Thyrwyn

I always go with “yes” unless the rules already say “no”.

#6 is the big problem that I’ve been struggling with. The system assumes 50% to be competent and experienced. That should be the point at which the economy works.

So coy...

“Strengthening” Enchantments. Well worth the investment. @EpicureanDM Our group plays 3-4 weekends a year, now. Started as a weekly game in the 80’s. 6-10 players each weekend. We generally lose one Rune Level a weekend. New characters generally reach God-talker level by the end of the next weekend. We play mostly 3rd edition with some adds (Rolemaster criticals as heroquest abilities, lots of hero quests to middle earth, the Young Kingdoms, etc...) at least one of the PCs (a Melnibonean) has a racial Max POW in the mid 30’s We play a pretty ‘high level’ game, since we get to play so infrequently. Most of the characters in our group have at least 30 POW invested in Rune Spells and enchantments. Our troll group once used Mindlinks to cast a Crack spell (one use) backed by 300+ magic points to piss off some Mostali, and then had our Death Lord d10 divine intervention to get us back home before a fight could even get started.

Spit-balling for the new rules: 5 spirit binding matrices in the object for the Pain Spirits - 10 POW 4 POW to link the 5 matrices, 1 POW for user condition (only wearer of the belt), 1 POW for attack condition (release spirits when the wearer says the command phrase - 6 POW Area Binding Effect: Spirit Binding (2 POW), plus Area condition (3 meter cube; 3 POW) - 5 POW Target condition on Area Effect (only affects Pain Spirits - don’t want to trap anything else in there with you); User condition (only useable by the wearer of the belt); Attack condition (don’t attack the wearer of the belt) - 3 POW 24 POW total In RQ 3 it was only 18 because POW spirits and Pain Spirits only had on stat, POW since the spirits are still in a matrix, technically, the wearer can control them and put them away. Don’t pass out, because no one will want to come Heal you And, yes, it doesn’t follow the letter of the rules, but the area affect condition opens a lot of questions, so we just went with it. and it did take 18 points of POW...

I played a dark troll in RQ 3 that had created a linked set of pain spirit binding matrices. He’d go into melee surrounded by a cloud of 5 or 6 of them. The matrices were linked so I could let them all out at once. Cost a lot of POW to set up, but it made the character very survivable in melee. Sure attracted a lot of enemy Missile and spell fire though. POW wise, though, it was cheaper than shades and harder to get rid of, too. Would be in even better in RQG since you now have to choose between fighting or spirit combat....

We use the mechanic every combat - we transferred our campaign over from Legend. The PC swordswinger has a +30 Skills modifier and a native 95 skill. That's before Bladesharp or Sword Trance.... The mechanic works fine. It makes combats faster. and makes challenging foes really stand out

Everyone’s feedback has been great. We’re going to try the rule with as few restrictions as possible, just in the interest of simplicity. I do agree that you should be able to attempt it regardless of relative skill level though.

Exactly. It allows an option without having to change a core mechanic. Since the current system is neither narrativist nor simulationist, the option I’m proposing satisfies both drives without negating the current rules set.

That’s exactly where I’m coming from. It could be. We’ll try it out and I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m satisfied that everyone’s seeing the same potential interactions this would have (even if we disagree on the merits). Only testing it out will tell if the penalty is appropriate or not. If anyone else tries out this or a similar rule, please keep us posted.

1) The only one I've considered addresses @PhilHibbs concern as well: the character would have to have the 20% to surrender. Narratively, I see this representing circumstances or an over-matched opponent preventing one from having an earlier opportunity. 2) You could act earlier, but because of the way combat skills over 100% work in RQG, you would be sacrificing other benefits. A superior combatant should be able to act more quickly and more decisively than an less experienced one. In my mind (and in my experience), the static SR system overvalues SIZ and Reach. I am considering this rule to allow skilled combatants a measure of adaptability in the face of larger or faster opponents, or longer weapons. But at a reasonable cost. I would include "must have at least x% skill" so that it is actually an exchange. A reasonable point, and one I've considered. But the current SR system really only makes sense - either narrative or simulationist - in the first round of melee. Once the duck with the dagger gets close to the giant, they should be attacking first. I could introduce rules for closing (similar to other systems and previous editions of RQ), but they are inevitably cumbersome, and introduce their own set of problems, edge cases, and inconsistencies. I'd like the rule to be as succinct as possible. Thank you all for joining the conversation! While I understand that not everyone would be open to this kind of rule, your feedback is helping me figure out what will work best for our table. Keep it coming!

Simply stated: I am considering allowing characters to take a penalty to their attack in order to resolve that attack sooner. I was considering -20% per SR. Since the attack roll represents a series of maneuvers, not a single swing/stab, this rule would represent the character rushing their blow, rather than waiting to create or exploit the best opportunity. (by character, I mean PC or NPC) Does -20% seem appropriate? How frequently would you, as a player, use that rule?

Movement happens before Strike Ranks begin; If you use less than half of your MOV, you may do something else (Shoot, cast spells, etc...), but your SR is delayed by 1 for each 3m you actually moved, as long as you can get it done by SR 12. (p. 192 - movement of non-engaged characters). Characters which begin the round engaged, may not move that round.

I like the mechanic, but I would (and might) use CHA instead of INT, given the changes in RQG. This feels more appropriate, and keeps it distinct from sorcery - both in terms of mechanics and setting.

1. Yep - so the OP stated, which matches my experience and (conveniently) reality. But the OP was asking for opinions about restoring the cap, so I was sharing my experiences with the cap: ie, everyone just learned the spells at the capped value, so the point of being variable was rarely significant. Once acquired at the cap, it was never cast at less then the cap (exception: Heal); the only reason to learn cast less than the cap was usually “new character syndrome”, and was corrected as soon as resources allowed and was never relevant again; the mechanical process of progressing to the capped value was, in general, just book keeping and not interesting from a story or character perspective. 2. I did mention mention that Heal broke the cap rule 3. Most definitely not. “No hard limits on variable spells” was one of my favorite changes form 2nd to 3rd. I was making the suggestion to the OP, that if you dislike having no cap, it would be more efficient to just remove “variable” as a battle magic spell type, and make all of the variable spells fixed. That was my concluding suggestion to the OP, based on my reasoning as outlined in my post, and repeated in #1, above. I prefer variable spells as they are, but if I were to consider a limit, I would just make them fixed point spells. That would make them easier to use and describe, and would speed up play without Changing the play experience significantly. “What does Bladesharp do? - It adds +20% to hit and +4 damage” done. I will try to be more clear

I started with RQ2, and my experience over the last 35 years is that everyone just learns the capped value. If the limit is 4, everyone learns 4 - any limits such as INT or ‘just a starting PC’, are circumvented at the earliest opportunity, either through matrices, money, or spirits. Such circumventions add nothing to the experience of the game, so: why not make the spells fixed in cost and effect? Make them all 4 point spells at the equivalent effect ; either allow Heal to reattach a limb or divide it into 2 spells (one stops bleeding, one reattached limbs). No one who knows [not counting Heal, which broke that rule anyway, and which had meaningful breakpoints at: 2 - stopped bleeding; 3 - for those with healing focusing crystals; 4 - for editions which halved healing cast on other species; 6 - for re-attaching lost limbs]

That's the hang up: movement rate has been divorced from Strike Ranks entirely - it happens before you start counting SR. A human can move 24 meters before SR 1; Strike ranks are simply a means of determining initiative for spells & attacks & other actions in "combat time"; If you've moved that round (and moved no more than half your allowed movement) you incur an SR penalty to your actions. At least, that's RAW, and it is MUCH faster than having to move everyone one at a time as you count through the strike ranks.

Not at all what i am talking about. Not in the slightest. I'm talking about the fact that -all else being equal - there is a significant difference in power level between a Humakti Rune Lord who knows Sword Trance and one who does not. If they both have 10 RP and know 10 different cult Rune Spells, the one that knows Sword Trance has more impact on the game, regardless of which side of the story they're on. Not even if the other chose Sever Spirit - or even True Sword. That is the balance I'm talking about when I say something is unbalanced or under-costed.

@atgxtg we have different expectations, and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you for the great discussion, though!

it's a system. It's implied. If balance isn't an issue, why have different points cost for different spells? why track magic points? why base HP on stats when we could just give non-PC enemies as many HP as we wanted? It's implicit in the simulationist nature of the rules. It's good design. Because it means that the GM doesn't have to take on the added burden of designing encounters specifically to keep one character from overshadowing the others. Because playing Frodo gets pretty tiresome when Gandalf's at the table. But, most importantly, it makes the game easier to run and play because there is less of a learning curve; GMs and players don't have to experience catastrophic failure because of unforeseen traps or weaknesses in the rules set. Because, believe it or not, unintentionally poorly designed encounters screw up the story the GM and the players are trying to tell. When the players steamroll through the climactic finale, or the meaningless encounter turns into a TPK because the GM didn't realize that that one little spell or ability would be so effective/ineffective; or the players expected that resource-sucking spell/ability to pull its weight and turned out to be useless - all of those things make for crappy experiences, and make the time they've invested in the game and the story seem poorly spent. There are plenty of table top RPG's that allow for thematic, engaging, immersive experiences without requiring everyone at the table to have a PhD in rules mastery. It's why I stopped running/playing D&D 3.5 - planning a game for hard core experienced players was dramatically different than planning one casual or new players - even if both games were the same level.

You do know you're not making it better, right? 🙂 Here's the thing: that's all true in your Glorantha. It may even be GAGI (Glorantha as Greg Imagined). But that is never going to be true for everybody's Glorantha. And, for a rules system which offers less than scant advise to new GMs about how to structure and scale encounters and opposition, pretending that a spell is balanced because only lunatic outcast characters will ever have access to it is...... naive at best. RP restrictions are not effective means of achieving game balance - they either get ignored or abused. I've been playing in Glorantha for 35 years, and I can guarantee that I have never been in a party that didn't have at least one follower of Humakt, Storm Bull, Zorak Zoran, Eurmal or the like - there's always someone eager to play the lunatic outcast - and there should be. That's why those cults exist. Don't even get me started about the Chalana Arroy ogre that attained illumination and wanted to be a sorcerer and a shaman, as well. She would have succeeded to, if she hadn't started using her trollkin wards as mine detectors... that sort of gave her away.

nope - making it active would help with the extension issue (not a major concern for me) but not the inherent efficacy of the spell and its low RP cost. Even at 2 points it's better than Berserk. Access limitations as a balancing factor? Means nothing to GM who's planning a session - there's either a PC Humakti in your party or there isn't. If there is, combat encounters become significantly harder to prep for because of this spell. I won't even go into the implied "you have to be willing to play as a girl" to get Axe Trance part. I know that's not really Jason's intent, but that is the implied message of design philosophy. D&D and the rest of the industry figured out that role-playing "restrictions" are poor balancing mechanics decades ago.

That's interesting, but what have we missed in reading the rules that would cause loss of consciousness to end the spell? The spell description doesn't specify that, or do those same limitations apply to all temporal spells?

There is nothing official on that front, as of yet. Sorcery in RQG is all about being prepared and having your spells cast ahead of time. casting sorcery in combat is.... challenging. More detailed sorcery rules are coming, we just don't know when. Dungeon crawls are challenging to run and set up in RQG - or any version of RQ - but it can be done. You'll need to make sure that your characters have access to a lot of magic points beyond their own: spirits, storage crystals, or enchantments - something. Every combat will drain magic points and everyone will need to be fully healed between fights or your PCs won't make it more than 3-4 rooms before turning into a TPK. Die rolls are everything in RQ - especially for beginning players and characters. Criticals and Specials can happen at any time, to anyone. One lucky hit from a trollkin can kill anyone - even a well-seasoned adventurer or hero. In D&D, AC and Hit Points mean survivability. That isn't nearly the case in RQ. HP are (effectively) constant, and your armor can only get so much better than it is for starting characters. In RQ the big determiners are magic, numbers, and skill level - Rune Magic especially. Rune Magic is the big trump card, and be very careful (as a GM) when you decide to have your antagonists start throwing it around; even Spirit Magic can turn the tide of fight in a hurry - there aren't a lot of fireballs or area affect spells, but the buffs available - even to starting PCs and enemies - are much more powerful than low level spells in D&D. Being outnumbered in RQ is deadly, especially when skill levels are low and success or failure is essentially a coin flip. AC isn't passive - PCs need to actively defend themselves by parrying or dodging - being outnumbered limits their ability to do so, as your chances decrease (-20%) for each subsequent attempt each round. So if your PC is facing 3 trollkin and you try to parry them all, you're third attempt is at -40%. Doesn't happen in D&D. Skill level - this one is harder to wrap your head around. The more frequently you want to throw combats at your party, the lower you need to set the enemy's skills. The more enemies you throw at them in a given fight, the lower you'll need to set their skills. Don't be afraid to mix it up - 1-2 skilled enemies and bunch of scrubs can work well, but if a skilled opponent can gang up on one PC with scrub support, that PC will be in trouble. For tough fights I generally set the skill level of my antagonists on par with the party average; for hard fights I'll throw in a champion antagonist or two that is slightly better than the party's best fighter. But those fights will drain party resources very quickly. For easy encounters, or crawls, I'll keep enemy skill levels around the bottom of the party's combat abilities. Remember that enemy spell use will affect all of those benchmarks - so factor that into your thinking. For crawls, make good use of creatures and monsters that don't cast spells - they're easier to balance and the combats are generally faster to run. Last thing: Damage Bonus - not a big deal in D&D, devastating in RQ. Sure, starting humans have +1d4 or +1d6 - a slightly above average great Troll can have +3d6. Big, strong creatures can do more damage because of their SIZ and STR than the base damage of their weapon. A PC that fails to dodge or parry against a Great Troll is in for a very bad day - even a successful parry might mean trouble if the PC doesn't have any defensive spells up yet. There's a good section at the beginning of the Gloranthan Bestiary (available in pdf) that addresses some of this, too.

Still using RQG - which, as I said, isn't that different from RQ3. The non-combat skills have been renamed or shuffled a bit since RQ3 - I've crossed a few out; Spirit Magic is pretty much the same (and I like the few spells like Strength and Vigor that went from variable spells to fixed point spells with consistent effects); I'm using RQG Rune Magic and ranks so far (I like the way RP work in RQG as opposed to RQ3, though I may change the standard requirements for Priests and God-talkers - we'll see); there has never been a sorcery system that was playable/un-abusable, but I have no PC sorcerers, so I'm winging it for now). Since my campaign is not in Glorantha, and is set closer to middle/late medieval, I'm using weapon and armor stats from RQ3 As I said, I like the way combat skills work as i'm running them, and am using the RQG rules regarding multiple parries & dodges - RQ3 treated them like attacs, which meant that unless your skill was over 100, you only got one/round. RQG allows defenders some chance against multiple attackers where RQ3 just didn't. As a GM and as a player, I like the possibility of having the PCs outnumbered by grunts and able to use their skills to shine, not just rely on their defensive spells. I feel, that in a skill based system, the PCs should feel involved in their defense, rather than having to stand there and take it because they've used their one parry for the round. RQG combat (as I run it) keeps players more engaged on both sides of the shield, so to speak. The first part would be much appreciated and, hopefully, we'll see more discussion threads like this one!