womble

Aye, and RQG doesn't offer the use of the Long Spear, one handed, if I'm reading it correctly (so there aren't any published RQG stats for using a Long Spear single-handedly). A fact which I think would puzzle many Classical era Hoplites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dory_(spear).

Thing is, someone who's just 'average amateur' at foil vs an olympic fencer simply won't get a tip on their target and will be hit at will. The second option is more in tune with the reality of gross mismatches. I'm 'quite good' with sword and board, and can work my way through a lot of defenses, but there are people I am struggling to hit at all, ever, who can pretty much pick their shots on me.

I'd like to think that the original intention of the rule was something similar, but that the framing of it in the Core book simply didn't consider that there would often be occasions where the skill differential would be higher than the lower skill, and so didn't address the issue in its language, but 150 vs 49 isn't going to be that uncommon, with Fanaticism and other buffs going around.

I would read it as meaning so, yes. The terminology in RQG regarding MP/POW is pretty consistent. A consequence of the spell you have highlighted is that I'd imagine the Mostali Cut Stone in the largest batches their available MP permit, to make most efficient use of their expended POW.

In most cases, yeah, it's just right to reduce both, even if it seems a little counterintuitive at first sight. Where it gets hinky is situations where the higher skill would reduce the lower to below 05%, since the full disadvantage applies to the higher skill, but is capped on the lower. To make this feel right for me, I reduce both skills by the same amount, which is the lesser of "reducing the higher skill to 100" and "reducing the lower skill to 05". Means that the vastly superior practitioner retains higher crit/special chances against the greatly inferior opponent. With the high skill levels possible in character generation, and the levels of buff available, this situation can occur even very early on in a character's development.

The 'algorithm' that generates that table is hardly worthy of the name: difference x 5 added to or taken away from 50% as appropriate.

Nope. p418 All still there.

I'm curious as to why the reluctance. It could be a bit like a Form/Power Rune, covering the 'type of action the God would have purview over'. Given the prohibition on 'stacking' Inspirations, that doesn't seem 'too much'.

Subscribe via email, and read the advice on the Newgamemastermonth blog page? I don't get the feeling the FB group is the only medium the info will be available in. Or even, necessarily, that the information will be available directly there.

Though you can't train SIZ in any usual way... Also, you could think of it as not to do with their potential in the first place, it's just that small people stay in the tribe (or can get adopted in), while the larger specimens go out-tribe: it's the average size of the tribe member (who are all just normal humans), rather than the average size of a special 'breed'. I'd be inclined to be a bit wider in the application of such modifiers: a Farmer, for example, is very likely to be more muscular than a Scribe, just from what they do all day. I'd think about applying a strength modifier as part of some Occupations, potentially, if I was starting Chargen mechanics from scratch, and Homelands would also potentially have more and different modifiers: they'd count as 'points already trained', rather than as part of the dice roll (which is what determines the racial max).

At the risk of departing from the topic: "Will(?power?)" sounds like an interesting stat to include. I tend to think of it as being an element of POWer. To draw analogies to the 'physical' stats, I think of INT as being the equivalent of DEX, POW acting like CON, and CHA acting like STR... And while I was typing that, I wondered whether 'POW v POW' rolls really orter be 'CHA v POW'... CHArisma being defined as 'force of personality'. Opens up other questions if your Glorantha fancies meandering down that divergence, natch... Edit: and shouldn't your spell SR be based on your INT rather than your DEX? How much physical coordination does it take to look at the focus on your sword's hilt?

That is pretty evil I'd say you've hit the nail on the head with 'voluntarily'... Command/Control/Dominate preclude volunteering, so no you couldn't, I reckon. Might be an ability of a Chaos being or off a Hero Quest, but would be very powerful indeed, especially since an enchantment can be built up over time. So you start a 50-point Enchantment, but haven't got 50 points of Spirits handy, just squeeze 'em when you got 'em...

And the access to and flexibility of Rune Magic. Cardinal Fang! The cushions!

INT 2d6+6 averages 13, making 15 with Rune Affinity bonus. And for completion's sake, DEX 3d6+2 = average 12.5 so 12-13 (possibly +1 if water secondary). I gather.

Just curious: why are you dropping STR by 2 as well as size? It's not what David was referring to...

I've detected a deal of daylight between 'em, frankly. Not in the way you're reading it, perhaps. I entirely agree with both of them that PCs are "made" exceptional. And there's a lot of daylight between 'character creation rules' and the 'rules of the world' (in an 'ongoing' sense). I'm thoroughly comfortable with the notion that the PCs are generated as superior to their 21 y.o. relatives and neighbours, but that says next to nothing about how adults then develop. What reason is there for adults to not be Initiated? What reason for any Initiate to not get biannual POW gain rolls (and, on average, hit half of 'em)? Do 'normal people' learn nothing in their jobs, season-to-season? PCs will certainly develop into better adventurers than the common run-of-the-mill fellow, but a mature carpenter has a good chance to be significantly better at their job than a just-made-up-to-journeyman one. Since the rules of the world apply the same to everyone, PC or NPC, it is the PCs' actions which differentiates them from/raises them above Jo Stay-at-home-and-farm.

RQC doesn't have Passion and Rune scores. It's much more restrictive on how much Rune Magic people get, both in quantity and flexibility of use. It has no official treatment of Sorcery (that was first dealt with by the rules in RQ3). If it's It doesn't have anything like the same amount of background material built into the rules, nor the broad choice of Cults, AFAIK. It's aimed at Glorantha, but the background material is more of a teaser than a complete thing; you'd need Cults of Prax or the Cult Companion to broaden your Cult choices (though those would exceed what RQG has managed to cram into its core, both in number of Cults and detail of treatment). RQC has no baked-into-the-rules concept of "playing a role in your character's community" as RQG does, and that saves some pages. I don't know what the issue might be with RQC's magic system, but if it remains RQ2, it has a terrible schizophrenic approach to POW/MP, calling MP 'temporary POW' and requiring some pondering which is being used, sometimes. Or maybe it's that resistance rolls for casting-for-effect are made using MP v MP, rather than POW v POW, so casting your spells makes you vulnerable to other peoples' spells... In my world, RQG is an improvement in every way over RQ2/C (and in many ways over RQ3), but if you just want to run some modules, it'll be easier to use the RQC rules and de-emphasise the background. Or you could do the same thing with RQG, and it would be a more coherent and better-developed system.

Yeah, I've seen some of the people behind the game claim that. However, in my eyes, there are a few things which tend to encourage me take Jeff's vision over Jason's. First, the 'ordinary people' (random farmers, herders) you meet in so-far published RQG material are 'point-a-year' Initiates. With a Capital 'I' (as opposed to 'initiated into adult society' initiates, with a lower-case 'i'). While the progression from there is...patchily executed (Kareena has fewer RP in 1625 than she has sacced POW in classic Apple Lane ?20? years before, f'r'ex), this is the least important point in my reasoning: new game lines can take a while to settle down, and sometimes designers make a set of stats 'what it needs to be to tell the story that's being told'. However, the rules and background material, including pre-RQG stuff and current, make explicit statements that there is a high proportion of Initiation in (at least) Sartarite society, into specific Cults. Second, RQ has always, and it seems to me, it tries to continue to be, a game where the same rules apply to NPCs as apply to PCs. If a PC gets an automatic POW gain roll at Sacred time, based on 5 x the difference between their current POW and their racial max, so do the NPCs. And if PC Initiates can freely commit their Soul Force to their God and get a Rune Point, so can the NPCs, and they'll want to because Rune Spells are great (and the world is dangerous). Third, in Glorantha (specifically, and that's where RQG is directly focused with quality collimation), your relationship with your God is IMPORTANT. Setting aside the mythic necessities, the material advantages of being a good little Orlanthi and going to as many Worship ceremonies as you can reach merit both effort and commitment. The disadvantages of your community's magic failing because you decided to stay in bed do not bear contemplation. So it seems to me that, as in the Real World, most people need to have a job to get on with their life, most Gloranthans need to get Initiated. It's not like it's hard to get Initiated in one of the Gods of your Pantheon, nor are the requirements to remain Initiated in Good Standing particularly onerous: medieval folk tithed 10% to the Church for nebulous promises, whereas your Sartarite farmer will see their crops come in better than their neighbour's if they have a family member with a snootful of Rune Points and 'Bless Crops', and the neighbour doesn't. So, the second and third points, for me, support the background materials' statement of Initiation with a capital I being pretty much the default state of being for adults in Sartar, and pretty much everywhere that's theistic. To address the point of PCs being 'exceptional', I believe the game system's blindness to whether you're a PC or an NPC means the PCs become exceptional by the actions they take under the direction of their players. They start off in play as exceptional because they went off to Nochet, or Aurochs Hills or Pavis or wherever, and their siblings, cousins and neighbours largely did not. But those relatives and acquaintances still have the opportunity (notwithstanding religious oppression, or suppression) to get their POW gain rolls annually, and their routine actions would mean they would tend to take those opportunities (though obviously that's not their motivation, nor how they view the world: they're just making sure the sun keeps coming up by participating in Sacred Time/High Holy Day rites). PCs will become more exceptional as time goes on because they'll be getting POW gain rolls and skill rolls in lots of skills other than Farm, Herd, Animal Lore and Plant Lore every season, not once or twice a year. Another thing about this take on the world is that it destroys the notion of the 'first level farmer'. That 40-year-old field hand probably has a full CHA of Rune Points and either Lightning or Thunderbolt, can Heal Wound at least, and his Farm skill is way over 100 unless he's an immense dullard. He may even have traded soul force for Enchantments since he can contribute to the Priests' workings and needs something to do with his excess POW. This seems to me to be entirely in keeping with the game system's ethos.

Medieval English used 'Vintner' for a leader of 20. I was told when I did my brief re-enactment stint.

Everything adds up, like Kloster says. Same as skill percentages.

Parrying a spear (in real life) with a sword is vanishingly unlikely to damage the sword (you're engaging wood with metal), and having a crossguard would enable you to engage in more 'tricks' against your spearman opponent, and make traps and guides more positive to allow you to remove the point from being a threat so you can close and win.

Not quite 'off'... that'd take another 3 points of damage, and he'd be dead from total HP as well as a severed or maimed 'Head'.

Interesting point about these swords. The geometry of anything but a cross block with the forte is... complicated... As is the geometry of blocking a cut from a radically curved kopesh made with the inside of the curve/axey point (which could reach over and past the top rim of a shield used as you usually do against a straight or backward-curving blade).

Does he get many (any) of the Common spells? If Orlanth is an appropriate Cult for the character concept, (eventually) being an Initiate of both Lanbril and Orlanth might be an option, for more, erm, options.

The tsuba of the katana isn't much bigger, and the bokken almost never has a guard at all, and parries and deflections with the blade in the styles I've studied and seen. Not crossblocks, and often the deflection is angled so the striking blade is sliding towards the point of the defending one. I don't think absence of a crossguard is evidence of absence of weapon parries.