PhilHibbs

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/15637-improved-rqg-index

Yes, covert possession would come under "a manifest spirit that is hiding" in my books.

Whether or not it is correct by the book, I run it as "POW in the middle world". So if a spirit has Visibility active, it can be seen with Second Sight. Also a fetch guarding the shaman whilst discorporate. So it doesn't let you see anything that you couldn't already see, but it does reveal the POW that resides in it. It would reveal a manifest spirit that is hiding, in darkness, or has a stealth ability. I imagine that, like germs, disease spirits are not normally visible.

I should have said "Lightbringers", I guess that's where Orlanth will be. I guess most Sartar players will want Lightbringers and Earth. Is there a detailed list anywhere?

Disruption isn't a protective spell. Neither is Resurrection.

I'm warming to this idea. Yes, I can see that a two-volume Guide-sized whopper would put off casual players. A modest sized Storm Pantheon book would not.

...which leaves some things like dryads with a transient physical form in a grey area. But that's fine, I like grey areas. Rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty, and all that.

Sorry. I mis-read that word. Now it's going to be a while before I'm in the right frame of mind to read the rest of your post.

Splitting off from another thread... RQG p.249: So, how do you bind something in a way that isn't released when you die? I can see the argument that binding to the middle world needs to be done by a native middle world entity. So no using spirits to bind other spirits for ever. I'm sure there are ways around it, but they aren't documented in the rules. You could presume from this that it isn't easy, there isn't a well-known technique for it. You have to figure out something creative if you want to bypass this limitation.

Splitting off to another thread as binding-release-on-death isn't related to user conditions...

Binding doesn't take POW. Creating the enchantment takes POW, but binding something into it does not. You can also bind into a crystal which takes no POW. Apologies for the topic drift.

Normal bindings, created with just a couple of points of POW and no exotic procedures, release on death. Not all kinds of bindings have to. One of the scenarios in The Pegasus Plateau has an example.

Normal enchantments do seem to expire on the binder's death, but I'm sure there's a way to prevent this from happening. Maybe you get an immortal or a spirit to perform the binding?

Scenario hook! I doubt that this happens very often. I get it for "creator only" or any other unique individual, if it's a really powerful item, but a clan or tribe item can be far more safely traded away.

Wow. Part of me is shouting "this is fantastic", but a little bit of me is thinking "this is going to be a problem, logistically".

Ah, I hadn't spotted (or had forgotten) that.

"That's clearly not a broo. He's just one of the beast-folk."

Cult-only will be the most common. Clan-only might also be popular. Since multiple people can contribute to an enchantment, I can see this being useful for rewards. "Thank you for your great service to the (clan/cult/tribe). As a reward, the priests will help you make an enchantment of your choice. They will contribute 3 POW towards it, but one of them will go into a usage restriction limiting it to the (clan/cult/tribe), and the (clan/cult/tribe) will claim it when you no longer have need of it." Also, scenario hook to reclaim such an item that has fallen into the wrong hands.

I'm not aware of any such magic circle that can do that, but yes I accept the point in principle. Either way requires creative extension of the rules-as-written. There is currently no provision for multiple opponents in spirit combat, the rules are silent either way. If you just allow it with no modifier, then one powerful individual can take on an army of spirits. If you allow it with -20% then one target can be dog-piled fairly easily. Both of these have potentially negative consequences, but I prefer the second. Judicious application of Spirit Block would be useful in either scenario. Vishi I think cast 7 or 8 points of it when fighting the Fiend.

That's how I ran it when a Fiend of Cacodemon died and attacked the adventurer that finished it off. It's not in the rules though. I also allowed adventurers (and a couple of NPCs) with sufficiently magical weapons hit it and counted those as accumulating -20s to its chance. The PC (Vishi Dunn) wouldn't have had a chance without all those!

But seriously... I can see why the maps are the resolution they are. The AAA is already the biggest of the files in the Guide collection, Vol 1 and Vol 2 are 93MB and 67MB each, and the AAA is 99MB. Scotty's map is about four times the resolution as the AAA PDF, square that and you get a file that is 16 times the size. But it's also not JPEG, I can't see any compression artefacts that are clearly there in the AAA, so that messes up the calculation, I'm not sure how a JPEG file size scales with image size, it probably depends on the kind of image. A quick test indicates maybe five or six times the size. But anyway, it would be a LOT bigger and slower to use. It's already pretty hard to use on an older iPad. I guess the other solution would be to increase the font size for the smaller place names. Incidentally, is there a PDF version of the AAA without the hex grid? I thought there was but I can't find one.

Just found a bug in 1.10.1 Beta 1. You can't choose a race, the code fails before completion. This is so fundamental to using the sheet for anything at all that I can only assume that nobody has used it, so the usefulness of adding JC stats is doubtful. I'll still do it, but I don't feel so bad about dragging my feet on getting COH added! p.s. I fixed 1.10.1 Beta 1 directly, usually I don't do that but this is such a breaking bug that there's no point not. As to the failure, it's ok for Man/Beast races as it fails during the rune swap process. Only for Plant rune races does the failure actually make a difference.

Ah yes, clear as day! Leopard Slave Lake!

POW is more of a currency than a characteristic. Having said that, all characteristics have a "currency" aspect to them, as shamans can sacrifice any characteristic to reset the shamanic ability cost and that that "loss" shouldn't be restorable with a spell.

Nothing's ever simple with Humakt, is it? So I guess the answer is... it varies. Different regions and subcults and traditions will have different takes on this.