Monty Lovering

Screenshot of the Queen off my battle sheet. She’s a bit spicy. I also have spawn. They range from 1 hit location 3AP 3HP nuisances to half size normal. It kinda made sense there’d be an ecosystem. And thanks! re. the DI. It worked well, narratively. Frank (the trollkin) is most definitely not a hero, and even though Bartath, the Humakti, is actually a member of Zarka Sword-Alone (weird ass Humakt hero-cult founded by a troll), it’s not Frank’s path. Now he’s got his life debt out the way he’s going to found a chitin craft shop in Pavis (he’s a paid NPC with a share in the loot, so has savings), and maybe in time further pursue his interest in freedom for trollkin. If I’d played Frank (originally called Shame Us by his brother who the party rescued him from) as a more martial personality then your idea would be perfect. But his brother used to make him take part in bare knuckle fights and fighting is just not his scene.

To me it’s like Pascal’s wager. The idea that someone could believe in god ‘in case’ they exist is absurd as if one posits the existence of god then the idea it would be mollified by someone believing in them ‘in case’ is absurd. IMG the idea Humakt would say ‘oh hell you’re an apostate, but the long sharp-edged bladed weapon with a hand grip is definitely not a sword” is equally odd. If it’s about the shape, then a sword with a non-cruciform hilt would equally be a get-out which reduces an extreme punishment for apostasy to a minor inconvenience. If you’re actually being really Bronze Age ish then cruciform swords were uncommon. So for me it’s the sword-ish ness not the cruciform-ish ness.

Because the weight of a hauberk is distributed across shoulders and hips (as you’d never wear a hauberk or skirt without a belt of some sort), so although there is more of it it is no more of an impediment than a skirt.

Ok so YT and Humakt are not just different choices. They are hostile and YT is apostate to Humakt So that particular swap is world of pain for the H->Y. Sword breaker effects curved swords IMG as look at the compound word ‘curved sword’. RP are lost. Humakti knowing the YT is apostate will at best shun them. Quite possibly challenge them to a duel. They will however be welcomed by YT and maybe helped on the path to a heroquest to be able to use swords again YT->H is less bad. RP lost. Humakti will regard them in very high favour. YT will possibly treat them even worse than Humakti treat exHumakt YT apostates. I grew up a Jehovah’s Witness and know EXACTLY how people get treated by their friends and family if they are considered an apostate so this is very much a deep personal MGV.

Well, if it’s a considered request, then they get to phrase the request. Can include others whether they like it or not. “Take me and my companions to our camp”, maybe some healing too If it’s a mortal blow that they’d be aware of then they get their life saved in an appropriate manner. Time to call upon their god as they stare at the transfixing spear and cough up blood but not to specify things. The dying character will end up in the nearest Holy Place of that god. If it’s a headshot that instakills, then unless it’s actual decapitation (when they would still have the ‘oh so that’s what my body looks like Orlanth save me’ moment, then no DI. They dead. Nothing to consciously DI with, and if they’re already dead then they’re dead.

Those tunnels and DI. Funnily enough on Monday my lot got a bit too confident in the tunnels beneath the Devil’s Playground. They’d found the centre of the hive and the Queen krarshtkid (I played around with the source) and the Humakti basically told everyone to leg it whilst he was all noble and held them back with Sword Trance and True Sword up the wazoo. All going well, then he got a gob of spit in the face obscuring his vision. He saved a trollkin some time back who has basically stayed on as a paid assistant, and they’d hung back to light his way to safety, but now blinded he tells the trollkin to flee )as he was basically going down in the next round or two) and the trollkin DI’d (losing 11 POW but repaying the life debt) to whisk them to safety.

I like that mechanic. My current campaign is ending in a month or two so I will be making some changes for the day I find a group of idiots who’ll let me GM for them again. The “made for db” is a good addition.

Very true. I think there might be a case for (in addition to making damage bonus less cartoony) actually doing some RQ3 stuff, like autoknockback if damage over SIZ. I mean, the system treats damage like the target does not react to the kinetics but absorbs it all. At a certain point the ouch gets converted to F=Ma, at least with edged and impact weapons. Obviously this makes a giant with a spear truly dreadful. Bur even got crunch-obsessed people like me at a certain point lovely complexities lovely designed get dropped as they don’t add fun.

Been there. Done that. Might have been here or in the Fb Group I outlined it. I have changed SR to reflect weapon speed and how it’s used, so it’s no longer a size metric alone. Weapons do less damage, so a dagger will do 1d4, +1 as it’s generally good vs armour, so can still deliver a moral blow on a special or crit, but don’t on have the ability to 0LHP. Larger ‘small’ weapons with more kinetics/edge do 1d6, +1 or +2 if superior vs armour, so Small Axe is 1d6+1. ‘Normal’ sized weapons do 1d8, same pluses for armour performance. So a broadsword is 1d8, a spear 1d8+1 (which with the SR being lower makes a spear a superior weapon to a sword just like IRL). Use such a weapon with two hands it does 1d10, so a large axe does 1d8 +1 one handed, 1d10+1 two handed. ’Large’ weapons like great sword, great axe, etc., do 1d12 as a base with pluses if good vs armour. Ranged weapons have a better range system and bows of the same construction come in different strengths so high STR characters can get more damage. I did play with changing the damage bonus system effectively moving 1d4>+1, 1d6>+2, 2d6>+1d4, 3d6>+2d6, etc., but that got dropped. I also played with weapons having a parry % multiplier (of the unified weapon skill in RQG), so like x1 for a sword or x0.5 for a battle axe to simulate some weapons are just better at parrying, but it was messy and got dropped. But once you’re familiar with the homebrew table it’s easy to convert on the fly. But I tend to dump NPCs into a battle sheet in Excel, or an NPC character form if playing online, so it just happens automatically. Obviously loads of people aren’t bothered by the somewhat eccentric weapons tables but for me it’s a value add.

You did ask… OK I treat canon as the myths of the Greeks about the world and gods were to the real world. Except of course the gods are real. So my Glorantha might be round. Myths say it isn’t. Mountains definitely disappear below horizon but there’s a theory that explains that on flat worlds. Gods are immensely powerful but might be part of a continuum of Runic and magical adeptness rather than a different class of being. Might be. But they’re not omnipotent or omnipresent. They don’t know you do wrong unless your guilt or someone else give you away. My Glorantha is IronPunk. Just like SteamPunk has anachronistic technology in a Victorian setting, IronPunk has anachronistic technology in a Bronze Age setting. Dwarves have gunpowder and steam power, hell humans got that advanced in the Clanking City. But anachronistic items are rare and viewed as magical. Iron is common place and forging low quality iron article possible. But it’s not better than bronze in that state. And any more than the weight of a spear head in close proximity to your body and you can’t cast magic. Trolls and elves don’t take double damage from it but can have allergic reactions to it. Enchantment stops iron disrupting magic, and the secret of forging and tempering iron so it’s better than bronze is a guarded secret. It does mean you can slap an iron collar on someone if they’re your prisoner and they can cast magic. Only way slave economies with magic work in my head. There’s more but I need to sleep.

With weapons I think it’s fair to top out the damage bonus beyond 1d6 if the weapon isn’t made to match the strength of the wielder. Those great troll body guards are gonna need extra big greats words to get that 2d6 damage bonus. And if it sounds silly a giant using a normal heavy mace would only get 1d6 damage bonus, think how awkward it would be to use one for them. Problem with weapon damage in RQ is it’s confused. One can say the damage bonus takes care of it but light maces do less than heavy maces. Because physics. A sword with a longer edge has more damage potential (drawing cuts) than one with a short blade. So I do have ‘giant weapons’ on my weapons tables that do a little bit more. But you can ride the impala into crazy town very easily and end up with some weapons doing more damage on large creatures. Which might be true but is a bit much to remember.

No extension of meaning needed really. It no more means single-edged knife than single-edged sword. It means single-edged blade. And is used unmodified as dao to donate the single-edged counterpart to the jian you mention: both swords. Only reason a Chinese person might not say sword if you asked him what the long blade at his waist was, is if it was a sword. As we only have sword. Just like the Greeks have five words for love compared to our one so too do some languages have two words for sword. But no one in Warring States China or the Anarchy in England would call their sword by the classification we use today. They’d call it a sword. Not an arming sword or 大刀, not unless they had two and needed to disambiguate. Broadsword is, funnily enough, probably the worst name for a sword as it is just so not bronze-age, has meant several things none of which are what it is in RuneQuest, including a now defunct term for arming sword, and now is basically the basket-hilted double-edged transition away from the arming sword in the early modern period before they died out in favour of back swords (single-bladed versions).

The root word for sabre is ‘cutter’. Scimitar might just be an old Iranian word for sword as it’s etymology it unknown. The kanji for katana is the Chinese logogram for a single-edge sword which the Japanese have used with great economy. The curve of what we call a katana as opposed to other terms, as you know, was a later feature adapting the Chinese-inspired straight single-edged blade trust preceded it. As you not above, a two-edged sword or swordsmanship is 剣 All good fun but doesn’t really change my point that a curved sword is a sword. At least IMG the shattering thing is all about cruciform swords being Death runes.

Spear are better than swords against armour because history. I have rolled back quite a bit of complexity after six months of play testing with my players. I started off VERY crunchy. I’ve trimmed stuff that added nothing to the fun and kept stuff I think makes the weapons more believable. Your table might enjoy that detail.

The RAW rules for dual wielding as regards SR are against most actual historical uses of two weapons. Very frequently it was something like a rapier (SR normally 2+2+2 = 6) and a dagger (2+2+4 = 8 ) which is impossible in RAW. So I just put any second attack in on SR12.