icebrand

9 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Depends on your definitions... if you mean "reflection" as per the rune spell - you're out of luck, because Sunspear doesn't have a resistance roll - it's all direct damage, so can't be reflected (as per the spell).

Stacking Sunspears isn't RAW...

Lol you are correct, can't reflect sunspear.

You can stack them though, casting several spells coordinated at the same SR adds them up to bypass magic defenses, as seen in gringles pawnshop & runemasters if I remember correctly

Ps: this harrek guy seems very Mary Sue... 

5 hours ago, davecake said:

Harrek shouldn’t (just?) have 1000% to hit and a lot of hit points. Harrek should be, to take an important example from the fiction, the guy that who, at Pennell Ford, when they tried to hit him with a massed Sunspear, caused some of the priests that we’re backing the casting effort to catch of fire. No current rules can explain that. Hell, they don’t even explain how to do that massed Sunspear. If you want to take on Superheroes, we simply don’t have the rules yet. 

The priests stacked the sunpears so they could overpower harreks ridiculously stacked shield AND one-shot him.

Harrek askef DI for a reflection, nothing more, all RAW! 😄

Also, as per RQG harrek can't have 1000% because he's just not old enough 😉

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

You don't kill the Crimson Bat by fighting it in combat and parrying its tongues, dodging its eye spit and resisting its screams. At least, that isn't the way I'd play it in my games. The Adventurers could try, but there are better ways of doing it.

Oh, you sure as hell fight it!!!

First you have to lure it into the open, so you bring your armies into lunar lands and start taking cities, looting them and torching them. So they send the bat!

Then you use all your priests (you need to have a lot of those) to call the greatest storm ever, that you heroquested for, so you can call the aid of the air daemons you allied yourself with. That will maybe ground the bat, or at least hinder its maneuverability and give your guys a fighting chance against its screams since the storm covers them.

Then you teleport up the bat, and there you fight all the cultists and the ticks (you need to grab a cultist ASAP and use their latching device in order not to fall, despite everyone flying the winds are too great for normal people to even stand at ground level.

While you massacre the whole crimson bat cult, you need to avoid stepping into the eyes (dodging helps depending on success level), and then you need to avoid the tongue that wants to grab you. This ain't THAT hard when you rock 15+ extended shield and stat + damage boosted everything at +30s + your own rune magic and stuff (using SP rules, and the wizard popped like 4 saints)

Once you violently murdered everyone, you start damaging the bats wings to ground it. St. Alsbo Black from Loskalm managed a crit to the neck, neatly severing the vocal cords, and by then it was game over, the daemons went away and the Glaurungha, Orlanth's Champion called in his dragon to finish off the beast.

Parkar the Humakti (who btw carries death itself) tried to permanently slay the bat via DI; of course that didnt work, so he bound it to himself (rq2 style), and retired to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere; the empire ain't bringing the bat back till he dies.

See? you can totally kill it!!! 

20 minutes ago, davecake said:

Actually my feeling was that Brangbane on his own was quite vulnerable for such a classic villain - he has only one defensive combat option, parrying with his sword at 110% (really, far too low for an ancient horror). He can maybe overwhelm a single opponent with two attacks, but if multiple opponents survive his howl, especially if they have beefed up attack %ages (such as Berserk or Sword Trance, but Bladesharp 6 will do it, and always punch right through his armor). He also has no physical defences beyond ok armour (people taking him 9n are likely to have shield), and no magical defences either. He is also very vulnerable to spirit combat. And while the howl is a great ability, his other tough ability, paralysing venom, requires it to hit, to not be parried, and then to overcome Con with venom Pot - mostly, it will get parried, if he uses it at all. He also has no normal magic at all, and no healing of any kind, so could be befuddled, Mind Blasted, etc. He is unpleasant, but against a competent ‘rune level’ party able to take him on, he should go down very quick. 
He struck me as having been statted out by someone with limited familiarity with high powered RQ combat. He looks dangerous, but he is a bit of a glass cannon.

Against, say, a decent Death Lord or Kargs Son (at this point, I’ve statted out several troll rune lords that should end up in Chaosium publications, any of them would do) he is going down very quick unless his howl stops them. And they could arguably block that with Counter Chaos pretty easily. 

Pretty much anyone on rune masters can take him on, and if you have a rune level party... Well, that's a Mook not a boss.

Heck, a couple Broo from borderlands are scarier, the Malia priest has more %, and way better magic!

And as for Uz... A Death Lord that got his runelordship yesterday wins low diff (actually stomps so hard it ain't even funny).

I disagree that 110% is wrong though, sure, it's an eldritch horror, but it's not a runelord that checks his iron every.single.season.

The monster may very well go years and years without a real fight!

Having said that, this dude shouldn't ever fight alone or fairly (unless the adventurers played well and are slaying it)

1 minute ago, davecake said:

I always find the idea that PCs are unimportant because they aren’t Argrath very odd. It’s a bit like saying it’s not worth playing in a WW 2 setting if you don’t get to replace Churchill - for most of the Hero Wars history, Argrath can be treated as a commander and a quest giver, and your characters defeat some unique threat (even one that threatens to destroy the world through Chaos, or reviving God Learner heresies, even one involving Argrath as part of the threat (perhaps he doesn’t know that he might provoke a second Dragonkill until you stop him from carrying out his plan)). 

Or saying why play a superhero game if you aren’t Superman. The idea that the game isn’t worth playing if you can’t potentially punch out the most powerful characters in the setting is a strange one to me. It’s saying the only satisfying game is a sort of game I find definitively unsatisfying. A game in which all threats can be overcome by force does not excite me. The SuperRuneQuest, beat up Harrek and Jar-Eel and the Bat, seems a line of reasoning that ends with the D&D Deities and Demigods as high level Monster Manual scenario. One in which your PCs convince Jar-Eel to turn on the Red Emperor, or distract Harrek by raising a sexy bear goddess , etc sounds more fun to me than one in which you beat them up and there are no threats that cannot be defeated with force. 

It is very easy to have games where the actions of your characters are central. I think stories that concentrate on a vital microcosm of a broader world - the story of one clan, or one town, one family, are fine. After, that’s still the great majority of all stories ever. But if you want a story in which your players are the ones that save the world, then offer a different perspective on the story we know. 

All which is:

a) not intended to say that your gonzo, over the top game that ends with you skinning the Crimson Bat with Arkats Adamantine Sword, then defeating Harrek because you now have an even more powerful god-as-clothing-item, is wrong or anything. If that floats your boat, you do you. It’s just that the idea that games that don’t allow for that kind of ending are somehow flawed seems ridiculous to me, and it’s a bit of a bugbear when people suggest that playing RQ the way the vast majority do instead is somehow lacking. 
and b) a bit off the main topic. In suggesting that what I consider high level play is doable and fun, I just wanted to add the caveat that I think high level play starts a long way below the Superhero level, and there is a huge load of fun to be had without ever getting to the point of kicking over the furniture of the setting. And if we ever did get to the point of PCs directly taking on Harrek etc, I’d like it to have several more layers of adding expanded layers of complexity to the game, whole extra rules sets that we are a fair way away from, rather than just like an RQ fight with bigger numbers. You should at least have to, I don’t know, find Harreks secret horcruxes or something. 

 

I kinda-sorta agree with you, my issue is on harrek having 1000% attack because "he's the main character" when this doesn't make sense in the rules.

I don't necessarily need my players to beat harrek; in fact he's not important at all in my current campaign (may as well not exist), but i do need harrek to not be a rules aberration so the PCs can't kill.

It rubs me the wrong way, same as elminster being "highest level +3" if the PCs are leveled enough. I mean cmon that's serious bullshit

Just now, ffilz said:

I think that 4 years and an adventure every week was intended to be player time, not character time.

4 years is just 20 skill checks. With a 20% xp mod that's just +14% skill average!!!

48 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

It takes 28.5 successful skill increases to go from 100% to 200%. If you have a 15% modifier (I managed that on a few characters in RQ3, and in RQG +20% isn't too hard to get) then multiply that by about 7 and you get 200 attempts. So if you're ticking your weapon skill every adventure, you need 200 adventures. One a week for four years, there you go.

RQ2 was a little more generous, you got +5% each time so that's 20x7=140 adventures.

You needed two weeks of downtime to reflect on your deeds to roll checks on rq3, so triple that time!

Also, having an adventure every week (or every 3) seems like... Too much?

In RQG those 4 years become 40!!! Much more reasonable!

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

I don't believe the "Previous Experience" system is capped at 75? It's also probably not designed for 700 years of previous experience, though...

Anyway, off-topic here... except to the extent that a singe Diamond Iron Dwarf puts a lot of seriously extreme creatures to shame.

Can probably clap cacodemon if they have a nice enchanted shield and decent damage boosting (that's probably casted by a 2000% sorcery diamond munchkin dwarf).

Definitely clapping Cwim if you use 3 dwarves and fight in the praxian plains

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

There’s actually a logic to it - you pick up maybe 3% yearly in skills just from your profession in RQ3, so after 700 years…

Yeah, but you can't train above 75%.

So how did they get all their %?

These dwarves are... GOD level? Like, literally, 01-95 to *crit* with 9 -nine- skills? This is insane... 

Why is the GM even giving them checks? I don't give checks for free, and you sure as hell don't get a check to kill a random bestiary mob if you already have 200+. 

2 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

You're right - 2000%+ in each of nine skills.

If i were to DM them i would assume it's a typo and they have 200%, which already is stupid unbelievable high anyway 🙂

28 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Diamond Iron Dwarves had 5000%, I believe?

Hmmm just 2000% afaik? (Enough for 100% crit AND completely breaking the game

7 minutes ago, EpicureanDM said:

That's why I've tried to reinforce the point that my interest isn't necessarily in high numbers, but in the complex strategies that come from combining different resources. 

🙂

 

Game will play FLAWLESS at rune level untill you push past 160%, then it gets... Different? In a bad way.

120-150% with tons of magic is where it's at. If you go much higher there just isn't anything worth fighting anymore.

6 hours ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

I'm a bit lost, what are these powers that seem so relevant to high level game play and at the same time not mentioned on the rulebook, what's the need of above 200% that I need to find and alternative form of experience/rules?

I know I must be missing the elephant in the room but I see the hero quests as a way to bypass social/cult conventions. To get and do things others can't. 

"You need 200L to learn this spell from another cult ... but since you did that... "

"The priests every year paint your neck blue and wherever you go 2 points of cloud call follows, you need to be back every year and delight us with your stories"

I see more power on enchanted matrices of forgotten cults, traded spells, spirit pacts with old gods,  extended spells, maybe shamanic powers, sorcery spells inscribed on your forehead, gems, runes, rune metals and truth stone. 

I have no idea why everyone finds a sudden power cap at not being able to have over 125% attack. 

What am I missing? The crimson bat has 100% and nobody is stopping him, you can do the same.

(I'm not saying you are all wrong, I truly don't know what it is)

Crimson bat used to have 3600%. My players (and myself) found that number immersion breaking so i nerfed it to a way more palatable 360%.

You wouldn't believe what happened next!!! (My players killed the bat, that's what lol)

42 minutes ago, Eff said:

I'm not talking about stat blocks. There is no Gunda the Guilty stat block for Runequest. I am talking about the genre of Runequest as a game, which is not one where you're expected to continually grow in power to the limits of the setting. And Gunda does have a stat block on her chit in Dragon Pass/White Bear & Red Moon, which makes her a one-woman battalion, if not quite a one-woman army, someone who can conceivably contend with hundreds of people at once with only her groupies at her side. Which is not what a Runequest character can conceivably do within the existing Runequest rules, and I doubt the planned expansions of those rules would make that a playable option. 

Now, you could make Gunda someone who simply dies to a single spear with ease, but I kind of doubt that that's synchronous with her little WBRM chit. 

What are gundas feats? Because my dungeons and dragons character can also solo a regiment *and* a dragon and i still have a magic horse and lay on hands, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to do that if i converted to RQ.

I mean, this ain't something an RQ character can't do, i agree, so i expect you to NOT put a character that does it without a damn good excuse, and if i hear about it I assume it's just stories and if i find her and I'm at rune+priest level i expect to be able to fight her and if she has 1000% bEcAuSE sHeS a HeRo then i want to play a hero too... Idk how to explain it better

And YES she totally dies if someone puts a spear through her head, same as harrek or jar eel or blueface or anything else, even most chaos monsters die in that scenario!

14 hours ago, Eff said:

🤷‍♀️Because RQ doesn't have an 18th level and isn't the genre of game where you can naturally become someone who can stare Gunda down. 

Then I'd argue the Gunda stat block is wrong.

Why can't you become just like her? Like, it's pretty easy actually, RQG characters gain around 5 POW / 3 years as adventuring runelords, and around 5 to 10% in the skills they use a lot.

If gunda has super duper hero quest powers, id guess the BGB (or super world lol) is near 100% compatible and can simulate pretty much anything outside the normal rules.

Now, if your 40-year old gunda has 200 pow gain rolls and 300% skill levels + several spirits that are in minor god range, that's gonna make me raise an earbrow.

There's already rules for magic and super powers in brp... I dislike many fan conversions where the NPC is grossly overpowered and all the rules were ignored in creating them.

I say not only you can stare down gunda, but you can also run a spear through her head. Her stats (at least in my games) won't be rule-breaking.

Short Answer: you cant defeat these creatures under normal rules because they aren't generated with normal rules.

Long answer: creatures seem to come from an RQ3 campaign, where you can defeat them (sorta) after a (quite unrealistic for most groups) amount of experience.

My old party could probably tackle all these, but they have 15+ real life years of campaign experience (with hundreds if not thousands of XP and pow rolls) + a hefty amount of house rules (by the end I'm not sure we were still playing RQ, heck, we even converted to a d20 -pendragon like- the last few sessions, but i wasn't the GM by then). I was also exceedingly generous to such party -as in letting their characters live/resurrect-

Last but not least, the combat system is different.

In RQ3 something like a 100% skill zorak zorani with a great maul and some crush (or a babester gor with great parry+slash) will TRASH a 300%+ normal person with a sword, while in RQG the guy with the sword hits 95% of the time and gets hit less than 5% of the time.

20 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Not in any game I was in. Reusable Sever Spirit will beat anything else. Even without that 10 to 1 Rune Magic means the Humakti will Dismiss anything the ZZ could possibly cast. 

Sever spirit didn't get used much because worthy targets were usually magically protected and had high pow.

And no, the zorak zorani didn't get anything except seal wound dismissed, otherwise it would have been really poor resource management.

These people ran around with extended shield 10+, zorak zorani were challenging because troll maul + crush 5 + 3d6 damage mod, but they didn't deserve so many resources on them (unless dice rolled wrong)

6 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Not in any game I was in. Reusable Sever Spirit will beat anything else. Even without that 10 to 1 Rune Magic means the Humakti will Dismiss anything the ZZ could possibly cast. 

Not in RQ3 (where that happened) it wouldn't, because back then you had to buy the spells in advance and... Sever spirit isn't that good (i think the guy "only" had 3x (out of 150 pts)

17 minutes ago, g33k said:

The God of Death is plenty badass in his own right (q.v. Sever Spirit) !  But spells like Heal Body are nothing to do with that.

I would play a Humakti over a B.Gorite (or a B.Gorite over a Humakti) for their different stories/orientations, not to minmax the magic loadout I carry.

If you just want to kill stuff, bab is just better...

Slash > True sword (sure, true sword is better damage/point, but slash gives as much damage as you need, and humakti can't resurrect)

Shield > Shield, because humakti can't resurrect

Earth shield > parry rq2 battle magic? (lol). Not only earth shield is an S tier spell, but humakt doesn't have a defensive spell AND can't resurrect.

Heal Body > Again, S tier vs nothing here, and also they can't resurrect and have geases that may even prevent heals or get you to take more damage

yeah yeah humakt has a cool theme and you can have your edgy raven and morale and whatever, but if i had to choose id much rather have a baby gor than a humakti at my side (and this is from a humakti fanboy that plays humakti and dies gloriously punching hags in the face when outside of the forever gm prison).

Pro tip: never lose your sword when fighting a hag!!!

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

I agree.  And if not an official from Sun County, then definitely an Argrath adherent.  Really the GM just has to replace a few NPCs to make it work.  Personally, I tend to upgrade the settlement a bit as well as Raus obviously put some effort into building up Ronegarth as his new seat.

I wanted my PCs to be able to "upgrade" the settlement (and get useful NPCs) but couldn't come up with anything 🤣

What do you upgrade? I need material to steal hahaha 🙂

5 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I think there are two things :

- allowing or not to use a spell during a scenario. For me, of course they can !

- challenging players. If with two spells, a pc is able, alone, to close a scenario, that means, for me, that I, as a gm, have managed the table wrongly

 

My conception of GM is neither to be the opponent of the players nor to let them succeed in the blink of an eye. It is to propose enough challenges and above all, to contribute (as anyone else around the table) to create a good story, epic, with victories and loses, with discovered secrets, and sometimes little betrayals, passions and evolution  of the characters.

That means, for me, a GM has to modify the scenario when the pc are too powerful (or just when they find quickly an easy solution) or too weak
 

Maybe there are some winds and the fly spell is not enough to reach the summit. It helps but it is not enough.

or some spirits are able to dismiss the spells (too easy, find something else !)

Or maybe, after too many fails, someone is able to see a path nobody noticed before, or just think that could be good to leave and come back with ropes and other equipment... oups ..... (of course GM defines the appropriate bonus)

 

Maybe it is not a dragon defending the treasure, but just a dragonewt. Maybe the plunder is not a full set of iron plate but just a bronze one. -yes balance is not only about opposition but reward too -

Maybe some friendly runelord would help the pcs  facing a too complex situation (or maybe the situation is less difficult than described in the book)

Or maybe the main opponent is in fact twins

 

I see a published scenario as a guidance, something generic, of course without the knowledge of my table, its background, its experience. I have to adapt it so I understand @svensson approach.

On Challenging players: 

I run the game as is (changed some NPC cosmetics, they exiled orlanthi from dragon pass instead of lunars for example).

i have a 4 people party (a chalana, a humakti, a yelornan and a lhankor mhy). They are close to being runelords (except the chalana that already is and pushing for priesthood).

I didn't need to change a single thing on enemies tbh! Most important NPC are pretty strong with around 90%, and have way way way way more battle & rune magic that they should.

I like to run a "static" world; the random stuff you fight is straight out the book (making random encounters the variable) and for scenarios i usually give them an NPC to help if needed (which is super easy to do im just giving them extra utility at the cost of having to babysit an NPC that's not as good as them at fighting). 

For example, in muriahs revenge they got a lanbril thief that helps scouting ahead (but he has only 8 pow so they can chose to send him safely one time with silence and invisibility.

My concept as GM is to let my players feel powerful and have fun, but I'm a murder gm once they step into a "dungeon". Random encounters are easier since i have average monsters (vs the BS NPCs with unrealistic stats, every single Broo seems to have rolled better than my PCs despite the players rolling 2d6+6 with a few bonuses.

You want to fly ahead? Be my guest, now the condors will pick on the single isolated target! 

I wouldn't add spirits that dispel flight. If it's too easy because you are an Orlanthi priest... Good for you I guess? 

Maybe it is a dragon. Heck, if i want to help you out (which i do because I'm not a total psycho gm) then I will tell you there's a dragon instead of greeting you with a venom spray!

What, you guys not strong enough to fight it? Then you shouldn't be there... Or you can try and die, that should teach you!

I try to use the world as it is, and rely on random encounters to make stuff more exiting. I also stole some encounter tables from a supers game for stuff that could happen in town, you know, just regular problems regular people face.

This way the dice + my improv dictate what happens, not even the GM has the full story, and i feel I'm exploring glorantha instead of being it's god.

I see a published scenario as a test for the PCs, and i play to WIN. Every roll is out in the open, and what happens happens!

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Recall that the scenario as-designed presumes RQ2 PC's and RQ2 Rune- (and other) magic.

So I would expect -- when running it for RQG player-characters -- some "RQG'ified" elements of the setting & scenario.  In particular, more/better magic for the defenders would seem to be a matter of course (but I'd honestly more think of making him a Yelmic shaman, than Rune-Priest).

(edit:  emphasizing the Yelmic elements seems good, here; include the Sun County replacement for Raus; of course he wants Yelmic condors at his court!  And then (for example) all of Sandheart ties in MUCH more readily!)

Do keep in mind that borderlands is for 4-8 adventurers with 60% to 80% weapon skills.

Also by revenge of muriah the book tells you to bring runelords; the campaign isn't balanced for rq2 starting characters, it would be a meat grinder!!!

My PCs are rq2 generated with background, 2d6+6 all stats (NPCs are still 3d6), 150 skill points, 5 battle magic and 3 pow in rune magic (with pool as per rqg rules).

The scenarios are plenty challenging to near-runelords, you don't need to buff them!

I actually defeated my players with the ducks and the duke had to ranson them + replace their gear... Not a happy moment (for them, it was awesome for me haha)

13 minutes ago, svensson said:

IB, in my last post I'm describing the scenario as written. The single difference is that the Scarlet King [the intelligent condor] has Rune magic. He already is intelligent and has Spirit magic. I am translating the RQ2 statistics into RQG and describing the limitations of the Fly spell, but I am not trying to limit player creativity.

I never tell a player they 'can't' do something. I just describe how difficult it may or may not be and the obvious consequences if it doesn't work. After that, they can make their own decisions and may the dice be friendly to them. I've had players take very risky life-or-death plans and roll a crit success. Mazel Tov! Here's the skill checks and I'll probably throw a little something extra in the loot pot. I've had players take the safest of all possible routes and fumble. I never go out of my way to kill a character and I generally pull my punches over what's written in the scenario in an effort for the character to NOT die... within reason. Falling 300m off a cliff is gonna kill anyone.

IMHO: Fly > Climbing (since you are spending resources).

Now, (ideally) the scenario requires a single climb roll as per the special mountain climbing rules (only leader rolls, one roll per day).

Using fly, to me, is a completely valid way to solve the puzzle.

Same as using dark walk to stealth. I'm not gonna come up with a reason so they can't use the spell, it negating the stealth rolls is the intended function!

19 minutes ago, svensson said:

So discouraging the use of the Fly spell is benefiting the PCs more than you'd think.

I dont think so, at least i wouldn't do it.

I run the scenarios as they are. As you described fly already has its limitations, sure, i could put a condor with dispel magic and straight up murder any PC that flies... I would also find that super unfair and arbitrary.

If the PC has flight and can solve the scenario with it, more power to them. Or at least that's how I gm

6 hours ago, Hteph said:

Yes exactly these details, I like to have rumors of this planted in advance, perhaps in a folklore snippet if there is a Prax Character or a bawdy nomad song about a stupid Orlanthi sung around a campfire to provoke the PCs.

Just a reading through and making notes about these things and making the weave. I always prefer the info being channeled through a character (of course supported by me as I don’t demand them to memorize things, but it they just starts “I heard a story about Condor Crag and a stupid Orlanthi” and the looks expectant at me … if not making up a story on their own, with some injections from me. They where a good bunch, probably impossible to get them together again now sadly). 

Are you really pre-punishing characters for having a good rune spell pick?

What does it matter if PCs can fly? Condors fly just as well or better, AERIAL COMBAT TIME!!!

To be honest given the climbing difficulties and the average climbing% of PCs...

Plus isn't climbing an Orlanthi skill?