is *mucho* better (and i run reflect like that at my tables, if your cast is =< reflect, then it comes back and its YOUR pow vs your pow to see if you eat the spell.

[ShovelingBS]Optionally, chatacters with reflect casting on chatacters with reflect will create a feedback loop (example: 

) That will last for 2 min / 15 min / until someone goes out of range / dies.

After the 1st round every listen check is at -10, then -20, then half skill, then you roll CONx5 or lose your actions!

[/ShovelingBS]

On 4/1/2022 at 10:24 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Perhaps not applicable for ZZ opponents, but our GMs, myself included, often put up Reflection to keep the PCs honest (and paranoid).  Puts a big damper on "I just cast Sever Spirit". 

One frequent use of Disruption is to test if the bad guy has up Reflection.

Reflection... What's up with that anyway?

Like, noone with any SAN left would use that over shield or absorption, right? Like, heck, countermagic beats it so hard lol... 

I would actually take shield 1/absorption 1/countermagic whatever over reflection-500. Its a "win harder" spell that doesnt even do anything against like half (or less) the spells they could throw at you, and even when it does work its only a chance...

Title! (I live in argentina and cant afford real minis due to hiperinflation 😭).

Broos, newtlings, dragonsnails, uz, ducks, anything gloranthan is welcomed!

On 4/22/2022 at 11:52 PM, Shiningbrow said:

I'd like to see some sort of rule that exemplifies this!

Replace skill modifier for skill base in your exp roll. If you still want to make skill increase different for each player use 1/2 int (from brp4e) as a bonus (or keep skill modifier but that will probably make everything increase super fast (not that that's a bad thing)

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Agreed. Perhaps the "skill" is Close Combat (specialization), where the specialization is one of the weapon categories. Similar categories are at a malus (though never less than 1/2 skill), dissimilar categories at 1/2 skill? This, at least, would encapsulate basic hand-to-hand concepts into a single skill that would carry over to other weapons. And if you wanted to know another weapon category, you could always learn a new specialization starting at half Close Combat skill.

SDLeary

That's EXACTLY how i play it.

The skills are: 

Axe, sword, spear, mace (1h & 2 h versions, so 8 skills) + hand-to-hand (includes punch, kick, grapple and dagger). And of course shields! For a total of 10 melee skills.

So, if you have broadsword 90%, you attack with other 1h swords at 70 and with every other non-1Hsword weapon under the sun (yes, including the dimensionally displaced VCR) at 45%.

Thrown weapons are each their own skill but again you can throw anything at 1/2 skill

Bow, crossbow and firearms are their own skills, again you roll with a different type at -20 and with a different class at 1/2. So a character can actually pick up a mostali flintlock and fire it and have a chance to hit instead of wasting their action. My rationale is that using different weapons almost never happens, and this encourages a bit of variety (+ it's a bit more realistic imho)

1. Which version of Runequest do you run? Or perhaps even another system? 

Yes 🤣... Ik, you asked for it:

We play RQCE (2nd Ed) with some rules from BRP (chargen stuff, dex ranks) and some from RQG (rune points) + a bunch of house rules (tweaks to stuff mostly)

2. How long have you ran your campaign? 

This one for 13 months (since March 2021)

3. What time period in Glorantha did you start? 

1611, one year after moonbroth.

4. Where in Glorantha did you start? What regions has your campaign covered since? 

Prax! (Pavis to be specific).

5. Where are your pcs from? 

Prax & sartar

6. What products from any version of Runequest have you used? Which were particularly useful? 

Rq2 (ce), cult compendium, borderlands & beyond rq:g, brp4e. Every book is vital!!!

7. Is it a sandbox or more plot led campaign? 

Borderlands & beyond but as sandboxy as the PCs like 

8. How much have you followed the arching events of the time period or has your Glorantha varied? 

Yes (?). The battle of moonbroth happened, and i have like a year till kallyr gets owned trying to rebell. 

9. How would you describe your campaign? 

Call of Runequest: Chtulhu by Borderlands. Cosmic horror, but the Conan/krull flavor, so basically... Sword and sorcery and sandals!

10. What advice would you give newbie gms to runequest and glorantha? 

For social stuff i just let them do whatever the hell they want (with the help of the good old "yes but")

For combat the awesome thing is to have good locales.

Steal from movies, art, etc to have the best scenery you can. A good mood+description completely changes stuff.

Fighting some deinonychus is meh, fighting some deinonychus over a small poodle of water  in some abandoned ruins eroded by sand over a thousand years (that provide cover, fall off, etc. Is much better!

I try (keyword: try) to have EPIC fight locales (good to steal from lesser known fighting games, I think I used every.single.arena from warzard hahaha). Write down good descriptions AND ,(not or) have nice pics if you can!!!

My fight scenes usually have at least one environmental mechanic, like use <skill>, attack <thing>, roll <char> x5, etc in order to gain a bonus or not die/take damage or something.

This can also be as simple as "knockback character off the cliff" or "it's dark and you can't see crap, -40% ranged attacks & -20% melee". Start with basic rules and go from there. 

For example, the party attacks the evil sorceror stronghold, and needs to cross a bridge over "the pit"

The bridge is guarded by the sorceror's rock lizard familiar (who also happens to be a ninja lol) and according to a d3 roll result every round the high winds will make the clouds cover the moon, so we can have 0, -10 or -20 darkness penalty. Also, you can knockback or grapple and throw the reptile so it falls to the pit, but ofc it can do the same to you! Also, the bridge is quite narrow, so normally only 1 person can fight at a time (or two side by side with spears).

This makes fights more interactive, less samey, and more memorable while using a couple of reflavored mechanics; wouldn't you love to fight some volcanic dragonsnail in a burning forest (roll CON as per asphyxiation) AND maybe dodge some falling lava/rocks? Don't worry, there's no darkness penalty, the conflagration lights up the sky completely!

16 hours ago, svensson said:

OK, first thing's first, every weapon listed in the RQ rules have techniques involved in them. You fight a 2h Axe and a 1h Axe entirely differently, even if it doesn't look like it. This is even more pronounced with swords. A shortsword is not fought like a rapier is not fought like a broadsword is not fought like a greatsword. Most of this is physics. It's question of how to achieve a killing result with the least expenditure of energy... force minus resistance equals injury.

All that being said, I don't have a problem with swords being subdivided and I think that other weapons ought to as well. A warhammer requires the wielder to control the angle of the strike in order to put the striking surface onto the target, just like an axe or a sword does. A mace doesn't. It may appear to be the same, but I can assure you it's not.

Also, a 'kopis' is not a scimitar. Scimitars are relatively light when compared with broadswords, and are designed to to deliver deep slashing cuts to somewhat lightly armored opponents. A kopis is a falcata, which is essentially a axe with a large blade and a short grip. Where a scimitar blade turns up, a kopis blade turns downward like a kukri knife. Kopises [kopii?] are designed to chop limbs off through shields, armors and anything else you put in the way. In this way, they are more similar to broadswords.

 

My problem with this is that a guy that has 120% sword would never, ever be at 30% on anything.

Timing, measuring distance, footwork cannot be the same for a world class fighter than a random that never actually fought.

If you give Francis Ngannou an axe, he sure as hell will be leaps and bounds better than someone who doesn't know how to fight, even though he most likely didn't wield one before.

10 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Not in my game you can't. It's been clarified in the Q&A that you can do this, but there's no justification for it in the rules apart from a vague open ended "...and other things..." statement about boosting with MPs.

The exact wording is "This is typically done to..." implying that there are other reasons to boost.

  

No, you need Dispel Magic 4 with a 4 MP boost.

In my game you can't either. I find that ruling pretty out there, same issue as shield, reads more like a house rule than actual clarification.

I haven't met a single person that didn't either let shield stack or made it incompatible, and 0 people defensively boosting.

If all the Q&A is like this I'm pretty sure I'm completely ignoring it. Everything i read on it rubs me the wrong way and works unlike any BRP table I've been at

5 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Not true. It uses up a Dispel Magic, providing a buffer for other spells.

You can overcharge your spell (🤢🤢🤢🤮with MP for a much much much better result.

If you cast shield 2 + Countermagic 4, *any* 3 pt spell will knock your Countermagic (according to explanation here, as i read it and always played it, it gave you 8 pts of countermagic)

If you cast shield 2 + 4 MP boost now enemies need dispel magic 8 (!!!).

The boosting option also doesn't require you to know the other spell, and just requires +4 SR vs another whole round casting.

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

Pretty much yeah. The main thing that bothers me is that RQG's magic system requires a whole bunch of ad-hoc knowledge or rules-lookup like that, such as "spells X and Y are incompatible with spell Z". Greuuuh.

It makes me chew my (physical) shield. As i type, foam comes out my mouth.

Apparently Countermagic can be cast at the same time as shield, but literally does nothing. Im not reading this in the book, and the Q&A is very... Messy (maybe it's cristal clear for natives idk).

What puzzles me is... What is the NEED for this? We have a very complicated ruling -way more complex than with pretty much any spell, and not an actual rule- and it does... Nothing?

Like, if countermagic is higher than shield you can cast it as normal, just note under shield that it doesn't stack despite the rules stating that it does...

Rq2:

If Shield and Countermagic are stacked together, and a spell which would normally knock down a Countermagic spell of their total strength is put against this, the Countermagic will go down, but the Shield will stay. Thus, if Ariella put up both points 
of her Shield spell, and added 2 points of Countermagic (a total Countermagic effect of 6 points), and a foe put 5 points behind a Demoralize spell thrown at her, the Demoralize spell would fail, but the 2 points of Countermagic would also be blown down and she would only have her Shield spell left for magic protection.

Meanwhile in RQG we get an abridged copy paste that ends with:

If cast on a target already protected by Countermagic, the Countermagic would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible.

I read the spells back to back they seem to work the same (why would shield change and that change not be documented in the book but in a "clarification" that adds rules not seen in any other part of the game???

IMHO it's clear that shield has been changed and not properly documented, then patched online, OR shield was always shield and the CM / writer that posted that gave us their house interpretation 

19 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Look the Q&A on Shield, treat the different spells as layers, with spellcasting taking place between the protection and shield layer.

Whoa, lots to unpack! This isn't in the book at all, is it?

The book says shield is cumulative with both countermagic and protection.

Cumulative (adjective)
increasing or increased in quantity, degree, or force by successive additions.
"the cumulative effect of two years of drought"

But Q&A says they don't stack. My understanding here is that they don't stack such as "shield 2 + protection 4 is not a protection 8 at the time of dispelling it, but still protects 8 points"

By the same logic, shield 2 + countermagic 4 is 8 pts of countermagic, and a 7-pt spell would knock out countermagic and leave you with shield alone.

Yet after reading you I'm under the impression that a 3-pt spell would knock the countermagic, making the combination of both spells useless?

20 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Countermagic doesn't stop the adventurer casting spells, it only applies to spells cast on the adventurer (incoming). The spell description does not state anything about casting spells on on others when the caster is protected by countermagic.

The Magic chapter - Resisting Spells, page 244.

You may find System Crash in the Q&A helpful to read

I apologize in advance but all this stuff is irrelevant to the discussion; please don't take it the wrong way English is my 3rd language, i don't want to sound confrontational, i just don't know how to say this with good words... Sigh.

28 minutes ago, Scotty said:

An adventurer can always cast magic on themself. Likewise they do not need to resist spells cast by themself on themself, they don't have to resist spells cast by others if they don't want to (Healing for example). 

I don't understand that line of reasoning.

In this case, the spell would work because countermagic doesn't stop outbound spells right? (The reasoning seems... Weird? But whatever). Where does the resistance part come from???

2 minutes ago, Scotty said:

In my games to avoid any issues arising, Shield & Countermagic are incompatible. I find dropping any complexity makes the game run faster and promotes MGF.

Ok, so the target of countermagic can cast spells on himself without any issue, since these are "outgoing" not "incoming" spells.

And shield and countermagic don't stack but are not incompatible. 

Did i get it right?

On 4/10/2022 at 6:38 AM, g33k said:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie..." ... uhhh ... 
Oh, wait.  Wrong setting, wrong quote.  Sorry!

You know how the saying goes... If its brp compatible you can kill it 🤣🤣🤣

1 minute ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

same in the french oriflam version. Their tactic is to attack together one opponent (when they can) , but their is no mention of any specific changes. I always played it as each baboon rolls a d100, then pc try to resist, then 1d3, etc..

38 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

In my edition (© 1978, 1980, yellow Games Workshop print), only four of the eight baboons have disruption and there's no mention of simultaneous casting. There's no mention in the RQ3 edition either, more of them know it but other than a reference to "their massed Disruptions" there's no special mechanics.

2 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

same in the french oriflam version. Their tactic is to attack together one opponent (when they can) , but their is no mention of any specific changes. I always played it as each baboon rolls a d100, then pc try to resist, then 1d3, etc..

As demonstrated time and time again, I'm an idiot that can't read. It's just a call target maneuver fml

39 minutes ago, Dragon said:

I don't have RQCE. I have RQ2. Page 33 "Some spells almost always works. Spells which a character casts upon himself, or spells cast on inanimate objects, or any healing spells, do not need to overcome resistance. Also unconscious characters cannot resist a spell of any sort. However, a roll of 96-00 means the spell will fail." (emphasis added)

So, the way I played it was RAW that I recalled. Having the original meant I never bought RQCE. So any change in that rule I would be unaware of and my 'pretty certain' stands.

Perhaps you should quote what page 33 of RQCE states that is different than the original. Then I could respond to that part.

The language clearly stated 'against'. Not for. Not helpful. Against. 

That changed in RQG when they answered the question of how did spells differentiate between good incoming spells and bad incoming spells (the meta-concept). The authors changed how that worked to be consistent. And changed the wording to 'any other incoming spell', and changed unconscious characters to always resisting.

QED.

Yeah I'm an idiot that can't read, you don't get to resist healing, the example is with strength.

In any case, shield works before resistance. I guess I may be wrong and shield doesn't work against your own spells, but i find it kinda unbalanced.

Edit: what if "incoming" is there in contrast to "outgoing"?

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Absorption is clearly different to Countermagic.

Absorption: shield without protection but you get the MP of the spell.

At least that's how I interpret it!

27 minutes ago, Dragon said:

Your fumble is still your sword incoming to your greaves. Armor doesn't protect you from ahem, peeing yourself because you saw Harrek or the Crimson Bat. That is already inside your armor. Just like casting a spell on yourself is inside your Countermagic.

In RQ2 or RQ3 I am pretty certain allowed Healing to ignore all types of countermagic/reflect/absorb. Healing also never required a resistance roll in those versions. Now in RQG if you are unaware of a Heal spell, you resist it. Note that you are always aware of your own Heal or your ally's Heal.

Which means RQG is more consistent with a meta-concept of how magic works.

Hence if you go unconscious because your leg was maimed, you resist the incoming Heal 6 or Heal Body. Because you did not voluntarily and knowingly accept the spell (Page 244 Core Rules). It will also knock down your Countermagic 4. But the loss of your Countermagic is likely acceptable to the alternative of remaining maimed.

Anyway, you can disagree with our (Andre and my) interpretation of the meaning of 'incoming'. But then the original quote "If cast on a target already protected by Countermagic, the Countermagic would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible." makes no sense ever. Hence, I really think our interpretation makes it all fit together. YGMV.

From RQ2 (CE)

Countermagic is a defensive spell which will attempt to stop any other spell incoming against the protected person or 
object. However, it will not interfere with previously enchanted objects, such as a sword with Bladesharp on it. It may be used to shield the caster or another character or object of his choice.

From RQG 

This defensive spell protects the target it is cast upon against any other incoming spell, including those such as Detection, Protection, and even Healing 
spells. However, it does not interfere 
with previously enchanted objects, such as a sword with Bladesharp on it. It 
does not work against spirits, but may work against spells 
cast by those spirits.

----

By incoming i interpret "not already cast". Don't you think it's really weird that it explicits the previously cast spells aren't affected, and that healing etc are affected, but says nothing about the caster being able to cast on themselves unhindered?

Btw, you can totally resist healing on RQ2, check under "did the spell work?" Pg33 on RQCE

10 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I've never encountered the rule in use. I didn't even know it existed until last week. It was in a rare RQ2 supplement that I never even saw a physical copy of until this century, and the rule was never carried over into subsequent editions.

Not any more. It was RAW for 4 years out of those 40, being generous.

The baboons in gringles used it!

7x disruption that was *nasty*

23 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

If i would punch you, it is an incoming hit. 
If you would punch yourself, i it not an incoming hit. 

If you would drive your car into mine, it is an incoming hit. 
If you would drive your car into a wall, it is not an incoming hit. 

Same with spells. 
 

I actually used the same example the other way around. If shield still protects you as you jump off a building, it still "protects" you from whatever you cast.

Allowing a shielded character to just carry whatever at no extra cost seems horribly broken. Again, shield *already* is twice as good as most other stuff...

17 minutes ago, Dragon said:

Sometimes sentences have normal and implicit meaning rather than having to be explicitly defined in every situation of the Rules.

Countermagic, Absorption, Reflection all use the phrase 'incoming spells' Absorption page 317 specifically states 'enemy spells'. Which seems a little odd, when Countermagic specifically states it even absorbs Healing - which in almost all situations will be cast by friends and allies. Reflection does not specify 'enemy spells', but all spells that fail to overcome the POW of the protected being. Which clearly means that self cast Healing, or self-cast anything, would not be Reflected. Because self cast never needs to overcome your own POW.

Note in Armor page 216, the use of incoming as well. 'Shield Statistics' on page 217 also mention incoming attacks. Your medium shield doesn't protect your opponent from your sword. The use of incoming is consistent that it is something coming from outside the target and coming at the target.

Your medium shield doesn't protect your enemy from your sword, but your armor sure as hell protects you from your fumble.

I can't accept (i shouldn't) an implicit statement that has huge game-wide implications. Maybe I've been playing wrong since forever and defensive spells are even better than i think.

(In RQ3 we did use to play like this, ie being able to cast on you with shield up... But it was a murderhobo/munchkin campaign)

10 minutes ago, Dragon said:

I believe the main scenario where the quote applies is when the CASTER already had Countermagic 3 and cast Shield 2. Then it is not an 'incoming' spell. The two stack, and the caster/target now has 7 total levels of Countermagic. If a spell with 9+ magic points is incoming, the spell gets through. If a spell with 6+ magic points is incoming, the Countermagic drops. 

As for the 'would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible' part: A Dispel Magic 3+ would take down the Countermagic. A Dispel Magic 4, which is sufficient to take down either, would take down the Countermagic first. Meaning the next Dispel Magic 4 would take down the Shield.

How is it not an incoming spell? Is there even a definition for incoming spell? What page is this stuff in?

Why was this changed? This is a monumental buff to shield, which already is twice as good as most other rune spells 😐

19 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

There is no reason to believe or use the artificial gamey hacks in Runemasters.  

If everybody swings their weapons at the same time, should that also side in bypassing protections?

It's an official rule that has been used in thousands of games during the last 40 years or so, what makes it artificial?

Also my players most definitely coordinated swings to make NPCs unable to parry them all. Some NPCs also do this, with several attacks at the same SR. (This is in RQ3, afaik you can still parry all in 2/G)

18 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

It's in Runemasters, but I don't trust it. 

You are most certainly entitled to discard any and all rules you disagree with, but hear me out...

If i combine my melee prowess with my teammate, it's harder for you to defend. Why can't magic do the same? (Also it's RAW 🤣)

"If cast on a target already protected by Countermagic, the Countermagic would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible."

Like, dude, if cast on a target already protected by Countermagic either the shield can't get past it or it knocks Countermagic down (or both).

I'm angry and confused at this, what happened here??? 

Let's see Countermagic so i don't make a fool of myself...

"This defensive spell protects the target it is cast upon against any other incoming spell, including those such as Detection, 
Protection, and even Healing spells."

And as we all know, shield's magic defenses are "equivalent to the spirit magic spell"

Ideas? I was arguing about this with a friend yesterday. He said some nonsense about spell layers (straight out of Sandy's munchkin rules lol). Is this still a thing?

1 minute ago, Shiningbrow said:

The stacking amongst different people was my query there... no more Mindlink spells.

Yep, very Mary Sue.

Yes, several different people could stack spells if they did it in a coordinated manner, as per RQ2 rules (this was never contradicted)

3 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

He will go insanely berserk if his best friend Gunda is killed.

He has an inordinate hatred of the Lunar Empire.

He never let a poor man starve (noted right in his description in WBRM/Dragon Pass).

If he's unhappy he'll head off in a sulk and won't answer pleas for help (like Achilles at the start of the Iliad).

 

Any difference with regular berserker?

Also isn't gunda his sidekick, whos also protected by plot armor and apparently also quite a Mary Sue herself?

Hatred for opposing faction and literally the mildest cult restriction ever?

Oh, and throws temper tantrun when stuff doesn't go his way?

These don't seem much of a weakness if any?