g33k

Shadowcats are doglike in their trainability. I'd allow a well-trained dog to do a scout-and-report, within limits. As Soltakss says, limit it to INT "tricks," if they're complex, dangerous, or otherwise difficult-to-train. I'd let it do a "Trick" on any relevant roll -- Beast Rune, animal-handling, animal-lore, etc. In-game, you've established that "scout-and-report" is not one of the Tricks it knows; if Nathem is a Player's character, I'd allow him to work on training his shadowcat to do this (I'd expect it to take months of dedicated effort; at least 10 training sessions every week for at least 2ish hours/session (normally I'd do 1h sessions, but not for outdoor/exploration tasks).). Use communication via Beast Rune (or spell) for other things. On the ordinary success achieved in-game, I'd probably have been a bit more generous, but I'm gonna call that a simple difference of opinion, not that your choice was "wrong." I'd have had the Alynx understand Nathem wanted it to go "look around out thata-way," and rolled 3d6ish for 10-meter range-increment it went (30m-180m(ish)) & a bit of randomizing for precise direction and for straight-line vs meandering. Without a trained Trick, I'd default to the cat only having 2 reports available: "Found some prey - lets go hunt!" (n.b. cattle are not valid "prey") or "oh HELL no -- that's dangerous. don't go hunting THAT way!" === About those "limits" (within which a critter's scout-and-report are limited): the most-limited bit is the "report" of course. How well do you read the animal's body-language? How sophisticated is its mind, how much can it grasp, to even attempt to convey? I would call for a separate roll to UNDERSTAND the report. I'd disallow any "count" info beyond one/some/lots... and any particularly-scary-to-the-animal threat might register as "lots" of threat, regardless of count! It can't really convey species, etc. That said, wild animal groups have been documented with different threat-signals for "hawk" (animals take cover vs threat from above; large-enough ones only "take caution" and don't take cover) & "poison snake" (animals look at the ground, avoid dense undergrowth) & "Big Cat" (animals look for trees to climb, avoid big-cat-cover), etc. I'd allow them to also specifically be able to signal "human" and maybe 1-2 other specific creatures (hounds can be trained to hunt specific species). Complex situations are beyond their ability to convey. A mixed party of humans & trolls, mounted on bison, bolo-lizards & beetles, with packs of hounds & trollkin? Your report will translate roughly as: "It's a booshgobbldyfrake. Big one. Let's run away." === IIRC, Nathem's shadowcat does NOT house any allied-spirit / etc. So it's an ordinary beast. As others have noted, a spirit will give it a mind, make it effectively an NPC like any other.

I mostly don't allow animals (ordinary non-sentient beasts) to "parry" as such. I do allow a dodge. After you hit them once or twice, they figure out that the hitty-thing hurts. If it hurt a LOT, they'll try to dodge. If it only hurt for 1-3(ish) HP's of damage, their version of "Parry" is to BITE it, like it was the swipe of another animal's paw, or something. In the wild, this is a very effective strategy. However, this amounts -- more or less -- to sticking their head in the way of the Adventurers' weapon. 😨 Granted, they meet the blow fangs-first -- and the sakkar, IIRC, has some pretty serious fangs! -- but it's generally not a winning strategy vs. armed humans carrying weapons to get through the armor of human foes...

"RAW" is a broadly-used internet'ism for RPG's; most places I've seen, that delve into rules-analysis vs HRs (House Rules), use the RAW acronym. "MGF" is something I've seen elsewhere, but not as much as I've seen it here on BRPCentral. Sometimes I read it as "Maximum" sometimes as "More" -- after all, you're tuning your game to be More and More fun, it doesn't just MGF straight to infinity & beyond, does it? I also sometimes (intentionally mis-)read "G" as "Gloranthan" when some very-Gloranthan element front-and-centers as the Fun! fwiw & all that other stuff.

This is all good stuff... but at the table, when my player sits down to make a new adventurer whose ENTIRE FAMILY is from cities (Boldhome, Wilmskirk, Jonstown, Clearwine, whatever...) then I need the family backgrounds & available skills to reflect that. Dunno... maybe just do an ounce-of-common-sense approach; but the basic skills &c from an urban upbringing will be different from a pastoralist upbringing...

Can't really add to Jeorg's list, but I have a slightly different perspective... I'd say it's NOT worth it if you just want ready-to-use subsystems to yoink out of RQG and plop into your own FrankenBRP. OTOH, if you're willing to reskin some of the mechanics into new setting-conceptual frameworks, cultural nuances, etc... then yes, it has a fair bit to offer. RQG's new Rune rules look to be VERY re-skinnable to other fantasy settings. You may not have a Harmony Rune, or an Air Rune, but so long as you have fundamental magical principles that people can affiliate to, the RQG rules for rune-affinities and Augmentation look worthwhile. I'd put this item at or near the top of the list. Character-creation in RQG embeds the PC deeply into the world, with 2 generations of family history, giving you deeply-held passions and loyalties (and skill-boosts, occasional treasure, etc). It'd be a fair bit of work to re-skin all those years of Gloranthan history, re-populating the cultural events with events from your own setting; but IMHO it's worth some effort, if you'll be making more than a single party of PC's. This is the other Big Item of things you'd get that aren't likely to be in your existing BRPbookshelf. I think all the rest of Joerg's points just get my Internet Nod -- yup, uh-huh, agree (or any disagreements are minor/trivial, & clearly a matter of preference rather than correctness).

As per the above, in the RQ2 line. Easily upgraded to RQG. Nochet is coming. Urban, matriarchal, soft power via politics & trade & arranged marriages &... Yes, and blackmail, assassination, etc. Casino Town & Holy Country. Updates are coming for Pavis&Rubble, for Sun County. Trollpak is coming, both the RQ2 Classic (via RQClassic KS) and an all-new, likely RQG set. They had to start somewhere. Given that this IS the edition that (finally) centers on the Hero Wars, beginning in Dragon Pass seems utterly sensible; and the core book was ALREADY big, I'm not sure I see addung more cultures / backgrounds / Cults / etc as a smart move. One omission that I think hurts a bit is not (or at least, not sufficiently) highlighting the "urban Orlanthi" of Boldhome/etc. The city/country dichotomy is substantive! I would expect a brand-new Adventurer from a family settled for generations in Boldhome to be rather different from one whose clan has been on the Stead since the time of Sartar himself...

When gaming, I like to keep my not-in-use d4's on the floor. It keeps the players from retreating so readily.

1st off ... If any rule seems nonsensical or otherwise non-fun, then eliminate or HR it. That is the Officially Correct Way to play RQ: according to MGF over RAW. That said, I'd pause before Just Doing It. Moving up-to (but not more than) a "half move," and still get your full melee-round worth of attack, is a common RPG rule, IMHO for good reason. It's sensible: given the notion that a full melee round is an abstraction that, if filmed, would consist of a series of feints, blocks, footwork, and sundry other bits of setting-up your attack without getting killed... if you have spent MORE THAN HALF the round moving, you cannot credibly perform those necessary bits of setting-up your blow. This is the cut-off that many find reasonable; given the kinds of abstractions involved in a "melee round," the limit of "half-move" is popular. Honestly... I personally find it over-generous (I think if you've moved as much as a half-move, it leaves you less build-an-attack time (barring a "charge" or a "move-by" or the like)). One could instead have the unreasonable "you can fight OR move in a melee round, not both." One could instead have the unreasonable "on any given round you may full-move and/or full-attack without any restriction or interplay between moving & attacking; you may do ALL available options." One could instead have a realistic-ish (and very complex!) sliding scale of increasing movement causing increasing combat-penalties. Or you could (as RQ does) simply allow partial-move-and-attack... and then must pick some degree of "partial move" that still allows an attack. The thing about allowing that 5/8 move you propose, instead of stopping at 4/8 per the RAW: why not allow 6/8? Or 7/8? Should everyone cut back to 3/8 instead? Or even 2/8? Which arbitrary abstraction do you pick? Which is the most fun at your table (recalling that for some, the limits and the risks and the simulationism is part of the fun, and for others it's not).

<drools> Jeff... you are *SUCH* a tease !

Incredibly so, I think. You're giving the feedback that the "grognards" cannot give -- that of being entirely new to RQ.

Oh yeah. IIRC, the /only/ advantages the mounted guy has is straight-line top speed, and mass/momentum in a charge... But that very momentum works against them in actually catching someone on foot! A human who jinks and weaves can evade a pursuing horseman for a l-o-n-g time. OTOH, it's seldom a 1:1 contest... people fleeing on foot from mounted pursuers cannot just dodge the nearest foe, or they'll quickly be surrounded. Plus, if the pursuit has longspears or the like -- let alone lasso's, bolas, etc... Bows... Even a mace or the like, to throw... Is likely to knock down anyone fleeing on foot. Then again... if someone on foot can get into a dense forest, with close-set trees and/or low limbs, etc ... I'd see the advantage going strongly back to those on foot. I haven't seen the CoC7 chase rules. How robust are they, vs. considerations like these?

<nods> <applause> Exemplary work on Odd Soot. You've hit a very high mark in terms of rich flavor & evocative atmosphere.

The login persists, for at least a while... @Trifletraxor? Do we mere mortals have a way to adjust this? Or could you increase it, pretty-please with a Broo and a Shoggoth on top? I try to dip my toe in regularly; I think that keeps my Cultic Login Credentials live (or at least animated) until I forget for a while and they fade back into the Dreamlands... Then I wake them up again (or am I going back to sleep ... ? ahhhhh... the butterflies and caterpillars are so confusing). But yeah. Dunno WHY I experience the minor passwd-challenge as so challenging, but I second David's sentiment.

*BLAM!* "You're despicable!"

Perhaps just say your prayer is answered by a Saint (no matter whether you call upon the saint, upon Jesus, or upon the Father in Heaven), UNLESS you roll a Crit... In which case the limitless power of the Almighty gives you a Big Reply (again, without regard to whether you ASKED for the Almighty to step in). As Loz says, it's all God's power... Isn't it really up to God (the roll of the dice, unless the GM steps in) whether He answers directly, or has one of His saints do it? This gives the RP'ing "I feel more comfy chatting with my local saint" effect, as relevant to a PC concept. It eliminates the mechanical incentive for Praying Big, when the PC is too shy/humble, but the PLAYER sees no reason to go for the Little Prayer.

The RQG core is for gaming. Only bronze the Guide if you are being chintzy... Most of us are having ours photoengraved onto gold-leaf scrolls.

It's actually pretty easy to make the character-generation produce zero-ish PC's more like RQ2/RQClassic ones. You will also want to look at Rune Magic... Rune Pool of 1 at the start? Or even ... NO beginning points?

If it's for print out for play, you may wish to snip a section & sample how elevation vs road lines show on the page... You don't want to re-print entire pages multiple times to fix the one minor issue! Really nice work, btw... I envy your players if this is your normal standard for prep!

Then you're doing it wrong. A Jedi Doughnut is light&fluffy, with a thick & sickly-sweet interior. Ich bin ein Berliner.

*BLAM* "You're despicable!"

The archetype, and the most details, are in Arrow Trance. I believe it was just an oversight that similar material wasn't brought over to Axe/Sword Trance spells. Still, I think it falls distinctly as a HR to import any Rune Magic effects or descriptions (even for Trance magics) into the Meditation rules.

Yes, rolling to keep Meditation-bonus (despite damage) until casting is the RAW. You had seemed to be suggesting (or I had been mis-reading) that the (proposed) INT-rolls (to sustain Meditation bonus across several MR's of time) could also "cover" the INT roll vs damage. I was saying that each cause of loosing the bonus needs to be accounted for... I think tan extra source of distraction calls for an extra roll... or a more-difficult roll.

Hello, and welcome to the forum! I presume you're a 7thSea fan, re-home'ing to Chaosium's "official" forum? I asked a similar question myself, not long ago... @Trifletraxor might be by to answer, or @MOB, or even @John Wick , or... well, I really don't know who might be the "right" person to answer in any official / informed way...

jedi doughnut's are soft, not crunchy, unless you engage with the SW:EotE item-creation rules.

I would allow same-round casting without calling for an INT-roll (maybe even following-round, if it was late in the SR-sequence when the meditation ended). After that, I'd begin imposing INT rolls to maintain the meditation bonus. I would immediately advance someone down the INT-roll chart for taking damage... *OR* for making any OTHER roll than meditation or spellcasting!