Cults book and Gifts

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

This is clearly rubbish, so I have always played that Kuschile Horse Archery is an ability that allows you to use your full bow chance while on a moving horse.

Then what effect does the percentile value in that skill have in your game?

And would it make sense in RQG to use it for augmenting bow shots from horseback?

Edited October 20, 2020 by Joerg

[Blindhamster]

with a bit of luck the thoughts will be the same officially and it'll be "fixed" in the cults book then. Although I could still see an arguement for it being a specific skill for augmenting too. As in, you augment your bow skill with the Kuschile Horse Archery skill whilst mounted.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Blindhamster

[French Desperate WindChild]

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

Then what effect does the percentile value in that skill have in your game?

the % seems to me a bad idea, because we already have mount skill and bow skill

Imagine a character with 50% horse riding and 80% bow has 50% to hit on an horse

Now the same character learn the Kuschile Horse Archery. After some weeks he get 25% in it. So now, he can hit  at 25% on an horse...

Ok he can continue to try/study/experiment this skill, but it would be better to train horse riding directly

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

And would it make sense in RQG to use it for augmenting bow shots from horseback?

Same issue here, as you can augment your skill by anything (rune, passion...) there is a very large chance you have already a stat superior than kushile skill to augment your bow (max riding) skill.

It would be better to see kushile archery as a yelmalian gift, giving + 10% (or 20%) when you are shooting on a mount

[g33k]

It looks like "Kuschile Horse Archery" (KHA) should be a "gift" sort of thing (you have it or you don't) rather than a %skill separate from your Ride and Bow skills.

My idea is -- AFAIK -- an all-new mechanic to add to RQG.  But it's simple, and IMHO elegant:

Make the KHA mechanical effect be that you use the better of Ride-v-Shoot, rather than the lower of the two (this leaves you free to use Runes/Passions to Augment your Archery skill).  It means you can ONLY be as-good-or-better an archer when mounted:  you cannot get worse by riding... and if you're a VERY skilled rider with KHA, you may get a notable bump in your archery skill by mounting-up.

I'm sure many of you spot the "issue" where a horsemaster with KHA (but a novice bowman) becomes a master archer by mounting; solve this by putting in a gating condition:  must have Bow & Ride skills both over 80% or you cannot use KHA (or somesuch; set the gating %s as desired).

Edited October 23, 2020 by g33k
Gaaah. KHA

[Blindhamster]

think i prefer the simplicity of just saying your Bow skills are no longer limited by your Ride skill.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

think i prefer the simplicity of just saying your Bow skills are no longer limited by your Ride skill.

While I agree in principle, I'd limit to certain occupations - light cavalry and hunters, probably nobles, Praxian herders, etc,, too.. I'd also allow any other occupation where the player could convince the table that it fitted. One of our gaming club members does horse archery - trains, but as a database programer, it's not his primary job, but I'd let him do it of course. You still have to be able to control your mount to a degree, ride 5% and archery 90% is never going to be a good fit.

[Blindhamster]

21 minutes ago, David Scott said:

While I agree in principle, I'd limit to certain occupations - light cavalry and hunters, probably nobles, Praxian herders, etc,, too.. I'd also allow any other occupation where the player could convince the table that it fitted. One of our gaming club members does horse archery - trains, but as a database programer, it's not his primary job, but I'd let him do it of course. You still have to be able to control your mount to a degree, ride 5% and archery 90% is never going to be a good fit.

i assumed there were requirements to get it at all (it isnt currently a thing in RQ:G so i don't know the specifics). Yes it should require at least Professional level in both ride and a bow skill.

[davecake]

My understanding of the machanics for Kuschile archery is that if you roll your Kuschile skill, then your archery skill is at full, if you fail, it is at max of riding and archery. This is cumbersome, but at least always potentially useful to someone whose archery is more than their ride - but still appears to have no advantage for someone whose ride is much higher, and only very minimal advantage if they are close. 
I’d like to see it give a more obvious advantage, but I don’t know what. It might be useful to expert riders but who are attempting complex ride tricks that reduce their effective chance I guess? 

[davecake]

On 10/22/2020 at 3:08 AM, Blindhamster said:

Yes it should require at least Professional level in both ride and a bow skill.

If you have roughly the equivalent skill level in both, as currently defined it’s not very useful. its most useful in the current RAW for good archers that are bad riders. 
But I don’t think it should have skill requirements as written - because currently it’s a ‘magic’ skill, you only get it from Yelmalio by taking a Geas, and Yelmalio Gifts can explicitly give you expert skills from nothing (among other things). But KHA needs to not be the only effective horse archery (which it isn’t, really, you can just just have both skills at a high level), but also give a meaningful advantage to those who have it.

And it’s actually fine to make it a potentially fairly big advantage IMO, because anyone with KHA has already substantially reduced their potential effectiveness as an archer because as a Yelmalio initiate they can’t use Firearrow.

[Joerg]

24 minutes ago, davecake said:

My understanding of the machanics for Kuschile archery is that if you roll your Kuschile skill, then your archery skill is at full, if you fail, it is at max of riding and archery. This is cumbersome, but at least always potentially useful to someone whose archery is more than their ride - but still appears to have no advantage for someone whose ride is much higher, and only very minimal advantage if they are close. 

Do you roll Kuschile Archery once for a scene, or do you roll for each shot?

In effect, you're multiplying the two percentiles with these two rolls if you roll for each shot.

It still is a weird skill to have. As a Yelmalian outside of Prax, being a horse rider is fairly normal, and while the units in Dragon Pass don't reflect it at first glance, quite a few Yelmalians are in that game in the shape of the 2* 1 6 skirmishing cavalry.

But then, if I am going to play a mounted archer, I would have invested in my bow skill as much as in my ride skill, both in character creation and in the few in-game training between adventures that I might be able to afford. Overseeing the slaves while practicing mounted archery can become expensive if you have to replace them more often than your arrows...

24 minutes ago, davecake said:

I’d like to see it give a more obvious advantage, but I don’t know what. It might be useful to expert riders but who are attempting complex ride tricks that reduce their effective chance I guess? 

For Kuschile archery to become more meaningful it should allow maneuvers that the normal combination of riding and bow doesn't offer. E.g. Parthian shots (which might otherwise give a penalty, at least on the riding skill), standing up on horseback firing an arrow (but then - why?), extra rapid shooting...

 

28 minutes ago, davecake said:

And it’s actually fine to make it a potentially fairly big advantage IMO, because anyone with KHA has already substantially reduced their potential effectiveness as an archer because as a Yelmalio initiate they can’t use Firearrow.

A munchkin rules lawyer acquaintance of mine (not me, honest, guv) wants to know whether it is fine to have a non-Yelmalian sidekick standing next to the Yelmalian archer casting that spell while the Yelmalian takes the shots?

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

A munchkin rules lawyer acquaintance of mine (not me, honest, guv) wants to know whether it is fine to have a non-Yelmalian sidekick standing next to the Yelmalian archer casting that spell while the Yelmalian takes the shots?

It is legit. It's up to the GM to decide if he (or Yelmalio) accept it, but RAW, it is OK.

For me, the question is: "They can't learn Firearrow, but can they use a Firearrow matrix?". That way, the munchkin rules lawyer does not even need a pal. RAW, it seems yes to me, it works.

[Richard S.]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

And it’s actually fine to make it a potentially fairly big advantage IMO, because anyone with KHA has already substantially reduced their potential effectiveness as an archer because as a Yelmalio initiate they can’t use Firearrow

They can still use all the other archery spirit magic though, so losing one spell isn't a huge blow.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

A munchkin rules lawyer acquaintance of mine (not me, honest, guv) wants to know whether it is fine to have a non-Yelmalian sidekick standing next to the Yelmalian archer casting that spell while the Yelmalian takes the shots?

I don't see a problem with that. The geas on Yelmalians is just that they can't learn spells like that.

[Lordabdul]

On 10/21/2020 at 11:45 AM, David Scott said:

You still have to be able to control your mount to a degree, ride 5% and archery 90% is never going to be a good fit.

I would probably solve this by simply saying that the Horse Archery ability requires a minimum skill score in both Ride and Archery... kinda like the requirements for Rune levels.