Blindhamster

8 minutes ago, David Scott said:

That's already covered, by Kuschile Horse Archery, however it's a hero cult, just add an equivalent to any mounted god (Waha for example)

you dont need to be in a cult to shoot arrows on a moving horse - its allowed by default, just capped at ride skill like any other weapon. page 219 RQ:G

I mean on foot shooting on the move, which is specifically not allowed at all. (even though skilled archers can do it, albeit not with a large bow, but then you shouldn't be able to fire a large bow on horse either really)

Obviously, I could hand wave it and say they can do it, but doing so halves their skill and requires they have a bow skill of 100 (so kind of like the multi attack rules for melee). But one of those things where such things being able to be learned through training etc would be pretty logical rather than just a thing anyone with a good skill can do (because simply being a good archer in the real world doesnt equate to being able to competantly move, run or jump and shoot.

20 minutes ago, OxygenO2 said:

The concept of fire and flammable liquids are not new, after all, oil lamps is a thing in glorantha. And realising you could throw a clay lamp on the floor and create a pool of burning oil is not that far of a stretch (the probability of a lamp oil catching fire notwithstanding (dropped lamp table from RQ3 anyone?)). I would say go for it! (MGF and all that) but of course YGMV.

Yeah RQG has dropped lamp rules too, it was there that i spotted the fire rules and realised it was a silly question in the first place as between those and throwing rules, you are pretty much there.

21 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

You've got Runes and Passions creating Inspirational augments, which in my mind covers a lot of special "talents".  Plus you can now apply other skills as augments - you could certainly describe these as talents.  (Good example is in the White Bull campaign that Jeff runs on Twitch and available to view on YouTube with Gina Gravedancer regularly invoking her Dance skill to augment various other skills.)

This is a fair point, but I'm thinking things like shooting on the move, its a skill that real world archers can learn to do. Stuff like sweeping strikes from mythras etc

1 minute ago, Diana Probst said:

"OK, first off, give me a devise roll.  It's not an idea that appears in anything your ancestors do, or any quests you know.  Why would your character think of it?"
...
"Oh, interesting.  Yes, so.  That devise roll, then.  Let me know if you just fumble."

Followed by everyone else's answers.

thats an interesting point, although greek fire is a real world bronze age thing, it doesn't mean the same general idea exists in glorantha (although do we know that it definitely doesn't?)

figure i should give context on why i asked too!

I often comment that the players should totally think of cool things to do if it comes to an encounter and don't feel too constrained by "attacks" and specified actions.

One of the first things I expect at least one of the players will probably think of, is making such things, they've already got two characters quite capable of alchemy (well, one and a sorcerer with logician).

Cheers all!

14 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

2d6 or 3d6 (max fireblade) for everyone in a circle of 2m in diameter

but seems to me very unbalanced for gameplay if it is easy to produce.

at least :

if throw fumble, dammage done on the same circle but centred on the pc who launch it

if alchemy fumble, 6d6 - 10d6 dammage done on a circle of 5m in diameter

just found the fire rules in the book (p157) I'd probably use that.

so 1d6 damage to a few locations (probably the hit location and one other) on a single person, or to a pool on the ground. Chance to set on fire as normal.

Fumble would have the throwers arm set on fire and probably their leg or chest as well.

Standard thrown rules and treat them as unbalanced unless specifically made for it. (so 1 meter range for ever 3 points of strength), Dex x 5 test for the actual throw.

Say a character made a makeshift molotov with some kind of fragile container of alcohol and access to fire (say, through a spirit magic spell). How would you handle damage for it?

technically it isn't that complicated IMO

You cannot move and use a ranged attack

You can only move a max of half your movement value and still be able to make a melee attack

Ever 3m of movement increases your SR by 1.
 

So. a normal character can move 12m and make a melee attack in theory, this would be DEX+SIZ SRs + weapon SR + 4, which realistically means a single attack for a human type creature.

A very fast creature (lets say something with Movement 12) can move 15m and still make an attack, but will do so at DEX+SIZ SRs + weapon SR + 6, which is almost certainly a single attack.

A normal character with mobility is more interesting, they can move 24m and make a melee attack in theory, but that would mean DEX+SIZ SRs + weapon SR + 8... except mobility also reduces SR by 1. So, a particularly large and fast character might be able to make an attack if their normal DEX+SIZ+Weapon = 5 (5+8-1=12) it'll just happen at SR12.

If a creature doesn't make any melee attacks, it can move it's full Movement regardless of strike ranks because they also cannot make ranged attacks when moving.

***

Mounts or chariots are important because the mount/chariot is its own thing, moving independant, so long as they dont become engaged in melee themselves (hint, dont use swords), they can move their full movement regardless of SR. The only real logic that needs to be considered is how much (if any) impact on the riders SR for an attack there would be. For that it's just pure logic, if a Horse under the effect of mobility can move 72 meters a round, and its rider commands it to charge past something that is 30 meters away, you know it'll be about half way through the round before the character can make their attack, a character just can't attack earlier in a round than their normal SIZ+DEX+Weapon would allow.

***
A mounted character also realistically cant make multiple attacks in a round unless they wish to become engaged, doing so would then mean they follow the normal (mounted) disengage rules and cannot disengage before SR6 the following round.

18 minutes ago, Joerg said:

About your building time estimate for a small log fort:

We know that the Roman legions (since the time of Marius) were able to put up a rudimentary log fort within an evening, after marching up to 20 miles (on roads, daily progress of the Varus expedition was significantly lower - especially after they deviated from the route supported by river travel). Admittedly with prefab material. And to disassemble it in the morning, carrying the material on to the next location, where the firstcomers already would have cleared the ground and put up a bit of earth wall and ditch.

The siege works before Alesia were done under duress, inward and outward, in quite short time, then refined.

Another example of fast building is the US custom of a barn raising - usually a one day event, although with the logistics for the material done in advance. If a barn raising has 5 crews in attendance (40 to 50 able-bodied workers), then we have a time frame here.

But then, getting the walls up and the roof on top often is only half the work.

 

see above for how i roughly worked out timings, I did reduce timings further in the case of wood-only buildings roo, how many people would have been working on a log fort in roman legios? the more realistic the numbers can be made, the happier I'll be. The only ones I have relative confidence in are the castle/temples and the roundhouse, as they were the only ones I could find realistic numbers to work with.

Ideally this sort of stuff would have been in the gm book seeing as if you're going to make a PC a Thane, you can bet the first thing they'll start doing, is trying to arrange building. Lol. But never mind. I'd say a Barn is still considerably simpler than even a the simplest commoners home in the list above. which would take 2.4 weeks with 5 teams based on what i currently have.

More than happy with people with more knowledge to make suggestions on more realistic numbers for anything that isn't the castles/temples or the roundhouse though! It'll hopefully be a useful resource that way!

edit

on the roman perpective a cohort was 480 soldier, so if i had the time for 1 crew as 24 weeks, that would be roughly correct, the logic being that it would take 48 crews about half a day to build the same fort. Thoughts?

19 minutes ago, Brootse said:

That's about in the same ballpark as the RQ3 prices divided by 10. Good prices imo.

yeah, my process was:
- RQ3 prices /3 to get lunar prices

- work out a rough cost for a crew of 8 unskilled and 2 skilled labourers, divide that to get the number of weeks, manually adjust from there to get reasonable times for one team to do the work, using a few real world figures i could find (a 13ft roundhouse takes about 2 weeks IRL apparently, and ancient greek temples of size took 4-6 years), I also then took into account that a number of the building types are almost certainly going to have required more than one crew, so where i felt like they required 3 or more, i multiplied the number of weeks by the number of teams.

To get the monatery cost for materials, i essentially went with working out the above in reverse almost (so i got the number of weeks, assumed 5 work days, multiplied that by average cost of a team and added a % on top based on the idea that you're also saving time by buying materials rather than gathering them yourself. In the case of wood or mud-brick only buildings (so no stone or tiles) I reduced material costs somewhat because they were more common materials to work with and more readily available.

and back on original topic, i spent more time working things out and the final table for building stuff looks like this:

the basic premise is, I've removed the actual cost of time and effort, because slaves could be used, or the workers may charge more or less. I've kept a cost for materials which couild be modified up or down based on barter roles.

If people want things to be built more quickly, they need more crews.

I've currently gone with the idea that a crew is usually 10 people, but could be 8 or a couple more depending on how skilled they are, usually two of them will be skilled craftsmen whilst the rest will be mostly unskilled labour.

Logic above is based on a few real world things and some leaps of logic, but is hopefully useful.

14 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Wouldn't she be like the only one in all of the Colymar tribe to worship Orlanth Rex, though?

no, because being a thane requires you're at least a lay member of orlanth rex.

YGMV I guess! :D, but I agree it makes one of the few parts of the game that is a bit time consuming even more so for no benefit.

(Strike Ranks is definitely the one part of the game that feels slow in my group right now, having to have everyone say what they want to do, then work out when they do the things and then go back and cycle through them in SR order is so much slower than an AP/movement system... funnily enough I tried something similar to how RQ:G works when working on UESRPG:RRe and ultimately decided against it because it was slow when we tried it then too. I wonder if they might provide an alternative approach in the GM sourcebook..)

5 minutes ago, soltakss said:

What I do is to work out the maximum movement possible in a round and divide by 12, to give the movement per SR. OK, it isn't exact because some people might say that you start movement on your DEX SR, but whatever. Then, you simply work out how many SRs it takes to move from A to B and that is the delay in action.

IMO, you dont start movement on dex SR, because you can always move your full MOV your approach is more or less how i handle it mentally tbh!

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

That looks good.

Are you planning on having sample stats of NPCs? If so, will they be like RQ Classic's Foes/Fangs or more detailed like those in Borderlands?

I always liked the Borderlands Encounters book for named encounters and Foes/Fangs for just random un-named encounters.

IMO you'd need to keep a random encounter doc very generic. As you say, specific special encounters should have more detailed stat blocks and writeups about the NPCs though.

On 10/18/2020 at 2:39 PM, Manimati said:

I have started drafting a document. Here is the outline :

Introduction 
Role playing not roll playing and Maximum Game Fun

Dynamics of encounters
Range (close, medium, far)
Awareness 
Reaction (Friendly, Cautious, Hostile)

Types of terrain: each item has a description with a few examples
Chaos nest
Cultivated/settled land
Forest
Hills
Marsh
Mountain
Prax March
River/lake shore
Road
Troll land
Wildland

Encounter types: each item has a paragraph with stats for perception, hide and reaction rolls, and size of encountered party. 
Aldryami
Adventurers
Baboons
Bandit
Beastmen : sub-table
Beggar, Stickpicker
Caravan
Chaos monster: sub-table

Corpse
Dragonnewts
Dragon (Dream dragon, wyrm, wyrven…)
Ducks
Farmers
Fishermen
Giants 
Ghost/spirit
Griffin/hippogriff
Herds: sub-table 
Hunter
Item: sub-table
Merchant
Military unit/militia 
Mostali
Newtlings
Patrol
Pilgrim
Raiders: sub-table vs terrain type
Tusk rider
Telmori
Troll party
Undead: sub-table
Wild animals:   sub-table vs terrain type
Wind children
Combination: roll twice and combine encounters

Tables: type of terrain vs encounter type 
1D100 scores 
3 tables for Day travel, night travel, and night camp. 
 

this sounds like an excellent idea and will be a thing i pick up if you publish it for sure!

To me, the journey is an important part of any adventure, so random encounters can spice things up and allow for impromptu journeys to feel interesting without the GM needing to get 100% creative, they can use the chart and you can bet a cool idea will spawn from the result

sorry to hyjack, but any good advice on roleplaying dragonnewts as a GM? they're supposed to be far more alien than most of the other elder races it seems

47 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

We did ours in Earth Season.  Makes sense, and fit our timeline.

Frankly, any season works, just pick the appropriate seasonal Ernaldan holy day.

This is a fair point. It is kind of strange that it isnt in earth season considering it's basically an ernalda holy day. That being said, in my game sea season will actually suit the timeline better.

35 minutes ago, Stephen L said:

The clue is in the moniker, Blind Hamster.

Haha, the name came from a joke my best friend said when I was about 13. I wear glasses generally but went through a phase of not, I used to wear beanies and my friend said I looked like a blind hamster that lived in a tea cosy

It's probably my only gripe tbh, the system doesnt have talents or stuff like that either so gifts are setup to be the only way to get such benefits 

I'd like to see the idea of gifts and geasa be more common to cults, presumably with the sorts of gifts being relevant to the god

9 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Aren't the tribal kings priests of Orlanth Rex, and the Prince of Sartar is the high priest of Orlanth Rex?

Queen Leikas writeup specifically says high priest of orlanth rex and wind lord of vinga

Do cults other than Humakt give gifts? Something I know the later non-chaosium RuneQuest/Mythras games had was gifts being a thing most cults had. Is that not really a thing with RQG? Or is it a thing we might see appear in the cults book maybe?

5 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Yes.

Although the mount is a separate creature, it is still under your control in many ways, unless it is a warmount or intelligent beast.

What I do is make the Adventurer attempt a Ride roll each round they want their mount to do something in combat, except when running away.

But, movement should use the mount's movement. Moving across a party and attacking while carrying on is one attack, really. A charge might get stopped, meaning you are in the thick of combat, or it might run through the group, allowing you to wheel and come back again next round.

I normally just delay the attacks to later in the round to reflect movement times, but I liked RQ3 Movement at so many metres per Strike Rank, something that RQG doesn't like at all.

RQG does have 3m = 1SR, but it kind of falls over because it doesn't handle what the mobility spell does, nor does it take into account fast creatures. I suppose it sort of makes sense for unmounted characters that will typically have to make far more measured movements to get into combat, max of half your movement and still make an attack.

9 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In my experience, the longer you delay running a HeroQuest, the harder it will be to run a HeroQuest. Dive in and run one. Don't take it too seriously, you don't need books of lore to run a HeroQuest (except for Secrets of HeroQuesting, obviously, which you already have), all you need is a myth, a place to hang it and some willing, or unwilling, Adventurers.

Thanks - that's been part of it, my understanding is the myth the hero quest is based on needs to be appropriate to the current situations, also whilst I know Hero Questing can be at any time, I thought it would be good to run one during sacred time, I've been slowly introducing more elements of the setting as the characters have proceeded.

11 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Ah, you're an old hand, then.

Haha, no, just treading the gloranthan water so far, enjoying the setting and the rules a lot though (I actually am one of the people that worked on an Elderscrolls game that took a lot of inspiration mechanically from Mythras, UESRPG), the feel is quite nice as our group tends to be prone to doing huge sweeping epic adventures that are non stop with end of the world level dramas to deal with, so the tribal setting with the emphasis on clan life, worship, politics between clans and tribes is refreshing. Last night I had the PCs go to clearwine for the one singled out to be Thane to meet the Queen and hopefully be accepted. I had them meet Asborn who spoke with them as he slowly walked them to the citadel, along the way they realised he was asking a lot of very leading questions and was essentially testing the possible Thane, questions of religion, world views, plans, companions. Really got them on edge when they realised it wasn't a sure thing and this guy was a wind lord (one of the PCs passed a reputation roll!) then when they thought it was over, he led them into the huge throne room to meet Queen Leika and it stepped up a notch. Afterward they were all saying they cant remember having such tense but enjoyable social roleplay. It feels like a very rewarding setting for such things!