Shiningbrow

8 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Was that RQ or HQ?  Never played HQ and I can not remember seeing it mentioned in any RQ I have played.

My alzheimers may have kicked in... My memory says I saw a 1 or 2 line bit in a book under Orlanth, stating that Kolat was an Associated cult (because of their relationship), and so Kolat gave a rune spell... And that was it! (IIRC, not even a write-up on Kolat in that book)

I'm not finding it in my materials

9 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Heh. At some point sufficiently advanced Shield skill is indistinguishable from magic.... 

 

Except for the Counter-Magic buff....

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

Same way that ducks get good at fighting by being constantly picked on and fighting off their attackers. By saying "somehow" and calling him "the useless" and calling it "lucky" you are unfairly stacking the language against him and presenting the illusion that it is odd. Yes, if you are constantly engaging in spirit combat, and constantly beating them, yes your POW goes up. Should it make a difference whether you sought out the spirit combat, or were the target? Why are spirits constantly attacking Bumble, maybe they are jealous of the great destiny that they sense in him!

Is there a specific ruling that says the 'attack' needs to be a valid attack? Or, could you just have fun throwing Befuddle on your mates, and get a POW gain from that?

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

Back onto "What the heck check that out" features, if you beat off a Disease Spirit you immediately gain 1D3 POW. Bestiary p.169. Risky, but lucrative.

WTF!!! Sounds like an awesome way for a shaman (in particular) to get a heap of POW (or, anyone else who can get a summon & control disease spirit). It's only risky if you don't prepare for it well enough.

Legitimately, a shaman of a tribe or clan should have the spell to summon a few diseases, and get various members of the clan immunity for a year (as well as the POW check).

7 hours ago, Crel said:

I suppose that's what I mean? Assuming a Kolati's a Orlanth-worshipping shaman.

In one iteration of RQ, Kolat was an associated cult of Orlanth. Thus, yes.

2 hours ago, Crel said:

 or a Sartarite Assistant Shaman who's an Initiate of Orlanth.

You mean, a Kolati? Makes absolutely perfect sense to me!

Various deity cults have a pathway to shaman for their priests/esses. The problem seems to be getting the sorcery legitimately, along with the other two pathways of magic.

34 minutes ago, Iskallor said:

Can you imagine how annoying an ordinary party of adventurers would find hanging out with an int 21 pc? Delicious. I would make an incrediably low int Duck beserker to counter them. 

But - it makes shrugging off the Befuddle hilarious to watch (Befuddle, walk up to character and slap them in the face.... see the mental machinations of "now, did they do that because they hate me? Or because they needed to pretend that they hate me? Or because they do actually hate me, but are pretending to like me but also need to pretend that they hate me....")

18 minutes ago, Crel said:

I've read the Philosopher occupation as starting with one Rune, one Technique, and three spells, one at 20% and two at 10% based on those +% mods noted in the occupation description. I see Sorcery spells as basically being skills. (Though I guess the spells could start at their base, and then you have those choices to add to any of your known spells from occupation + cult. Base% = 1D6+Mag Mod p.390) My rationale for those personal skill bonuses is that they can go to any skill, and sorcery spells are skills, soooo...

Hey, it's a munchkin thread after all, right?  So hypothetically with this "interpretation" (exploit?) you could get up to nine bonus spells! If you wanna play a bookworm who's never left the tower anytime ever...

If there was an occupation of Apprentice Wizard/Sorcerer, I'd presume they would count as skills as per normal. So, it wouldn't seem logical to deny them to the philosopher just because of a title.

12 minutes ago, Kloster said:

The difference with RQIII is not the difficulty of the gain roll, but the difficulty to obtain a gain roll: In RQIII, the spell resistance is made by MP vs MP, so if you have a low POW (and thus low MP), you could wait for your opponents to spend their MP and keep yours. In that case, your probability to affect your opponent increases. With RQG, it's always POW vs POW and if you have a 5 POW, it will be very difficult to affect somebody successfully and thus to obtain the POW gain roll.

Right... (Yeah, I thought  previous iterations was current MP, not POW).

Your tactic is... worrying. Allowing your enemy to cast spells while you sit back and wait. 95% of the time, you won't have any idea what their POW, nor current MPs are, let alone what spells they have. So, casting up front would make more sense. I think it'd be rare that a character will have a 95% success rate. I'd suggest most times you're better off throwing the spells you need quickly, on the hope that they'll fail the resistance, rather than wait for a more 'opportune' time (which may never come about, if the enemy decides to throw a Befuddle and you fail your roll).

3 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Right, but Humakt and Yelmalio are not on the known list of cults that allow sorcery. Jeff answered that Eurmal, Lhankor Mhy, Issaries, Chalana Arroy and many others are possible, but that we need to wait for the new GoG to obtain the full list. Of course, we know that the invisible God and the Seven Mothers are in the list, but for the others, we have to speculate. My personal guess is that Humakt may allow in Oktorion and perhaps in the Aeolian church of Heortland, but not Yelmalio.

True - but it wouldn't stop a Lhankor Mhy companion from casting it on you

7 minutes ago, Kloster said:

I would say 'Yes', but be careful, you have to obtain a success (with a probability of less than 95%) in the POW vs POW resistance roll. I don't remember if it was already the case in the previous iterations, but this makes it far more difficult for low POW characters to obtain a POW gain roll than in RQIII.

Confused.... An average human would have POW 11. To get a 95% success rate, you'd need to have POW 20, or up against something at POW 2... The new rules also allow for a Augment.

If you're average POW for a human (11), then you'd have a 50% chance of a POW gain. (plus some on Holy Days, if GM allows the Worship to Augment the gain roll).

I don't immediately recall RQIII, but I thought they were basically the same percentages.

On 4/14/2019 at 9:58 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Further notes on Vishi Dunn for anyone wanting to play the character. I have found a number of places where the character does not match the rules. This may be because he was originally created under a slightly different iteration, so without intending criticism here are the issues that I have found.

• He has clearly not taken the bonuses to two cult skills of +15 and +20 each. All of his cult skills are at the value that you get from base, culture, occupation & cult, apart from Peaceful Cut which should be 10 points higher and Meditate should be 5 points lower and so can't be explained by that.
• Ride High Llama is at 65, but before personal adds it should be at 60, so can't be explained. Should be either 60, 70, or 85.
• Likewise Animal Lore and Plant lore are both 45, but should be 40.
• Speak Tradetalk is 20, should be 25.
• Battle probably has 5% from family background so that's ok.
• Peaceful Cut should be at least 60, not 50 (base 10, culture 15, cult 20, modifier 15).
• Meditate is 40, but should be 35.
• Track is 10, should be 20..
• In order to get the rest of the skills to line up, I had to take 7 skills at +10 and 3 at +25, rather than 5 at +10 and 4 at +25.

In numerical terms, he's sold short by 40 points.

Oddly, Cousin Monkey, Vishi's "Boon Companion", doesn't have a Passion such as "Loyalty - Vishi Dunn" or similar.

Personally, I think the problem comes down to his spell selection. While typical and expected for a shaman (and apprentice), they're not great for 90% of the time. And, doesn't help that his boon companion has a couple of cross-overs (Spirit Screen, and Heal, although obviously most would have that).

Vishi has Spirit Binding - but no bound spirits... which is odd as it's basically one of the main reasons someone takes a shaman.

So - change out a couple of spells (give Befuddle and Demoralize, up the Heal to something useful,, and add Protection or similar). And, lose a couple of POW, and add a Spirit (possibly with the aforementioned spells, and/or others).

I ran an RQ (mashup) session about a year ago to introduce players to the idea of D100 and everyone has magic, etc. First time in 30 years or so I'd gotten to actually do something with a system I've loved.

Very rewarding to have one of the players get very engrossed, and emotional against the Lunar occupying force! But, it sort of sucks when you fumble when the attacker Crits (also, being the bastard GM that I am, I roll perception checks, and fumbles were a-plenty... I was amused, but some of the players didn't like it being a bit more 'real' than other games they'd played. Nor enemies that actually think!).

If you just happen to roll 18 on the 2D6+6 (or, use Point Buy and just take it) for INT, then grab the Sky/Fire Rune for +2, and then a Yelmalian  (or Humakt - though the rune is more appropriate to Yelmalio) Gift of +1 Int (and 3 Geases)... to get to INT 21 at Char creation. So many skills have INT as a Primary (using old terminology), so that'd add +15% to a whole slew of skills - especially Manipulation for weapons.

RAW - Enhance INT is super-munchkin, as each successive casting would over-ride the previous if it's stronger... which it will be by having a few more points of Free INT available. Rules specifically state INT can go over species Max. 11 Intensity would give +4 INT,  10 Duration is 2 days (to get MPs back). Of course, you'd need to get your hands on a spirit or crystal, and you'd run out of MP sources quickly...

(Combine the above 2 for serious nastiness, as each INT increase also affects most other skills. At the very least, should be able to increase by 10%)

10 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Purloined from a variety of people in the thread RQ with Less Theism, Thanks fro finding this Kloster!

RQG p 418 Power Gain Roll through Spirit Combat

Yes, in addition to the (new) gains with worship and battle.

I always thought that Power gain rolls through Spirit Combat were normal (assuming it wasn't a 95% success). So, does that mean if you go adventuring, you'll most likely get *two* POW gain rolls - once for the spell/spirit combat, and once for the Holy Day services?

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I actually prefer the Anglo-Saxonism/Icelandic form godi to acolyte. Easier to spell and to pronounce, too.

You can min-max and ruleplay to get through this, but with me as a GM, there would be an object lesson lurking somewhere.

If all of them are drained of both MP (given to the rites) and rune points, a target-rich environment with moderate difficulty,

I always took "godi" to be a priest level.

I wouldn't call it min-maxing... just a normal part of life. Gods want the best out of their chosen followers.

Unlikely to have everyone drained of both MP and RP... only need 2 MP to do a Worship (plus a couple more to up the skill - which would really only be for the lower tiers, because the GS, Priest and RL (and many initiates) would already have a high enough level to not need it (nor would they need to blow the MPs to get their RPs back). Granted, if it's a small temple or shrine, it might be worth attacking (but that damn wyter will be watching out!) - but attacking something major would be just silly (or daring).

42 minutes ago, Joerg said:

On another tangent, blowing off all of your rune points before a holy day is an invitation for outside interference with those rites, as e.g. in the Paps episode of Biturian's travels.

A) blowing off all your rune points before a holy day is what almost every Rune Lord will do to up their stats.. or, if GM allows, up the stat of an Initiate or God Speaker (bah - I much preferred the term 'alcolyte') as a reward.

b) Holy Days are also when you know most of the people will be at one place at the same time. So, depending on cult affiliations, it might be a *really* bad time to attack!

Fair enough to all of the above. (Yes, I didn't think you could double-up on bonuses - skill + Rune augment). Which still means most assistants are going to take a hit (unless they're going to be an assistant for many years... although, of course, our adventurers are not normal people!)

Bad Man will usually have an edge (probably minimum of 20%, probably higher), and so the new shaman is likely to have a few taboos, and not likely to have more than the starting ability (after the initial battle).

My question was based on previous iterations of the games and the use of the spells mentioned - which blocked the actual spirit attack, not the MP loss.

I'm aware of the augment... I still doubt an Assistant Shaman going for full shaman-hood is going to have a huge skill... and likely whatever their is is going to be reduced.

Either way, that's not my main query...

Q: do spells such as Spirit Screen, Spirit Block etc have any affect on the Bad Man when the wannabe shaman goes up against her/him to get his/her fetch?

RAW, neither entity does MP damage. If the Bad Man wins the round, a taboo is imposed. If the wannabe wins, s/he gets a shamanic ability. But, the above spells are specifically about MP loss - not the imposition of taboos...

Also, does the Spirit Combat skill reduce for skills over 100%, as per other combat skills? If so, then it means the Bad Man is going to be very nasty to any wannabe shaman... 170% is going to reduce most applicants to almost nothing... fortunately, not lethal, but still...

One last question - when it comes to pacts, there is the 1% chance of finding a deity to pact with. What would be the POW sacrifice for such a being?

9 hours ago, RHW said:

Again, these cults are built for my own house rules. The skills listed as CULT SKILLS are ones that are rare-ish and taught by the cult. But any skill listed under Rune Lord qualifications are taught as well.

As for DEATH SONG BERSERK “Humakti’s Sing/3 is applied as a penalty to Parries, Dodges, and Spell Resistance checks against the Humakti.” Should probably read “”attempted against the Humakti” Penalties apply to the caster’s foes. EXAMPLE: Naimless has a Sing of 78% and cast DEATH SONG BERSERK. Anyone trying to Parry or Dodge her attacks, or Resist a spell she casts suffers a penalt of -26%. (78/3)

I was thinking with regards to cult skills, that I expect most cults will have most skills available - but some are taught for free, others at cheaper than normal rates - and thus, those listed cult skills fall into that category. Lhankor Mhy probably isn't teaching 1H sword for free to its initiates, but Humakt would. Thus, listing it makes sense (I remember a version of RQ where pricings for skills were specifically laid out as free, half, full.

RE: Death Song Beserk.. ok, that makes more sense!

Why are swords not cult skills for Humakt?

And, the better you are at singing, the worse the penalty for the Death Song Beserker ... I'm confused!

My 2 cents...

Perhaps Yelmalio should have a specialised version of Shield - one that only works in group formation - Shieldwall (I've only thought of the name - not the details... perhaps, +5% to both shield and spear/pike skills, and +1 damage and shield AP,  must be cast as a ritual, only stackable from different people (ie, an individual can only contribute 1 point of the spell)). Also, given their special use of a shield with a pike, the shield skill should definitely be one of the cult skills.

Apologies for my ignorance (not having read as in-depth as most of you here).

I, too, wondered about Arkat, seeing as he's one of the few gods that cross over so many regions, pantheons, races. And talking of Arkat, will Illumination (rules, etc) be present in the new book?

Is Vinga still going to be treated as merely an aspect of Orlanth, or just another sub-cult?

And lastly, I'm also surprised that elemental shamanic cults don't seem too prominent in the list (and thus, associated cults with some of the bigger names, eg Kolat as an Associated Cult to Orlanth).

6 hours ago, 7Tigers said:

Reminder of where to find it:

 

https://www.chaosium.com/blogrune-fixes-1-clarifications-and-play-examples/

Thx. I did a search for "errata", but to no avail