Rodney Dangerduck

Requiring a PC to join Ernalda or Orlanth to get basic survival rune magic (I'd include Dismiss here too) makes Donandar a nothing cult. If I'm forced to join Orlanth for Heal, I'm also going to take Teleport and Fly and all their cool stuff that pretty much overwhelms anything Donandar offers. For example, note that Teleport is so much simpler and better than Switch Places 95% of the time. People will play an Orlanthi who might join Donandar for one spell: Truetune. Barely worth writing up the cult. No real roleplaying of a Donandar cultist - just an Orlanthi or Ernaldan who happens to play an instrument.

We generally note the "deed" next to the reputation bonus. I love the idea of tying this into what strangers know about you. Instead of a die roll, I might just have the GM choose one or two deeds for MGF.

The way to fix the Broadsword vs. Short Sword "problem" is to group them, plus scimitar(?), all together into a single, simple category, 1H Sword. If a player wants to be "Roman style" and use a short sword, or "Oriental" and use a jian or katana, let them do so, but treat it as a broadsword in all practical effects - damage and HP. In RQG a slash and an impale do the same damage, so the cut vs. thrust issue is less important as well. As for armor, no idea. I'd love to hear some. Our first GM gamely tried a "you can move faster in lighter armor" rule that nobody except me liked, and it was ignored then dropped. Our group has a lot of hard-core minimax players who are loathe to give up even one point of armor protection. And that really really bad overall. When your Humakti tank has iron plate and Shield 6, the bad guys need to do 25+ damage to be at all dangerous. Which means that a Sorala-type "Sword Sage" gets slaughtered even when she makes a parry!

One of our PC's father is the illegitimate son of Kallai Rockbuster's unnamed brother (we named him Verinos). i.e. his (unknown to most) grandfather is Verinos. His "legal" grandfather is also grandfather to two of the other PCs. We had fun making up the family trees of the cousins.

Good concept. Except "Opposed Elements" is not really an official thing. I vaguely recall some of that in past material, but didn't always make a ton of sense when you got down to it... Especially with Glorantha's unusual "Dark defeated Light" mythology. Reasonable, but it's not clear what spirit spells might be forbidden to Kolat.

Is there any downside to being an "elemental shaman"? Our party shaman is in Kolat and it seems to be all for the better.

Path Watch obviously works in a sphere. Otherwise it is stupid and useless. As for Path Watch working at sea, modern ferry boats take a very clearly defined path almost all the time. Strong winds, seas, or very low tides being exceptions. Of course, they have motors and GPS. Square rigged ships plied the Trade Winds, also taking pretty clear routes back and forth between Europe and the Americas. They might even wait until the proper season. Is this relevant? I have no idea... 🙂

There is no reason to believe or use the artificial gamey hacks in Runemasters. If everybody swings their weapons at the same time, should that also side in bypassing protections?

We ended up "heroically fudging" one or two skills for most all of our PCs to make Rune Levels. My PC spent well over a year, both real time and game time, failing that last check to get her Devotion Vinga up to 90%. In other skills she has been lucky: she sings awesomely like Annie Lennox, but apparently Vinga prefers Alison Krause? A Humakt PC had some troubles raising Death or Truth, and got a special boost. Our Storm Bull mysteriously gained a 90% Understand Herd Beast because the GM thought that was funny (and useful for a 90% cult skill). Our LM candidate recently got 90% boost in Lore <Block> to help qualify. Oh yeah, our candidate Shaman failed his "Put me in coach, I'm worthy to become a Shaman" roll, and we just ignored it. If you look at the starting stats for Vasana, it is absolutely clear that Chaosium "magic" was involved for her to make Rune Lord in roughly a year. So feel free to do a little magic yourself for MGF.

Very intriguing. One thing our gross Humakti player complains about is that, with the normal, full decrease, his PC will drop to 100% and has no bonus to Crit or special. Always maxed at 5% and 20%. With this half rule his chance to Crit or special goes up.

Most of your post is great, just a couple of comments / counters. For that +1000% Sword Trance, I hope you cast Extension, cause 1000MP take 16 minutes to cast. 🙂 (if my math is right) Much more importantly, you'd only be a God for a couple of rounds, cause a basic Dispell Magic 2, with enough MP to blast through your Shield and Countermagic, (say, 20-30MP?) will take it down. That seems like a very bad tradeoff, 20MP vs 1000. Though 2-3 rounds at 1000% might be worth it! Not really. In RQG, they can often snap out of it in a few rounds with Meditation or failing an INT roll. Or, it is also dispellable. It's still a good spell for taking somebody out of action for a couple of rounds. It's especially effective in a moving battle (say, while mounted) as the befuddled victim may get left behind and out of the action for additional time.

I don't see how Shield 1 prevents dispelling on the sword. The opposition will likely put in more than 2 MP (or equivalent rune points) into the dispell. A larger Shield on the sword is interesting and may bamboozle the opponents for a while. And your point about the utility of Multispell is spot on.

His rules, which we players always called "Rayquest", but he called "Fire and Sword", are available on this site: https://basicroleplaying.org/forum/23-fire-and-sword/. I don't think Steve used them but I could be wrong.

@HreshtIronBorne Did nobody in the Lunar garrison cast Mindblast at the Humakti? That's a great spell for GMs, or for PCs fighting awesome 400% Dorastor Chaos, because once it works it works: it can't be dispelled. Just keep trying, with MP to punch through Shield, until you roll lucky on POW v POW.

You are making perfect sense, and, IMO, the responses have been somewhat disappointing. High level RQ, for better or worse (IMO, worse) often becomes a long battle of attrition of magic points and rune points. The bad guy disables your leg, you (or a friend or ally) heal it. They befuddle or demoralize a PC, you dismiss. They put up Shield 4, you Dispell it, then they recast. An unlucky crit kills you, you D.I. If the PCs go in loaded with MP storage, rune points, and potions, and outnumber the monsters, they might be able to grind them down over time. Spells that ignore Countermagic or POW v POW are awesome, for both PCs and the GM. Use them. Some spells or monsters (Undines) attack CON or INT instead of POW. Use them. Spells that benefit the whole party, like Morale, are great. We often give our lead fighters a special heroic ability (not in the the rules, so not a real answer to your question) to boost the other fighters abilities, share spells, etc. This slogfest is, IMO, a good reason to avoid "super runequest", and why I look forward to what @Nick and Chaosium come up with for their hero quest rules. Agree, it's perhaps the 2nd most broken spell, after Lie.

Perhaps not applicable for ZZ opponents, but our GMs, myself included, often put up Reflection to keep the PCs honest (and paranoid). Puts a big damper on "I just cast Sever Spirit". One frequent use of Disruption is to test if the bad guy has up Reflection.

In our games, Krarsht has often been the most "anti-Storm Bull" of the Cults of Terror. Not because of any of their special spells. Which are somewhat silly, as @Jeff and @Nick Brookerightly point out. Because: Krarstkids are really tough They are really sneaky, and with a good GM this can lead Uroxi into trouble. To be sure, a decent GM or good roleplaying player can always get Uroxi into trouble. But Krarsht seems especially designed for this. Our Storm Bull player has yet to cast his Berserker spell. It looks like a dangerous spell to all sides. Personally, my instinct is that Sword/Ax Trance may still be the most effective spell vs. chaos. This should be tested in a couple of sessions, when we will fight chaotic forces trying to free the Devil from The Block. My PC will be very busy singing "Foul Slime..." Hopefully our Sorala character will take good notes for the records. 🙂

RQG Page 219: Medium Shield protects "Shield arm and one other hit location". Large Shield protects "Shield arm and two other hit locations contiguous with each other" So a large shield can protect only 50% or 66% of the centerline, medium at most 50%.

If by "most" you mean "half", agreed. True, a large shield could cover 2/3, but most backgrounds favor medium shield.

A medium shield will protect one arm and, typically, either head or abdomen. That's 25% - 30% of the hit locations. While useful, I'd hardly call that "for the win". Most if the time (70% or more) the dangerous crit or impale will hit an area not covered by the shield.

Climb is an Agility skill, hence Water.

Given that the Lunars are great at "discovering" that some local god is "really" an aspect of one of the Lunar core gods, their answer to the question "Is Etyries worshipped in Esrolia ?" is certainly this: "Yes, but they just don't know it yet."

One thing the Passions might miss on is mirroring actual player role playing, not simplistic "I've got this Rune therefore XXX" roleplaying. My current character, the youngest daughter, is very much a show off / daredevil type. She should have some sort of "Reckless" passion. Another PC consistently roleplays as "Hard Drinker". Various groups can come up with Home Brew rules to deal with this.

My PC, so far, has been lucky with Inspiration rolls. But most of us are much more cautious after witnessing the downsides. I'll usually wait partway through the climactic scene to see if it is "really needed".

I like Runes for casting rune magic, and for gently guiding behavior. I dislike the 80% GM can force rolls, since you really need high runes to cast rune magic semi-reliably. IMO, a game mechanic shouldn't be used to control players. Our GMs seldom enforce the 80% rule. I'm more o.k. with Passions. If you don't want a GM to mess with you, keep them below 80%. In practice, my main complaint is that players often choosing their highest passion instead of a more relevant one. How they "really work" when you augment is above my pay grade. 🙂You bring up many good points.