firebomb/molotov

[Kloster]

18 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

this is a fair point, although it makes the idea that dropping a lamp can create a fire questionable too

A petroleum lamp, yes (I inadvertently did it myself).

An oil lamp, almost impossible. Cold oil is very difficult to ignite.

[Blindhamster]

Just now, Kloster said:

A petroleum lamp, yes (I inadvertently did it myself).

An oil lamp, almost impossible. Cold oil is very difficult to ignite.

the reason i raised it, is because the rules for lamps include the possibility of them creating a fire if dropped 15% chance of it happening when dropped.

[Akhôrahil]

21 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Molotov cocktails were efficient when used from above, because WW2 tanks were not sealed, and burning liquids went inside the vehicle, which itself was full of oil, gasoline vapors and explosives. 

Yeah, this. You want burning fluid to flow down into the engine compartment. Otherwise, when not used against vehicles, the most you can hope for is to set something flammable on fire.

It was useful enough that the Soviets constructed the Molotov Projector, a spigot-operated device to toss them further.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

13 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

the reason i raised it, is because the rules for lamps include the possibility of them creating a fire if dropped 15% chance of it happening when dropped.

I would imagine it matters a lot what the surface is. Hay or threshing room floor, sure. Stone tiles, not so much.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Blindhamster]

58 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I would imagine it matters a lot what the surface is. Hay or threshing room floor, sure. Stone tiles, not so much.

again, not based on how its setup. Says lanters with candles go out if dropped, oil and whicks can be dangerous, roll on the following table.

Not saying you're wrong in theory, but the way the system is setup, perhaps the type of oil used for lanterns is more flamable because people believe it will burn and the world is magical? who knows. Either way, it has a 15% chance to set a fire by the rules.

 

- for clarity, the reason i hightlight this isn't because I don't think taking into account the materials around and if they'd burn makes sense, it's because if you don't *know* lamp oil doesn't burn well and probably wouldn't burn at all on a stone floor, you'll just go with the 15% regardless of location.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Blindhamster

[Brootse]

26 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

again, not based on how its setup. Says lanters with candles go out if dropped, oil and whicks can be dangerous, roll on the following table.

Not saying you're wrong in theory, but the way the system is setup, perhaps the type of oil used for lanterns is more flamable because people believe it will burn and the world is magical? who knows. Either way, it has a 15% chance to set a fire by the rules.

15% seems ok, a low chance, but still a chance.

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

the reason i raised it, is because the rules for lamps include the possibility of them creating a fire if dropped 15% chance of it happening when dropped.

Yes, I know that rule (coming from RQ3, if not earlier). I agree with you. What I said is that earth oil has a very low probability of catching fire in case the lamp is broken. Most probably around 1 or 2%. In a magical world, as you said, everything can go.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Brootse said:

Yeah, Glorantha uses about 300BC Iron Age Earth innovations, and gives lip service to the whole Bronze Age thing. In addition to coins and triremes, there are crossbows, phalanxes, catapults, kopises, greatswords etc. These things can be constructed without iron, but they weren't invented during the Bronze Age.

300 BC technology in or around the Mediterranean? What about the Yellow River basin, or the Indian subcontinent and the Malayan peninsula? Or maybe 0 - 1000 AD of the Indic Ocean shore of Africa? 1000 AD- 1500 AD in Peru or the Amazonas basin? Not to mention more benighted regions in Roman Iron Age Europe only very brokenly adapting to Imperial Roman technology?

I find some features of Roman technology as of 300 AD still within the canonical "non-magical" stuff in Glorantha. And yet there are others where I have some doubt what is known and done in Glorantha, like smelting metal from ores, rather than melting down nuggets or metal dust.

 

Anyway, my point was that distillation technology dates back to paleolithic hunter gatherers. So do a number of other pyro-technologies.

And I don't think that you can have lab alchemy without some forms of distillation or similar purification technologies. If your alchemy does produce material stuff, then your alchemist will have used purification processes on the ingredients, or the alchemists he bought the ingredients from will have done so.

[Brootse]

30 minutes ago, Joerg said:

300 BC technology in or around the Mediterranean? What about the Yellow River basin, or the Indian subcontinent and the Malayan peninsula? Or maybe 0 - 1000 AD of the Indic Ocean shore of Africa? 1000 AD- 1500 AD in Peru or the Amazonas basin? Not to mention more benighted regions in Roman Iron Age Europe only very brokenly adapting to Imperial Roman technology?

I find some features of Roman technology as of 300 AD still within the canonical "non-magical" stuff in Glorantha. And yet there are others where I have some doubt what is known and done in Glorantha, like smelting metal from ores, rather than melting down nuggets or metal dust.

 

Anyway, my point was that distillation technology dates back to paleolithic hunter gatherers. So do a number of other pyro-technologies.

And I don't think that you can have lab alchemy without some forms of distillation or similar purification technologies. If your alchemy does produce material stuff, then your alchemist will have used purification processes on the ingredients, or the alchemists he bought the ingredients from will have done so.

Yeah, agreed.

[Baron Wulfraed]

5 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

the reason i raised it, is because the rules for lamps include the possibility of them creating a fire if dropped 15% chance of it happening when dropped.

Conditions likely needed...

1. the wick remains lit (so not /drowned/ under an influx of oil)
2. the wick lands /on/ a large enough puddle of oil which it can vaporize and ignite

[French Desperate WindChild]

7 hours ago, Brootse said:

If used as an area weapon, DEX * 5 could be ok to get a grenade-like weapon close to the target, but there should then be some sort of scatter and distance rolls too. And on a failed roll the distance from the target should be greater. Succeeding in a Thrown rock (15) skill means a direct hit.

 

Clay jars full of lamp oil weren't used on ancient battle fields because they weren't very effective, and the rules should show this. 3d6 is damage for magical fire, and normal oil fire should do less damage. Perhaps d6 to one location. The rulebook has decent rules for fires on p. 157.

Yes clever than me !

 

8 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

that being said, treating it as a weapon skill isn't a terrible idea if you want to limit its effectiveness I guess?

yes but dex * 5 is a big % (mini 40%, max 105%) versus a base weapon skill (5-15%). If we follow @Brootse , dex*5 is not an issue because damage are low, but if the dammage are higher than 1d6 it s better to choose alchemy than humakt path to become the terror of the battle field. That breaks the world (my opinion)

[Blindhamster]

8 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Yes clever than me !

 

yes but dex * 5 is a big % (mini 40%, max 105%) versus a base weapon skill (5-15%). If we follow @Brootse , dex*5 is not an issue because damage are low, but if the dammage are higher than 1d6 it s better to choose alchemy than humakt path to become the terror of the battle field. That breaks the world (my opinion)

if you check, i too had said 1d6 damage, following normal fire damage rules...

[soltakss]

9 hours ago, Brootse said:

In addition to coins and triremes, there are crossbows, phalanxes, catapults, kopises, greatswords etc. These things can be constructed without iron, but they weren't invented during the Bronze Age.

Well ...

• According to Wikipedia, Crossbow locks made of bronze have been found from around 650BC, which is earlier than the Iron Age there, c6th Century BC). So, bronze age Crossbows are certainly possible.
• Catapults seem to be Iron Age, or after, close enough for RuneQuest's Ancient feel.
• The Khopesh is definitely Bronze Age and the Kopis might have been in Eturia in the 7th Century BC, so at the end of the Bronze Age.
• Phalanxes were Bronze Age, with some Sumerian ones quite early in the Bronze Age. Even Greek phalanxes were 7th Century BC, which is at the end of the Bronze Age.
• As for Greatswords, the Jian were made of bronze and date from the 7th century BC, so end of the Bronze Age.

So, I use Wikipedia as a source, shoot me!

 

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

if you check, i too had said 1d6 damage, following normal fire damage rules...

sorry I miss it !

[Brootse]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Well ...

• According to Wikipedia, Crossbow locks made of bronze have been found from around 650BC, which is earlier than the Iron Age there, c6th Century BC). So, bronze age Crossbows are certainly possible.
• Catapults seem to be Iron Age, or after, close enough for RuneQuest's Ancient feel.
• The Khopesh is definitely Bronze Age and the Kopis might have been in Eturia in the 7th Century BC, so at the end of the Bronze Age.
• Phalanxes were Bronze Age, with some Sumerian ones quite early in the Bronze Age. Even Greek phalanxes were 7th Century BC, which is at the end of the Bronze Age.
• As for Greatswords, the Jian were made of bronze and date from the 7th century BC, so end of the Bronze Age.

So, I use Wikipedia as a source, shoot me!

 

7th century BC Med was already some centuries into the Iron Age.

e: I didn't specify in the post, but I meant specifically the Macedonian phalanxes, the shield wall with spearmen was a proper Bronze Age innovation, but the version with smaller shields, longer spears, and deeper ranks was a much later innovation.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Brootse

[Diana Probst]

On 10/20/2020 at 3:02 PM, Blindhamster said:

thats an interesting point, although greek fire is a real world bronze age thing, it doesn't mean the same general idea exists in glorantha (although do we know that it definitely doesn't?)

 

A GM of mine had some fire pots that were alchemy based, I think, and had ... rules he didn't make up?  I think?

I believe there are rules for such, but I'd make it hard to make and use, because then when I use it on the PCs, it's a surprise.  Otherwise I just have to make up other things instead.

[Diana Probst]

On 10/21/2020 at 9:21 AM, Blindhamster said:

just basing that on core book page 159. It doesn't matter which part of the makeshift bomb hits the target assuming its brittle material. Potentially if its meant to be harder, it could be dex x4 or even 3.

that being said, treating it as a weapon skill isn't a terrible idea if you want to limit its effectiveness I guess?

If it's that brittle, how are you going to carry it to the point where you use it?

Edited October 22, 2020 by Diana Probst
Typos. We hates them, we does.

[Diana Probst]

On 10/21/2020 at 12:37 PM, Blindhamster said:

Not saying you're wrong in theory, but the way the system is setup, perhaps the type of oil used for lanterns is more flamable because people believe it will burn and the world is magical? who knows. Either way, it has a 15% chance to set a fire by the rules.

Yelm will not always stand to be put out.  And your wick might end up floating and fully exposed, or you might have dropped the oil somewhere that once, Yelmalio walked.

[soltakss]

If you are using specially-made firepots to do this then all the problems have been sorted out. They are designed to break, designed to burn easily and to cover people with burning liquid. for me, it doesn't matter what they are made of, I just know that they would work.

If, however, you throw a lamp at someone, them sure, sue the dropped lamp table, or something similar. To my eyes, it's a bit of a dicking thing for a GM to do, looking for a way for something cool not to work, but some GMs do that.

[Baron Wulfraed]

21 hours ago, soltakss said:

Well ...

• According to Wikipedia, Crossbow locks made of bronze have been found from around 650BC, which is earlier than the Iron Age there, c6th Century BC). So, bronze age Crossbows are certainly possible.

<SNIP>

So, I use Wikipedia as a source, shoot me!

 

Note that "crossbow lock" means the mechanism that holds the string back, and the trigger lever to release it. The "bow" itself is likely composite (layered horn, wood, sinew) to get any effective power without having unwieldy limb length. Definitely not the more modern steel limbs. One could probably prototype the lock using dense woods, but it may not last more than a few shots before the catches are chipped/worn.

{Consider yourself shot with a bronze age crossbow}

[Kloster]

36 minutes ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Note that "crossbow lock" means the mechanism that holds the string back, and the trigger lever to release it. The "bow" itself is likely composite (layered horn, wood, sinew) to get any effective power without having unwieldy limb length. Definitely not the more modern steel limbs. One could probably prototype the lock using dense woods, but it may not last more than a few shots before the catches are chipped/worn.

{Consider yourself shot with a bronze age crossbow}

According to Heron and Biton, the 'advanced' gastraphetes (greek belly crossbow) were created before 420 BC by a guy named Zopyros for the siege of Cumae and Ctesibus describes it around 250 BC. There is no more precise date, but 420 BC is early iron age, so the basic models can easily be from late bronze age.

[Lysus]

21 minutes ago, Kloster said:

According to Heron and Biton, the 'advanced' gastraphetes (greek belly crossbow) were created before 420 BC by a guy named Zopyros for the siege of Cumae and Ctesibus describes it around 250 BC. There is no more precise date, but 420 BC is early iron age, so the basic models can easily be from late bronze age.

The Iron Age is usually considered to be the time period in which iron was in wide use but before there was a strong historical record. 420 BC in Greece isn't early Iron Age, it's after the end of the Iron Age.

[Kloster]

Cumae is a Greek colony in Italy, and for western Europe, end of iron age is considered to be the roman conquest of 1st century BC.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

One could probably prototype the lock using dense woods, but it may not last more than a few shots before the catches are chipped/worn.

You could use another piece of cord that is connected to the trigger, much like the release of a modern compound bow. Basically, you pull a splint to release the cord which then releases the bow string. The pieces with the wear could be replaced easily, e.g. acacia thorns.

[metcalph]

Could we, like, move on from archaeological discussion about the Iron Age?