PhilHibbs

On 11/2/2022 at 3:42 PM, Bill the barbarian said:

Not sure I understand good sir. A medium shield and a broad sword*, these are almost the default for a bog standard Orlanthi, both have 12 HP. What would the difference in breakage (other than cost) be?

You're right, I'm wrong. Not sure where I am remembering that difference from, possibly a previous edition.

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Wow.  Chaosium deliberately wrote and intended the broken DI rules?

This is another reason why players care if a cult has rune lords or not.  Using stock DI rules (we don't) Rune Lords will fairly quickly get many of their key stats to 21.

Remember it takes a permanent Rune Point each time. Still a pretty good deal, but "many stats to 21" is possibly over stating it. Vasana's DEX starts at 11, that's 10 points of POW to get it to 21.

17 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

the >100% skill rule seems to me a good way to accelerate the fight  :  there is a no match between a master with 200% against 5 average guys with. 50%. you don't even have to try to parry

Sort of - you still have to declare the parry, otherwise they are hitting you at 50% skill. Narratively, you "aren't even trying" though which may be what you meant.

22 hours ago, svensson said:

This warning posted to you by my future descendant, Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, Colonial Marines...

I'd vote for that.

On 10/30/2020 at 5:29 PM, Lordabdul said:

I think that @PhilHibbs's Google Docs character sheets has those stats when you switch it to "French", too.

Yes, but the occupation skill changes are switched on the Rules tab, and you can do that without changing language. Two different things.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

don't forget the >100% skill rule

Indeed, that's part of it. With the standard -20% stacking debuff, at 200% skill you can already eliminate the threat of the first three non-heroic attacks (-60% versus a 100% parry is fairly safe) just through this mechanic. Only after six parries do they start rolling at their normal chance. With a -10% stacking debuff this literally gets turned up to eleven.

1 hour ago, smiorgan said:

I'm trying to figure out whether shields are really the red-headed stepchild of RQG combat or there are rules that make them mechanical interesting - phalanx formation and missile fire are, but in regular melee shields look a bit useless, or at least unworthy of skill points investment.

Shields are harder to break than swords. Parrying with a sword is a quick way to not have a usable sword any more. Unless you're parrying a natural attack, in which case it's a quick way to cut an attacking limb off.

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

Their role is to act on the physical world. Rune priests don't have that role (I realise that its not always as clear as that).

Issaries and Argan Argar do, they are both very much going out there into the world and interacting with dangerous strangers. That's what it maybe should be in my mind, sedentary cults (household, farming, community oriented) don't need Rune Lords but cults whose core purpose involves going away from the safety of a temple do.

I don't get why only "combat" cults give 1D10 Divine Intervention to their elite followers.

13 hours ago, Arcadiagt5 said:

One option that I think I’ve used is that if you go full defensive, the penalty for repeated defences is cut from -20% to -10%. I may have given a bonus to the first parry as well. 

I think the problem with any solution is how it scales at high skill. Giving a bonus that is meaningful at "starting" skill levels (50-100%) but not utterly nuts at high skill levels (and lets be honest, 200% is not even that ridiculous at starting level with Sword Trance) is super hard.

So lets say I have sword skill at 200%, due to Sword Trance or other combined bonuses. With a -10% stacking debuff that means I can parry ten times before my chance starts to actually be affected meaningfully.

Maybe that's okay. 200% is huge, if it's game breaking then it's the "fault" of Sword Trance and not the parry mechanics.

26 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

The text on page 224 says:

"An adventurer using a weapon in each hand can use them for two attacks, two parries or one attack and one parry"

That's a bit of text from an old edition or older iteration of the RQ4 rules that got included in error. As Bill said, there's no allowance for that kind of tactic in the rules-as-written.

I think it would be quite reasonable to at the minimum allow one extra full chance parry (i.e. delay the beginning of the -20 stacking debuff by one) if the adventurer does not attack. It's rather a small benefit though, and only helps people facing multiple incoming attacks.

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8 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I'd argue that both of those cults, and many other interesting minor cults, provide nothing.

Why? We know from RQ3 GoG it provides Shattering, which is a super-disrupt. And the spell is in RBOM so I'd assume it's still a Black Fang spell.

It's had a buff as well as it is no longer blocked by armour, and 4D3 is more reliable than 2D6.

Does anyone bother tracking where each point of CHA came from, such as items, missions, etc.? We've already lost track of it in my group.

I'm sure that when HeroForge introduces duck heads and feet, someone will spot it and let us know.

1 hour ago, Revilo Divad Of Dyoll said:

(And hits against the arms could disable the arms but would not count against total hit points.  And would bleed green smoke, but that's just me).

I think they would be physical arms made of bone and muscle, capable of sensation including pain and shock. They aren't glowing phantom arms made of sunlight. It's "Sprout Arms", not "Phantom Arms".

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

He's a pregen in the Starter Pack I believe, but not in the RQG rules.

You must be thinking of Varakos maybe? He's the Humakti. Or Mago the Fierce?

6 hours ago, Jake said:

The most important thing about Gloranthan Cartographers? No arguments about projection systems or calculating for Earth Curvature distances!7

Orientation is probably the big contentious issue among Glorathan cartographers.

6 hours ago, Jake said:

Organised armies are a main impetus for maps too.

And probably more so for the invader than the defender. Place names and direction signs were removed all down the East coast of England so that German spies and/or invaders would not know how to get around and would have to ask. So any up to date quality maps of Sartar are going to be made by Lunars and viewed with suspicion by Sartarites.

Same HP calculation, but you would need a new hit location chart. If you feel that as the hit point mass is now distributed over a larger area and should be slightly lower, then you probably would also need to increase the SIZ slightly to account for the increased body mass of extra arms and the two should exactly balance out.

I don't see why a person who sprouts extra arms has to become heavier. Keep it simple. Unless they go for a dozen extra arms maybe.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

I like seeing Kesten Blackblade.  I will generally pick him or Vishi Dun when I play the RQ starting characters at tournaments.

Kristen isn't one of the pregens.

10 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I think you maybe missing the whole point of StormBull. He's mindless violence against Chaos, fighting fire with fire, that's how he won, not with clever plans or cunning, but brute force...

7 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Will need to hire non-Storm Bulls then to do research... the research venture to the Print was in Tradetalk #4

I wouldn't rule out Storm Bull involvement entirely. They aren't all a hundred percent the stereotype. I could imagine Enkala, Linda's character in the Chaosium house campaign, being persuaded to go along with it.

Oh, it works ok on the Introduction page that you showed, @David Scott! Every page after that that I have tried is wrong though.

I'm using Acrobat Reader.

Can someone who knows about PDF authoring explain to me why the text order in the RQG rule book is wonky? It always finds results in the right hand column first, then the left column. And you can't select text that flows from the bottom of the left column to the top of the right. It's so consistent that it almost has to be deliberate!