Shiningbrow

25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Harmast

His Runes are 5% higher than they should be

I can't really do his skills as I don't know what occupation he is! Farmer? No, his Farm is already 5% below what it should be for a Sartarite. Noble? No, no Drive Chariot. Can't be Merchant as he has no third language. Any ideas?

Noble has Ride or Drive chariot at +10%.

He's got a high Broadsword and ok Medium Shield, plus ok Orate, Manage Household at levels I'd expect from a Noble, and he could have seriously bumped up Bargain (+25% from choices, +Issaries Cult Skill), and he seems to have the language skills of a noble (own, Tradetalk, and R/W Thelayan).

I'd say no, as it's just another skill that needs to start somewhere. I presume that the added 10/20% comes from the experience gained in the intervening time after you initiated into the cult, or whatever.

11 hours ago, styopa said:

Wasn't meant to be a SPECIFIC example, just an example of why sorcery and spirit magic and divine magic and dragon magic and whatever magic DO need to have some sort of meta balance to result in a world where none of them have essentially 'taken over'.

But... Rune and Spirit magic have won that battle (for now!) And, to an extent, Dragon magic (practised by very few, in their own little group). And Sorcery has been shunted to its own little part of the world.

By far and away, the most common magic across the world is Rune and Spirit magic. Sorcery has been relegated to the fringes, and while feared, isn't a serious threat to the populations as a whole. The semblance of 'balance' is only given because a) it's usually too far away for most to really care about, and b) most sorcerers haven't done anything to warrant a pogrom.

When the sorcerers did decide to get more powerful (and, in this sense, that didn't mean controlling the rest of the world, but easily could have), it took divine means to rein them in (and, obviously, they did this to themselves by imposing their will upon the divine). If they were more conquest-oriented (and didn't have the EWF to contend with - again, not focussed on the Rune/Spirit magic), the MSE would have completely dominated the world because of their magic.

Glorantha is a dynamic world... and those 'balances' change... often daily!

RGQ puts us in a time where it looks balanced (maybe), and in one small part of the lands (ie, the Spirit & Rune parts). Just like we're also in the part which is mostly dominated by lawful cults, not overrun by Chaos... but that's elsewhere...

The world isn't fair. There isn't balance.

(personally, I loathe the need for 'balance' in games like D&D... far too linear and restricted... and thus, uninteresting!)

On 4/21/2019 at 8:32 AM, jajagappa said:

Except if you go back to Cults of Prax, with a full writeup of CA, you'll find on p.69

"No non-cult person can be taught this spell. Befuddle was once a special cult battle magic spell as well, but unwise teaching of it beyond the cult led to its use in attacks, perverting its merciful origin. That cult mistake will not be repeated."

I believe this will be reaffirmed in the new Gods book.

Dominate Human?

(and, yes, before someone points it out, I would presume a Passion roll to help resist)

7 hours ago, kiryamo said:

It does not seem very realistic that a 21 years old adventurer has starting skill levels of 80, 90 or 100% - or even more!

Actually, it does. Certainly for 80%, a few for 90%... and there are prodigies in the world who master something at a very young age.

Why 80%?

Because of a thing called an 'apprenticeship'. You get 4 years of practical and theoretical training. You come out at the end being capable of doing your job quite well. If a chef is asked to do a meal, they can do it well easily 80% of the time... A good blacksmith will make that sword 80% of the time with no issues (probably more often).

4 years of military training, and you will be hitting that target most of the time.

4 years of martial arts training will make you that competent.

4 years of language training should (if you're not a lazy sh*t like a lot of the students I've had) make you near fluent in a language (ie, 80% or higher)... especially if you've lived in the country and actively tried to learn the language.

And, all of that is only presuming a starting character is 21, and has started doing those things from age 17... If a child starts cooking, or smithing, or shooting, or fighting, of speaking, or any other skill from say, 6 years old, they're going to be a *lot* better at it than above (which is why we do have fluent multi-lingual speakers, as an example _ (again, if they're not lazy little sh*ts, like most of my students 😛 ). The skills that our PCs start with are basic skills that one has usually learned from an early point in their life (remembering that this will actually be around 13-15 years old, especially for cult skills). Since most people in the land should actually be farmers and herders etc, that would actually mean they've been doing those occupational skills from about 6 years old.

(and, just for shits and giggles - let's not get started on Passions such as a devotion to a temple or deity.... 🙄🙄)

For another current, real world example based on age - how are your computer operation skills, compared to most teenagers and youngsters these days? (presuming, of course, that you don't fit into that category yourself). Kids are far more tech-savvy than the majority of their parents...

100% is not "technical perfection". It's technical *mastery*. It's the point at which you should be able to achieve the task desired, under normal circumstances, with no hinderances, to a passable level, within the expected timeframe.

Musashi, at age 21 (taking what was said above) wasn't merely getting a basic success - he was hitting specials and crits in weaponsmithing *regularly*... that's much higher than 100% base chance! (maybe he had some magical help???)

On 4/20/2019 at 11:04 PM, styopa said:

To say nothing of the fact that it's an entirely fictional world; to have any semblance of credibility supporting the fictional-extant of various powers, they HAVE to have some balance.  If a divine or spirit magician can cause 1.5 points of damage at 25m for 1mp, and (all else being equal) sorcerers can do 5 points of damage at 100m for the same 1mp, why wouldn't sorcery have trounced the world?

Because it takes good (better than average) stats and years of practice to be proficient enough to be able to cast that sorcery spell reliably enough, versus hours or days to cast the 1.5 damage spirit magic. Also, the Divine magician can get a LOT more bang for buck in a pretty short period of time.

Getting even 1 sorcery to do the 5 points damage at 100m takes way longer than the 100 local clanspeople to learn the 1.5 point damage... so, who's more likely to "trounce the world"?

(RAW, Disruption would normally take 1 week to learn to do 1D3 at 25m for 1MP, at an average of 55% chance. Financial cost might be 50L. Quite a few potential teachers around - priests, God Talkers, Runelords, members of associated cults, the occasional shaman.  OTOH, to get off a sorcery spell effectively, minimum of 1 Rune and 1 technique need to be learned (max 1 per season), then the spell needs to be taught and trained/practiced or cast effectively to grant experience rolls (for a PC, 1/season per 1D6-1 or less). Average stats for a sorcerer (low) would be INT 13, POW maybe 13, CHA 13 (not a great sorcerer, so going higher would make sense - but the magic modifier is unlikely to be 15%... to get to 55% is going to take years! And, not a lot of teachers around...)

25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

The cut that makes the target both dead and alive at the same time? Definitely not a Humakti thing to do!

You're obviously not illuminated 😛

The choice for my vote ....?

I forgot 😛

I was umming and ahing over Gods/Races and GM/Sorcery... chose one, then started reading... and forgot which one I finally decided on.

Cults are hugely important in Glorantha, and having a full ruleset to go with that is also vitally important. Also, I suspect a number of players will want a sorcerer around to play, and will want the full rules for that (what's in the RQG book just whets the appetite... it needs more!)

OTOH, I'd like to see a regular magazine come out again, but with a lot of fan-made material (particularly the scenarios people were requesting). I understand that the people at Chaosium will be snowed under, and having people write up their own scenarios may help in getting stuff out to the gaming community (as requested above), with minimal effort from the publishers (especially with the abundance of software available to the public... formatting becomes somewhat closer to a breeze than 30 years ago).

My vote, however. was qualified by reading that a) GOG will be coming out in the not massively distant future, and b) that it will contain HQ rules...

I'm interested in RQG - and that Glorantha is really important (where else  do you find Humakti Sword Ducks???)

Not high on my list (but above the Non-G settings) would be minis.... even though my current circumstances suck (I'm currently in China, and would really love to return to Melbourne, Ozlandia), some of those unique minis are just nice and so I might actually buy!

Ooops - looks like my 2 bolgs is running out now, I better sign off!

9 hours ago, g33k said:

Hmmmmm.

 

You know the Great Shaman Schrodinger, then?

Didn't he invent the Humakti Sword Spell Schrodinger's Cut? 😆

20 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I know it's an "appeal to authority" but Jeff agrees. So it's really just an omission.

Appeal to Inappropriate Authority is a logical fallacy.

Appealing to a very appropriate authority who gives a relevant opinion on the topic is perfectly valid!

28 minutes ago, David Scott said:

You can boost the Knowledge skill with ritual, but you could increase her chance of casting Logician. Likewise you can't use meditation

Sorry, I meant the spell casting could be augmented by ritual practices - not the knowledge skill itself.

29 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Demo games last for an hour or two so this is actually a common situation.

For this spell? (which is what I'm referring to). How often was this spell being used in that sort of situation (Need to do it now, not in 5 minutes)?

29 minutes ago, David Scott said:

See page 94 or the updated version in the GM Screen Pack. She's a LM scribe so only three sorcery spells, but has all common Rune spells, plus Analyze Magic, Clairvoyance, and Knowledge.

I know she is... but I'm saying most players choosing to go sorcerer wouldn't choose scribe. (if they're just using sorcery, then perhaps).

29 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Yes if you succeed in the knowledge roll, then at the end of the spell you rub the check out.

Would you inform them of this beforehand? Or just be evil and wait for it to happen?

2 minutes ago, gochie said:

You start an adventurer with an automatic 3 Rune Points. You sacrifice for 2 more and cast Sword Trance (1) with Extension 4 (lasts a full season), and pump it with as much mp as you can (let's say 10mp for +100% with any sword).

Dual wielding swords, which grants you 2 attacks per round, means you survive by parrying with one of your swords. So you take the +50% sword HP for one (or both) of your swords for an awesome 18 damage block at 200ish% chance of success. At 200%, you could effectively block 6 attacks before your Parry chance drops to 100%.

Also, make sure you cast a countermagic or a cheap protective spell everytime you go into battle so Sword Trance doesn't get dispelled first, and you should be fairly safe from dispels. 

Ah, I didn't add the starting 3RPs to your extra 2 for Extension.... My bad!

However, in saying that... If I was GM, I'd be loathe to give the bonus to both hands for the 1 spell. 1 sword - sure! 2...??? (after all, Bladesharp, which is what this is similar to, is only for 1 sword). I remember the days of Right Hand/Left Hand skills...

I do get the added HP for the sword - just not sure it's worth it, that's all... But that just might be me.

13 hours ago, gochie said:

Your Humakti sacrifices 2 extra POW to have a season-long Sword Trance right at the start. Take the increased sword HP gift and you Parry at 200+% with an 18hp sword. Give your second weapon skill to left-handed sword, and you have probably close to (or over) 200% to hit with 2 attacks per turn (and you can still Parry normally).

Any melee opponent will die very quickly to this brand new adventurer. 

Sorry, I'm confused... where's all this from? (I get Sword Trance is 10% per MP, and it's a 1 RP spell... I don't get teh "2 extra PW to have a Season-long ...". And I'm not seeing the great benefit of the +50% HP to a sword)

19 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Not in my experience. Sorala (one of the pregens) has it and I use them when running demo games. Sorala has a 55% chance of casting the spell and as she doesn't have the summon technique it costs double magic points. She has 17 Free Int (3 spells in memory) and 23 Magic Points. Players always bumped their skill to 100% so that they couldn't fail (although 96-00 is always a fail). So the costing for an unknown knowledge skill to 100% is 2mps (spell cost) + Strength 10 (9mps x2) = 18mps = 20mps already. She can increase the duration to 20 mins (+2 mps) if she wants. In this case all her mps for the adventure are gone. Admittedly if she knew the technique, it would only cost 11mps, still nearly half her total gone. What actually happens is that the player normally uses it to boost their cult lore at 35% for particular part of the adventure. Most add about 5 strength levels to get it over 75% so it cost only 12 mps to cast for 5 mins. The real barrier is the no Passion part. Most don't use it as Passions are an instant bonus in stressful rolls and loosing them for 5 mins is often not worth it.

Your

is very costly even if you know the technique. Shiphandling is a 0% skill, so 2 + 9mps (Strength 10) is the basic magic point cost. I'd not get on a ship with a 5 minute expert, so extending it for the journey is a must. A day is (level 9) is another 8mps and you'd need a high Free Int to accommodate the spell, at least 19...

The biggest limitation is that it's an Active spell, so any time extension means you can do little.

You obviously make some good points (possibly even magic points... har har har...). To me, the biggest problem is the 'active' trait.

Personally, I wouldn't go 100% in the skill, because it can be boosted by meditation/ritual, and rarely would it be in a "OMG, I desperately need to get this spell of right now or we're all doomed" situation.

While you lose the ability to Inspire through Passions, skills can still be augmented through other means, including Runes.

RE: MP's to fire it up... there's always Steal Breath.... (second most OP spell???)... one casting at base intensity 1 gets you 1D6 MP per round for 5 minutes...thus, one little 8 MP (at worst) spell gives back 25D6 MPs (chances of not being in a place that has lots of air are... pretty low... (of course, what Orlanth and other Air Rune beings might think of this is another matter)). This leaves the option to drop the spell as needed (see below on re-casting with a full MP pool - unless you're taking from spirits).

I'm sure you wouldn't want to be on a ship with a 5 minute expert... but I'm sure you'd much rather be on that ship with said 5-minute expert (plus extra slots of duration), than be forced to take refuge on a ship with no expert at all for any length of time (but, perhaps your Glorantha varies...).

As for the Active status... very annoying, and thus long durations won't be a good idea... but those with a high INT should be rolling around 60% to keep concentrating (higher if they've got Enhance INT on).

If Solara was a Philosopher (as I imagine most sorcerers will start out), then she'd have 2 Runes and 2 Techniques... (and 6 spells!)

(I'd also strongly consider expending the POW to put this spell into a matrix for the boosts)

The question(s) remains then - if this isn't the most OP spell in the game, firstly are there any? And, if so, which?

2 hours ago, Crel said:

According to Chaos Gift (RQG 322), you can DI when casting it to make a choice on the Chaos Feature table. I don't think you can combine this with Extension since Chaos Gift's duration is "Duration (variable)" rather than "Temporal", but if you could, for up to a year you could get:

• +3D6 POW
• +4D6 DEX, STR, CON, or SIZ
• 12-pt armor skin
• Absorb spells or reflect spells up to 2D6 intensity (pick one)
• Free Demoralize, Befuddle, or hypnotic effects
• Regen 2D6-5 HP in each hit location every round, min 1
• Or, I suppose, for extra munchkin points, you could pick #95 "Roll twice." and maybe get to choose twice? Or even just get two rolls. But I'm pretty sure any GM worth their salt would smack a player trying that.

Of course this isn't that good a munchkin trick, since you have to already be a Chief or High Priest of the Seven Mothers...

But, it's only temporary (I don't recall seeing the DI bit in previous versions.. but, maybe that's my faded memory...).

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Yes, they would help. However, I have always played that a prospective Shaman should not use magic when going against the Bad Man, as it is considered cheating. Nothing to stop them doing it, though, except for it being bad form.

It'd be only fair - he's called a "Bad Man" for a reason... :p

TBH, yes, I did actually think that.. dishonouring or disrespecting one's ancestors, etc...

48 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Not sure whether this is munchkinnery, but rather than getting weird geasa for extraordinary skills, I would prefer my "impossible" stat raises through heroquesting without such strings attached. Sure, you will gain some new enmity from someone supposed to be recurring, but that means more heroquesting opportunities.

Well, unless you're Humakti or Yelmalian, you wouldn't be getting those strings, nor stats, anyway! (well, you could always get yourself a Chaos trait... would you allow a DI to choose your own? 🤣🤣🤣)

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Any one knowledge skill, for all the duration. Works only on the caster. Sounds to me like becoming a variable one trick pony.

The munchkin will ask what is to stop him from having this on for all knowledge skills.

But no, this doesn't give insight to cult secrets, as those are deep magics that require the initiate bonds.

 

I don't think it's too munchkinny... it's actually the intelligent thing to do (multiple castings of the same spell, for different skills. One could argue about the 'same casting over-writes' rule... but that just means having only 1 skill at 160%... still pretty big!)

Cult Lore includes "...myths, beliefs, Heroquests...". I'm actually shocked/surprised that Cult Lore (insert) isn't a required skill for any of the levels of Initiate and beyond. Sure, you have to be passionate about your god/temple, but in theory, you don't actually need to know anything about it! (House Rule would be to include it as mandatory).

Another easy option - as Spirit Lore is a Magical skill, move Cult Lore to Magical as well (which would make sense for the Heroquest knowledge!)

Back to annoy again....

As per the RAW, surely the sorcery spell is the most OP spell in the game? Sure, it's only about *any* knowledge skill, and you don't have to specify which skill when you learn the spell, but surely it would mean that any LM initiate is suddenly fully knowledgable in *any* cult lore, and thus has access to every single cult secret on Glorantha. That's on top of the more mundane uses it has (which, realistically, would also include doing the rolls for seasonal income, for skills like Read/Write, Bureaucracy, Manage Household... and previously mentioned, Battle).

"Does anyone know how to sail this ship?"... "yeah, give me a minute...".

"50L for this lovely ring - pure gold!".... <chant chant, zing>... "rubbish - it's fake and not worth 10".

"Help help, I've been bitten by a snake!" <mumble mumble> "No problem I know exactly what to do...".

Perhaps a rewrite of this spell is in order??? At the very least, it would make sense that it can only be applied to knowledge skills you have already taken, or are over the 00 base.

(really, this post should be in the munchkin thread...)

7 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Once it hits 21 it's "non-raisable".

Is that a rule somewhere? (I mean, other than the species max bit...). Would a god care about your species max?

10 hours ago, gochie said:

Not sure giving spirits to a starting adventurer is kosher... But we sure house-ruled it in RQ3! 

He has the skills, the spells, and the POW to sacrifice... so why not?

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Impala Riders get +2 DEX. Combine that with Water as your highest Elemental Rune, and 21 DEX is achievable on a roll of 17, there's +15 to your weapon skills all on its own. Remember that these bonuses cannot take you above species maximum (21). Humakti gifts can, so your Impala Rider Humakti can have a DEX of 25 for the low low price of 12 geases!

How did you get 12 geasa?

Firstly, an Initiate of Humakt is only allowed 3 geasa upon initiation - and so even if it were the non-raisable, you could only take it 3 times, each with 3 geasa, for a total of 9 geasa... not 12. Those 9 would only take you to 24 at character creation. Obviously, if you became a Sword, you could get the last point, but for a 5% boost???

Secondly, by my reckoning, DEX is a "raisable characteristic", and thus would only require1 geas per point of DEX, not 3 as above. (DEX can be trained off-season)

13 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Your god knows because you know. You are a part of the god, you literally become an avatar of the god for a moment every time you cast a rune spell, and every time you participate in a worship ceremony. Initiation isn't just words that you say in order to get a wafer and a sip of wine on Godsday, and to stop your mum from pestering you. it's a commitment of your soul. Your god will know if that soul that you have committed is tainted.

 

That works... (although, not sure about the "every time you participate in a worship ceremony", but certainly with casting (and acquiring) Rune spells/points.

I'd also say, that's something that should be strongly pointed out, especially to new players.

13 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

The gods don't have a choice whether to care or not. They are what they are, they do what they do. If you break the rules and learn sorcery, then you will be attacked by Spirits of Reprisal. Looking closely at the rules, it says that the SoR only go after 1) Initiates who leave the cult, and 2) Rune levels who break major cult rules. So technically an Initiate learning sorcery should be ok, in fact by this strict reading an Initiate can break any cult rule without risking the Spirits of Reprisal, but if you ever intend to achieve Rune level, don't even think about it.

Again, how is anyone going to know? (which was the crux of my question). Let alone, how are the various associated gods of LM going to feel about it?

6 minutes ago, David Scott said:

surely Vasana's got to be thinking "Thank Orlanth he's not in our party, he makes my skin crawl with his godless magic".

"...Unlike that wonderful believer Sorala, and her wondrous, god-given magic!"

This response is merely part of the 'prejudice' I mentioned above...

(also need to remember that one of Vasana's primary runes is the Moon... weird choice for an Orlanthi ... "create some tension")

I notice the various 'soul' viewing spells don't pick up on whether someone has practised or learned any sorcery. And, in fact, there appears to only be that one very specific shamanic ability (which, given the number of other abilities out there, I doubt many would bother taking) that can detect the presence of sorcery (Second Sight - Enhanced). So, shamans might know if someone has learned sorcery, and possibly may even care...

So, if there's no obvious and quick way to know of this -  not counting Truth spells, obviously..., what's to stop theists from learning a little? (other, obviously, than cultural stereotypes and prejudices... and probable lack of basic availability... time... money...). I also doubt that most gods care enough about their initiates to be watching carefully their every action - so both the learning and practising, and then the use of, sorcery wouldn't register. Perhaps gods care a little more about their higher ranking worshippers, but wouldn't that break the compromise?? A Rune Lord's allied spirit might tell... but that's still a maybe...

In the main book, Vasana needs to turn to Damastol to find out where they all need to go. It takes all of a few minutes to get the answer. As arrogant as that wizard is, surely Vasana's got to be thinking "you know, that is actually pretty cool. I wish I could do that!"

In older RQs, sorcery was strictly forbidden - but again, I didn't notice a mechanism for determining if someone had actually studied it or not.

I'd also ask the same question of whether someone has awakened their fetch or not - but I presume that the above mentioned spells would show that up in a person's aura (or, at least, something along the lines of "you seem to have a strange spirit hanging around you... which, energetically, looks a heck of a lot like you!")