Dragon

"the handling of >100% skills is per-opposed rolls." contradicts p142 Roleplaying in Glorantha "Opposed rolls are not used to resolve melee combat." I was using an example where the Tranced person was 100% in natural skill and +100 skill due to magic, so they could split (though my 150/50 split would be unthinkable). And that splitting caused them to be unable in most cases to reduce the opponents skill much. My intent was specifically to demonstrate that the Attack portion was not where the true abuse lies, as the Axe Sister/Sword Lord could only nerf one or two opponents, not 3+. Parry is where the abuse lies. Don't even suggest that the Weapon Trance applies the addition AFTER splitting in this thread to each attack, as it makes this 'problem spell' even more of a problem. This thread is about the 'problem rune spells', which is what we are still discussing. I suggested a minor fix which is that the skill over 100 only affects one opponent rather than every opponent (or you can divide it a bit) per round. Which is well within the RAW, with interpretation as I pointed out. I kept saying "YGMV". If you don't want my fix, don't use it. @Akhorhil (sorry, my copy/paste keeps making an entire URL. What are the keystrokes to linking a poster reference in this forum?) can keep complaining about how Weapon Trance is a problem. Note: you said 'whatever works at your table' so you are saying the same thing I am saying in this paragraph and have said since I entered this discussion. I would love to see the revised Weapon Trance rules. At the moment all I really got from Jeff's implication is that it it some kind of Trance (e.g. you don't want to Extension your Weapon Trance because you will die of thirst) and that you are somehow fixated on using that weapon. I figure maybe, just maybe, Jeff and company are reviewing these discussions to decide how to describe the rules in more detail. Oh, and I will keep my opinion that Babeester Gor is likely the best 'pure' fighter cult. Resurrect possible, egregious munchkinery, Heal Body, etc.. Humakti are a close second, with maybe Gifts/Geases giving them as much of a lift as being able to be resurrected does to the BG.

My point in mentioning the splitting is that you can ATTACK only one person with one weapon at that skill. So you could only reduce the aprry skill of one, not multiple opponents, without splitting. And the splitting reduces your attack skill. So you could not reduce the parry chance of more than one opponent per weapon, in most cases. And in those cases, it wouldn't ever be by your original skill over 100. Hence the parry part of the equation is where the true abuse is found. IMHO it does seem right. The Humakti's vastly better sword skill mesmerizes the Wind Lord and makes him ignore other attackers in the vain chance to protect himself against this obviously deadly weapon master, the Wind Lord still gets 5% parry against everyone. It seems less of an abuse than letting the Humakti parry e.g. eight 100 skill attackers, reducing each attack by 100, 80, 60, 40, 20, 0, 0, 0, and able to parry at 200 to 60%. Which keeps him alive to take out one of those 8 every round. Okay, eight is every direction around him in, so some would be attacking from behind without him being able to parry. YGMV.

I always viewed that as physical armor doesn't help, including 'magical' armor like enchanted iron. Magical armor from spells does. So Shield and Protect and similar spells (e.g. Shield of Darkness) will reduce damage from Lightning. Woad does reduce damage from Lightning. IMHO.

So, you don't think RAW "Personal safety and all but the strongest loyalties are forgotten in the rage to destroy" means you will attack friends. Maybe not the strongest loyalty friend, but the rest seem fair game. As GM, I would have the Berserk attack friends until he rolls under some Passion, e.g. Loyalty(Kheldon), Devotion. By Eurmal's lopsided balls, you know he is Berserk, cast Dispel Magic 4 with 2 boosted magic points! Or maybe Dismiss Magic 2 + 2 MP (SR 2 rather than SR6+DXSR). Sure, he knows the enemies are his first priority, but that is about it.

You don't even need to dual-wield. If you have broadsword and large shield before you entered Sword Trance, you can still parry with the one handed sword. See Jeff's reply somewhere about being able to parry even with a one handed weapon, so dual-wielding you can attack twice (without splitting) and still parry with either one of them. Yes, the iron broadsword has more hit points than a large shield. But not more than any shield with Earth Shield cast upon it, by a wide margin. 🙂

Yes, RAW do not state you cannot use a shield, the shield just doesn't get the added skill. Firing missiles from a two handed bow not meant to parry is not a good analogy to how sword/shield or sword will be written in the new Sword Trance. Nor Axe Trance. Still a BG Axe Sister using dagger-axe under Axe Trance would be egregious munchkinery under the current and expected future rules. I just don't see it as quite as ridiculous munchkinery as some others in this forum. Clarification to Akhôrahil: "Anyone you attack will have their parry/dodge reduced." At 200%, this will clearly be one opponent. Because if you attack two, you split, attack two opponents at 100%, and thus take nothing away from their parry skills (Fine, you could split 150/50 and take 50% from the first opponent). If you X Trance much higher, sure you could reduce multiple opponents parry/dodge - but never the full amount to every opponent. "Anyone who attacks you will have their attack reduced (but with less and less as the -20% penalty kicks in)." Still don't see that in RAW. If you parry the first opponent, you reduce HIS parry/dodge by the amount over 100%, which reduces your remaining parry by that amount. You then get to parry the remaining opponents at 100% minus 20% for each additional parry. From RAW: "If both combatants have combat skills of greater than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced by the amount the highest skill is above 100%. Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150% broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130% medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at 100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80%." Thus the Sword Lord is at 100% for the rest of that round. I don't see why that doesn't carry over to the previous bullet example of the troll being reduced to 55%, and so the adventurer is reduced to 100%. Meaning, they don't still have skill over 100 to affect others in the same melee. I agree that RAW for that specific bullet (1st bullet point under Combat with Skills Above 100% to be specific), is vague. But the 2nd bullet clarifies it well. After the first reduction of an opponent's skill, you are no longer over 100. With the proviso that I would let the highly skilled choose how to allocate their <100 to each of their opponents, e.g. Axe Sister facing 5 trollkin with spears has 350 skill with Trance using a dagger-axe, and decides to reduce each trollkin attack by 50, getting her to 100. That way she reduces their chance to critical, and nothing else is getting through her armor, even if she misses the 40% or 20% parry. I am suggesting you GMs use this clarification to reduce the OP affects.

Never discount the Babeester Gor. She has Axe Trance, could have a dagger-axe (3d6), with Slash added; or she could have a battle axe (d8+2), Axe Trance, Slash (lets say three to ensure spirits die fast), and a shield with Earth Shield to absorb everything that can hit her after the massive skill decrease. A Babeester Gor can match a Humakti pretty evenly. Though she doesn't get Morale. She does get Heal Body from Ernalda. YGMV, but I tend to go with Heal Body as preferred. Might take a little more RPs for Slash vs Truesword, but the high end is much higher. Note: It seems to me that many posters are suggesting that a Humakti/BG with skill of 200% after X Trance will decrease the skill of every combatant by 100%. When I read the rules, I believe it means the one combatant they are concentrating upon. From page 201 "the opposing skill is reduced by the amount that the adventurer's skill is above 100%'. Next bullet on p202: 'If both combatants have combat skills...'. So if you send your Tranced Humakti/BG or Berserk BG/Uroxi with skills around 200% against 5 opponents with skills around 75%, the other 4 opponents are going to have full skills, and presumably some will take positions behind the adventurer so he cannot parry (yep affects the Earth Shield too). The Berserk isn't going to be parrying anyway. That does considerably reduce the overwhelming power of X Trance and Berserk. Don't leave them without backup. That Babeester Gor with Earth Shield doesn't want any enemies behind her. Unfortunately, her shield skill isn't boosted by the Axe Trance, where it would be wielding the dagger-axe. I also make it an option. That is, the player with skill of 140% fighting another with 100%, may choose to keep his 140 skill for the 7% crit and 28% special rather than 5/20. As he will be parrying at the same levels (assuming 2H), he can probably parry the opponent. And if the Chaos beast is sporting +16 chaotic skin, full iron plate, and 4 points of Shield, he may just want that critical! He has increased his critical chance 40%. I know my main character in RQ2 (with 215% bastard sword after her first 4 years) chose that option against certain enemies. Yes, in my examples I tend to use 200% after Trance, because we rarely had more than a round to prepare or launch missiles. YGMV. The Allied Spirit casts the Earth Shield/Vigor and then Slash/Strength, from the Axe Sister's RPs and stored MPs. Then prepares to cast Heal Body on SR 12 of every future round, cancelling it if not needed. But you could rule that the Allied Spirit is also affected by Axe Trance, and thus cannot cast Strength (The Earth Shield/Vigor goes off before the Axe Trance takes effect - well Vigor may be close) or use Heal Body. Fun times!

I always figured this was why you have an Eurmal in your party to cast a Illusory sight of the enemy and pretend to attack the befuddled enemies. (pretend meaning it has no Illusory Substance). With a couple Befuddled enemies getting attacked by the illusion, you quickly have all the e.g scorpion men attacking each other. Or maybe red-cloaked Lunar soldiers. And yes, in my Glorantha, the Befuddled get their full Skill to attack in those second, and later, rounds.

I would be interested in editing, proofreading, mechanics creation, magic item creation, general critique, playtesting. I do a lot of writing, editing, and proofreading in my RL job. It would be so much better to do it to subjects I enjoy. Bring it on!

When I originally played RQ2, my dabbling alchemist asked the GM if I could learn to make Bases as well as Acids. He allowed it. I then made Base (potency 10) where the flasks were from acid-affecting materials and threw them at gorps. I would usually comment about the 'energetic reactions' that ensued. Needless to say we rarely worried about gorp after that. Even works under water! Though...we did encounter many more gorps with Leap 10 meters or +movement rate chaotic features so I couldn't get them to all explode before they got within 3 meters. When I began discussing how to drop a HUGE barrel of Base into the gaping maw of the Crimson Bat with my fellow adventurers, the GM began to get concerned. I wasn't certain how to guess when the Bat would use acid breath though. Because if it used the other attacks, it may just disappear into the Chaotic Void of its stomach without exploding to stomach acid. But if it was using Acid Breath when the Base hit the jaw...that would do some real damage to it and everything nearby.

Indeed, vampires have CHA, so a vampire with CHA 21 (racial max for a former human) and no POW would inflict 1d6 in spirit combat. Or 1d4 by Touch attack (which also increases the vampires MP by the roll). So a smart vampire would choose Touch attacks most often. In my game I would not require the vampire to make a Concentration roll for that attack. They would need a Concentration roll if they wanted to attack the spirit with a weapon with e.g. Boon of Kargan Tor. My players have not battled a vampire yet. I like the idea of using current MP to aid their Spirit Combat Damage. I took the Disease spirits rules to mean they inflict Spirit Combat Damage as well as a level of disease on the same roll 'that is not successfully defended'. They will continue to engage the same target until they have brought the level of the disease higher, 'next degree version of a previous infection'. and it states 'chronic' is the threshold to find new victims. The question is 'chronic'. Page 154 of RiG says the levels are (in Degrees of Illness table): Mild, Acute, Serious, Terminal. But in the description in Thunder Lung implies 'chronic' is the second level and 'acute' is the third level. Clear misstatement somewhere, as the degree is not consistent. Therefore I am not certain of the trigger for disease spirits to seek a new target. I seem to recall RQ2/3 had 'chronic' as the third level (mild, acute, chronic, terminal). But I don't have those books handy while writing this. Thanks everyone. My players were in Snake Pipe Hollow battling broos and disease spirits from Fil-ith the Disease Master (I own both RQ2 and RQ3 versions). I will offer them a new Passion of Hate Disease if they want. Since the Ernalda priestesses sent them on the quest for the statue, the priestess will cast Restore Health once they get back. Restore Health is so much better in RQ:G than RQ3. No permanent POW loss.

In RQ:G, the Spirit Combat Damage chart does not mention any exceptions. It is always POW+CHA. I was wondering how this would affect Vampires and Disease Spirits. Vampires have no POW, so when engaged by a ghost, they would do little damage. A shaman with 2 or 3 ghosts with a couple points of spirit screen on each could trounce a vampire pretty easily. (with Spell Barrage, one round of Spirit Screen casts and one round of Command Ghost). While the vampire could presumably use its Touch attack to steal back 1d4 MP, it would be losing them at much higher rates. Should vampires get to add their racial maximum POW (their effective MP limit)? I presume the vampire engaged in spirit combat would have to roll Concentration to use Touch attack rather than Spirit Combat to steal MP. Disease spirits and similar spirits (passion, healing) likewise end up with low damage due to the lack of CHA. Is this intended, where a POW 24 disease spirit only does 1d6 MP damage when it wins normally? (Note: Passion is a Spirit Power, so they may have CHA in some cases.)