100+ in a combat skill

[Pentallion]

I agree with you totally there Joerg, especially the balance breaking Humakt.  Except for the dedicated Tricksters.  Maybe I've been blessed with some really good Trickster players, but they tend to be the heart and soul of the campaigns we've had them in.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Pentallion

[g33k]

I really don't see this as balance-breaking.

I mean... virtually all experienced RQ players have long known that ambush, missile fire, outnumbering your foe, are all very-advantageous strategies.  This is decades-old stuff.  We also know that Storm Bull and Humakt are EXACTLY the sorts of foes where that kind of advantage may be life-or-death for your PC, victory-or-defeat for your side (and neutralizing the foes' use of those advantages (or NOT doing so) may ALSO be victory-or-defeat for your side).

So... a Humakt in "GodMode" throws this lesson into sharp relief?

Yeah, I'm OK with that.

It's not like an Orlanthi who Flies around the battlefield casting Lightning isn't going to ALSO be out-classing the average combatant!  Or a combat-oriented Shaman, who hits you with spirits and Spell-Barrages and Kolat only knows what else...

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by g33k
F'ing autocorrect

[Pentallion]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I really don't see this as balance-breaking.

I mean... virtually all experienced RQ players have long known that ambush, middle fire, outnumbering your foe, are all very-advantageous strategies.  This is decades-old stuff.  We also know that Storm Bull and Humakt are EXACTLY the sorts of foes where that kind of advantage may be life-or-death for your PC, victory-or-defeat for your side (and neutralizing the foes' use of those advantages (or NOT doing so) may ALSO be victory-or-defeat for your side).

So... a Humakt in "GodMode" throws this lesson into sharp relief?

Yeah, I'm OK with that.

It's not like an Orlanthi who Flies around the battlefield casting Lightning isn't going to ALSO be out-classing the average combatant!  Or a combat-oriented Shaman, who hits you with spirits and Spell-Barrages and Kolat only knows what else...

 

Okay Geek, you can have Cwim then. I'll take 3 Humakt.  Not starter level Humakt, I'm talking PC level Humakt.  And one Orlanthi to Teleport them in.  You will be forced to come to one of two conclusions:  Cwim should no longer exist or the over 100% rule is broken and with Sword Trance is really, really out of whack.

[g33k]

13 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

Okay Geek, you can have Cwim then. I'll take 3 Humakt.  Not starter level Humakt, I'm talking PC level Humakt.  And one Orlanthi to Teleport them in.  You will be forced to come to one of two conclusions:  Cwim should no longer exist or the over 100% rule is broken and with Sword Trance is really, really out of whack.

Or maybe it's Cwim who's out of whack... ?  🤡

[Akhôrahil]

23 minutes ago, g33k said:

Or maybe it's Cwim who's out of whack... ?  🤡

No, this is a rules problem. Some enemies aren't very skilled and just work with brutal strength and damage so massive that it can't easily be parried (giants are an obvious example). This works on its own, but it stops working once you can drop their attack skill to nothing.

Straight out of character generation, a Humakti with Truesword and Sword Trance will kill the 9-meter giant from the Bestiary like it's nothing. Or an allosaur. Or a mastodon.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[galafrone]

my problem isnt for the single humakti being "broken" (and he isnt, we have seen many options to neutralize him) 

my problem is BALANCE in a party. Because if i have a similar bozo as PC i will Always have to think encounters that will be hard to balance. 

option 1) i dont care about him and just i have the party encounter average joes (as they are) and see those peeps being hacked away by mr humakti (at the third encounter the party will kill the humaktin in his sleep … )

option 2) i design nasty encounters for the humakti and… super deadly for the rest of the party

option 3)  i dont allow humakti PC in my party (as Joerg pointed out and so i am going to LIMIT the allowed deities for my players, basically cavorting to a classic "orlanthi-ernaldi and lightbringers party)

 

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, galafrone said:

my problem is BALANCE in a party. Because if i have a similar bozo as PC i will Always have to think encounters that will be hard to balance.

This isn't a problem specific to Humakti or Sword Trance or whatever... it's a general thing with being a GM. A GM has to learn to balance encounters for wizards and ranged combatants and netrunners and martial artists and university professors and what have you. What I learned on this topic is to just switch things up every fight (opponents are ambushing, using bows, swarming with lots of swordsmen, using shield walls, using defensive magic, retreating, using different terrain features, using cover, changing tactics, etc.), occasionally break up a fight in a few scenes (fight/parlay/fight again, fight/chase/fight, etc... especially good if the break extends past the 15 minutes mark in RQ), and remember that it's not about fights, it's about scenes, and the point of a scene is to let one or two of the PCs "shine" every now and then.

4 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Okay Geek, you can have Cwim then.

Cwim has a whole bunch of insane things that will let it hold his (their? its?) own -- for example, the fact that he will cast Dispel Magic 18 against your Humakti after the first round to kill any weapon enhancements. Plus he has good armour, can spit out more monsters to swarm his assailants and drive their >100% bonuses down, etc. But otherwise, sure, I mean, nobody said Cwim was unbeatable. If you put your mind to it, you can kill it, or wound it enough that it flees.

To me, the problem with Cwim is more the lack of rules for fighting things many times your size... he's 15 meters high, dammit, so you shouldn't be able to hit anything else that his legs, and you should have hefty penalties from the fact you're fighting in the middle of 6 gigantic legs stomping all around you. I would definitely come up with house rules just for that.

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Straight out of character generation, a Humakti with Truesword and Sword Trance will kill the 9-meter giant from the Bestiary like it's nothing. Or an allosaur. Or a mastodon.

Same thing here -- the problem IMHO isn't the Humakti being super awesome with a Sword. The problem is that the rules are the same whether you're fighting a Trollkin, another human, or a Mastodon. The way I would solve this isn't by changing the >100% rule, it would be by adding a house rule for fighting things that have twice your SIZ or more. A 10m high, 500 ton giant is stomping on you with his foot? You should be dodging that, not parrying it with a sword the size of his toe! Parrying a dinosaur or a giant with a sword is ridiculous to begin with, regardless of the percentage both players are rolling with.

So... for instance (bear with me, I just thought about it 30 seconds ago), maybe for each multiple of 10 SIZ above your own SIZ, you get -20% to your parry? Or some other parry-nerfing rule? Or, if you prefer to go that way, a damage-inducing rule, where, for each 10 SIZ above your own SIZ, you take one die out of the opponent's damage roll (up to his full damage roll), and roll that against you/your weapon when you parry a failed attack (when you parry a successful attack, you get the full damage roll, as per RAW). So at some point, fighting a SIZ 80 giant means there's not much difference (damage-wise) between parrying his foot and getting stomped by his foot... (in the case of the Allosaur, that means at least 3D6 to your sword... it won't parry for very long, and your arm is going to hurt very soon).

Otherwise, I don't think I have any problems with the >100% rule when the 2 combatants are human size.

Edited December 28, 2019 by lordabdul

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Okay Geek, you can have Cwim then. I'll take 3 Humakt.  Not starter level Humakt, I'm talking PC level Humakt.  And one Orlanthi to Teleport them in.  You will be forced to come to one of two conclusions:  Cwim should no longer exist or the over 100% rule is broken and with Sword Trance is really, really out of whack.

Cwim has a force multiplier - every wound it takes creates gorp. Your three Humakti will get dissolved before Cwim loses significant amounts of general HP.

You need to take out the chest or abdomen of two bodies (or alternatively both legs of a single body) of Cwim to get it grounded, and then the bugger regenerates. Those bodies are huge. They may shrink a bit as they spew gorp from their wounds, but that doesn't matter much.

Then there is knockback. So your Humakti parried the first 16 points of the hit and absorb 8-12 points of what comes through with armor and shield. The hit still will fling her out of immediate action, and the sword will look worse for the abuse it suffered.

[PhilHibbs]

You know what I say, if you want balance, go play Stormbringer. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

You know what I say, if you want balance, go play Stormbringer. 

I was thinking maybe that new game all he kids are playing nowadays that is so nicely balanced twixt the monsters and the PCs. What is it called.... oh yeah, that’s it... Call of Cthulhu....

[galafrone]

Well, balance is a thing that as GM since 1981i have learned a lot.. but with RQG the rune spell have been lowered in usage difficulty, so truesword and sword trance can be used a lot. Yeah, sure i can keep the humakty away from any temple so he cant recover his RP,  but… that's an horrendous way to nerf a player. Or yes, i can disallow a player to play an humakti, or yes, i can use one of the dozens of tactics that have been suggested in this topic, but still…. these are all techniques that i have to implement because the game has now the chance to be way more unbalanced that it was before.

and more so, the gm need to "KNOW" that those spells can be a fun-ruining thing at his table, because if he is lenient with the humakti, he can have the Others players bored because the humakti is the "i am the destroyer of worlds" in a correctly designed encounter (that is, the one that DONT use the GM knowledge of the humakti abilities, but is coherent with the world) and no, i cant have all my foes with dispel magic 2 or more. I simply cant. And no, i cant have all my foes equipped with 10 ranged bowmen (and the rest of the party meanwhile what is doing ?) and i cant ambush the party all the times, and i cant put another foe of the level of the humakti all the times.. all these techniques are INCOHERENT with my setting (balazar)

i am not whining, i have already my solution as it is, but meh.. probably playing stormbringer is a good suggestion

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by galafrone

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Then there is knockback. So your Humakti parried the first 16 points of the hit and absorb 8-12 points of what comes through with armor and shield. The hit still will fling her out of immediate action, and the sword will look worse for the abuse it suffered.

Joerg, the point is that when you drop their attacks to 0 (through having something like 200% yourself) you don’t even have to absorb parrying damage. The attacks don’t hit in the first place. This is the huge balance problem.

Cwim does have a hefty Dispel though. It all becomes a race of wearing it down while replenishing Sword Trance, and has its own Ironhand to compensate.

The situation is far worse for non-Magic-wielding enemies.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Then there is knockback. So your Humakti parried the first 16 points of the hit and absorb 8-12 points of what comes through with armor and shield. The hit still will fling her out of immediate action, and the sword will look worse for the abuse it suffered.

Oh right I forgot about knockback... the Allosaurus, Cwim, anybody that's big can easily knockback (even knock down) a humanoid. But AFAICT it just pushes the opponent away 1d3 meters -- no damage it dealt to them or their weapons. Did I miss something?

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Joerg, the point is that when you drop their attacks to 0 (through having something like 200% yourself) you don’t even have to absorb parrying damage. The attacks don’t hit in the first place. This is the huge balance problem.

200% won't be enough to help you against Cwim, but it will definitely help against the Allosaurus, making its attacks useless. I still think that some "parrying huge opponents" house rules are the right solution though -- I'll work a bit more on them for use in my campaign as far as I'm concerned. Another potential house rule/tactic that comes to mind for these cases is the ability for big monsters to (in rules terms) grapple you with their mouth and toss you away (for a couple d6's worth of falling damage). Using a sword to parry a mouth that's potentially bigger than said sword is equally illogical and needs some other rules tweaking IMHO.

57 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Suddenly our chances for Fame and glory seem much lower. 

Although it can be disappointing for the players, it can also be a roleplaying opportunity for the other characters to complain that they don't get their share of combat to prove their worth to their gods. Plus, the Humakti only has so many Rune Points (at least at first)... an adventure like Rainbow Mounds or The Smoking Ruins, with many encounters and/or played across several days, will ensure the Humakti can only use Sword Trance/Truesword for a couple of those encounters. Throw in a whole bunch of critters with some big bads in the middle and you can switch between the "Humakti tears through the critters while the others focus on the bosses" tactic (at least 6 critters to make it dangerous) and "we take care of the critters while the Humakti goes 1:1 against the main boss, who's equally bad-ass" tactic.

3 hours ago, galafrone said:

Well, balance is a thing that as GM since 1981i have learned a lot.. but with RQG the rune spell have been lowered in usage difficulty, so truesword and sword trance can be used a lot.

Yeah I had never played RQ before so for me this is just part of learning the game. But for people who have played RQ a lot before, I can understand that it's frustrating that a few rules changes are completely changing the balance. Although my understanding is that it's replacing one frustration ("Rune magic sucks because it's hard to get and only one-use") with another frustration ("Rune magic is so easy to use it breaks the game") ?

Edited December 28, 2019 by lordabdul

[HreshtIronBorne]

This I think is one of the areas where bridging the gap in terms of Simulation of Glorantha between RQ and HQ has had some interesting consequences. In HQ, as far as I can tell everyone has all their magic all the time basically. The new rules for RQ:G Rune Magic bring it much closer to the ubiquitous use of Divine Magic seen in media like KoDP, where building a shrine to Humakt and having either sacrifices or dedicating magic means Truesword for EVERYBODY!

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Joerg, the point is that when you drop their attacks to 0 (through having something like 200% yourself) you don’t even have to absorb parrying damage. The attacks don’t hit in the first place. This is the huge balance problem.

The attack will always be at least 5%. Plus you cannot parry area effect attacks. Or at least not to the effect that you reduce the attack percentage, you may still absorb some damage.

And to be honest, I wonder whether fighting Cwim (even without it bleeding gorp) should be counted as fighting multiple opponents.

5 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

This I think is one of the areas where bridging the gap in terms of Simulation of Glorantha between RQ and HQ has had some interesting consequences. In HQ, as far as I can tell everyone has all their magic all the time basically. The new rules for RQ:G Rune Magic bring it much closer to the ubiquitous use of Divine Magic seen in media like KoDP, where building a shrine to Humakt and having either sacrifices or dedicating magic means Truesword for EVERYBODY!

Not exactly. A little bit of truesword for everyone, maybe.

The "wyter casts on multiple target" scheme is sensible only with long durations and/or high stacking (e.g. Shield, Absorption). Especially if the wyter's POW is replenished from non-combatants. But then, creating a number of spell matrices for rune spells that can be recharged in the clan temple has a similar POW cost, which can be handed around among supportive non-combatants, too.

[Bill the barbarian]

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Yeah I had never played RQ before so for me this is just part of learning the game. But for people who have played RQ a lot before, I can understand that it's frustrating that a few rules changes are completely changing the balance. Although my understanding is that it's replacing one frustration ("Rune magic sucks because it's hard to get and only one-use") with another frustration ("Rune magic is so easy to use it breaks the game") ?

Yeah, good call. It is incredibly frustrating to be used to playing one of the best RPGs on the planet to having it taken away because...  I will not go into it, It really is heartbreaking... It has been covered to death,  only to have it come back just before you die (this is not hyperbole, its biggest and most loyal fans are getting older and we all know where this ends...) only some parts are nerfed. Frustrating...

I have great hopes as the boys and girls involved in bringing it back seem quite good, the game is still phenomenal for the most part... and the tribe has always been one of the Chaosium’s greatest strengths. But you do have a good habit of seeing the nuts and bolts of a problem, and in this case,  ya nailed it.

Cheers

Edited December 28, 2019 by Bill the barbarian
old and can’t see s#!t

[G.T]

removed duplicate...

Edited December 28, 2019 by G.T
Fumbled first post...

[G.T]

New poster commenting, greetings to all.

In my table I am considering that >100% helps only in attack, not in the parry. Parry gets already benefit of multiple parries, so high skill is still useful but would not prevent allosaurus to hit you.

And imho new runemagic rules are just fantastic. 

[g33k]

I'm also going to point out that the RAW explictly do NOT cover every contingency.

You (the GM) are SUPPOSED to adjust things for edge-cases and exceptional situations.

I'm just gonna go ahead and assert that Cwim is ALWAYS an exceptional situation, and sword-vs-mastodon is an edge case!

The over-100% rule is clearly aimed at similar-scale combatants & Hero-among-Mook situations.

This conversation showcases clearly how much it DOES NOT apply to oversized foes.

[Rob Darvall]

9 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I agree with @galafrone. Our group had three "fighter" types, two Orlanthi (one on my Vingan) and a Storm Bull.  Another player brought in a Humakhti. Suddenly our chances for Fame and glory seem much lower.  Will see, it might work out, requires some creativity from the others to "keep up".

Oh yeah - it's one of the "We can't ambush" Humakhti, even more annoying.

Kill the Humakti.
They are attempting to be avatars of death including their own. The greater their power the closer they should become to Apotheosis and becoming one with their god. So fewer practical methods of avoiding death should be acceptable. If they are not willing to get that close to their god they don't get the benefits. The death cult in "The Lies of the Locke Lamora" is a fine example. Worship of Humakt is to accept death in all its forms (bar the chaotic, that's not death it's dissolution) so careers should be brief and meteroric.

How many heros returned from Troy? Only the politicians. The ones who focused solely on killing got buried, even the Lesser Ajax.

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Although my understanding is that it's replacing one frustration ("Rune magic sucks because it's hard to get and only one-use") with another frustration ("Rune magic is so easy to use it breaks the game") ?

Not in my game at least - I'm very happy (as are my players) with the RQG version. 

[jajagappa]

18 minutes ago, Rob Darvall said:

Kill the Humakti.
They are attempting to be avatars of death including their own. The greater their power the closer they should become to Apotheosis and becoming one with their god.

And the more the Humakti invoke Death, the more it will impact their clan and its contacts with Life. It will become difficult to gain the blessings and bounty of the Earth, the crops wither, children die, whole villages massacred. Eventually heroes will be needed to Kill the Humakti and bring Death to the Deathwielders, separating them from Life.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

Not in my game at least - I'm very happy (as are my players) with the RQG version. 

I've got to say though, starting at age 41 with 9 Rune points is pretty radical. Three of the characters in my campaign (some players have multiple characters) have those 9 Rune Points, and the two Orlanthi keep trying to come up with ways to solve problems by pushing up to 18 points worth of Increase Wind and Wind Warp, which is a ridiculous amount of destructive force.

[HreshtIronBorne]

11 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I've got to say though, starting at age 41 with 9 Rune points is pretty radical. Three of the characters in my campaign (some players have multiple characters) have those 9 Rune Points, and the two Orlanthi keep trying to come up with ways to solve problems by pushing up to 18 points worth of Increase Wind and Wind Warp, which is a ridiculous amount of destructive force.

Hahahaha, I am glad we can actually try and solve some problems with Rune/Divine Magic though. Rather than just feeling like a Bronze Age Life Simulator with a little Battle Magic for large swaths of a campaign. 

I am legitimately excited for the moment our party starts to see what can be done with some of the stackable spells and starts using their RP in interesting ways. 

[galafrone]

i am actually very very glad of the new rune point / rune spells situation.

It's way better than in the original, exception made for 1-2 single situations (the most defining one is our bright black hero the humakti with truesword, bladesharp (even 2-3 is good) and sword trance. But this will not deter me to discuss with my players (they are actually a very reasonable group) and move on with this.

The starting point of the Whole thread was actually "how do you deal with pc/npc with more than 100%" in a combat skill than "how do you deal with your 200% humakti in killing mode".

And if i have to be honest, i am not yet sure on how the "i have 200%" works against, for example, 4 NPC fighting the humakti (and having them all for example, 75% in their 1hsword skill and no shield)

sorry for this "slight return" but i have yet to understand properly

Edited December 29, 2019 by galafrone