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Sword Trance et all beats shields?


davecake

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9 hours ago, davecake said:

If you know someone is Tranced, good organised opponents can also use it against you

Sure.  Lets say your PCs encounter opponents, one of whom turns out to be Sword Tranced.  You figure that out after a few rounds.  Your party is well drilled (sure!) and pulls back.

  1. A couple of your front line fighters are likely down by the time you "know". 
    1. Unlucky ones lie there dead, or F.I. and bleeding
    2. Lucky ones skedaddle back, then require Heal Body Rune Spells and lots of MP. 
    3. Suddenly, the total cost in Rune Points and MP expended is pretty equal! 
  2. You take a couple of rounds pulling back, using Mobility or similar.  (that's more MP spent!)
  3. Net result - you are down a couple of front line fighters and temporarily disorganized.  Both sides have used roughly the same magic.  But their guy is still Tranced for ~14 more minutes.
  4. Your opponents have a couple of rounds to do stuff too
    1. Maybe the Sword Tranced guy hides behind a tree or a pavise to avoid your missile fire.  Standoff.
    2. As you pull back, they get off a few free potshots with missiles or spells.
    3. Maybe they decide to declare victory and leave.  Sword Tranced guy is not berserk.
    4. Meanwhile, your unlucky fighters bleed to death.  Or get looted.  Or dragged away

 

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7 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Sure.  Lets say your PCs encounter opponents, one of whom turns out to be Sword Tranced. 

You've assumed the Party have been ambushed or it's a meeting engagement. Recon. Recon. Recon. 

RQ combat is dangerous. Whichever side gets an ambush in likely wins assuming similar power levels and even if not then gets a significant boost. As such if your party are just pootling about with the thumbs up their....er head in the clouds they will totally get their backsides handed to them. However at least in the games I play or GM then recon plays a significant part of the game. 

When my party played 'The Defending Apple Lane' they had mounted scouts out, they had someone in the Tower watching and they had magical recon to call in. They set ambushes and fall backs and they made damn sure to have the edge. And so they won fairly easily. 

In your example you assume the Humakti Sword Trance type gets to melee range without getting hit with a ton of offensive or dispels before the engagement. Remember that a Humakti CANNOT ambush. It's significant. If the opposition spots their opponents have dedicated warriors they will target them. Anyone with heavy armour and great weapons and sporting a Death Rune (Humakti, Storm Bulls, Babs, ZZ) are going to get a lot of fire. Especially as targeting healers is frowned on.    

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@Thaz I merely assumed a fair meeting engagement.  You are correct, ambushes change everything.  And a lot of that depends on GM.  When we defended Apple Lane we only had a couple hours to prepare so our traps and ambushes were minimal.

BTW, Humakti can ambush.  Unless they have that geas.  (Or change the hypothetical Humakhti to Babs Gor)

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4 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

@Thaz I merely assumed a fair meeting engagemen

I don't think you did. Because its starts with a sword trance in hand to hand. And that shouldn't happen except in ambush. They have to cast and close and THAT gives time for counters. For a start anyone with a death rune and a great sword attempting to close gets a befuddle in my book

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13 minutes ago, Thaz said:

Anyone with heavy armour and great weapons and sporting a Death Rune

This begs the question: at what range can you spot an opponents runes?  What roll is needed?  And what if they are under clothing?  As for nice armor and great weapons, Harmast the Issaries qualifies.

I reject the whole "of course you can instantly recognize the Humakti at range" argument.

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1 minute ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

This begs the question: at what range can you spot an opponents runes?  What roll is needed? 

 They're pretty obvious from the game art. And hiding them? Oh I think thats an instant dishonourable action right there.  And yes Harmast would be treated with extreme prejudice as well. 

Its a fairly easy scan roll

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1 minute ago, Thaz said:

 They're pretty obvious from the game art. And hiding them? Oh I think thats an instant dishonourable action right there.  And yes Harmast would be treated with extreme prejudice as well. 

Its a fairly easy scan roll

The combatants are wearing leather padding, metal armor, possibly cloaks, closed helms, etc.  Very likely the runes are covered.  All completely Honorable. Tell me how that's an easy scan roll, especially at any distance.

Our meeting encounters in Sartar have started at fairly close distances due to hills, woods, etc.  Possibly wrong assumptions by our GM.  Prax would be different.

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7 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

The combatants are wearing leather padding, metal armor, possibly cloaks, closed helms, etc.  Very likely the runes are covered.  All completely Honorable. Tell me how that's an easy scan roll, especially at any distance.

image.png.f579b60c2d53c447e1193885f87f37a5.pngimage.png.fac4ce8af3eb7f75a01387575527f34d.png 

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1 minute ago, Thaz said:

image.png.f579b60c2d53c447e1193885f87f37a5.pngimage.png.fac4ce8af3eb7f75a01387575527f34d.png 

Cool commissioned game art is one thing... But I'm not going to assume everyone has face tattoos (plus they're not wearing a closed helm, and they're not exactly "normal" everyday characters).

Also, if you're outside of Dragon Pass you might find cults that you don't know/recognize, or that simply don't use tattoos or obvious rune displays.

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4 minutes ago, Thaz said:

_every single character in the book has face tats_ its the norm

Plus great sword and charging is likely good enough. 

They aren't wearing helmets.  And you are standing about 10 feet away.

Interestingly, the only time I've seen Sword Trance in practice, that character had broadsword & shield.

I agree, anybody using Greatsword is a bad ass worthy of targeting!

Edited by Rodney Dangerduck
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2 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

They aren't wearing helmets.  And you are standing about 10 feet away.

Interestingly, the only time I've seen Sword Trance in practice, that character had broadsword & shield.

I agree, anybody using Greatsword is a bad ass worthy of targeting!

generally speaking your going to be able to pick out the dangerous professional warriors from their kit, runes and stance. Unless their faking (and trust me its something I teach, tired rank and file spearman is a look used by sharks) you can spot the dangerous ones a mile off. And if your using Spirit Sight....

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1 hour ago, Thaz said:

generally speaking your going to be able to pick out the dangerous professional warriors from their kit, runes and stance.

Your GMs are very generous letting the PCs

  1. do more scouting, setting up ambushes (I envy you here, wish we had more of that)
  2. know what's going on (I prefer more fog of battle and think that's more realistic)

BTW, my one actual experience with a PC casting Sword Trance was in Snakepipe Hollow, so yes, we did pretty much start in melee.  Would be somewhat different in the hills of Sartar and much different on the plains of Prax.

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1 minute ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Your GMs are very generous letting the PCs

Your assuming its just the PC's who scout. Light Cav/Recon is a fight all of and in itself 🙂   

In my Campaign the Defense of Apple lane went very well because the players won the recon battle. However they didn't kill all of those Tusk Riders....and the next outing will be harder. 

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3 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

They aren't wearing helmets. 

Anyone using Sword Trance is probably going to have a great big Death Rune, and probably a Truth Rune, emblazoned on their armour, helm or shield. Humakti are not hard to spot.

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

A tactic that has not been mentioned when seeing who the best warriors are has been to adopt disguises. 

Yes, good warriors often don;t advertise, to stop young bucks from challenging them all the time.

However, I am reminded of the Faculty from Discworld who had to disguise themselves as not wizards for reasons I can't remember. They just couldn't grasp the idea. "What do you mean, take off my pointy hat? I am a wizard", "Take off my robes with the stars on? Whatever would I wear" and so on. They compromised by wearing little twisted wires coming from their ears to their beards, so the guards thought they were disguising themselves badly as wizards, "Come on, I can see the little wires holding your beards on".

Disguising is not something that everyone can do or is willing to do.

One of the PCs in our RQ2 Campaign was a SIZ 40 Great troll with a Giant's Thigh Bone as a club. He used to go through the Rubble wearing a baboon costume as a disguise. The guards at the gate used to let "The baboon" through without comment, as they didn't want him to tear their arms and legs off. also, Broze Demonslayer, played by the same Player, once famously disguised himself and assumed a false name, "Ezorb," he said, fumbling his Disguise Skill, "Ezorb Demonslayer".

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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1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Anyone using Sword Trance is probably going to have a great big Death Rune, and probably a Truth Rune, emblazoned on their armour, helm or shield. Humakti are not hard to spot

Most 21 year old "I just rolled up a character" scrounged for their armor at Gringles.  They have a mishmash of stuff.

Here's Naimless - Runes, but far from "great big".  Put her in a helmet and have the wind blow the cloak around and they are invisible.

4785a3bde74d3e5ef0fd022294f14505.jpg

Here's Kallyr - Runes are more visible but could be covered or hard to see at any distance

plate03colourRough.jpg.466c8cb1c9c3a52ca

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33 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Most 21 year old "I just rolled up a character" scrounged for their armor at Gringles.  They have a mishmash of stuff.

Here's Naimless - Runes, but far from "great big".  Put her in a helmet and have the wind blow the cloak around and they are invisible.

4785a3bde74d3e5ef0fd022294f14505.jpg

Here's Kallyr - Runes are more visible but could be covered or hard to see at any distance

plate03colourRough.jpg.466c8cb1c9c3a52ca

So huge obvious runes...yeah. I think you made my point. Cheers

 

Edited by Thaz
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9 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Sure.  Lets say your PCs encounter opponents, one of whom turns out to be Sword Tranced.  You figure that out after a few rounds.  Your party is well drilled (sure!) and pulls back.

There are a bunch of different ways we can go, sure. Some of them are more or less a stand off, some of them result in a mutual loss of resources, some in victory for one side of the other. 
But Sword Trance has disadvantages as well as advantages. On occasion, those disadvantages will get you killed/captured by a group of prepared opponents. On other occasions, they will help you avoid it. Sometimes, Sword Trance might be a huge disadvantage, but not a deadly one (you just needed to take down that one guy you couldn’t reach, but you couldn’t do anything at range, so the other side still got to escape/do the thing). Like Berserker, it’s a choice that might win you the battle, but in some situations might lose it for you. As a very significant tactical choice, make it carefully, because sometimes it’s the wrong choice, especially against opponents prepared for it.

Thats all I’m saying. 

Your Sword of Humakt has a powerful option in Sword Trance. But if they use it every fight, especially if they don’t have backup to compensate for the weaknesses of the Trance, then eventually they will get their arse handed to them, possibly fatally. 

8 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

BTW, Humakti can ambush.

It’s almost always dishonourable. Even when they technically can, they will be unlikely to do so. 

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11 minutes ago, davecake said:

(Ambush) It’s almost always dishonourable

It's not listed as a cause of dishonor.  (Assuming opponents are armed)  Maybe it should be - I'm struggling with just what "Honor" means and frankly it seems pretty subjective.   Many Humakti do avoid ambushing, including fellow PCs which causes good friction.

One point about Honor (and other Passions) is that, in typical roleplaying, they are supposed to go up and down.  Argrath consorts with plenty of dishonorable types yet is still considered "honorable".

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10 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Could you please point me towards the official text of Arrow Trance

Glorantha Bestiary, page 27.

10 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

and the interp changing Sword Trance to act "similarly"? 

Not really - the discussion is here https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-players-book-print/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-14-rune-magic/

but it's pretty vague there. 

There is what looks to be updated spell description for it, which does differ a little from the Arrow Trance text but is largely the same, in the Preview of the Red Book of Magic, but I don't think its appropriate to post full text here without Chaosium permission. It doesn't have the line about movement (which would need to be rephrased), but whether that will last until publication I don't know.

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