Jump to content

combat between 2 elementals


Manu

Recommended Posts

I have a player with a fire elemental. They will meet soon an enemy with a water elemental.

If one send his elemental against the other, how do we play this. Fire elemental cannot be drowned. Water elemental cannot be burned.

For a general point of view, if 2 differents (or the same) elementals fight, how to play it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Manu said:

Water elemental cannot be burned.

Why not? nothing in the description says it cannot be burned. If you boil a water elemental it will be hurt.

2 hours ago, Manu said:

Fire elemental cannot be drowned.

You could say that a Fire Elemental in water is deprived of air and so cannot burn as effectively.

What I would do is to allow the Fire Elemental to damage the Water Elemental as normal, but perhaps make the Water Elemental take half damage. Also, make the Fire elemental take damage as if by drowning, as the Water Elemental cuts off its air supply.

 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good question!

If they are of the same size, I would have them eliminate each other after 3D6+3 rounds of combat. But if someone intervenes, f.ex. if one side casts Protection or Shield on their elemental, that side will win, having roughly half the hitpoints after defeating the other elemental. The same goes if one side manages to damage the enemy elemental with magic or weapons. However, if both elementals are damaged or boosted somehow, you will need to judge who wins. 😛

Edited by Runeblogger

Read my Runeblog about RuneQuest and Glorantha at: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry but I still can't see how to handle it. Isn't it a generic rule on how it happens? What is Darkness against fire? What is air against earth? What if any one of them against any one of them? Because the combat description is totally referring to humanoid life.

 

They don't have spirit combat skills and spirit combat damage. They don't have 'generic' damage'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve played it as spirit combat, working out the skills and damage as normal (double POW to substitute for CHA). I give disadvantages of 20% according to the rune wheel.

It is a glaring omission for higher level play, when combatants are going to be hurling elementals at each other.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/13/2020 at 12:19 AM, Ultor said:

I’ve played it as spirit combat, working out the skills and damage as normal (double POW to substitute for CHA). I give disadvantages of 20% according to the rune wheel.

It is a glaring omission for higher level play, when combatants are going to be hurling elementals at each other.

I like this idea. Can you explain how you use the rune wheel?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/12/2020 at 7:19 PM, Ultor said:

I’ve played it as spirit combat, working out the skills and damage as normal (double POW to substitute for CHA). I give disadvantages of 20% according to the rune wheel.

What if a character casts Protection-5 on his elemental before sending it against the other elemental? In spirit combat, Protection is of no use, but in physical combat it is.

Read my Runeblog about RuneQuest and Glorantha at: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought about this a while back actually, and I think it depends a lot on the combination of elementals... and common sense.

Some like lunes, water, and air elementals would have no effect on most elementals, as none of them can go mad, drown, or fall. Others, like fire and selene, can cause at least some direct damage to most of them and disrupt their physical form. I might say the only elemental that can damage another of its kind is a selene, as they can technically both drain each-other.

And then of course, every other combination would be pretty unique. Some examples are: 

  • Water vs Fire: Water can hurt fire more than fire can hurt water, but they still probably damage eachother (ie. Water deals 1D6 damage while Fire deals 1 damage).
  • Earth could swallow fire and extinguish it, if the fire elemental is ground level (and slow to react?). Earth would probably take minimal damage while doing so. A strong earth elemental may or may not be able to damage ALL types by crushing them underground?
  • Shades could potentially freeze water, very slowly. They could also extinguish fire, but suffer damage in the process.
  • Lunes would stay away from anything without INT.

In closing, I wouldn't even make a roll out of it. If they're "fighting" (ie. in contact with one another), deal damage in a logical manner. Fire deals 1 to water while water deals 1D6 to fire. Earth deals 1D6 to fire (if strong enough to contain/envelop it) while fire deals it 1. Selene deals her 1hp/1mp damage to any of them. Darkness deals 1D6 to fire if it can envelop it, and possibly sustains 1d6 damage back, etc.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/16/2020 at 3:05 PM, Runeblogger said:

What if a character casts Protection-5 on his elemental before sending it against the other elemental? In spirit combat, Protection is of no use, but in physical combat it is.

Hasn't come up. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

As I say, it's a glaring absence from the rules. I hope there'll be official guidelines as this is clearly a case where people are having to make up their own systems and they vary wildly.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/19/2020 at 7:47 PM, Ultor said:

It's a glaring absence from the rules. I hope there'll be official guidelines as this is clearly a case where people are having to make up their own systems and they vary wildly.

*cough* Jonstown Compendium supplement opportunity *cough*

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, here's where I'm coming from. I agree that the Elementals are quite badly served by RuneQuest, which sorta-kinda treats them (in my opinion) too much as physical creatures and not as weird animated amorphous stuff-of-creation. My personal GM'ing style is to treat the RuneQuest rules as binding on my poor players' characters - they define what anthropomorphic, roughly man-sized persons with normal equipment and normal magic can expect to achieve - but entirely optional for my own purposes: as long as the NPCs and the rest of the world act in a way that seems "reasonable for Glorantha," I don't feel the need to tie myself down with nuts-and-bolts details.

And usually, that means RQ elementals and I get along just fine, because I can narrate whatever this crazy-ass creature made out of living water, or tunneling underneath you and reaching up to engulf you, or throbbing and pulsating with weird "colour out of space" lights that would drive you insane if you look at them (but if you don't, how can you fight it?), is getting up to, in some hopefully startling and terrifying way, and my players have to react to these intrusions without ever thinking to ask "what's its Strike Rank?" or "how many Armour Points does it have?" so all is well.

But in the specific case where a PC can summon an elemental and use it as a combat pet vs. another elemental, I agree it would be better to have more guidance.

My suggested rule of thumb would be that, all things being equal (ie: where two elementals of the same size are in conflict), the elemental dominance wheel on RQG p.8 applies absolutely: "The Elemental Runes are commonly conceived as being arranged on a wheel, where Fire/Sky is overcome by Water, Water by Air, Air by Earth, Earth by Darkness, and Darkness by Fire/Sky before the wheel cycles again." So a large undine would always be expected to overcome a large salamander, but would lose to a large sylph. Every type of elemental can battle every other type, because that is the nature of Gloranthan creation (and always has been): so waters quench fires, which burn away darkness, which engulfs the earth, which exhausts the wind, which suppresses the waters, and so it goes. Skewing that (by casting magic to buff your elemental or debuff the opposition) is the kind of thing GMs rule by fiat anyway - my starting point would be that 2 points of Spirit Magic equals one point of Rune Magic, common sense will tell you whether what you do is helpful / harmful, and detail is for the birds. Just describe an awesome combat between fundamental elements of creation, and you're golden.

Expanding that for the secondary relationships (non-adjacent points of the wheel / pentagram / Zzabur's Sigil - see p.149 of the Guide to Glorantha) shouldn't be too hard. Deciding where the balancing Moon fits into the picture will be an exercise in hilarity and propaganda. Maybe I should sketch this out with my own nifty diagram and upload it, before Ultor beats me to it?

image.thumb.png.b969c93780a0d2180776a047be31bfa3.png

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/7/2020 at 7:47 AM, Manu said:

I have a player with a fire elemental. They will meet soon an enemy with a water elemental.

If one send his elemental against the other, how do we play this. Fire elemental cannot be drowned. Water elemental cannot be burned.

For a general point of view, if 2 differents (or the same) elementals fight, how to play it?

Specific advice: on the elemental succession wheel, Water is always expected to defeat Fire: a medium Water elemental should quench a medium Fire elemental. If they're different sizes, the larger elemental would probably win: a large Fire elemental should boil away a medium Water elemental.

If your player chucks magic into buffing his Fire elemental or attacking the enemy Water elemental, or finds ways of healing his pet or hurting the enemy, that should certainly skew the results, but you can base this on the cost of the spells rather than on their specific defined effects in RuneQuest. That will give you an outcome that feels properly Gloranthan. Bear in mind that the difference in elemental size corresponds to one Rune point or two points of Spirit Magic, so you might arbitrarily rule that a medium Water elemental plus Protection 2 is equivalent in magic cost to (and therefore expected to beat) a large Fire elemental. (Or maybe you'd set the scales differently. I don't know how much magic is floating around in your games)

Just putting that out there. I think you'll find it more fun and varied than adapting SCA duelling rules to the clash of primal elemental forces.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah, that's what an earth Elemental looks like. Our RQ2 PCs tried to find out in many ways, by pulling one out of the earth and having a look, by trapping one and washing the earth away, by heating up the earth to turn it into glass and various other things, but they never found out.

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Ah, that's what an earth Elemental looks like. Our RQ2 PCs tried to find out in many ways, by pulling one out of the earth and having a look, by trapping one and washing the earth away, by heating up the earth to turn it into glass and various other things, but they never found out.

I don't think they actually look like that. Seems more like a symbolic image than anything.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...