EpicureanDM
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Posts posted by EpicureanDM
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7 hours ago, Crel said:
So this sort of stuff is still a huge investment, but is more viable, more quickly, than in RQ3. @EpicureanDM there was a thread a while back around here that was looking into Linked spell & other enchantment tricks/abuses which might be of interest to you. A notable, simple one to my mind is linked Disruption matrices.
I'd love to see that if you can find it.
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38 minutes ago, Ultor said:
It's actually the players who realized this first at my table - they used a Shade they'd got from a Heroquest to waltz through the rune-level adversaries I'd thrown at them (they had luck on their side as well - two insta-kills in the first two attacks). Our Foundchild shaman is already making plans for bargaining with powerful hunting spirits (who of course will have Multispell Disruptions) to have them help out. This week's session should see them take on a party of trolls occupying the Champion of Pavis' manor, so I'll be deploying these tactics back at them. If I keep detailed enough notes, I'll post what happens here.
Please do. My party's also in the Big Rubble, but we're only a couple of sessions in. The PCs still have that new-car smell.
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38 minutes ago, Ultor said:
One important thing to remember is that once your party reaches Rune Lord level, a lot of them will be defending against every POW-based attack with an effective POW of 21. So most offensive spells, even those cast by high-POW opponents, are going to bounce off them.
Large elementals, however, have large POW stats and/or attack with their large stats against non-POW stats, so they will be the weapon of choice against Rune level parties - at least in my experience so far. A large Shade, for instance, not only has a good chance of hurting a Rune Lord, but a small chance of killing her outright. An enemy who knows they will be facing Rune Lords should have access to elementals, I suspect, even if they are moving terrain.
Similarly, spirits, which have been discussed above in spirit combat roles, can have high POW and spell capability, so a shaman who controls some of those can suddenly start hurting Rune Lord parties in a way to which they may have become unaccustomed.
Thanks for sharing your experiences from the table, Ultor. Did you throw Small and Medium elementals or spirits at your party before they graduated to Rune Level? If so, can you share what the relative strengths were of each side? Any disasters or near-TPKs?
Your point about Rune Lords resisting spells draws that rule out of the background a bit. It's probably fair to say that most RQG groups who are playing actively (at least those reporting in this thread) haven't reached Rune Level yet. New RQG GMs haven't had to adjust to Rune Lord spell resistance. It's a relatively high-level concern that many RQG GMs might not reach for a while, but having it in the back of the mind can be helpful down the road.
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If it's not too late, look at what this thread has produced:
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55 minutes ago, Thyrwyn said:
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....
Put some numbers and rules on this, Thyrwyn! How would you use RQG's rules to replicate this? Were other PCs in your game creating similar tricks? Share those, too.
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22 minutes ago, g33k said:
How 'bout @soltakss's River Voices campaign?
Soltakss has made some good contributions to the thread already! The links you provided don't have the sort of mechanical detail I find helpful, though.
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40 minutes ago, Joerg said:
Rather than spirit combat ability, combat availability may also be a concern. A player with a hit location taken out but safely out of melee can still engage the spirit in spirit combat, letting the non-disabled party members concentrate on overcoming the physical foes.
41 minutes ago, Joerg said:Never happened in my games. Wraiths, Shades and Lunes were bad enough, and the occasional ghost was more than enough to send a party back for expert support.
Two good tips there. First gives GMs some flexibility and an idea for what to do when a fight's gone south for a player. Keeping a downed PC's player engaged while a fight continues is a good thing. The second one provides context and guidance. Don't get too enamored with some tales of complex RQ combat. Some folks obviously do it and have chimed in on this thread, but it doesn't have to go that way.
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55 minutes ago, jajagappa said:
t was rare that I ran spirit combat in RQ3 - as @styopa noted because it was MP vs. MP, as soon as you began to lose MP, there was this rapid downward spiral that was almost impossible to recover from. And there wasn't really an effective way to avoid the attack in the first place. Now there is the Distraction spell, so there's opportunity for the PC with the best Spirit Combat to pull a spirit away from someone with low Spirit Combat.
So who were the powergamin' RQ ninjas who were running epic battles with spirits flying all over the place?!
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58 minutes ago, g33k said:
It's worth noting that RQG is similar enough to RQ2 and RQ3 that many play it "wrong" in one or more ways, in the belief that all their decades-old habits hold true (instead of just most of their decades-old habits).
It's worth further noting that NOBODY has those decades of comparable RQG experience. Not even the devs/authors at Chaosium! So we can expect various "best practices" and optimizations (and loopholes) to be discovered and shared over time.
I generally agree. We saw evidence of unintended RQG loopholes in this forum's thread about Axe/Sword Trance.
But we've seen at least a couple of new RQG GMs chime in to mention how helpful this information has been. As you say, most of RQ2/3's best practices can be imported into RQG; they're very similar. We just need old RQ2/3 GMs to exercise a little care and check the RQG rules before slamming down their nuggets of wisdom. Even when the advice isn't exactly translatable between RQ2/3 and RQG, the nature of the conversation can illuminate (small "i") the meta-structure of the game's design for new GMs. -
6 minutes ago, styopa said:
RQ3 Spirit combat was ENTIRELY different. Instead of an attack and "damage", it was a opposed table roll, with IIRC the mp loss fixed at 1d3. BUT, again IIRC (we have ended up with a different system that we like better & have used for years) it was MP vs MP, so there was a very strong spiral effect because your "strength" (MP) was also your effective hit points really (MP again). As one side lost MP, they became successively weaker, and thus more likely to lose the next roll. Once you were beating your opponent, it was unlikely you'd lose. Not impossible, though.
I need to go back and open RQ3's Magic Book to get a better feel for my old memories of spirit combat. Reviving and translating my old RQ3 instincts into good RQG play has been hit-or-miss. Can't imagine what brand new RQG GMs are doing.
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I've had two different groups of new RQG players (no prior RQ experience) look for ways to be a shaman while still taking part in the cults and mythology of Glorantha. So far, I've used Daka Fal's cult as a template for Kolat and Ernalda's cult as a template for Serdrodosa (sp?). I gather that Serdrodosa's more fringe, since it's hard to find information online about her. But Kolat pops up with relative ease.
I see people angling for Horned Man and maybe that's enough of a mechanical and mythological fit for RQG. But Kolat's such an obvious option for Orlanthi who want to become a shaman.
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1 hour ago, jajagappa said:
In RQG, the biggest factors are Spirit Combat and Spirit Combat Damage. Even a low powered spirit can have a high Spirit Combat. Most likely only a PC with assistant shaman or priest as background will have much beyond 30-40% in the way of Spirit Combat %. As Spirit Combat is an Opposed Roll, a spirit with a Spirit Combat of 50% will generally have a good edge, and if it is up at 75%+, will have a high likelihood of defeating the PC.
Spirit Block or Spirit Screen are critical for spirit combat, helping to reduce the possible MP loss as long as possible. If you're not a shaman and are encountering spirits, you want to spend your RP's and get Spirit Block cast as quick as possible. This will slow MP loss, allowing your PC to make more attacks longer, and a PC with good CHA+POW can likely score more Spirit Combat Damage providing some chance of success.
That makes sense.
How did old RQ2/3 GMs go about introducing spirit combat to their games? I recall that most beginning RQ3 characters were as competent in spirit combat as the beginning RQG characters you're describing. But I get the sense from reading mentions by RQ veterans and the text of various RQ products (past and present) that mature or advanced RQ combat has a spiritual component. There are allied spirits for Rune Lords (something that RQG characters start much closer to, mechanically) buzzing around and talk about shamans unleashing bound spirits held by their fetch.
So what should an RQG GM throw at low- and intermediate-level PCs in order to introduce the dynamics and dangers of spirit combat? I can figure out the straightforward answer: introduce one spirit with stats identical to (or close to) the party average and have one PC be a guinea pig. Given that RQG's character generation system largely produces PCs who aren't strong in spirit combat (unless they specialize), maybe it's best to hold off on introducing spirit combat until the PCs are more experienced? Maybe I've read too many descriptions of epic Glorantha battles involving both swords and spirits, and need to be patient?
EDIT: Then again, PCs won't get experience with spirit combat unless they actually use the skill and earn checks. But I know that players going into a fight where they know they're the underdog can get demoralized and perhaps disengage from the game. They know the difference in odds between having an 80% Battle Axe skill and a 35% Spirit Combat skill. RQG's spirit combat doesn't have a lot of mechanical nuance, as I recall, so there isn't much room for player creativity to take advantage of "maneuvers" or "tactics" that could give them a bonus to their rolls. I worry about forcing players to engage in lots of spirit combat with skills below 50%, because that's a steep learning curve. I wonder if they'd feel like they're eating their vegetables in order to get to the good stuff, i.e. advanced RQ combat with spirits as an accepted or expected part of the mix.
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55 minutes ago, womble said:
But yes, the grapple rules, flawed as they are, are excellent ways to cheat your players of their hard-earned superiority.
That seems a bit harsh.
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1 hour ago, styopa said:
- packs of intelligent weak things ie trollkin can team up to be effective. We have found that 3-4 trollkin grappling can be a surprising match for even a very powerful pc. Realistically they have to be at least moderately intelligent and motivated, as it's likely at least a couple will die in the process. I don't know the RQG grappling rules but if they're about immobilization of locations, that's the ticket. A PC with 180% attack is a lot less mighty if she can't swing her arm. And parrying works great against the first grapple....except you have given them either an automatic success imploding that arm, or you have to drop your shield....
One of the PCs in my game died yesterday after being overwhelmed by Rubble Runners. They were an assistant shaman, had low armor, and two of the Runners had attached themselves via their bites. I had borrowed a rule (maybe it was from elsewhere in the RQG Bestiary) that gave a -5% penalty to combat (like being overencumbered) for each Runner attached to a character, so that didn't help. It wasn't grappling, exactly, but it feels like the effect would be the same as you describe above.
1 hour ago, styopa said:- spirits. Most players thing of their physical arms and armor, the more sophisticated think further to their magical defenses...but it takes someone who has played rq3 a while to appreciate how nasty spirits can be, and how readily you should have defenses against them at hand all the time
Yeah, my players haven't faced any spirits or spirit combat yet. I'll need to be careful about how I introduce that. Probably with a small (POW 10-12) diseases spirit or two.
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16 hours ago, Djday45 said:
Just a quick message to say this thread is amazingly useful to a new Runequest GM like myself.
Great stuff, please keep it going.
Rgds
Dean
That's a big reason why I started it. 😉
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7 hours ago, Crel said:
The big danger of Disrupt is that it ignores armor. This is quickly blocked by two points of Countermagic, a point of Shield, etc., but a round or two of Disrupt fire is a reliable way to take out heavy-duty melee warriors with a pretty low resource cost. On a related note, the effectiveness or lack thereof of certain tactics, spells, will depend on how your group grows and responds. I believe that RQ games basically end up with a group "meta" like in competitive games. Sort of a rock-paper-scissors interaction. My games mostly dealt with direct damage spells and melee attacks, so Protection was way more valuable than Countermagic. If opponents start using Befuddle, suddenly Countermagic 3 becomes really good. If every opponent uses 2MP on Befuddle instead of Bladesharp near the start of combat, players will stop casting Protection 3--in which case Bladesharp becomes good again. The way the MP and time economies interact can create a constant shift in what good magic tactics consists of.
I like this. It's familiar enough if you've been playing RPGs for a little while, but it reframes it in particular RQG terms.
I see what you're saying about that example. It's helpful to see, though, since it helps chart the landscape.
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10 hours ago, womble said:
Another difference between previous RQs and RQG is the duration of Spirit Magic. It's dropped from 5 minutes (25 or 30 rounds) to 2 (10 rounds), which makes the long buff sequence and pre-combat maneuver RHW describes for Korgo and his chums impracticable.
Something that I think is a key difference between most other games and RQG is that, while magic is available (and to some extent expected) for everyone to cast, it isn't 100% reliable. And it takes time. I'd be very wary of handwaving this away, either for PCs or NPCs. It's part of the 'tactical environment' that sometimes your 'go-to buff' needs a couple of goes to get cast, and low-POW creatures like Trollkin are inherently worse at Spirit Magic than your average human.
I noted that difference between the duration of RQ3 and RQG spirit magic. It does create translation problems for old tactics as you mention. And, as you say, opponents with average POW might need a few rounds of rolling to get their entire suite of expected spells into play.
But I get the sense that most RQ GMs handwave those rolls, at least some of them. Maybe you roll for the Rune Lords, but the cannon fodder (the squads of trollkin) might need to have that magic in place just so that they're a proper challenge for the PCs. So the GM skips that part of the process to keep the game moving and interesting. -
2 hours ago, Dissolv said:
Yikes, you are looking for a very large amount of information without apparently having digested the core rules -- which are very crunchy by today's standards. However that's the plus, not a minus.
I've actually got 35+ years of experience with RPGs, including two years of RQ3 back when it was first published. My first attack by my first-ever RQ PC was a fumble resulting in a critical hit to my own PC's leg. I immediately recognized many of RQG's rules.
I've played Rolemaster, Rifts, Traveller, Shadowrun, and lots of other crunchy games. I'm getting back in the RQ saddle but, as I said in the OP, my old group from the '80's weren't the sort to uncover the sorts of advanced tactics and rules interactions that we're seeing in this thread. But I know this stuff is locked away in some RQ GM's brains and I'm trying to dig it out so that we can get the most out of our RQG experience. 😉
It's important to note that most new RQG GMs will be newcomers without experience in this type of game. Threads like this should be put in front of those new players and GMs so that they can see how much depth and strategy there is in RQG. That's the best way to make new, loyal RQG fans.
2 hours ago, Dissolv said:Remember that magic is highly visible in Glorantha, so having a 20 man bandit group all buffing for three rounds , and then jumping out within 10 feet of the players may involve a LOT of rolls or just be unrealistic. Casting a lot of multimissile/speed darts at 100 yards distance, however, could be quite different. However in a big battle situation, or before a duel, you can expect the maximum possible buffing to be thrown. That's because there is a lot of stand off distance and plenty of time to cast. Most "exploring the Big Rubble" type fights just don't have that, and typically I see the players wade into melee while casting. But other times they see the bad guys coming and can't shake them after an extended time running around in Old Town, so they might turn to face their pursuers, and have a couple of rounds to cast spells. Circumstances dictate a lot of this.
That's some helpful detail. It helps me set internal expectations for how to adjudicate different moments in play, especially since my group's in the Big Rubble.
2 hours ago, Dissolv said:Rune level = Rune Lord or Priest. The lines have blurred there somewhat lately, but it isn't about a number of Rune points. There are a whole host of things you can expect from an opponent at that level.
My confusion came because of the fact that RQG PCs start with three Rune Points and they're reusable even if they aren't Rune Lords or Priests. That's a switch from RQ3. What I didn't consider was all of the related perks in the rules (Allied spirit, better DI, etc.). But there's still a range between "new" Rune Lord and "master" Rune Lord.
2 hours ago, Dissolv said:Nope. That's part of being the heroic Bronze Age. There is nothing "normal" and no "truce". There is no "knightly code" that anyone has to, or expected to follow. Like I said, duels may allow (or even require) maximum preparation. Battles likely give everyone time for maximum preparation. But adventuring encounters can vary tremendously in circumstance and scope. Also the players themselves may have a preference. I have known some players that just refuse to engage without at least one cast, and others whole barely pause to smite chaos in the face. How the circumstance, the players actions, and the NPC's actions interact will determine how combat starts.
Very helpful. I often read people talking about how hard fights will be if there's time for both sides to buff. It's clearer to me now that they're talking about relatively rare situations (duels, expected battles between large groups) rather than two groups of foes stumbling across each other in the Rubble. I know that it's very circumstantial, but this helps clarify some of the jargon and assumptions around RQG.
2 hours ago, Dissolv said:So this guy is Rune level, and you now know more or less what he can do (without total specifics, such as everyone's spirit magic). He is going to buff the first round while closing -- Rune magic is fast. The second round and on he fights physically unless blocked by armor/protection/shield. Then he buffs himself up more with truesword to get around that, and will only result to Sever Spirit in dire straights. Being a follower of Humakt, he cannot use Divine Intervention to bring anyone back from the dead, but has learned to use it against critical hits, which should make him extremely difficult to defeat. One or both of his followers may know dispel magic and healing, and prefer to keep him up and running over attacking, given the choice. The two bodyguards are really an absolute minimum, and he may be found leading an entire tribe into battle. He can also be challenged to a one on one duel, if the PC's wish to fight him alone......
Great stuff, especially the part about using DI to raise allies from the dead mid-battle. You mention that he can't do it, but that implies that others might (and will). That's not something that most people outside of RQG would think about, especially if every PC is a Rune Lord or Priest. In D&D terms, that would mean that everyone has raise dead regardless of their class. That's a peculiar mindset for D&D players, right? 😉
2 hours ago, Dissolv said:The big job as a GM in RQ is to flesh the world out enough so that the players can learn these things. Everyone knows that getting lanced by a Bison rider sucks -- but the players may not realize what 1d10 + 3d6 will do to a RQ body. Let them learn. There are no "levels", no "introductory dungeons", and not even a requirement to fight anything. They don't get exp that way, for instance. Combat does not have to be to the death either. Again, the bronze age theme where everything isn't total war all the time like it could be against the "Dark lord and his orc minions". You can surrender to trolls and offer ransom. You can be defeated by your Yelmalio rival and he just taunts you and lets you go.
But a word about Chaos.....that IS the enemy. No rule necessarily applies to any of them. They don't take captives (you hope!), and the players should learn to treat Chaos not as a bad guy, but as a cosmic horror, and evil blight on creation, and something that even otherwise hated opponents can band together to battle.
Again, great. The purpose of this thread is to learn techniques and tricks to teach these principles to players by (gradual) example.
Grateful to you and everyone else who's contributing to this thread.
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5 hours ago, womble said:
If you're looking for 'mean tricks' you can use in RQG:
Fantastic. That's all good stuff. Thanks.
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6 hours ago, RHW said:
Granular enough?
Yes! I hope everyone can appreciate how much more helpful this sort of detail is for new RQG GMs. It's grounded in the mechanics, shows how powerful opponents might blend spells together to great effect, and demonstrates how RQ combat differs from what most people are familiar with, i.e. D&D. It might seem obvious if you've got a dozen years of active RQ3 experience under your belt, but it's not to newcomers.
Thanks for sharing that.
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5 hours ago, Dissolv said:
Combat is complex enough that you have to make generalizations. However.....
Your post is great. It really provides some good, granular detail that I can build from. But I do have some questions...
5 hours ago, Dissolv said:If the Rune level PC's wind up in a fight with Trollkin
Given that starting RQG PCs now start with much more Rune magic and the potential for much higher combat spells than RQ2/3, what does "Rune level PCs" mean in RQG terms? 8 points of Rune magic? 8 points of Rune magic plus an allied spirit (how strong would the spirit be?)?
5 hours ago, Dissolv said:- Trolls should throw Darkness spells liberally, Yelmalians should be using Lightwall, whatever is culturally appropriate should be pulled out and used immediately.
- The enemy may have been trained to Dispel enemy magic. In particular I have professional soldiers do this. Magic is just part of fighting and that is their stock in trade.
- There may be a "big damage" specialist with either a two handed weapon, or Fireblade, or some means to dishing out a lot of damage.
- There should be at least one person with stored power. Typically he is the leader and may either enhance himself with multiple spells, or spend the early part of the fight throwing dispels.
- Rune magic should be used in any combat that is serious.
- Magic that is offensive should be used on a large scale when appropriate. Be it befuddle, or disrupt, three or four casts while the players are casting Bladesharp and Protection can make a world of difference in a fight. If the players cannot protect themselves from magical attacks, then just keep doing it! Ransom exists for a reason.
This is good stuff. It's got the general advice component (i.e. "big damage" specialist) but then it's grounded in detail by mentioning a two-handed weapon or Fireblade (or, presumably, Firearrow).
I have a question about the last bullet point. What does that fight look like for the first few rounds? Assuming neither side had a chance to prepare in advance, you write that the players are casting Bladesharp while the other side are casting offensive spirit magic, three or four times. Is that meant to suggest that combat could "start", but no one advances for the first two rounds while protective and buffing magic is cast? That would seem strange in the context of the game world. It would be like armies fighting with unloaded muskets. The signal to begin battle is given and they both sort of gesture to each other: "Wait, wait, hold on, let me get ready before we start trying to kill each other."
Are you assuming that the players are casting Bladesharp and/or Protection as they're rushing their opponents? You assume that there's a couple of rounds worth of distance to close before melee? In the meantime, the enemy's trying to stop the PCs with Befuddle or Disrupt? I know it's situational, but do you imagine that sometimes the party's facing opponents who can all cast Befuddle or Disrupt, and they all just unleash instead of shooting arrows?
6 hours ago, Dissolv said:For instance if there is a magical barrage and possibly buffing contest, these guys should be out of Pow, as most of them shouldn't have stored power, more than a Rune point or two, and about 11 Pow on average.
I'm with you except for the first part. Does RQ/RQG expect there to be a "buffing contest" before opponents come to blows? Is it normal for there to be, say, two rounds of people not attacking each other and casting buffs before battle? One round of a "truce" before swords are swung? When I say, "normal," I mean if that's what happens in actual play at people's tables. If it happens, that runs against the grain of a D&D-style approach to combat, where you're expected to jump off the mark and kill your opponents as quickly as possible. But if RQG's designed with the assumption of "buffing contests" in mind, then what do those look like? How should I create opportunities for that to happen in play? If that's part of RQG's charm, I want to make sure I don't shut it down with opponents that are too aggressive.
6 hours ago, Dissolv said:However ANY Rune level opponent is, and should be, a very serious encounter, as well as a painfully difficult foe to dispatch.
I read this a lot, but no one cashes it out with numbers. What does it look like to be a "Rune level" opponent in RQG? I can look at CR in 5e (even if the system's not very helpful) and at least get a general sense about what constitutes a high AC or lots of hit points relative to other opponents. Can it be described abstractly but in relation to a group of PCs, e.g. a "Rune level" opponent has Rune points equal to the highest PC in the group plus four? If I asked you to give me a stat block for a "Rune level" opponent in RQG, what would it look like?
6 hours ago, Dissolv said:They can dispel your best magics, protect themselves from your attacks and spells, can take you out with physical attacks, magical attacks, and sometimes even spiritual attacks.
How do they do this? If you were going to create stats for a Rune level opponent for your group of PCs, what would they be? Walk me through the way that the stats and rules would put the party in real danger.
6 hours ago, Dissolv said:If an initiate level Lunar in one of these retinues casts Mindblast and catches out a player with it, the next round at least half of the Lunars should have the air swarming with Rune magic the next turn.
This is the good stuff. That's granular and specific. I can use that at the table.
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5 hours ago, soltakss said:
The problem is that it would take a long time to go through every rule/spell in RQG and compare it with the equivalent in RQ2/RQ3. It could be done, but would take ages. I am not sure if it would be worth the effort, unfortunately.
That's fair, but why is no one producing (or re-sharing) something like those advice sections from RQ2's Rune Master book? Even if the advice in that book is aimed at RQ2 Rune Lords and Rune Priests, it provides insight into how an experienced, sophisticated RQ veteran uses the combat and magic rules to generate advanced play. D&D players and DMs are always sharing ideas, tips, and tactics for getting the most out of a player's (and monster's) abilities. There's got to be some big, experienced RQ brains out here. I just want to crack them open to see what's inside.
5 hours ago, soltakss said:It works better with high-DEX PCs, as they can shoot at SR 1/6/11 or 2/7/12, also better if an Allied Spirit can cast Multimissile on the arrows, perhaps with a Multispell, so Multispell 2 allows you to cast 3 Multimissiles per round, Multispell 5 allows you to cast 6 per round, maybe on 2 archers.
There we go, another good trick. Get your allied spirit to buff you before you attack. For players coming over from D&D, that's a pretty foreign concept. Relatively few 5e players have pet wizard-spirits that they can order around in combat to cast beneficial spells for them. Modern D&D players (and probably most modern gamers) aren't used to the idea of OSR-style henchmen, but that's arguably close to the roots of allied spirits when RQ2 was in its heyday. It would be more obvious for someone playing AD&D in 1980. Not as much today.
5 hours ago, soltakss said:That is pretty much it. It works better with higher skills, so three archers at 100% would be better than three at 45%, as 3 archers firing 3 shots with Multimissile 4 on each get 45 chances to hit, at 100% that gives a goodly number of criticals on average.
Again, that's valuable perspective. You're suggesting this as if it's a sensible option, but most modern audiences and GMs wouldn't think that the GM rolling 45 separate attacks while the players look on to be exciting play. But if RQG's written to assume that's a sensible tactic (or its proponents think that it is), then it helps me triangulate on what might need to be done to compensate.
5 hours ago, soltakss said:It was in RQ2 and RQ3, so I assume it's in RQG. Basically, if you dodge around when running it makes it harder to hit.
I have access to RQ3. What's the page reference there?
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4 hours ago, RHW said:
Like in the real world, in RQ, whoever dictates the timing and location of the combat has a serious advantage. If you have a round or two to cast your spells before the enemy knows they're in a fight, that's a serious advantage. A "juiced-up" opponent is always a major threat. That pack of trollkin are much more dangerous if they're firing Multimissiled slings at you from behind a Darkwall and have Protection or Countermagic up once you charge through. (Or more likely, they hurt you bad then run like hell.)
This is also what I mean by advice that's too general. They're rules of thumb, but new RQG GMs need numbers and rules. Granularity, along with actual play experience, is what allows new GMs to dial-in their instincts at the table.
What does "juiced-up" mean exactly in RQG? What spells have they cast and at what strength? How many points of POW do they have available via matrices or spirits? I know that the answer can vary, but if you've got some actual experience in GMing RuneQuest, you must be able to provide some concrete benchmarks. What's the highest you've ever seen in your game? Would you recommend that players reach that level of power? How do you challenge them?
Describe these trollkin tactics using the game's rules, round by round. Is it fair to assume they've already cast Protection before the fight started? If they didn't have time to prep, then how should I be thinking about SRs if I want them to have Protection up once the PCs charge through the Darkwall? Should I prepare the encounter with one "spellcaster" trollkin who manages the Darkwall and then spends subsequent rounds casting Protection on each slinger? Do the slingers cast Protection spells in two shifts, half keeping up the rate of fire while half try to cast the spell, then they swap?
If you were seated behind me at the table and I turned to ask you how to implement this trollkin strategy in accordance in the rules, what instructions would you give?
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50 minutes ago, ChalkLine said:
The old RQ2 supplement 'Rune Masters' had some great unit tactics for GMs to use, but you have to be careful not to make the enemy too tactically aware.
Yes! I just bought this on DriveThru and it's exactly what I'm looking for. The advice about the importance of allied spirits, the different sections about tactics (especially Spell Tactics), and lots of other stuff reflects what I'm looking for. It's obviously written by people who have spent time with RQ's rules and have found effective combinations of rules and secrets that reflect a deep understanding of the rules, like casting Fireblade on a giant's sword to limit how much damage it can do. That's clever.
But there's got to be more out there, locked away in veteran RQ brains. 😉
EDIT:
Look at this example text from Rune Masters:
A RuneMaster faced with a foe who has Shield 4 and Countermagic 6 up just pulls an extra POW 14 from one of his familiars to go with a Harmonize spell and blows down the Countermagic.
I realize it's working within the RQ2 rules context, but that tactic isn't familiar or immediately obvious to RQG newcomers, is it? It would still generally work in RQG even if the spells are somewhat different? That might seem obvious to veteran RQ GMs, but it might not be to most. It suggests what fun and exciting RQ battle should look like, but it's expressed through the rules of the game. That's what I'm trying to find.
Looking for practical combat tactics for GMs
in RuneQuest
Posted
Magnificent.
For the veterans, was this sort of thing common in past RQ games? How many groups reached this level of play? To me, it looks like people discussing high-level D&D play: often theorized, rarely practiced.
I know you're speaking from personal experience, @Thyrwyn. No slight intended.