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Durability Increases


HreshtIronBorne

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I had been playing a Humakti Warrior and a Lhankor Mhy Sorcerer Librarian. With the AP values on armor brought closer together and max equippable AP at a given wearable ENC being lower than RQ3 it is hard to keep everyone's limbs together, and you're always wary of the unlucky possibility of a crit to a vital location. 

 

This might be considered a feature rather than a bug of the current RQ:G rules. With flatter HP totals and the way damage scales situations become instantaneously lethal rather quickly. Without magical bonuses to parried damage, like Gifts/Geasa or Earth Shield and such, non party armor can quickly become irrelevant. Bladesharp 6 punches through bronze plate if you get the drop on an opponent. 

 

I am wondering if there is some way a PC party can get themselves to the point they can fight stuff in Dorastor and some of the other legendary encounters in Glorantha. Or does it come down to, 'bring cannon fodder NPCs and walk on their corpses to get the baddie'? I don't see a way some of the encounters I have seen wouldn't just 1-shot 1 or more PCs a round. 

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1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I don't see a way some of the encounters I have seen wouldn't just 1-shot 1 or more PCs a round. 

Location matters, a lot, though called shots are still a thing.

In my game, the adventurers went to Tourney Altar to celebrate Humakt/Iron Man's High Holy Day, and participated in ritual dueling in honor of the god. The final "show" match was the Humakti adventurer against a Sword of Humakt, each dropping 10-20 MPs and ~8-10 RPs on buff spells in the agreed-upon prep rounds to invoke Humakt. Each strike back and forth did ridiculous damage, and it was basically just a roll-off to see who would special or crit first. Ended when the Sword lopped off the adventurer's arm (which a friend then glued back on with Heal 6). So, might not have been the end of a melee sort of one-shot (depending on configuration & number of threats present), but there is a sense that the D20 roll matters more than any other die in high-skill, high-damage fights.

I'm not personally familiar with Dorastor's baddies, but I do believe the design intention is that monsters in the "Terrors" section of the Glorantha Bestiary are not to be defeated by player adventurers, based on the intro text. I don't presently feel like there is an obvious system for getting adventurers to be more durable than 9AP in all locations (iron plate) and having ~24 HP (CON 21, +1 POW, +2 SIZ).

Long term (if/when heroquest rules publish) options like Asborn Thriceborn's self-res, a shaman's self-res, or other "walking off the Path of the Dead" or speedy regeneration options may be in play.

At present, the most Egregious (TM) option I'm aware of is playing a morokanth and getting your hands on iron plate, to end up with 13AP before spells (can start play as a warrior to get decent starting armor equipment, too, giving ~7-9AP at start of play).

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Very high level mob tend to one shot each other or do nothing (depending whether damage or armour is their strong point). This is true of most D100 rule set.

On medium-intermediary level, I think Revolution D100 is onto something with their toughness characteristic.
It does change monster design quite significantly... But I think it can probably be adapted to all D100 variation! :) 

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5 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I was wondering if there are plans to bring the Strengthening and Armoring Enchantments of older RQ versions back or if there is another way that a suitably Heroic individual might soak some mighty blow without just having "Shield x=Huges" be literally everywhere and on everyone. 

there's a reply to this here:

 

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1 hour ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

On medium-intermediary level, I think Revolution D100 is onto something with their toughness characteristic.
It does change monster design quite significantly... But I think it can probably be adapted to all D100 variation! :) 

Could you elaborate on this? I'm not familiar with the mechanic, but I do personally find the one-shotting tendency of D100 to be more often a bug than a feature.

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6 minutes ago, Crel said:

Could you elaborate on this? I'm not familiar with the mechanic, but I do personally find the one-shotting tendency of D100 to be more often a bug than a feature.

Then I suspect Toughness is not for you. Basically, it is an all-or-nothing mechanics: either you overcome location HP (renamed as Toughness) with your damage, or it is just a flesh wound the effects of which you will shrug off almost completely by the end of the round. Light wound effects are non-cumulative if you do not overcome the threshold, and you are entitled to an Endurance roll if Toughness in a vital location is overcome. So it is either one-shot or nothing. On the other hand big and healthy characters are very resilient, as you cannot take them down by attrition: either you deal serious damage or it is basically a no effect.

You can find the whole rules in the Revolution D100 SRD, Chapter 4a - Advanced Combat, link in the RD100 forum.

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The problem here isn’t the lack of such enchantments (which were removed for very good reasons), but that the Shield spell is ridiculously broken in RQG. If you bring a larger Shield spell than anyone in the opposition can Dismiss, you’re all but invulnerable, and basically guaranteed a win whatever happens (Spirit Combat is one of the few openings).

I’m considering allowing smaller Dispels and Dismisses to “wear down” the effect instead of being useless. A huge Shield shouldn’t be an “I Win” button.

Some made the comment in play, “It’s a good thing that your Rune Magic is so bad you can use it all on dispelling instead”.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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46 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

The problem here isn’t the lack of such enchantments (which were remived for very good reasons), but that the Shield spell is ridiculously broken in RQ;G. If you bring a larger Shield spell than anyone in the opposition can Dismiss, you’re all but invulnerable, and basically guaranteed a win whatever happens (Spirit Combat is one of the few openings).

I’m considering allowing smaller Dispels and Dismisses to “wear down” the effect instead of being useless. A huge Shield shouldn’t be an “I Win” button.

It gets worse if the Shield user manages to add a Countermagic (although that takes at least one more MP than twice the Shield's points).

The good thing about a high Shield is that while the shield is up it prevents a Heal 6 quick re-attachment of limbs (or indeed any quick healings) unless you pour in a day's (or two days') supply of MP.  Nothing that cannot be fixed by Regrow Limb, though.

What happens if Rurik Runespear receives a Shield 2 from Argrath and 5 minutes into the battle another 3 points of Shield from a friendly Humakti? Does he get 3 points or 5 points of Shield?

 

Quote

Some made the comment in play, “It’s a good thing that your Rune Magic is so bad you can use it all on dispelling instead”.

Normally, a high profile hero would have his people (or allied spirits) to do this kind of support.

Edited by Joerg

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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2 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Then I suspect Toughness is not for you. Basically, it is an all-or-nothing mechanics: either you overcome location HP (renamed as Toughness) with your damage, or it is just a flesh wound the effects of which you will shrug off almost completely by the end of the round. Light wound effects are non-cumulative if you do not overcome the threshold, and you are entitled to an Endurance roll if Toughness in a vital location is overcome. So it is either one-shot or nothing. On the other hand big and healthy characters are very resilient, as you cannot take them down by attrition: either you deal serious damage or it is basically a no effect.

You can find the whole rules in the Revolution D100 SRD, Chapter 4a - Advanced Combat, link in the RD100 forum.

It's work like a natural armour based on your size and slightly modified by STR and CON.

It doesn't mean you are not "damaged", in Revolution D100 you are "shocked" and lost.. mmm. sort of action point... but no HP loss
the bigger you are, the bigger wound you can shrug off....

 

Paolo being game designer obviously got it right! ^_^ but I get a different interpretation! :D I was looking for something just like that!

Edited by Lloyd Dupont
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3 hours ago, Joerg said:

What happens if Rurik Runespear receives a Shield 2 from Argrath and 5 minutes into the battle another 3 points of Shield from a friendly Humakti? Does he get 3 points or 5 points of Shield?

Both are up, but only the highest is active (it overrides the lower). If the Shield 3 is dispelled, the Shield 2 takes over. At least that'd be my ruling.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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5 hours ago, Crel said:

Could you elaborate on this? I'm not familiar with the mechanic, but I do personally find the one-shotting tendency of D100 to be more often a bug than a feature.

After some more thinking, a better explanation:
2 minor wound do not make a major wound

I.e. when I hit does a minor wound the effect are minor and do not affect HP cumulatively. Say, perhaps you lose fatigue point equal to the damage in BRP.

When it's a major wound, the major wound damage are cumulative (to serious wound) and the effects are major

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On 10/8/2019 at 6:05 AM, HreshtIronBorne said:

I was wondering if there are plans to bring the Strengthening and Armoring Enchantments of older RQ versions back or if there is another way that a suitably Heroic individual might soak some mighty blow without just having "Shield x=Huges" be literally everywhere and on everyone. 

If they did, it would be useful to have them as a single Enchantment that you could customise to get different effects.

So, rather than having Strengthening Enchantment 3 and Armouring Enchantment 4, you could cast an Enchantment 7 and split it between strengthening and Armouring Enchantment effects.

That's how I'd do it.

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On 10/8/2019 at 1:12 PM, Akhôrahil said:

The problem here isn’t the lack of such enchantments (which were removed for very good reasons), but that the Shield spell is ridiculously broken in RQG. If you bring a larger Shield spell than anyone in the opposition can Dismiss, you’re all but invulnerable, and basically guaranteed a win whatever happens (Spirit Combat is one of the few openings).

In previous versions of RQ (RQ2/3), a big Shield wasn't a game changer, as you could just set a Spirit to attack them. Also, Specials and Criticals can get through Shield quite nicely, as can Adamantine weapons.  

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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