Rodney Dangerduck

3 minutes ago, Thaz said:

Also depends if your character is at all interested in honour. My Storm Bull isnt. You will fight me tomorrow at the ....<smack crunch> 

 

Even if your character is interested in honour, note that it is a passion that, according to Jeff et. al.,  is supposed to fluctuate.  Killing an hated "unarmed" opponent in the heat of battle happens, take the hit.  We aren't Paladins.

Argrath deals with a lot of nasty dishonorable types, yet is still noted for his high honour.  In between his "lapses" (which he deems necessary to defeat the Lunars) he also does a lot of honorable deeds.  That's why he is "approved" by the honorable Vasana.

On 4/28/2020 at 6:49 AM, Tindalos said:

On 4/28/2020 at 6:06 AM, Joerg said:

What happens when different earth temples disagree about the validity of those stones? Where does Greenstone trump Clearwine, and vice versa?

I imagine that's where Divination comes in. The temples work together to ask the goddess, with prayers to help them accept her judgement.

 

That's one option.  And a good one for minor disputes.

But real history, such as Rome vs. Byzantium, Sunni vs. Shia, Rome vs. Henry VIII, etc. shows another, more likely, and more MGF option for major disputes.

To clarify, "non-critical" means "non-time-critical", I'm willing to retry next round.

Say, in one minute I'm trying to impress Kallyr with my Song, which is important, so I cast Charisma ahead of time.  Might try Illusion **once** to get a cheapie check, if that fails, then go with a much higher Fertility.

Yes, it's a bit of grubbing for checks.  I confess.

On 4/29/2020 at 8:31 PM, GAZZA said:

Or just to get the tick on your Rune, to be honest.

In a non-critical situation I will sometimes try my weaker Rune (once) to cast a rune spell to try to get a check.

Are there RQ:G rules for doing non-lethal damage?  Whacking the zealous peasant with a pitchfork with the side of your sword to do "stun" damage.  I vaguely recall that from RQ2. 

Easy enough for a GM to allow anyway.  Seems like an honorable alternative.

On 4/22/2020 at 11:16 AM, Jeff said:

The partisans of Kallyr Starbrow generally claim she was the architect of the Dragonrise and can prove it. The partisans of Argrath claim he was the architect of the Dragonrise and can prove it. Kallyr was present at the Dragonrise, but Argrath is known to be able to speak with dragons, shamans claim he is protected by a powerful draconic spirit, and he taught people Left-Handed magic.  So take your pick

My pick is that one, or possibly both, of Sartar's Great Leaders are actually preening, narcissistic liars.  Isn't this supposed to be a fantasy game?  🙂

In our group's mythology, the Curse was caused when the "Claw of Gbaji" wounded Kygor Lytor at The Battle of Night and Day.  If one could somehow obtain the Claw, that would be a good start.  It came up in one of our stranger campaigns involving a "Rune Chef" competition, which was essentially "Extreme Iron Chef".

8 hours ago, g33k said:

But I think all Lunars are more-or-less required to be accepting of Chaos

Lunar citizens are required to tell the authorities that they are accepting of "Lunar certified as o.k." chaos.  Whether they actually accept it deep in their hearts???

How many Christians do you think really believe everything in the Nicean Creed?

Shields (and weapons) break so often that there must be a way to recreate a focus.

16 hours ago, metcalph said:

The cults must be compatible according to the RQG rules.  Since both are hostile to each other, the chances are slim.

We should wait for GoG for any final decision.  It's unlikely, but the more "honorable" cults and less "chaos focused" like YT or AJ might achieve marginal compatibility.

Combat is lethal.  To be honest, I think crits play too large of a roll (sic).  Too many "climactic" duels are decided on the first round with a crit.  But don't have a great idea how to fix that.  And I think I'm in the minority regarding crits.

There are a couple of significant changes in melee from RQ2.  Could you address the design thoughts to change these?

1. Weapon parry is no longer a separate skill.  This makes 2H weapons (or 2 1H weapons) much more efficient in terms of "skill tax" and using augments.  e.g. Using Storm to augment your sword augments both attack and parry if using 2H sword, but only your attack if using 1H sword and shield.
2. One can parry additional attacks at -20%.  This makes "ganging up on" a tough opponent less useful.

For the record, I like change #2 and not so sure on #1.

Thanks @Nick Brooke That's the quickest customer service ever!

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

better bookmarks than some professionally-produced RPG corebooks

You have achieved it.  The bookmarks are a big help.  I am really looking forward to an in-depth read of Rough Guide to Glamour, and now it is near perfect.  🙂

My apologies for the tone of the original post.

On 3/22/2020 at 12:13 AM, Shiningbrow said:

I've never seen "Orlanthi" in any English dictionary

It is clearly an "English" style word.  If we discovered a previously unknown tribe in the Amazon that called their lands "Orlanth", or worshipped the great god "Orlanth", we would likely call that tribe "Orlanthi".

We call people who worship Christ "Christians".  Those who follow the teachings of Mohammed are called Mohammedans.  Zoroastrians are followers of the teachings of Zoroaster. 

Just what do you propose to call the people who worship Orlanth?  (Maybe "Orlanthian" fits better, but that's no real difference)

2 hours ago, smiorgan said:

You actually you have too look-up only the less frequent outcomes.  Like, say, special parry on a critical attack

If the characters are around 100%, they special or crit 20% of the time.  Your "less frequent" still happens 4% for each attack/parry roll.  Even in a normal human vs. normal human, there are two pairs of rolls, so an 8% chance of something weird.  Now, assume 5 participants on each side.  That's (with not-completely accurate math) a 40% chance of something "less frequent" happening.  You end up consulting the "special rules sheet" roughly every other round. 

Add in Scorpion men or other beasts with multiple attacks vs. humans making multiple parries...

Admittedly, our group is fairly new to RQG (after a very long time away from RQ2) so we are still stale on exactly how specials and crits work against even normal parries.  So we end up checking the "less frequent" rules most every round.

As for those proposing no parry rolls need be made against missed attacks, that really cuts down the effectiveness of characters with Two-handed weapons and a high Dodge or Parry.  A Humakti with a Greatsword and Sword Trance will be very unhappy.

I'm finding the rules even more complex than RQ2, which was already too complex.  One reason we went to Fire and Sword.

Just look at all the super-long discussions of the subtleties of what happens on a crit (vs. normal parry), when the real answer is essentially "roll hit location and it's gone".
 

Here's what you are supposed to track

Attack:  There are 8 possibilities: miss, hit, special crush, special slash, special impale, crit crush, crit slash, crit impale

Parry: the exact same 8 possibilities

That's 8*8 = 64 different sets of rules you need to know!

That's a bit much, don't you think?  Then factor in Strike Ranks, Multiple Parries, Skills over 100%...

Normally don't post these here, but my group really liked this effort and though I should.  Hope you enjoy.

My character, a Vingan and Kallyr fan-girl, is walking to the Hill of Orlanth VIctorious to watch and cheer on Kallyr's great Heroquest of Sea Season 1626.  She is an excellent singer, and composed this entirely original (not) song along the way.

I came upon a Child of Wind
He was flying along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on up to Orlanth's Hill
I'm going to join in a Lightbringer's Quest
follow steps of the great Harmast
I'm going to try an' get my soul free
She is Starbrow
She is golden
And we've got to get ourselves
To our Queen's garden

Then can I walk beside you
I was searching for my lost hog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who l am
But you know life is for learning
She is Starbrow
She is golden
And we've got to get ourselves
To our Queen's garden

By the time we reached Victorious
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the dragons
Orlanth's Ring up in the sky
And Bats were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
She is Starbrow
Queen of Sartar and Kheldon
She is golden
Caught in the Spider's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
To our Queen's garden

3 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

The physical attack is resolved normally, but opposed by the spirit’s Spirit Combat skill.

Interesting.  This implies that the spirit can "Dodge" the Humakhi with Truesword.  I like it!  Otherwise a couple of swordsmen with Truesword, Bladesharp, or iron are just too tough.

13 hours ago, Thaz said:

was starting over with RQG I would be tempted to start at Griffin Mountain

I love the book, was one of the playtesters, and it could be a good intro.  But for visiting Sartarites or Balazarings?

The former has the disadvantage (and, arguably, the advantage) that you don't get aided by / annoyed by all the cultural and religious tie ins and requirements.  Yes, they are nice and Gloranthan, but sometimes a distraction to a beginning player trying to grok Glorantha.

The latter has the disadvantage that it may be hard to follow up with the "standard" campaign stuff.  Which is overwhelmingly Ernaldan in theme.  (IMO, too much, but that's for another thread).  A quick search of the Griffin Mountain PDF founds zero matches for "ernalda".  😞

You Know Nothing, Bill Snow...   🙂

9 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

from the epic Yolanelathon

Looking forward to this!  She featured very prominently in all of our campaigns, on both sides of the conflicts.

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Have the ancestor refuse, and not raise their hands.

After my character's experience, this is exactly what we did for two other PCs to "save" them.

I don't want to ask / comment on the tribal edit thread because I think we may return to the Smoking Ruins, but we did go there and retrieve the super-item.  And, along the way, my character "did the dance" and swapped with her mom.  Another PC swapped too.

Within literally 10 seconds we ruled that the other PC did not swap his Storm Bull.  End of story.

My mom is actually another Vingan, and I'm a very flexible player, so I considered it.  (I've had previous non-chaotic Lunar characters reborn out of the Sea of Chaos!)  But soon realized that a caring parent would not accept the switch and would do everything within their power to restore their child.  Fortunately, our GM (and we) were creative, we worked out a cool way to de-swap, and it actually worked out great.

But for most it would be a disaster.  I think many players would just quit.  Never to return.

Given that the warnings were given by a surly ghost (who easily could have added why) and a metagaming by the GM "are you sure?", I sincerely believe that almost any proper roleplaying character would do the accidental swap.  In our group, the PCs who didn't were either helping the trollkin, or there was one Humakhti who had cult ghost / undead issues.

There were no "saves", either some POW v POW thing, trying to Dodge, whatever.  Just "you lose".

I'm surely biased cause I was a victim, but, in my opinion, this aspect of the scenario, as written, is one of the worst ideas of all time.  The other players didn't like it either.

7 hours ago, Thaz said:

Attempts to disarm him didn't work due to high parry specials and in fact parrying a natural weapons was highly effective in taking out extra opponents

Thanks for the report, nice to see how others did.  (In our Apple Lane battle we had a couple of titanic, cinematic cavalry charges with much shattering of shields)

So, despite your PCs badly losing the recon war, the Sword Trance proved highly effective, arguably even decisive?  And tricky to dispel. 

One of my earlier posts I noted how awesome it was against natural weapons, you support that.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

in my opinion, if a PC or NPC's rune tattoos and clan markings are too small to be seen at a reasonable distance, then that just means they need to make them bigger and clearer

If you assume that the torso is covered by clothes or armor, there's a limit to the size of heads and arms.  At a reasonable distance (over 100 meters before a battle starts) the only area large enough would be your shield.  Or something like a Japanese Nabori.

Or there needs to be more use of Farsee before a battle.

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Is there anything to say that hasn't already been said, or are we all just re-stating our opinions?

I tried to present some facts on what a normal person could see at what distance.  Car license plates can be read at 20 meters.  Most runes (at least tats) seem to be no larger than them.  Come to your own conclusions.