womble

In the RQG quickstart adventure "The Broken Tower", the Clan Chieftain is said to be "away at a trade-time festival at the Sun Dome Temple, along with many other nobles and landowners..." What time of the year would "Trade-time" be? I've had a quick Google and a search on here and couldn't find any reference. I'd hazard that it would be either late in Earth (as folks trade what they find they've got an excess of at the end of the harvest for what they don't have enough of to get through the Dark and Stormy Nights to come), or at the beginning of Sea (when folks start venturing out again and need to trade for what they find they've run out of over the winter). I know you could run the adventure anytime, and use whatever excuse you like for why the head honcho isn't handling the situation more directly, but the concept of "Trade-time" seems like it might have some legs and "official" existence, so I thought I'd ask if anyone had anything concrete. I'm tending towards something like Earth|Movement since that week has Issaries' Holy day, and Gustbran's.

Even un-maxed, a Special that entirely bypasses armour's damage reduction is still dangerous. Most proper weapons swung by specialist fighters will do at the very least 5 damage (dice+1 twice for the weapon and the damage bonus on top) even rolling all 1s, and without any Bladesharp [or whatever] augmentations. A battle axe minimum special damage is 7 (with the expected damage bonus), as is a dagger's. Setting aside magic (and crushing weapons) for the moment, your expected result from a non-maxed special that avoids armour would be that the target's limb is rendered useless, or they drop if you've stabbed 'em in the vitals (because 'all 1s' isn't what you 'expect').

I think the "1MP and 1HP per SR" model for Heal Wound is more of a thought experiment than anything else... Emphatically not, by RAW. p314 "Casting a Rune Spell". And the bold isn't even mine; it is thus emphasised in the rules. Even if we ignore that and go with "always takes effect on SR1" and ignore the time taken to wind up the extra MP (which, as Wolfpack48 mentions you'd only be letting rip with on SR 9 anyway), you'd need 5SR to 'ready' your Heal spell (p194), and Dex+4SR to actually cast it, so: 1: Cast Heal Wound 6: Finish 'readying' Heal So with a DSR of 2 or less you'll cast on 12 or 11 or 10. But I think the consensus is that the rules say you'd actually finish casting Heal Wound on 8 or 9, so you wouldn't have 'readied' your spirit magic by the end of the round anyway.

Phew.

I I get the impression from this thread that the intent is for the spell to go off at the specific strike rank of 1+additional MP (or n+1+ additional MP if there are n SR of movement before the caster gets their paws on the 'lucky' recipient) and have an instantaneous effect. I think if it didn't say "...caster must simultaneously spend magic points equal to the points to be healed..." I'd be more inclined to think otherwise. As a more general point, though, MP expended to increase the effect of a Rune Spell: do they count as increasing the strength of a spell for the effect of penetration? Similarly Spirit Magic: a Heal 6 has the same effect against a Countermagic as a Heal 2 with 4 additional MP chucked in, doesn't it (as well as healing 3 times as much, if the CM is 4 points or fewer)?

Yeah, the RAW is pretty clear, and the delay until net benefit is potentially greater because you may be able to cast more than one Spirit Magic spell per round anyway, if you have enough SR. It goes on for 15 minutes though, and a larger stack of it will bring net benefit sooner, as well as making Disruption a total beast if you cast say a stack of 4 (for 3 RP) and then focus Disruptions on single targets each round. Boom, boom, boom until you run out of MP.

Why do you need the extra MP to break the Countermagic? There are already 13 MPs-worth of Penetration (2 from the Rune Spell and 11 in the additional MP) in that spell, aren't there?

Just because it's 'always been that way' doesn't make it 'right'. Previous versions of RQ, Initiates didn't get reusable Rune Magic, either. 36 general HP doesn't make you 'proof' against a crit broadsword to, well, any location, if it's doing 18HP plus damage bonus and ignoring armour. You're still not going to be using the location or just plain bleeding to death if it's a vital location. And yes, a Crit is a special. But if it is a max damage special which also ignores armour you're getting a double dip of deadly goodness. However, there's more textual evidence that the design intention is that a crit is meant (at the least) to do max damage: page 204 where it's describing Slashing and Impaling damage does, indeed, say maximum damage should be inflicted and still makes no mention of ignoring armour. Notably, the entry for Crushing damage does not say a critical with a crushing weapon does full weapon damage plus the Crushing Special rolled-plus-max-DB. Oh, and I somehow missed the 'defender takes damage ignoring armour' bit in the tables. Why the frell it's written as two separate stanzas, I don't know. So yeah. RAW, it's meant to be max damage and ignores armour, for guaranteed insta-drops of any 'normal' target, even with small weapons and no damage bonus, once the crit number comes up (10 damage with a dagger FI's all but the toughest normal human, wherever it hits them). I comprehend that there's a design goal of not having someone's "once-in-a-session-or-two" combat roll 'whiff' by rolling poor damage after their excellent attack, but it's too much like vorpal weapons to me: shortswords do not lop heads in combat no matter how lucky the limp-wristed scribe gets; it's difficult enough with an axe or two-hander when the target is kneeling on a block. Edit: and Phil posted while I typed...

It's probably also worth noting that the tables of interactions of attack success levels with defense success levels make no mention of critical attacks avoiding the target's armour (as is described in the body text entry on p206 for Critical attacks), while the body text entry makes no mention of doing maximum damage. So it seems to me that the design intent is to have one or the other of these benefits apply to crits. The question is, "Which one?" I'm of the inclination to swap things around a bit. I'd make a Special success slip past any partial-coverage armour (so your physical stuff, not magic protections; I don't see how any amount of skill or luck will let you bypass a magical defensive shield - unless we're talking Dune-esque velocity shield-type interactions, at which point missile weapons couldn't take advantage), and critical hits do the specific extra damage "because they hit something critical" (like a nerve or a tendon or major blood vessel). Nothing inclines me to permit flat-out max damage just because of a good hit; the damage dice should determine how strong the hit is, and the to hit dice determine how well it was placed.

Ah, that wasn't what I was intending, myself; it would still be the opposite/mathematical complement of the Disorder rune. If it were implemented simply as an additional Rune to use instead of Harmony, though, yeah.

Since p206 in the rules text says: and the table result for a crit hit vs anything but a crit parry says: it's hard to know what's right. There are no examples on the table (which ought to be a summary of the interactions) where the crit only inflicts rolled Special damage. Maybe crit hit v crit parry should be rolled special damage, but it explicitly says rolls normal. But is certainly copypasta from a previous version as Impaling damage in RQG is just roll twice the weapon damage (i.e. 2d6+2 for an impaling short spear). For my money, max special damage from a crit is way too much. it gives two benefits to crits: avoiding all armour and maxing the damage. It means that a crit shortsword slash will pretty much take off most ordinary peoples' arm in one go, without any damage bonus (and cut someone with 5 Abdomen hits clean in half in one blow with a d4 damage bonus), which is mostly nonsense.

From an admittedly basic perspective, I'm seeing the Communication Rune supplanting Harmony for Issaries Initiates-and-higher. Issaries Initiates might get the Communication Rune at the same rating as their Harmony Rune at the point of/as part of Initiation, and while largely synonymous, it will have a different flavour for when Augments (for example) might be relevant. So using it as a way to have game mechanics reflect a different world view.

At least "Duck Point" is the answer to an existential quandry, namely: "I don't see the point of ducks." "Just look at the map."

Yes it can be activated. But the spell won't have any effect until the Neutralise goes away because it's too weak. The Matrix is permanent, and can't be suppressed by non-permanent effects. An Extended Shield 2 would be suppressed, but not the Matrix used to cast it; since Rune Matrices don't have a strength, you could use a Rune Matrix to cast a large enough Rune Spell (if it were stackable) to overcome the Neutralise Magic effect. There are a lot of grey areas there, with the effect of area increase combined with "target" wording.

I don't reckon Neutralise, Dismiss or Dispel affect things that have had POW sacrificed to create them. Difference between permanent and Temporal...

Abstraction. It's a beyotch. Most of what goes on in the time leading up to SRs 6 and 7 in your example doesn't result in any damage. That one participant's damage happens in 6 and the other's in 7 just represents that the first gets their 'effective' swing in before the other's. It's a very rough approximation because keeping track of all the things that actually affect who hits whom first is an exercise in bookkeeping and ancillary stats and randomising factors (especially in a few-on-few situation) is way more than most gaming tables can stomach. It's utter crap, for example that a spear user gets to hit 'first' when fighting a sword-and-boarder (notionally of the same physical reach and reflexes), round after round. If the spear user hits and doesn't drop or drive back their target, they're probably not going to get another go without a radical disengagement to regain their range because the spear is totally out of the equation once the sword-and-boarder has closed and trapped/diverted the spear. I know, I've chased down my share of spears with my sword and shield and hammered charging tinnies onto their ass with a 'firm' bill thrust. Sure you could make mechanics that represent the very fine increments of fighting distance and modify the opponents' actions/chances of success accordingly, but while you're at it, you'd probably better add balance/centre and fighting style familiarities, and really look at how the cumbersomeness of weapons affect how easy they are to parry/avoid (and on and on and on). But very few people have the desire to get that nitty into the gritty (how many games of Phoenix Command* do you see played?) so the approximation has to do. And the damage isn't approximated as accumulating from lots of tippy-tappy glancing blows, it's abstracting when the one significant blow achieved in a round is effective, so no 'pro rata Damage Per Strike Rank'. * Phoenix Command was a combat system which took into account the flight time of a bullet, based on muzzle velocity and range (though it didn't, as far as I recall, go as far as getting integral on the reduction in projectile velocity due to atmospheric drag - that'd be silly; maybe it was an optional rule).

Aye. That would, indeed, suck. I don't have the time these days to be playing characters I've no interest in...

Aye. I can't see how the reversion to RQ2's mechanics in this regard isn't a step backward.

Having smoothed curves for the various derived characteristics would also make 'minimaxing' stats less problematic. If every point is worth something, more, anywhere is good. I'm junking the tables for skill category modifiers in favour of "Stat-10" for primary and "(Stat-10)/2" for secondary (and the negatives of same for negative 1ary and 2ary). That gives smaller modifiers, and I'm considering letting Elemental Rune scores add in there too (@1/10th for 1ary and 1/20th for secondary).

p334 "POW points equal to the magic points or Rune points needed to cast the spell must be sacrificed to create the matrix." POW. Not Rune Points. You sacrifice a POW to get a Rune Point, plus access to the rune spell Enchantment "Matrix Creation". Spending Rune Points on non-reusable spells requires access to non-reusable spells. Don't see much of that in any of those stat blocks. And spending RP would reduce the character's RP to fewer than the special spells they have access to, not reduce the number of spells they have access to to less than their number of Rune Points. That would be less than useful in the case of most of the NPCs in the Adventure Book from the GM Screen Pack. Unless you think Leika Ballista, say, never has full Rune Points when the players meet her. Most of those stats are general "whenever you meet them" or "full capability" stat blocks and make no mention of expended points. Apart from the NPC stats which are supposed to be at a notional specific time, (the Tusk Riders) which explicitly state the "y RP remaining out of x total" for those characters. It makes sense that a lot of NPCs with Rune Points won't have their full allocation available every time they bump up against the players, sure; it makes less sense to make a default 'reduced' number of RP the only number available to read. An explanation for why people have fewer RP than they maybe 'ought' to have is that they might have other things to sacrifice their POW to, like the wyters of the various communities they're members of. Priests, of course, have access to Enchantments, and anyone could contribute to such; then there's Divine Intervention. Set against that, though, is that an average gain of 1 POW per year assumes only the 'automatic' POW gain rolls at Sacred Time and the High Holy Day. While it assumes consistent attendance at those ceremonies, it also disregards any other opportunities for raising POW gained through the year. Given that Magic is active in Glorantha, and the Priests have to go deal with it rather than just sitting back and blissing out on Goddness, they should be getting a roll most Seasons for beating cult spirits in combat to get them to teach spells and perform other services, or fighting disease spirits, or just using their magic dealing with "mundane" threats to the community.

No. That level of consistency suggests that not having the same number of Special Rune Spells as you have Rune Points is the exception rather than the rule, possibly even an exception generated by error. The most likely in-world reason those herders only have a single (special) spell rather than more is that they habitually worship at Shrines which only have those one single Rune Spell available for access when they want another Rune Point. Even if they are the best herders available (at their ages? I frankly doubt it), the farmers in the next adventure are arbitrarily selected; if they're "kick-ass" too then there's some serendipity going on. Note also that the "Typical militia" has 3 RP and 3 spells statted. Typical. Not "kick-ass". Sure there will be exceptions to any general practice; any Glorantha will vary within itself, but that doesn't indicate some massive divide between PC and NPC potential. Which doesn't speak to the rules and customs around sacrificing for Rune Points and whether getting a Special Rune Magic thrown into the deal is universal or takes a special purpose or donation. It speaks to the character getting (effectively) 3 POW gain rolls since Initiation at 18 and spending them all on Rune Points (and getting the SRM thrown in without question). It speaks to them having slightly higher levels in probably more conflict-focused skills, and having probably better panoply (because herder isn't going to be a frequently chosen characer Occupation), reputation and Passions. It might speak to heightened Rune Affinities (I haven't gone through and unpicked all the NPCs to see if they were generated with the same number of Rune Points as PCs get).

p51 Tarndisi and the Shanassee Tree have more Rune Points (30) than their Charisma (24 and 20 respectively). Do Allied spirits add their to the Priest's CHA for the Priest and the Priest add their CHA to the Ally's? p61 The two Uleria Initiates are also Initiates of another Cult, but have no Rune Point or Special Rune Spell for those other Cults.

However, every NPC but two (Varnath and Cara) in the only Chaosium RQG adventures so far published has Special Rune Magics >= Rune Points (if their particular Subcult has that many). That includes nonhumans and unremarkable herders and farmers. For me, that means it's not up in the air at all. The fact that some slightly older characters have fewer Rune Points than the (average) '1 per year past Initiation' is somewhat troubling. Generally, I'd expect everything the PCs do in term of mechanics to be based on what everyone does. Their story may be more remarkable than many their age, but they certainly aren't the only freshly Initiated Sartarites to go participate in the events of the last few years. I think the reciprocity principle is strong in RQ: if the PCs can do it, so can the NPCs, and vice-versa.

I read this as additional access, above and beyond that granted for Rune Point sacrifice. p275 also says (under 'Becoming an Initiate' which starts on the page before) "The new initiate gains access to all common Rune spells known to the cult and chooses one cult special Rune spell." on p282 regarding subcult initiation it says "...sacrifice 1 point of POW to establish a link to the subcult (note that this increases the Rune point pool to the main cult), and may choose a special Rune spell provided by the subcult..." On p283 under "Gaining Access to Associated Cult Rune Spells" it says: "When an adventurer sacrifices a point of POW to increase their Rune point pool, they can select a Rune spell from an associated cult worshiped at that temple instead of selecting a Rune spell from their main cult or subcult." And the clincher is the sections on p313-314 (in the Rune Magic chapter) on "Rune Points" and "Gaining Rune Magic Spells". Both explicitly say you get access to a new Special Rune Magic Spell every time you sacrifice a POW to that Cult. The examples all have characters with exactly as many Special Rune Magics of their Cult as they have Rune Points, and the example in the latter section says: "...At the tribal temple to Orlanth (a major temple) she sacrifices 2 permanent points of characteristic POW to increase her Rune points to 7. She also gets to select two more cult special Rune spells that she can cast..." Either the bit about donations or special reasons is to gain extraordinary access to a Special Rune Spell, outside of POW sacrifice, or it's a relict of a previous edit. There's a mechanic in-game for allowing access to Special Rune Spells: Rune Magic Matrices. Since, RAW, per the corrections thread, a Rune Magic Matrix doesn't provide any Rune Points towards casting it, and needs 'recharging' after one use, giving someone else access to a spell your God gives, but theirs doesn't, or that they haven't sacced for yet is the only practicable use for a Matrix, this provides a hook for Rune Matrix creation. If it is via Matrix creation, this sets a market price for points of POW, which is interesting.

I struggle a bit with pure stat point buy systems, especially when there are as many 'beneficial' thresholds as there are in RQ. I also hate seeing characters that don't shape up to at least something like what the player envisages playing. I like the idea that there's some randomness to RQ characteristics. For cultures where there is access to "Bless Pregnancy" there's a mechanism built into the world to help achieve this. I don't think it's too big a stretch to allow a character's grandparent to be (or be good friends with/prepared to owe a favour to) an Initiate or Priestess of Ernalda with a CHA-full of Rune Points, which she would likely be prepared to make available for her daughter/-in-law to make sure the grandchildren are healthy and strong/talented. So I'm going with "Allocate 15 points across the 7 stats and roll the appropriate amount of dice, for each stat (specifically), adding the allocated points." Ponts above species maximum, I'll allow to reroll a 1 on a die on another characteristic, but they could as easily be wasted You could vary the number of Rune Points available for casting, and it's kinda 'representative' rather than a strict application of the spell, so there aren't really any limits but 19 x 3.5 +12 = 82, +15 =97, so on average they'll have more than the 92 point minimum; you could cap at 'rolled' maxima, though Bless Pregnancy permits starting characteristics up to racial max. I like this approach because it has at least some grounding in the game world, and it combines randomness with player choice. Obviously the grandma wanted a grandchild that came out like the player hoped... How fortunate