Kloster

I would say 1 is required to directly confront the dragon / go to contact.

In order to decide the course of action, I would say 2..

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Well.. I guess it depends on the GM then...

Yes, you are right. And of the players, of course.

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

In one session you can easily fight with spell and weapons, sneak around, climb something, break some traps, lie and hindsight, analyse something and influence someone one.. yet typically I only give 3~4xp per session... a much lower number that the many skill mark one would get otherwise..

In our last RQ3 campaign, I once had around 20 checks for combat skills and over 30 for non combat, in one session.

19 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Since we are debating it.. Another 3 problems I fear from skill check marks, and I am curious to read your repartee:

- 1. Most players will increase all their combat skills... And almost no player will increase any other skills... and most player will end up looking the same

Yes, most player will increase MOST of their combat skills, if there are combats (normally, there are some), but also most players will also increase quite a lot of other skills, and as skills used are different from one character to another, they will be increasingly different. In my BRP experience (mostly RQ, but also quite a number of other), the only skill that ALL players tried to increase was 'first aid'.

19 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

- 2. most of the other skill will rarely if ever increase

Please see just above.

19 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

- 3. I find it a bit too easy to make a warrior-mage-thief-alchemist with skillmark. Whereas with XP, one can do it too, but it takes a bit more effort

No, it is very difficult, because you have to use successfuly the skills, and then success the check roll. It is in fact easier when the player spent points where he wants (James Bond 007 or Hero system come to my mind, even if in JB007, the mage-alchemist part is a bit difficult to obtain).

Yep, XV, or more properly (according to Quentin de la Tour), his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

It would have to be chainmail or some form of articulated scale, but an intelligent brontosaur Rune Lord should be OK.

It always makes me laugh that we accept zombie shark-hybrids, great flying bats and mile-long dragons, but armour on a dinosaur is too much.

Completely agree. What is important is not that it correspond to our bronze age, but that it makes a good game. There was no bronze age chainmail in real world, but why not in Glorantha, and I'm absolutely sure that no real world human has ever clad is dinosaur pet or mount with barding, wether bronze or iron. But it makes an interesting story, so it is ok (at least for me).

17 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

"Bronze Age" Great Swords and crossbows always bothered me too...  😞  Too many years of experience with historical miniatures.

Agreed for Great swords that appeared much later, but crossbows are a thing of antiquity: Alexander's army used gastrophetes.

Yes right, but extra large was defined as 24+ or something like that, and was usable for great trolls., so could be used for horses.

As far as I remember, all armor costs and weight in RQ3 are according to SIZ, so no need of a special rule, just use the horse SIZ.

1 hour ago, Crel said:

I imagine it'd be useful for an adventurer to represent both tactical knowledge ("Hey GM, I want to roll my Battle to see if my adventurer knows a good strategy here that I don't.") and insight into preparing for combat ("Your successful Battle roll indicates that those high cliffs would be perfect for an ambush... if someone's not already up there.").

This is exactly the used we had: Allowing characters to tactically analyze a situation when the players themselves don't have the ability to do it (arcs of fire, height advantage,...). We also had 1 usage when 1 player tried to outmaneuver a group of opponents by tricking them in the open.

5 hours ago, Ultor said:

I suspect that it'll involve something like an En Garde order sheet for activities like training and research as well.

Good idea.

10 minutes ago, Joerg said:

How many side jobs can they get away with?

A lot. I had some 20 years ago some people in my family that lived that way, farming, cutting wood (for money, for carpentry and furniture, ...), collecting herbs and mushrooms, hunting, making their bread, and sometime even working in a steel factory (to pay for salt, coffee, oil and ammunition mainly).

11 hours ago, Ultor said:

I'd love to know how others have handled this at their table.

Remove the 1 adventure per season, and replace it by 3 weeks of extraordinary activities per season. This solve several problems: The one you noticed and the very short duration adventures. It also force players (and the GM) to plan the longer adventures.

Very Zelaznyesque.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I use roll only for heirloom and sometimes history, but it depends.

In fact, RAW, history is 'Roll or Choose'.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

If a player build a background i give him the "history bonus" based on his pain.

Good. I like that.

2 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

What about New Pavis? Do many Orlanthi attend Faltikus' ceremonies? Does he call the god Doburdun or Entekos openly in front of everybody? Hmm...

According to 'Strangers in Prax' the temple is far from empty, even if the congregation is described as 'shrinking'.

13 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'd thought Harmony or Fertility/Life... Or even Man.

I had not seen this one. I like your idea of man rune for the spell.

19 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Sure, maybe that's just me...

No, not only you. This is why I asked the question.

8 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Captain Nemo's Electric Rifle -- Fires an insulated glass capsule charged with electricity.  The shock rather than the projectile kills the target.  Designed for underwater shooting, the rifle's firing mechanism isn't described (although it might be pneumatic).

It is described as pneumatic, using the air tank of the rebreather.

Hello Jeff,

Why having removed INT from the calculation of the 'Magic skills category' modifier?

Regards.

On 6/6/2020 at 1:32 PM, Thaz said:

I never ask to see rolls at my table so never seen the need for dicebots (unless people dont have dice to hand). I mean we're playing for fun not money right?

All the games I play in currently just use a voice/video chat program and some form of file share for sketches and handouts. 

So do I, but my son 'discovered' that some of his players had strange dice results.

58 minutes ago, Crel said:

I've been using just Discord, with a dicebot, and then snipping images or sketching then scanning to give people an idea what areas look like.

My son is doing the same way. For those who can't or don't like to use the dicebot, the webcam (seen only by the GM) looks on the dice rolls.

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

I can't comment on the adventure, but the current rules set is geared to one adventure per season of no more than three weeks (page 422).

I think this is part of the problem. 1 adventure, whatever it's duration, and all the remaining time taken by 'normal life'.

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Basically you have three weeks only to become rich per season or they will have to ultimately leave their village and become "freelancers" or mercenaries. Join Argrath, and go to war, and loot.

I think this would have been a far better way to describe the path the new game is geared to. If you go over those 3 weeks, you lose part or all of your income, and in the end, you lose resources and status.

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Their income is covered in the between adventures section.

This is part of the economy abstraction, and this is a great rule that remove (part of) the economical micromanagement.

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

An alternative is to become the community leaders, using others work to bolster your income - so you'd be the chief, the priests, rune lords, etc.

Completely agree on that point.

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

As a side story, in the 90s David Hall was running his Lismelder campaign, parts of which appeared in Tales of the Reaching Moon. While all the players were spending their well earned loot on armour and weapons, one of them, Branduin spent his on cows. Why? because it made him wealthy, in a society where power comes from holdings, cows are an important wealth marker. Branduin was destined to become chief.

Nice story. I like it.

8 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

RQ3 was like that, the category bonus was the XP roll bonus, if my memory serves me right.. (it's like 34 years later... 😮 )

You remember well.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

it also puts a limit on skills if it's negative.

If your "bonus" is -X, you can't go higher than 100-X.

If your bonus is +1 (or 0 ? I don't remember) or more, there's no limit to your skill.

It was 0, because you need a roll of 1D100+mod of 100 or more to increase. Same in RQG.

Why needing illumination?

13 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Yeah so?  The Aeolians order their gods differently from the standard Orlanthi but they are still the same Gods.

Completely agree with you on that point. This is in fact one of the points that make them interesting to me.

14 minutes ago, metcalph said:

It says of the Aeolians, "The free and talar castes use Rune and spirit magic; the wizard caste uses sorcery".  Ergo they are not different gods and there is no sorcerous Orlanth etc. 

I also agree. I just said you don't need LM to be a sorceror. The fact that there is no Orlanth sorcerors is not in the rules (but has been told explicitly by Jeff, although it seems to me incompatible with what is in the rules). I never said there is a Orlanth Sorcerous (but I think it could be fun, and could be find in Arkati sects such as Oktorioni).

18 minutes ago, metcalph said:

instead of applying themselves to answering the original poster's question. 

I have answered him directly. See above 3rd post of the thread.

21 minutes ago, metcalph said:

If you disagree then put up your own theory of how the Aeolians should be like instead of tearing apart mine..

I have no theory, but try hard to make my mind. And I like your ideas and posts, so does not try to break them. I just disagree on 1 point.