Kloster

3 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Both are interesting to me. I'm still going to stat NPCs with my gut, as always, but knowing whether that's below/on par/above what the rules "dictate" provides some interesting insights... when I look at this kind of thread and ignore the "rules-as-written must be obeyed no matter what!" posts, I can still often find a few little nuggets of world-building that make NPCs feel more alive, because reconciling the world with the system often leads to some creative thinking.

Completely agree.

3 hours ago, lordabdul said:

One thing occurs to me looking at my spreadsheet's progression for adventuring PCs and NPCs like Leika: with the diminishing chances of increasing POW when POW gets higher, you have to spend about a year without doing any sacrifices at all in order to get to 18 and reach Rune Level. Then you need to wait another year to get to 19 so you can start sacrificing again without going under the threshold. Something to keep in mind for players who get to Rune Levels... although I'm curious to hear about some practical experiences instead of my theoretical spreadsheet.

Figures seems correct. Don't forget the POW gain bonus for priests (Leika is High Priest of Orlanth Rex).

3 hours ago, lordabdul said:

A more common one may be sacrificing POW for the clan's wyter (RQG p287). If I make the average person sacrifice for RPs once every 3 years, and for the wyter also once every 3 years (on different years), they only get to POW 14 after 10 years.

It seems a correct usage for 6 POW spent and a few POW gain.

3 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Our rule of thumb is that if its 10 or more points below you than it does not matter.

On average, a farmer has 11 and a rodent would have 7. That makes a gap of 4, not 10.

5 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Yes, but it does not mean you get a POW gain roll for it.

Right.

5 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Right, but if you want to pet it and its tries to move away and you cast Slow ... that does not matter.

If it is running away and you don't want to loose a cow, for me, it does matter.

Whatever, my counts were not including that kind of rolls, only High Holy days, sacred time, raids and the occasional spirits.

11 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Slow and Disrupt may work, although in the games we play to actually get a check or a POW gain roll the action has to "matter".

For a farmer or a tenant, a running cow does matter, and a cow has 3D6 POW, same as the farmer, so it should count.

2 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Befuddle does not work on animals as they no longer have INT. Slow and Disrupt may work, although in the games we play to actually get a check or a POW gain roll the action has to "matter". I may give it to you for the cow, but a pest's POW is likely too low for it actually matter. Prevents check hunting.

As far as I remember, disrupting rodents was described in an official RQ product, and was one of the reason most farmers had disruption.

For the POW of pests, in the bestiary, almost all living creatures and animals have 3D6 POW. Some have 2D6, the rubble runners have 1D6+6, and some have more than 3D6. We can assume a basic rodent has 2D6.

25 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

If I increase the Worship score to, say, 75% (spending of 5 MPs), they get an average of 14~15 POW after 10 years (depending on their sacrificing). They get to 17 after 19 years.

17 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

You get pretty big temple, holy day and sacrifice bonuses. Minor Temple and HHD/Sacred Time gives you a +50% even without any sacrifices (and MP sacrifices are essentially free) or augments. Assume 75-95% chance of success. Plus, since they keep succeeding, they get experience checks, and it snowballs from there.

I'm counting 95% success because of the modifiers Akorahil describes and because I don't see a reason not to push to 100% or over because more MP augment your score and more importantly makes your god happy. This is purely religious fervor (my personal way is to go to around 120% with my characters). And I am not even counting Scotty's rules that told us that tithes count.

15 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Toss a Slow at a runaway cow? Befuddle a pig that struggles at slaughter? Disrupt pests?

I was not even counting those not so egregious munchkins tricks. I barely counted 1 raid done or 1 raid received or 1 spirit encountered per year. With those (and disruption against rodents is for me a logical use), you have your 6 rolls per year.

31 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

This however taps into how different GMs interpret MP spending, how "religious" vs "traditionalist" their Heortlings are, and so on. I'll leave this up to individual GMs to figure out, and therefore whether they need to alter their Glorantha, their NPC rules, or both.

Agreed.

If my calculations are ok, the probability of gaining 5RP (and no extra POW) in 5 years are 60% and 93% in 10 years.

16 minutes ago, Scorus said:

The average Joe has very, very few opportunities to overcome someone's power, defeat a spirit, or spend 500L for POW training. They have one high holy day and the sacred time, and they have to make their Worship roll to get those opportunities, so 1 POW gain roll per year seems likely.

I am counting only High Holy day, Sacred time and 1 other occasion, whatever it can be (raid done or received, hunt, spirit encountered,...) per year.

17 minutes ago, Scorus said:

So 3-5/decade seems reasonable.

See my above answer: with those 3 rolls, a gain of 5 has a high (63% if no POW spent) probability, so yes, 3 to 5, but more probably 5.

18 minutes ago, Scorus said:

Profession would affect this. A herder or hunter with binding might use it quite often. A warrior, thief, or bandit might have more opportunities. A fisherman might disrupt fish for a roll, if they have an extremely lenient GM.

Completely agree here, but I didn't take that in account with my quick math.

17 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

If we were to apply the RQG advancement rules to NPCs (I agree that RQ is a simulationist system and that this should therefore be possible, but I'm sure other people would disagree with this very premise), then NPCs may get a POW gain roll on High Holy Day and Sacred Time... but, IMPORTANTLY: they only get it if they succeed their Worship roll! By default, they will have 25% in their Worship roll... most people just dance and drink and eat and don't really commune with their deity on a profound enough level! (they may spend some MPs to increase their chance, granted, but they would not sacrifice much else I think... YGWV) So they only get an effective POW gain roll from that once ever two years! They also might get a POW gain roll in Fire Season after a raid or two during which they successfully cast some magic. So let's say they get 1.5 POW gain rolls per year. And let's say they start at POW 10 (just below the average of 10.5). And let's say they sacrifice one POW every 3 years to get one new Rune Spell, or for some other reason.

Then, assuming my math is correct: after 10 years they have a POW of 13 on average, and only 3 RPs. After 20 years they have a POW of 15 and 6 RPs. If they sacrificed POW more aggressively to get 3 RPs in their earlier years (and then sacrificing every 3 years), after 10 years they have POW 12 and 5 RPs, and after 20 years they have 14~15 and 8 RPs.

Sounds ok to me. I can make my spreadsheet available if people doubt my math, or if they want to play with different Worship skill scores or sacrificing schedules. Or they can request me to punch some specific numbers and I'll share the results.

I fully agree with your maths. My basic assumptions were different though: If players are able to spend MP to max their worship rolls, so are NPC, and they have at least 3 rolls per year (high holy day, sacred time + 1 other, like after or before a raid). On those 3 rolls, a 15 POW char has (21-15)x5=30% chance of increase, or more precisely 65.7% of an increase. In 10 years, that means 6.5 points of POW. If you do the math starting from 11, probability are 88%, 84%, 79%, 73%, 66%, 58%, 49%, 39%, 27%, 14% of gain. That makes a probability of 28% of gaining 5 POW in 5 years, and 63% of gaining 5 POW in 10 years. If you spend the POW to acquire the RP at the beginning, the rate is even faster. This is why I spoke of 5 RP in 10 years: The probability is around 75% to occur.

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Hence the need for a "Regular Vargast" advancement template, as I think it's clear that you're not expected to use either of the advancement schemes in the rulebook.

Completely agree.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Love the youngun with the bare chest who clearly has never seen boobs before.

Yes. I also read those books some 45 years ago, and I had the same feelings.

56 minutes ago, Psullie said:

following on from this thread got me thinking, I'd be inclined to say that if a GM offers multiple opportunities for PC's to advance, then perhaps they should consider this for NPC's.

Yes, of course. NPCs are people too.

16 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

While +3 Rune Points per decade seems far too much for the average Joe.

I think it is not enough. With 6 rolls per year, at least one should succeed. Even with only 3 rolls per year (if only for major worships), the POW gain should be at least 1 per year, and I think average Joe has not many other options to spend those POW. After 10 years, either they have a 18 POW or they have gain at least 5 RP.

Officially, yes, 1 roll per season and I seem to remember that Sacred time counts as 1 season. As I shifted all experience to previous one (1 experience roll per adventure where you have at least 1 week of pause afterwards), my players may also have a bit more (but I still restrict to max 3 weeks of extraordinary activities per season, so, most of the time, this lead to 1 or 2 set of rolls per season).

22 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

if you sail into another world would it be one of the Gloranthas that may vary?

Gooooood. Various Gloranthas, all being the reflection of a primal one on the waves of a chaos sea (I know, I have read Zelazny at least once too much). In that case, that would become the search for the primal one.

16 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yeah, according to a literal reading of the rules, someone with a 10% parry skill will reduce the 1000% down to 100%. What it does give you is the ability to split to three (or four if you're really fast) 100%+ attacks.

or perform 45 parry and still be at 100%.

21 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I can see how someone just reading the rules fresh might not conclude that, but anyone who knows about Chaos in Glorantha would probably recoil in horror at the idea of tapping chaos, in a "yeah, that's not going to end well" sort of way. And to be fair, the description of the rune says "nothing is totally safe from its influence", so we have been warned.

On this, we agree. This is a world point of view, not a rule one, but you are totally right. This is why my first line began by 'Ruleswise, ', and my second line began by 'Glorantha wise'.

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

That's an odd statement. I'm not sure what you mean by it.

What I meant is simply that nothing in the rules we currently have is giving any indication that tapping chaos is giving chaos features. I am not saying it can not do it, nor that it should not do it, only that nothing in the rules, current or past, indicate it.

30 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Not in the rules, but I remember seeing this in various discussions on Boristi, as well as them running around "cleansing" people of all chaotics taints and then killing them with clean soul.

I don't remember reading they killed the 'cleaned ones', but it does not matter on the subject, I also remember (vaguely) some stuff on that. Even if chaos destructors, they are clearly not very sympathetic guys, even without the chaos taints.

17 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Until they start sprouting Chaos Features

Ruleswise, nothing ever permits to think it can occur.

Glorantha wise, of course it can occur. This is a fantasy world, but I don't remember having read anything in something RQ that lead to this conclusion.

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Rules effect wise nothing happens.

In-glorantha this is what is known as the Borist heresy.  People believe they become chaotic by tapping chaos (even if it's not true).

I did put a spin on this some time ago by having the Boristi tap chaos within ordinary people so as to make them pure and worthy of Solace.  Their wizards use that tapped chaos to form chaotic monsters (gorp, dragonsnails, giant flying hands) obedient to their will.  But a Storm Bull's sense chaos does not work against the Boristi because they are not themselves chaotic  So they are devilishly hard to suppress.

You beat me on this. This is exactly what I think of it.

18 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Could a creature with natural skin armour wear woad?

Of course. You can't wear other armor, but natural armor is not worn.

19 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't think so, magic items are a game mechanical representation and so are appropriately dealt with in a game system forum. The economics of magical items in RuneQuest are very different to HQ or 13G or KoDP.

I agree with you but the last question (the one I was answering) was about loitering corpses after a battle.

I think this should be purely cultural and depends mostly on the cults. I don't think we have much info on the subject in any RQ supplement. Perhaps is it better to ask the question on the Glorantha forum.

RQ3 is using skill for category of weapons: The 77% you have in broadsword is the same you have with all the 1H swords and you gain nothing for weapons belonging to other categories.

RQG is giving you half your skill in your best weapons in all the other weapons of the same category, and nothing for weapons belonging to other categories.

When playing RQG, I use RQG rule. For all other BRP games, I am using RQ3 rule.

7 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

does it say that they got all their gear back? or does it mention  just one heroic trojan having his arms returned with him?

From memory, Homer doesn't wrote about the rank and files, but only of the heroes, whatever the side, but they were recovered with their stuff (armor, weapons and regalia).

Hector's funerals lasted several days, during which a truce was in place. For Achilles's ones, games were organized, and Achilles's armor has been disputed between Odysseus and Ajax, meaning it had been recovered with the body. His spear has also been recovered and was brought to Athena's temple.

2 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

sounds like something from modern times. In ye olden days the loser would recieve their dead naked or in their undershirts as even clothing was valuable as loot.

In fact, this is very 'bronze age'. You can find truce for recovering dead bodies and other things in Homer and some egyptian writing (I think I read something like that in a book about the battle of Kadesh).

2 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

Also consider that returning any gear to the enemy can needlessly prolong the war

If it is a sacred activity, you don't care. Illyad describes a 10 years war, and greeks accepted an extra length of war if it allowed them to recover the dead bodies and perform the rituals.