PhilHibbs

On 3/28/2023 at 5:35 PM, Scotty said:

In one of my games, one of the Lunar Sorcerers (Free INT 12) would cast Protective Circle on the caravan leader or the Storm Bull on the Full Moon. Strength 1, Range 1, Duration 10 for 11 magic points /2  6 and then boost it with their remaining 10 or so. Others would then add spirit magic to it (protection usually and in one case spirit screen)...

You can't cast it on a mobile target that isn't itself a mobile 2m diameter platform, so the Storm Bull would have to remain stationary. Good luck with that, in my experience they like to go where the action is.

But cast on the lead caravan, the Protective Circle would be there for two days, and you just cast the protection spells as needed to cover the people inside for the next two minutes? That's pretty cool, a long duration "spell extender". A circle within the wagon 2m is protected, useful against missile fire, but you can't leave the wagon to fight anyone without losing the protection. They have to come to you. Or you hurtle the caravan around like a chariot... was the Storm Bull the charioteer?  🛒😄

9 hours ago, g33k said:

The "inanimate" world isn't an "observer," but a "Genus Loci" spirit (Dryad, Nymph, etc) is an observer. A Hallucinated boat will displace water ... unless the creek is a Nymph, whose body is the creek.

Unless it is "a free will" instead of "an observer". Since nymphs are otherworld entities, do they truly have free will? Or are they bound by myth in the same way that gods are, behaviour determined by magical law as the Malkioni believe them to be?

4 hours ago, Bren said:

I don't sweat an exact rationale... the counterbalancing factors aren't only monsters and magical peril .

Absolutely. I should have said that monsters and evil magic are some of the factors that counterbalance abundant health magic, but you are right that there are others.

21 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

True, but I hope such things are not population wide...

In my Glorantha, those factors exactly balance out the effect of healing and health improvement magic leaving the demographics more or less the same as a bronze age world except where explicitly described as different.

8 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

Monsters and magic yes, but children aren't going to be in the front line of Monster fighting. Even amongst the Orlanthi ;-).  I suspect the plus to the dice roll is common enough to make the odds more favourable.

Sometimes the monsters bring the front line right in through the front door. Have you never played a scenario that begins with a ruined farmstead? Sure, in scenarios it's usually the plucky kid that survived, but that's because scenario writers are softies. Unless that tendency is revealing some deeper principle of Gloranthan reality... but there I go extrapolating Glorantha from RuneQuest...

If I hallucinate a cup, can I scoop up some water and drink it? I'd say yes. If I hallucinate a boat, can it displace water? By the same logic, yes.

Of course this gets into trouble when I try to sail my hallucinatory boat right through someone swimming in the water. If it displaces the water, then does it a) knock the person aside, b) go right through them without affecting them, or c) bounce off them like a rock because it can't affect them in any way?

These corner cases are inevitable with the selective reality of hallucinate. Personally I think it probably behaves differently each time, randomly, or at the capricious whim of the GM.

52 minutes ago, Bren said:

What you suggest doesn't seem unreasonable for the general population. But the question is, does that societal rate apply to the PCs?

You're right, I'm falling into the same trap that I constantly bleat about there, talking about the tables as though they applied to the whole population.

1 minute ago, Bren said:

Why would a boat be different from a raft? They seem that same to me.

Whilst I agree with your conclusion, I absolutely see the line of reasoning that leads to it not working.

Does the hallucinatory boat displace water?

If the answer is "yes", then everyone would see a hole in the water, a boat-shaped depression.

If the answer is "no", then there are two possibilities:

1. The water goes straight through the boat and so it sinks.
2. The boat rests on top of the water, and immediately tilts over when the trickster jumps in, probably tipping him out into the water.

I don't like either of the "no" options, so I'd go with "yes"... but do people see the depression? Or is the depression only real to the trickster, so everyone else just sees water, until the trickster jumps in and they see him scooting along seemingly half in the water?

There are no perfect answers. I think this is inevitable with Hallucinate, like hallucinating cushions strapped to that troll maul that I'm about to get beaten up with. Do they pad the blow or not?

2 minutes ago, Bren said:

Granted, a 5% chance of child mortality isn't a lot for a single year. However, a series of 15 rolls* to reach age 15, results in only a cumulative 46% chance of survival for a child. That seems too high given the level of healing magic that is likely to be available to PCs. 

I don't think so. Glorantha is said to be a "bronze age" world, and I think that extends to life expectancy. Loads of healing? Sure, but loads of monsters and various magical perils too. These things roughly balance each other out.

2 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

Creating a light pointless, as it will only illuminate you: but because illusions are 'real' you can create a wall of light behind your foes, and they will be visible as shadows, since they are (from your perspective) blocking the light.

An illusion of a light is interesting. If it would work as an Illusion spell, then it would work as a Hallucinate. And as illusions are temporary reality, an illusory lamp should work, so a hallucinated lamp should also work.

And if they are blocking the wall of light, then they are also being illuminated by it.

9 hours ago, Bren said:

Is the table intended to be applicable to the population as a whole or is this aimed only at births connected to a player character?

Virtually everything in the rules is applicable only to adventurers. It's common to use the same skill and combat rules for NPCs, although I often simplify things for them to reduce my workload. Greg once famously said "remember, monsters get experience rolls too" or something like that, but personally I doubt that he was rolling dice for his NPCs during their downtime.

This is one of the cultural changes that has taken place in RuneQuest since the '80s: the GM isn't expected to do quite as much work. Or to put it another way, the kind of work the GM is burdened with has changed - I don't have to roll as many dice, but I have to make that judgement call on how detailed the world simulation is, and occasionally I might have to justify that to my players if they think I'm cheating. Maybe calling it a cultural change is strong, because it was and still is not that explicit.

If you're going to use the RuneQuest rules as an entire world simulator, such as for economics or demographics, then you're going to run into problems that were not anticipated by the designers.

2 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

There already is: "if cast on something mobile (for example a ship's deck), the circle moves with it."

A 1-metre circle could be cast on a large shield; 2-metre on a chariot, 3+ on a wagon or carpet.

I'm not interested in arguing the specifics. My point is, there can be in-world reasons that things that haven't been done are difficult. And if someone says "I want a spell that's like the one in the book, but better in every way" I'm probably going to say "no".

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Neither do I.

But I also refuse to accept that something should be difficult or nerfed just because it's powerful or good.

From a purely world-building  perspective, there's no good reason that there shouldn't be a mobile version of this spell. Just as there's going to be Enhance POW.

I disagree. There can be good reasons, if we want there to be good reasons.

"We explored the nodes that were exploited to create the Protective Circle, but were unable to find a connection to the Movement Rune that could be used without dangerously destabilizing the circle. It turns out that the relevant nodes were all too close to a potent Stasis Rune node, and whilst the rune itself is not necessary to the casting of the spell, its presence in the area of the matrix meant that connecting to the Movement Rune created an unfortunate interaction."

There you go. There's a world-building reason why a Protective Circle can't be moved. If you think about it, it's even logical because the dome shape looks like a Stasis Rune so it should have been obvious that moving it would be challenging!

In general, I'm not a fan of creating a spell "just like this other spell, but with a really useful addition and no down side, or one so trivial that it makes the original spell obsolete". If there's a down side to a spell, then some Zzaburi would have probably tried to work around it already. Therefore it's perfectly justifiable to say that there is no easy workaround.

5 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

Is there a generic rule here, that if low is bad, the autofail rule doesn't apply?

I don't think so. It's just not a skill roll so there is no such thing as "fail".

5 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

I am thinking particularly of the Child Survival roll (p426 base book). On 1-5%, the child dies; this can be modified by Lifestyle and the Fertility Rune. Now, an autofail of 96%+ would make odds of surviving worse as lifestyle improves, so feel safe in ignoring that. If though 1-5% is automatically a fail, then lifestyle is irrelevant, and Fertility Rune cannot help, only make things worse on a failed roll: so am I right in guessing that this is also not the case?

As with the "Childbirth" section:

Quote

The Childbirth roll may be augmented by the Fertility
Rune, or reduced by the Death Rune (lower the roll by the
amount of a successful augment), as desired by the player.

So on a normal augment success you roll the dice, add 20 to the roll, and check the table. Any successful augment therefore means that the child is guaranteed to survive.

You could houserule that a 1-5 always gives the worst result, an "automatic success for the forces of evil".

It is a bit messy, trying to shoehorn the augment rule onto a results table, but it doesn't bother me too much.

3 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

Duration can be left at base if you are only using spirit magic, a single additional point allows you Rune spells, another if extended. The only time to go for a really high duration is if you muck around with Bless Champion, with day long spirit spells. (Since the 'POW' of any spell is based on the magic points added to the circle, Reflection can then be made near certain! )

A 10-minute Protective Circle isn't going to be useful in many situations. If it's a quick skirmish then the casting time becomes a problem. Maybe if you have a well laid ambush it could work, but it is wasted if the enemy retreats.

And I'm not sure about your logic on Reflection. It only reflects spells that fail to overcome the target's POW, and Protective Circle doesn't affect that at all.

13 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

"Now, how to find a way to make this Circle mobile... <snip>

(actually, this is a non-question, because sorcerers can create their own spells, and so could just make a mobile version of it! One simple change would be to make it Active instead of its current Passive.)

I don't accept the assumption that absolutely everything is possible, or alternatively, easy enough to be worthwhile.

Also remember to take into account the casting time and MP cost of the spells that you lay onto the circle. Sure, if it's rune magic then that's pretty quick, but it requires you to have a mixed sorcery and rune magic group.

It used to be constrained a little by having to multispell the defensive spells with it, so that would chip away at the points of manipulation that you can muster. That's gone now because each spell is independently cast and can even be cast by a different person (the spell says nothing on whether the caster is the only one that can do that, so a straight reading would imply that they are not the only one).

v1.10.1 Beta 3:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iXn3LG-M8Y49Ax62YMSidzELWiqqn96aKwKgP90-3tw

• Added Adventurers from the Lunar Provinces content (ALP) to the JC extensions (needs to be enabled on the Rules tab).
• Changed the way that skills and runes are added up so that copying and pasting no longer breaks the formulae.

Note that where a homeland gives more than one possible rune bonus, you will be given all of them. Delete the ones that are not appropriate.

v1.10.1 Beta 3:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iXn3LG-M8Y49Ax62YMSidzELWiqqn96aKwKgP90-3tw

• Added Adventurers from the Lunar Provinces content (ALP) to the JC extensions (needs to be enabled on the Rules tab).
• Changed the way that skills and runes are added up so that copying and pasting no longer breaks the formulae.

Note that where a homeland gives more than one possible rune bonus, you will be given all of them. Delete the ones that are not appropriate.

9 minutes ago, Peter Hart said:

For Aggar, maybe I needed a second homeland lore reflecting familiarity with the culture and learning of the traditional highland Orlanthi too.

I'll give them Aggar as their main Homeland Lore, and Lunar Provincial at the lower rate.

I don't think I will add the character background text. I just added extra entries for each year that is in your section, with one line for what happened and one line to record benefits.

5 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

As a measure of how unhip I am, I owe my knowledge of their existence to my high-school maths teacher.

In my experience maths teachers often have great musical taste.

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

On a flipper tip, Gbaji karaoke!

  Hide contents

I'm looking through a hole in the sky
I'm seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
I'm getting closer to the end of the line
I'm living easy where the sun doesn't shine

I'm living in a room without any view
I'm living free because the rent's never due
The synonyms of all the things that I've said
Are just the riddles that are built in my head

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This and that, they must be the same
What is legal is just what's real
What I'm given to understand
Is exactly what I steal

I wormed my way into the heart of the crowd
I wormed my way into the heart of the crowd
I was shocked to find what was allowed
I didn't lose myself in the crowd

Shot by both sides
On the run to the outside of everything
Shot by both sides
They must have come to a secret understanding

I vaguely recognized the first, but not the second. Never heard of Magazine. I looked it up, and it's got a really good early Stranglers/Damned vibe. I'll have to check out more of their stuff.

Oh, Buzzcocks/Banshees connections. That makes sense.