Dragon

8 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

In our Glorantha the Healing Enhancing and Spell Enhancing Crystals ALWAYS affect their respective spells as long as they are attuned.

A Healing Enhancing 4 crystal would double any healing spells cast, up to its POW of 4.

Making Heal 1 into 2,

Heal 2 into 4,

Heal 3 into Heal 6,

and Heal 4 into Heal 8.

Any further points of Heal would only have 4 additional levels, Heal 6 would cast as Heal 10. 

 

All of the bonus comes from the crystals, doesn't even cost extra MPs. 

 

That is how we have played them anyways. 

Also how we play it. One more benefit in our game, the 'extra' effect takes no strike ranks. So casting Heal 4 and getting 8 points takes DXSR+3.

Because the caster only provided 4 MPs.

The same for Power Enhancing crystals and Spell Strengthening crystals.

I don't know if that is canon, but is that has always been our interpretation.

I do think a very valuable spell for an assistant shaman would be Distraction. Too bad Vishi doesn't have it yet. Waha offers it.

Distraction is very useful to pull dangerous spirits from other party members to the one person who is best equipped to fight them. It increases the chance he can get Spirit Combat skill checks and POW gains.

5 hours ago, Sid Vicarious said:

On these boards Satire is devoutly worshipped.

I was devoted to Satire before I learned about Glorantha.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I imagine that if you don’t specific a material, you get some kind of ”default” option. When I asked, got a yes on (unenchanted) Iron, no on gunpowder. Presumably you can’t generate magic, so I imagine enchanted iron is out. Poison is explicitly in (weirdly, without even requiring Substance), and reasonably you can make acid, limited by Substance level. I personally think Antivenom should be symmetrical with Poison, which would make Hallucinated antivenom super useful. I would certainly allow Illusory and Hallucinary Hazia, which certainly offers options. Will illusory food with Substance nourish? What if it’s extended to 24 hours?

I imagine you could make trolls really unhappy with 5 kg worth of very fine iron filings that you can move around at will…

Agreed. If you could generate magic, Illusory Substance a small item with a Lightning 20 matrix on it. Nope, not going to happen. On the other hand, if someone had an enchanted iron broadsword back in the inn, I might let them Illusory Substance that particular sword for its normal effects while they are in a prison cell.

Would an Illusory cloud of poison (e.g. Walktapi gas) be Illusory Taste or Illusory Smell. Illusory Smell states POT 4 forces a CON x2 or nausea. But allowing a gas cloud that inflicts 1D6 per point of potency may work as well. With Taste, the victim needs to consume it. With Smell, the victim can avoid it by not breathing, e.g. asphyxiation rules. Without Illusory Motion, the cloud won't chase them.

I agree that Antivenom (Antivenin) is quite possible and super useful. You can match the antidote to the opponent's venom/poison rather than hoping for half effectiveness.

Illusory food eaten within the duration should nourish. The people of Glorantha don't understand digestion fully.

I would GM that if your character is completely unfamiliar with a substance, you cannot properly make it via Illusory spells. Like Gunpowder, radio, or a cloud of iron filings. Depends on the justification given.

Lots to think about, but it all comes down to if the GM allows.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I would even assume that it’s part of Redsmithing (or at least inherited at half chance) to know how to make handles (in wood, bone, horn and/or leather) for swords, as well as to socket a spearhead with a wooden shaft (although that shaft itself is likely Woodworking).

Agreed, with the addition that a redsmith would know how to make a wooden haft for axes, spears, etc. and wooden grips for swords. The redsmith could alternately purchase the hafts, especially for more decorative ones, from woodworkers if one was available. My limited understanding is it is a 'haft' until the tool/weapon is attached, then some of them become 'shaft' (longer ones). 

They would need Craft/Woodworking to know how to make tongue and groove, mortise and tenon, or dovetail joints. So Woodworking for furniture or anything other than a haft or grip.

23 hours ago, Kränted Powers said:

How do you award players for good roleplaying? or good ideas?

For good ideas, I usually grant an experience check in a related Lore or other skill. e.g. a good idea about how to use a plant would grant a Plant Lore check (I know it has no check box), a good idea figuring out the NPC is lying gets an Insight check.

Good roleplaying may get an award at the next holiness check. e.g. The Babeestor Gor remembered a situation where the goddess did X; The PC gets to note +5 on next Worship(BGor) check, next 'convince the examiners', or allied spirit check. They need to write that down, because it may be a while before they use it.

38 minutes ago, Kloster said:

It would protect as 'Protection' or 'Countermagic' would. Ignite is a spell, so the Countermagic would protect from the effects. For Vomit Acid, if you speak of the spell, it counts, if you speak of the Chaos ability, it shouldn't.

Vomit Acid (Chaos Feature) vs Shield: My thought was that the acid strikes the person's Shield spell first, as though the Shield was magical armor. Once the Potency of the Acid exceeds that, it dissolves the armor at 1:1, then affects hit points of the person. So, in effect, Shield spell does protect the armor. Shield protects against the Shatter spell via its Countermagic effect instead, even if the targeted weapon has no spirit.

One odd quirk is that it appears Lightning vs Shield can have both the Countermagic and Protection apply. If a target has Shield 2, a Lightning 1 or 2 fails. A Lightning 3 inflicts 3d6 damage, which is reduced by four due to the Shield (as the spell specifies 'but spells that defend against physical attacks are effective').

** Added missing )

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

This would appear to merit mention over on the W&E "Corrections" thread...

Excellent point. Done.

In RQG W&E page:

"Lead (na-metal) is soft and pliable. It has half-again the ENC of bronze. Even in its unenchanted form, this soft, dull metal neither clanks or reflects, so lead armor never
detracts from the user’s Stealth skills. Lead formed into crushing weapons (only) does +2 damage. Thus, a heavy mace made of enchanted lead does 1D10+4 damage. A war maul does 2D8+2."

The bolded example does imply you only get the +2 damage from enchanted lead. But it should have been one sentence earlier. And the second example makes it unclear again.

Note also that 'war maul' is not in the Melee Weapons table, but 'maul' is. Note that Mace, Heavy in the Melee Weapons table does d8+2, not d10+2 (without the Enchanted Lead bonus).

Suggestion:

"Lead (na-metal) is soft and pliable. It has half-again the ENC of bronze. Even in its unenchanted form, this soft, dull metal neither clanks or reflects, so lead armor never detracts from the user’s Stealth skills. Enchanted Lead has the ENC of bronze. Enchanted Lead formed into crushing weapons (only) does +2 damage. Thus, a heavy mace made of enchanted lead does 1D8+4 damage. An enchanted maul does 2D8+2."

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Uncertain from the text whether you get +2 damage from unenchanted lead? It seems like it would be overpowered, perhaps especially for slings.

In RQG W&E the example does imply you only get the +2 damage from enchanted lead. But it should have been one sentence earlier. And the second example makes it unclear again.

"Lead (na-metal) is soft and pliable. It has half-again the ENC of bronze. Even in its unenchanted form, this soft, dull metal neither clanks or reflects, so lead armor never
detracts from the user’s Stealth skills. Lead formed into crushing weapons (only) does +2 damage. Thus, a heavy mace made of enchanted lead does 1D10+4 damage. A war maul does 2D8+2."

2 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

At some point, it might make sense to allow resolving the checks at downtime after an individual adventure, though. Perhaps have a mid-season checkpoint, or just hand one out to the players when it feels called-for? It won’t unbalance the game, merely speed up progression. 

Indeed. The GM can always allow experience checks when it makes sense in their game. Don't fret whether the rules allow it. Our resident Chaosium staff have also said this is acceptable.

4 hours ago, Ladygolem said:

Two of the Illumination abilities in Cult Compendium (I assume the same is true in the original Cults of Terror ) are "Immunity to Detect Chaos/Law skills" and "immunity to Detect Chaos/Law spells". I assume Detect Chaos (skill) is now Sense Chaos, but I haven't seen any mention of a Detect or Sense Law in any RQ:G product. What's the current equivalent of these? Detect Honor? That doesn't quite seem right.

I recall a certain classic RQ scenario having a matrix for Detect Chaos as a spirit magic spell that took 4 magic points. I would welcome its return, as a player. For when Sense Chaos fails or worse, fumbles while standing next to the Ernalda High Priestess.

3 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Maybe a greatsword weight more than 6 kilos, probably does come to think of it, so you'd need 2 points.

I am not familiar with the weight of bronze greatsword. In all the museums I have visited, bronze weapons displayed were generally shorter. But this isn't Glorantha and metals don't have exactly the same properties or limits.

That said, the vast majority of historical iron or steel greatswords I have seen were around 8 lb to 8lb 8 oz, so just under 4 kg of mass. Back in college a friend said that the weight listed in AD&D (version 1) was about right at 25 lbs. His evidence was that he toured West Point and saw one in a display case. He asked the student tour guide who said 'about 25 pounds'. I thought that was excessive. So I started checking into it in lots of history texts, catalogs of 'museum-quality' replicas, and museums. Nearly every single one I found from a legitimate source was under 4 kg. There were a couple outliers at 2 kg and 5 kg. And they were usually commented as outliers in the texts.

Moral of the story: don't trust student tour guides when you ask them something outside their training. Ask an expert (I do not count myself as an expert in sword metallurgy - I just recall what they said). There are lots of references the World Wide Web provides these days. Just check that the source should be reliable, e.g. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1 hour ago, Alex said:

The RQGCB omits -- to my confusion and shame! -- the RBM addition about using the Substance as a weapon, but I dunno if there's any further distinction about the "damage" thing, which is certainly in the CB, as quoted.  On the one hand the Substance thing might be an overall limit, or on the other, it might just limit the damage you can do with a non-wielded illusion, by the Substance+Motion route.

On the face of it, I'd go with the former interpretation.  Adding additional points of Substance isn't just sheer mass, it's 'fanciness' of the object.  If you want more damage, you need a more sophisticated and powerful illusion, whether it's the sophistication of a sack-of-potatoes weight being dropped on someone, or the power of a devilishly sharp and well-shaped and -tempered blade.

Yes. While I believe the RBM version specifically allows the big invisible weapon to be wielded by the caster, I also think it is a bit overpowered. We don't want to see a two full page description of each Illusory spell either. So, each GM will have to add limits as they wish.

9 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

An illusion with substance can do damage. One point of substance can do 1D3 points of damage; 2 points can do 1D6 points of damage; and 4 can do 2D6. Each additional 2 points does a further 1D6 damage.

Pg. 332 Core Rules

To do close to greatsword damage of 2d8 you'd need at least a 4 Point Illusory Substance, no matter how big or small your invisible weapon is. Heck, you could make it an invisible pike and poke people with it from 10 feet away for 6 points and it would do 3d6 damage. Almost as good as an actual weapon!

Ah the difference between RQG and RBM. Is this a case of newer rule (RBM) overriding the older Core Rule? Not in my pay grade.

10 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Same for me. We had humans, ducks, trolls and 1 dwarf. We had characters from Prax, Sartar, Heortland, Lunar Empire, Esrolia and 1 Kralorelan. We had a whole bunch of Cults, but no Eurmali.

I have had two Eurmalis in different groups where no player from one group was a player in the other.

10 hours ago, Alex said:

Huh, hadn't consider Substance and only Substance.  I think at a bare minimum you also need Motion -- unless you're using it for the final scene of Julius Caesar, with people eagerly impaling themselves on the sword.  You also need rather of lot of RPP to do Greatsword-like damage.

Yes, I did go a touch off topic of Hallucinations to other illusions used as the base.

I understand where you are going with that, but that is not the interpretation that I get from the two Illusory spells (Motion and Substance). Keep in mind Substance allows 1 SIZ, stated as 5 kg, and a Great Sword is really just under 4 kg (generally between 8 lb and 8lb 8 oz from history). Clearly within 1 RP of Substance. 

From Illusory Substance (RBM):

"For an illusion with substance to do damage the target must either strike themselves with the illusion (such as walking into an illusionary fire), be hit with the illusion (such as being hit with an illusory sword), or Illusory Motion must be combined with the substance to give the caster fine control. The illusion does damage equivalent to the item (and size) of the subject of the illusion."

Hence, if I make an illusory sword (specific statement) I can wield it myself (second example in the first quoted sentence). Otherwise that 'or' before the third clause makes no sense. If I add Illusory Motion, I can make the sword float out and attack other people without me wielding it in my hands. The Motion makes it so people don't know its me (well I would be incarnating Eurmal at the time, but unless Soul Sight or something similar was cast, the observers don't really connect that to how that guy's leg was just chopped off). (Now, if I make a floating sword of Substance/Motion and I cannot even see it, that would make aiming it much harder - so a little Illusory Sight would make sense in real combat.) Note: If I wield it myself, it uses my skill. If I wield it via Motion, it uses DEX x3. The first is the implication from "be hit with the illusion" and the latter specifically written in Illusory Motion.

And the last sentence clearly states I can do great sword like damage within 1 SIZ hence 1 RP.

Now, I completely understand why you may use caution for an Illusory Substance Great Sword hitting people for 2d8+DB when they cannot even see the thing. But that is clearly how the RAW state it, given what I just quoted and the minor calculation.

This all does bear on Hallucination, as I wondered what would happen if I parried with the Hallucination of a great sword. Would it protect me? I feel it would. And it would  totally confuse the attacker. The Hallucination of a great sword could not damage that opponent, but it could save me. YGMV.

8 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I disagree, I have no problems with treating animated skeletons differently to pieces of equipment. Whether or not they have POW or MPs in this version of the rules doesn't matter to me. Gloranthans have always been able to cast spells on skeletons, so interpreting the rules so as to allow that is the right approach to me.

I agree that we should be able to cast Disrupt on undead skeletons. Another question is whether we can cast Disrupt on a skeleton - as in the unanimated, nonmagical bones that remain after a vertebrate dies. They do have hit locations.

ex: Party sees forty skeletons lying on the floor on the other side of a large room.  Expecting a trap, the Humakti casts Disrupt on one of the skeletons. If it reacts differently than an undead animate skeleton, the Disrupt works a bit like a Detect Undead spell, except it also does damage.

Hence, I am of the mind that it reacts exactly the same: One random bone snaps.

48 minutes ago, Alex said:

That's an interesting one!  I wonder if that might be running into the limits, not so much of Hallucination itself, but of Illusory Substance itself.  Does it counter the venom temporarily, re-poisoning you when the magic expires?

Yeah, that does call into some limits. We could say a vial of POT 20 anti-venom would only be at most 1 ENC. And 1 ENC is smaller than one size, hence it would not exceed the limits of Illusory Substance.

However, that makes for some very dangerous corollaries. A vial of POT 20 blade venom would also fall in that category. Or worse, POT 20 acid vial. As a GM, that is play-balance gone all wrong. I don't want to see the party Eurmali tossing Illusory POT 20 acid vials for a single RP. Worse, they aren't even visible unless you add Illusory Sight. A slightly smarter Eurmali would cast 1 RP for a bag of vials, getting at least a half dozen.

Now, the spell gives a sword as an example, and says you could hit someone with it. So imagine an Eurmali who gets into the grand ball where everyone had to check weapons. He has 90 Skill in Great Sword, casts Illusory Substance and now has a great sword. But also remember that he cast no Illusory Sight, so he can feel it in his hands and use it, but no one can see it. The victims will have some negatives on their dodge at the very least. And that is clearly allowed.

So, I would probably say the Eurmali needs some serious Skill in Alchemy to be able to replicate anti-venom, venom, or acid in an illusion. The great sword though, should be allowed as is, even as dangerous as it would be.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I hadn’t realized how strong the Substance part is. I believe you could legitimately fly with Hallucination (Substance + Motion), by creating enough Substance for you rest on and then moving it with Motion. Mindlink with others, and you can take them with you. Invisible flying carpet!

There is no Mindlink spell in RQG though. The conversion chart states 'Not in the core rules'. There is a mindlink effect with allied spirits called 'continual mind-to-mind communication'. I had thought maybe they would reintroduce it in RBM, but they did not. And RBM is supposed to sort of maybe have all the Rune spells from future rules. Danged if I can find the quote about how inclusive RBM is supposed to be.

As for Hallucinate, while the allied spirit link is clearly enough for the 'any in a magical mental link with the caster', I am not sure what else counts. Mindbridge maybe, but that is only conscious thoughts. Speak to Mind maybe, but again not all sensual input.

There are enchants which I think are decent which are also not in the Core Rules or RBM, e.g. Armoring, Strengthening. So I am not sure why we haven't seen them yet.

But for now, your RQG characters will have a hard time getting the rest of the party to experience the joys of Hallucinate.

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In whose Glorantha would a Humakti waste Turn Undead on a Skeleton?

Maybe a giant skeleton wielding a tree trunk, that makes sense, but not against a skeleton with fragile bones that smash easily.

I recall a certain skeletal dragon from a certain RQ2 adventure...Turn Undead before it breathes on you would save the day. Of course, those bones had more than one HP.

In all truth, I GMed a party who encountered that one. One party member swung a pole axe, critical success (02 iirc), then rolled the Head location (19 iirc) on the very first round! All rolls out in the open. Fastest final boss encounter ever. Turn Undead may have been quicker, as it would be SR1.

Just now, Godlearner said:

Except that Turn Undead says specifically that it can be used on Skeletons.

That was my point. Another spell exists which specifically includes a Resistance Roll against something with 0 MP. Which also specifically has rules for a special and critical success on said Resistance Roll. Hence a Disrupt cast on something with 0 MP also goes on the same Resistance Roll chart with similar rules. 

I was following the quoted logic to all corollaries and showing the absurdity in certain situations.

Imagination really is the limit. An Eurmal could Hallucinate a Giant Eagle grabbing him and carrying him to the top of that cliff over yonder. That may take more than one point of Hallucination of course.

An Eurmal could Hallucinate an entire feast and it will actually nourish the initiate. At least until the duration ends.

An Eurmal could Hallucinate that they have a bubble of air around them while underwater and never drown...until the duration ends.

An Eurmal could Hallucinate that the forest has vines hanging from the trees and brachiate from tree to tree like spiderman. Except no one else would see the vines. That would look so funny it would definitely be MGF. As a GM I hesitate to know what roll I would impose to go from one vine to another...

They could Hallucinate a weapon in their hands. But that couldn't hurt anyone with it. But could they parry and actually stop damage? Could they Hallucinate that they are in armor and stop damage?

Absolutely a fantastic spell in the hands of an imaginative player.

2 hours ago, simonh said:

This came up in our games back in the 80s and 90s with respect to disrupting a door. IIRC we decided the spell must target something with Magic Points, because otherwise how does it go through armour without interacting with it? Clearly it's not a physical blast, or it would be obstructed by armour.

Arguably you might be able to mentally target the spell at an object, even if it's partially covered by something else, but I think targeting MPs/POW makes more sense.

With that interpretation, the corollary is a character cannot cast Disrupt on a living body who went unconscious due to spirit combat. They also have no magic points - currently.

That includes the tactic of tossing a ghost at a Gorp until it stops moving, especially one with the Chaos Feature of Reflects spells up to 4 magic points back at caster without harm to itself. Then the party can cast backed up Disrupts with extra magic points until the darn thing actually dies. Wouldn't want to leave it for the next Orlanthi tribemember to battle.

And Turn Undead as previously stated could not be cast on Skeletons. Skeletons immune to Turn Undead??? In whose Glorantha would that make sense.

I am going to have to go with the overcome the Skeleton as though it has 0 or 1 MP.

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Nor can the opposed runes go above 99 or under 1 percent 

Not without heroquesting...and we don't have those rules yet.