Rodney Dangerduck

12 hours ago, Arcadiagt5 said:

One house rule I use is to increase the HP of the more expensive shield types. +1 HP / cost step. So well off Orlanthi will run wooden shields at 14 HP, and that does make a difference.

Until the slightly better off Orlanthi obtains an iron broadsword, worth 18HP.

One point I haven't seen mentioned is that augmenting (or "inspiring") your weapon skill affects both attack and parry, further discouraging shield usage.  So a good initiate can parry with a 12 point medium shield at ~100%, or with an 18 point iron broadsword at 120%.  (assuming 100% skill and a normal +20% success on Inspiration).  Unless you've got Earthshield, the decision seems pretty easy, with a few exceptions.

5 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Vasana's DEX starts at 11, that's 10 points of POW to get it to 21.

Most mini-maxers would do most of that as soon as possible, dropping Vasana's POW to around 10-13.

1. She has an Ally Spirit to cast spells for her, compensating for the lower % chance to cast.
2. She resists at 21, so her POW doesn't matter as much for defense.

In any case, the change went from D10 POW lost in RQ2, to 1.  Huge change.

I guess I'm in a bad mood today, but this is a misguided thread.

In RQ2, with few exceptions, your 2nd parry was at minus everything.  Or, arguably, at half chance if you were a Rune Master., in which case your second parry was halved, and your third parry was at minus everything. 

RQG changed it to -20% per parry.  Far far less of a penalty.

Now, one can argue whether that was a good change or not. 

But one should not complain that you want ways to parry even better.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Yes:

Once a Uleria priestess reaches 10 Rune points (as Rune Lords), they can DI every season to start increasing their CHA to 21.

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.

I think one issue is that Rune Priest DI went from "interesting" in RQ2 (with the explicit D.I. rune spell) to basically non-existent in RQG.  Why that change?

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

My players write it on the free Adventurer Reputation Sheet.

Nice.

One great advantage of using a new tab on Phil's computer sheets is that it can sum the numbers for you, and even copy them to the "main" character sheet.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Black Fang does not provide all common rune spells - only Divination, Extension 1, Multispell 1, and Spirit Block. Thunderbird only provides Cloud Call and Thunderbolt.

I'd argue that both of those cults, and many other interesting minor cults, provide nothing.  Until the Gods' book comes out.  😞

We track CHA carefully, e.g. "Found Ernalda's Mirror".  Mainly cause many PCs, mine included, were scrambling to get to 18 to qualify for Rune Lord.

We track Reputation semi-carefully, with maybe some vagueness, e.g. "Smoking Ruins".

Honor, Runes and Passions, depends on the player.  But again, we found that there is often a Passion or Rune that is keeping a PC from making Rune Lord.  Effing Devotion Vinga, grr...  🙂

We simply add another tab to @PhilHibbs wonderful Google character sheet.  Might be something to do for a future update?

I'm thinking Nelat because he is "the Purifying Waters", but kind of guessing here...

That's his real name.  (Well, maybe he's a Russian mole?)  But haven't talked with him in ~40 years.  He and his wife Debbie were active in SCA, so you might want to check there.

1 hour ago, Godlearner said:

Death rune is same as severance. I view it in that context.

So, Fertility Rune is "pro" slavery?

I see Stasis / Mobility and Harmony / Disorder as more relevant, but the Runes are fuzzy and everybody views them differently.

Has any group given the Ally Spirit a gift and geas, if they are from Humakt, Yelmalio, etc.?

We decided to skip it, but some (about half?) of them would be interesting.

Danfive Xaron.  Surprised Nick hasn't mentioned them.

It is more a "learn from your slavery, do correct thoughts and deeds, and free yourself" approach.  Not  Spartacus.

For the record, I don't think that Orlanth is an anti-slavery God. I'm sure that US southern secessionists also felt that "nobody (them Feds) can make me do anything." 

For the record, Rune Lord DI is completely broken.  And, depending on cult, it's not usable only once a season.  An Orlanthi Wind Lord can probably do it nearly once a week on the average with all the associated cults and weekly minor holy days to recover rune points.

We instantly changed the DI rules once we realized just what a crock they were.

Not quite sure where this thread is supposed to lead (as many others have asked) but my advice, echoing @Nick Brooke, is don't have some NPC priest decide.  Let the players decide.

In our campaign, an Orlanth PC became Thane of Apple Lane.  He Hates Lunars.  So, when trying to rebuild the village, get a smith, a shepherd, a backup innkeeper, or whatever, he had limited his options.  No Lunars need apply.

He has moved on to become Clan chief of the Taralings, and my PC, who happens to be his ultra-competitive Vingan sister, became Thane.  She doesn't hate Lunars.  She was tired of Apple Lane falling behind, so she told Argrath, who is also showing (at least in 1627, not so much later) tolerance for Lunars, that skilled non-chaotic ones who were willing to show loyalty were most welcome.  Voila - we not only got a smith, we got an iron smith!  Huzzah!  And as a big side benefit, she can learn Speak New Pelorian, and actually communicate with / spy on / interrogate Lunars as the campaign progresses.  Winner.

Let the party work things out.  Maybe my PC has estranged them?  It will be interesting - when the party Storm Bull heard independently about the Lunar, he came to my PC to warn her "Watchout - I've heard rumors that he's a Lunar".  My PC smiled.

Lore skills have always been a bit off, because they are very slow to increase.  I did a back of the envelope calculation and, as I recall, Sorala (the Lhankor Mhy RQG pregen) should be about 30 years old to have those skill levels.

We allow for normal checks, with GM permission.  Kind of like the Ride skill increase noted by Bill.

Also, the ceremony is presumably when any divine blessing or presence occurs.

On 10/3/2022 at 9:04 AM, svensson said:

Coyote.

Trickster, teacher, and fool all in one.

Here is the Pacific Northwest that's Raven.  But same idea.

2 hours ago, JRE said:

I at least propose several magical and alchemical anticonceptive methods in Glorantha

A lot of fan material, even official stuff, seems to assume this.  Would be good to have something more official, whether a spell, an herb, or as @French Desperate WindChild suggests, an innate ability.

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

But it also has a high adult death rate due to war, famine, spirits, monsters, etc

Assuming that one agrees with your argument, (I have reservations) shouldn't a PC have more than a D6-1 siblings?  An average of 3.5, some of whom may have died, is a very low rate of fertility and pregnancy compared to historical Earth.  With some access to Bless Pregnancy, that just 2-3 pregnancies.  Hardly lots of sex to preserve the species.

Nicely done overall, very useful and enlightening.

I do question one of Claudia's theses, that Ernaldan "rites also include quite a bit of sex as a healthy community requires a steady supply of children.  Compared to Earth, Glorantha has very little infant (and maternal) mortality and disease.  Arguably, there is much less need for Gloranthan women to have lots of kids to maintain the population.  This has been discussed on BRP.

On 10/3/2022 at 4:16 AM, mfbrandi said:

Except, of course, that he fed Orlanth to Wakboth and declared that “The world will remain as it is now, without interference from any god or goddess.” (The grand declaration rather undercuts the idea that he was betrayed by Trickster.) So maybe he is a good human hero — a liberator — but not such a great Orlanthi, even if he does act like Orlanth. Would a great Christian hero feed their god to their devil? I like to think so, but …

So there has got to be something to say about Argrath. He is not totally boring.

Thank you for reminding me of this end.  It makes me like Argrath a lot more! 

And gives some support to my sometimes Gloranthan god cynical view that not all characters and Heroes need be fanatic Devotion automatons, (note - I have run some who are), not every 16 year old made a perfect choice of cult, and maybe there are some sane Babs Gor, and some Humakti who want to grow old and die in their sleep.

Since RQG made rune spells reusable, an uninitiated PC would be at a huge disadvantage.  You have to really really stretch to come up with any justification.  Or be running an unusual campaign.

11 hours ago, Eff said:

Conversely, if we accept his opposition to Gbaji/the Red Goddess as a positive, his cooperation with the servants and idolators of Gbaji becomes a negative, doesn't it? 

Maybe everybody is our group is misreading the Argrath material, but we all interpret it as Argrath using large amounts of quick and dirty Illumination to create his powerful new forces.  And not "sometime in the far future", but early, circa 1626.  This is very problematic from both an Orlanth and an Arkat perspective.

The Gloranthan PCs, who "don't know much" about illumination, can ignore it for now, but their Earthly humans, who have read Cults of Terror (and more), are very skeptical of Argrath.  He's taking dangerous shortcuts, hard to reconcile as a "good" Orlanth hero.  

Are we misreading the material?

16 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I also grew up thinking that the Greeks didn’t see the Olympians as moral exemplars — that is why I liked the Greek myths

As did I!  On a separate thread, I push for "normal" characters to be heroes.  Players who don't buy 100% into "Honor and Death" or "Hate Oathbreakers" or "By the Light" because they realize, perhaps with bad experience, that Humakt, Babs Gor and Yelmalio are imperfect role models.

Arguably, Glorantha is different than Greece.  Which means comparing Argrath to Achilles is problematic.

Athena advised Odysseus and/or provided him with many of his tricks and disguises.