Using the rules of the game, how are PCs expected to defeat "high-level" opponents?

[EpicureanDM]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

The RQG rules for abilities over 100% is one of the most significant changes between editions for high level play. Remember a 200% skill level means if you are fighting a ‘starting’ weapon master such as a newly qualified Rune Lord, with 100% skill, you subtract 100% from their skills, so they are about as dangerous as a toddler, with 5% chances vs your 100%. It definitely feels like high level play! And it means RQG skills work similarly to HeroQuestWorlds levels of mastery - it’s a logarithmic scale, not a linear one. And effective skills levels over 100% are not difficult at all to happen - a starting character with Fanaticism is there. 

I rolled this back to how it worked in RQ3 when we played RQG, figuring splitting your attack and parry would be more palatable to my group, which it was. Maybe I should give it another chance, though. 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

I revived my old game initially with two goals - I specifically wanted to try high level battle in RQG, and i wanted to, at least once, to have run infamous scenario The Cradle, which was more or less the defining high level scenario for RQ2 and a notorious ‘Rune Lord killer’.

Yeah, I've also looked at The Cradle for years wondering how strong the PCs might need to be and what it would look like to wrestle all of those stat blocks in play. 😉

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Not as much dispelling goes on as you’d think, and also not much boosting to get past defences. Sometimes smart PCs would target anyone who is taking a very long time to cast a spell because they are boosting it with magic.

That's a nice counterpoint to what others have been saying. From what I can tell (this thread, Rune Masters), this was an expected part of high-level play, so it's interesting to hear that it didn't feature in your game. It ties back to what I said earlier, that my personal group didn't get close to squeezing these sorts of advantages out of the rules. But other folks did and it's fun/instructive to see how it's done.

1 hour ago, davecake said:

There is definitely a different feel to ‘Rune level’ play that is more than just the numbers getting bigger - the extra actions from spirits, lots more magic points to spend, lots more magic options available. And often damage is higher so that one good blow can decide a combat - but healing options grow as well, and becomes a crucial part of teamwork. 

That's what's been tickling the back of my mind for years!

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Things like the support of your community (which might give you the aid of a wyter), or making choices about which Passions you are willing to maintain at a high level and how that might limit you, or which taboos you are willing to accept for the help of a particular spirit, or which ‘foreign’ powers you will accept help from, that’s going to be more vital to a high powered game than just numbers getting bigger. I hope that’s what we’ll be getting.

This is a great list of stuff I hope we see, too.

1 hour ago, davecake said:

High powered sorcerers I still despair of somewhat, it seems like a design goal of sorcery is to make it less fun to play a sorcerer. And it seems like we’ve only got half the rules. It does seem that even if they are made significantly more fun, that the most effective high powered sorcerers will inevitably end up being a lot less focussed on using sorcery - for example bound/allied spirits, especially ones that know spirit magic, are incredibly useful to a sorcerer. 

No one in my RQG game showed interest in sorcery, in part because I talked it down a little. If someone had shown any interest, though, I'd have used RQ3 sorcery despite what the esteemed members of this forum seem to think of it. 😉

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by EpicureanDM

[Rodney Dangerduck]

4 hours ago, Crel said:

In my last campaign, the Humakti broke 1000% this way - over 100 MPs spent. I described it as being roughly like "grinding up the Death God and snorting him like coke." It was a life-changing experience, but very very effective.

Most of your post is great, just a couple of comments / counters.

For that +1000% Sword Trance, I hope you cast Extension, cause 1000MP take 16 minutes to cast.  🙂  (if my math is right)

 Much more importantly, you'd only be a God for a couple of rounds, cause a basic Dispell Magic 2, with enough MP to blast through your Shield and Countermagic, (say, 20-30MP?) will take it down.  That seems like a very bad tradeoff, 20MP vs 1000.  Though 2-3 rounds at 1000% might be worth it!

4 hours ago, Crel said:

Befuddle takes someone out of the fight

Not really.  In RQG, they can often snap out of it in a few rounds with Meditation or failing an INT roll.  Or, it is also dispellable.  It's still a good spell for taking somebody out of action for a couple of rounds.  It's especially effective in a moving battle (say, while mounted) as the befuddled victim may get left behind and out of the action for additional time.

[Crel]

4 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

For that +1000% Sword Trance, I hope you cast Extension, cause 1000MP take 16 minutes to cast.  🙂  (if my math is right)

To be fair, I didn't say it was a good choice - just that my players did it. 😉

[Soccercalle]

Very interesting thread. I have (like some others) house ruled that you can at maximum double your sword skill with sword trance. I Humakti with 80% can go to 160 and a Humakti with 110% can go to 220%. Otherwise the skill level would be much less important than the magic.

Another house rules for skills over 100% is that I only lower the parry level with half of the skill over 100. So if Harry the Humakti with broad sword 140% fights Larry the Lunar with Shield 80%. I dont lower the shield parry to 40% but only to 60%. It will still give Harry a huge advantage but Larry will at least have a chance. In reality this house rule often just makes the battle lasts one or two MRs longer. Harry will probably still win.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

39 minutes ago, Soccercalle said:

lower the parry level with half of the skill over 100

Very intriguing.

One thing our gross Humakti player complains about is that, with the normal, full decrease, his PC will drop to 100% and has no bonus to Crit or special.  Always maxed at 5% and 20%.  With this half rule his chance to Crit or special goes up.

[PhilHibbs]

8 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

For that +1000% Sword Trance, I hope you cast Extension, cause 1000MP take 16 minutes to cast.  🙂  (if my math is right)

So you'd get 15 minutes of Trance starting from the end of that 16 minutes. Yes, a point of Extension would be sensible if you're in a battle, but more than an hour of being in a trance is pretty rough.

[French Desperate WindChild]

After so many posts, that confirms what I think since the begining

 

What was the "first" high level in previous rq rules was to become rune master. And for some people (I included) it was a real challenge

Now, because the new creation process, because the new rune magic rules, becoming or fighting a basic rune master is not very hard to do (at least less than previously).

Then the new first high level in rqg is to become a hero (perfom a heroquest)

I think we need, (at least I need) a "complete" set of rules about heroquesting.

then we will know what are the benefits and the opposition.

without that, some will/are follow(ing) house rules with big gameplay prizes (stuff, bonus, xp ..) some will follow house rules with less. And the big boss could be 500% or 200% depending on these house rules (I don't speak about the bat and things like that, after all it is said that a lot of runelords had to sacrifice themselves to "dismiss" it, so the bat is not the "first hight level")

 

When I was 16,  at least one century ago, it was weird for me that this territory was unknown  : What are the rules about heroquesting aka runes quests in this game called runequest ? 🙂

I have a big hope to see the next gm supplement answering all this questions

[Soccercalle]

6 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

After so many posts, that confirms what I think since the begining

 

What was the "first" high level in previous rq rules was to become rune master. And for some people (I included) it was a real challenge

Now, because the new creation process, because the new rune magic rules, becoming or fighting a basic rune master is not very hard to do (at least less than previously).

Then the new first high level in rqg is to become a hero (perfom a heroquest)

I think we need, (at least I need) a "complete" set of rules about heroquesting.

then we will know what are the benefits and the opposition.

without that, some will/are follow(ing) house rules with big gameplay prizes (stuff, bonus, xp ..) some will follow house rules with less. And the big boss could be 500% or 200% depending on these house rules (I don't speak about the bat and things like that, after all it is said that a lot of runelords had to sacrifice themselves to "dismiss" it, so the bat is not the "first hight level")

 

When I was 16,  at least one century ago, it was weird for me that this territory was unknown  : What are the rules about heroquesting aka runes quests in this game called runequest ? 🙂

I have a big hope to see the next gm supplement answering all this questions

I totally agree. But it will still take time to become a Rune Lord if you only have rolls for skill improvements every season. But if you have 2-3 adventures every season with skill rolls and are generous with extras like +1 in CHA now and then it will be much quicker. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

32 minutes ago, Soccercalle said:

I totally agree. But it will still take time to become a Rune Lord if you only have rolls for skill improvements every season. But if you have 2-3 adventures every season with skill rolls and are generous with extras like +1 in CHA now and then it will be much quicker. 

yes but for me there are two things :

- your skills start at a higher level than previously: it is easy now to start with about all required skills at 75% or more. I m pretty sure that if you optimize your generation you can start with few % to obtain and become runelord

(note that I have a bias: there is no luck in my creation process, i distribute characteristic points, I don't roll, so this point may be different depending how you define characteristics)

 

- you can be powerful like a rune lord, even if you are not a runelord. with rqg you can use magic like a rune lord (there are just few improvements) before rqg, there was an enormous gap between initiate and higher levels.

So being a runelord or priest gives few benefits and a lot of "commitments/requirements" to the cult (depending on your gm, at least with me as a gm, that's an important point)

 

[Darius West]

19 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Another combination of too-abstract followed by a glimpse of hard-won rules knowledge. I can't recall RQG's rules for dividing 300% skill across SR. Can you fill me in or point to the right page?

Pages 201-202 Combat with skills above 100% and (more importantly) splitting attacks.  You may have 300% but unless you are mighty fast, you will never deliver 3x100% attacks, and those 150% attacks might net you an 8% Critical and a 30% Special, but you can't rely on either showing up when you need them.

19 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Again, abstract enough to be accurate, but without the same granular detail we get from @HreshtIronBorne, @Rodney Dangerduck, or @Dragon. I don't mean to pick on you either, Darius. Whenever I lurk in the Glorantha forum, your takes on different topics are great grist. 😉

Page 219 Mounted Combat (the Lance).  The damage bonus of the animal ridden is used , not that of the rider.  Lances also have a nice 0 SR.  What a pity I can't see how a single charge could be combined with a split attack.  I mean the only thing nicer 1d10+1+6d6+extraneous magical buffs hitting on a low SR, is doing it 2 or 3 times in a round.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Darius West

[Soccercalle]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

yes but for me there are two things :

- your skills start at a higher level than previously: it is easy now to start with about all required skills at 75% or more. I m pretty sure that if you optimize your generation you can start with few % to obtain and become runelord

(note that I have a bias: there is no luck in my creation process, i distribute characteristic points, I don't roll, so this point may be different depending how you define characteristics)

 

- you can be powerful like a rune lord, even if you are not a runelord. with rqg you can use magic like a rune lord (there are just few improvements) before rqg, there was an enormous gap between initiate and higher levels.

So being a runelord or priest gives few benefits and a lot of "commitments/requirements" to the cult (depending on your gm, at least with me as a gm, that's an important point)

 

True. My players were new to the setting and the system. So they didnt optimize their skills for reaching Rune Level. Humakti abd Orlanthi have weapon skills around 90 but some other skills started around 50.

[svensson]

Folks, we are all seriously overthinking this.

> Some opponents with published statistics cannot be defeated by standard mundane or magical means. It's just that simple. To defeat them, you have to be as extraordinary as they are. That means Heroquesting. Or, more to the point, successful Heroquesting.

Now, none of my players have attempted a Heroquest yet. But I know three very important things about it.

- 1. I'm going to tell them to play several games of KODP to get a 'feel' for Heroquesting.

- 2. The usefulness of the information they receive from their cults will be in direct proportion to their Runes, Passions, and roleplay as supporters of their temples.

-3. At no point during a Heroquest will the players be allowed to use a written reference beyond their own notes.

Why all this? Because Heroquesting is deadly serious business, with deadly serious consequences. Heroquesting also measures the party's mastery of the myths involved. And most importantly, you don't have a handy dandy rulebook or Guide to Glorantha, or even a reasonably non-biased discussion of the myths and history to refer to on a Heroquest. Gloranthans don't have a player's omniscience to fall back on. Chasing big powers requires big risks. Nobody can Heroquest 'on the sidelines', every 'Quester has to have skin in the game.

[JustAnotherVingan]

1 hour ago, Soccercalle said:

True. My players were new to the setting and the system. So they didnt optimize their skills for reaching Rune Level. Humakti abd Orlanthi have weapon skills around 90 but some other skills started around 50.

An Orlanthi noble can came very close to qualifying for Windlord off the bat. Just the Cha 18 and Devotion 90 that are difficult to get, but not impossible.

[Shiningbrow]

On 4/4/2022 at 3:26 PM, HreshtIronBorne said:

This also reminds me of how strong Full Shaman are in the RAW. Depending on how your GM rules on combining Multispell and the Shamanic Ability - Spell Barrage you can get truly RIDICULOUS levels of spell flinging. In our last campaign the Shaman was using Multispell 5 and had spell barrage 6, I think he was nuking 6 dudes at a time for 6d3 damage, which almost assuredly disables a hit location on most things

Unless they have Reflect happening (as either a spell or Chaotic ability) - in which case, your shaman now is out of the game 😛

 

Rune Points shouldn't be a bottleneck... If you can successfully DI, then you should be able to add additional RPs (like a Heroquest, but without needing the rules). Also, DIs can increase stats, or Species Max... If a Gift (with commensurate geas) can do it, I don't see any good reason why a DI couldn't.

Similarly, we have rules for Shamanic abilities (and taboos). Although we don't have a specific spell for it, there's no reason why a shaman can't take along a couple of others with them to visit the greater (or even lesser) spirits, and similarly, should be able to acquire some of those abilities for themselves (with successful Orate or Bargain, and the normal sacrifices of POW etc).

[Soccercalle]

21 minutes ago, svensson said:

Folks, we are all seriously overthinking this.

> Some opponents with published statistics cannot be defeated by standard mundane or magical means. It's just that simple. To defeat them, you have to be as extraordinary as they are. That means Heroquesting. Or, more to the point, successful Heroquesting.

Now, none of my players have attempted a Heroquest yet. But I know three very important things about it.

- 1. I'm going to tell them to play several games of KODP to get a 'feel' for Heroquesting.

- 2. The usefulness of the information they receive from their cults will be in direct proportion to their Runes, Passions, and roleplay as supporters of their temples.

-3. At no point during a Heroquest will the players be allowed to use a written reference beyond their own notes.

Why all this? Because Heroquesting is deadly serious business, with deadly serious consequences. Heroquesting also measures the party's mastery of the myths involved. And most importantly, you don't have a handy dandy rulebook or Guide to Glorantha, or even a reasonably non-biased discussion of the myths and history to refer to on a Heroquest. Gloranthans don't have a player's omniscience to fall back on. Chasing big powers requires big risks. Nobody can Heroquest 'on the sidelines', every 'Quester has to have skin in the game.

I think this is good points. On the other hand. Some in my group are dedicated players that love and read everything. Other have careers and kids. I want the game to be fun for all of them. Even for the people who can't prioritize to learn everything about all the steps of the Lightbringers Quest.

[Baron Wulfraed]

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

(note that I have a bias: there is no luck in my creation process, i distribute characteristic points, I don't roll, so this point may be different depending how you define characteristics)

Considering the straight character generation rules (page 53) -- the "total < 92 -- allot three more points as desired" is almost a guaranteed action. Consider: average 3D6 is 10.5 * 5 => 52.5, average 2D6+6 is 13 * 2 => 26, total is 78.5... Add three ad-hoc points and the "typical, as-rolled" character is still only 81.5 points... Over 10 points below the break point of 92. Heck, it's even below the sidebar break for "discard an ... average 12 or less" (which is a total of 84 points).

Which leads me to the scheme I follow -- and was what my GM used in the early 80s... Best N out of N+1 dice (roll 4, keep best 3 for 3D6; roll 3, keep best 2 for 2D6+6). I'd have to study half a dozen statistics texts to determine how to compute the average (or just do Monte Carlo -- generate some 1000+ such rolls and see what the average comes out to be)... {Actually, I wrote a program some time ago to do just that -- for 10,000 rolls}

C:\Users\Wulfraed\Documents\_Hg-Repositories\Python Progs>dice-RQ-character.py
Straight Rolls - Mean: 78.4477  Standard Deviation: 7.544770179780599
                Max: 102        Min: 51
Modified Rolls - Mean: 89.9702  Standard Deviation: 7.175434526637715
                Max: 114        Min: 63

Even the best N from N+1 has an average below the 92 point cut-off... JUST; adding three ad-hoc points gets the average to just over 92.

Straight rolls

Best N from N+1 rolls

Edited April 6, 2022 by Baron Wulfraed

[Dragon]

3 hours ago, svensson said:

Folks, we are all seriously overthinking this.

> Some opponents with published statistics cannot be defeated by standard mundane or magical means. It's just that simple. To defeat them, you have to be as extraordinary as they are. That means Heroquesting. Or, more to the point, successful Heroquesting.

Now, none of my players have attempted a Heroquest yet. But I know three very important things about it.

- 1. I'm going to tell them to play several games of KODP to get a 'feel' for Heroquesting.

- 2. The usefulness of the information they receive from their cults will be in direct proportion to their Runes, Passions, and roleplay as supporters of their temples.

-3. At no point during a Heroquest will the players be allowed to use a written reference beyond their own notes.

Why all this? Because Heroquesting is deadly serious business, with deadly serious consequences. Heroquesting also measures the party's mastery of the myths involved. And most importantly, you don't have a handy dandy rulebook or Guide to Glorantha, or even a reasonably non-biased discussion of the myths and history to refer to on a Heroquest. Gloranthans don't have a player's omniscience to fall back on. Chasing big powers requires big risks. Nobody can Heroquest 'on the sidelines', every 'Quester has to have skin in the game.

I am confused. You don't allow the player a reference beyond their own notes, and so those players that spent multiple times reading the entire two volume set of Guide to Glorantha will have a distinct advantage over those who only take the RQ sessions as a break from their real life learning. You complain about player's omniscience, when the truth is that the characters have been immersed in that world for 20+ years and will know much more than the player about the myths and legends they were taught. Excepting that player who really did read Guide to Glorantha four times cover to cover.

By that I mean that the Chalana Arroy character will have heard the story of Chalana Arroy Heals The Scars over 100 times, chanted it for hours at least every Sacred Time. The character will know it backwards and forwards. The player will have heard it mentioned once by the GM acting as the High Priest once. Thus they player may not recall how to respond when Elmal laments how everyone would follow the Emperor if the Storm Tribe hadn't brought Death into the world. At least the character will know the orthodox answer. The player is the one who can role play it and perhaps try a different way.

Not all my players want to spend their recreational time drilling themselves on Gloranthan myth or playing King of Dragon Pass for hours to get to a point where they can save and run through that heroquest a few times to see the effects of different options in order to note the answers they want to give at each station. If all your players are willing to do that, you have an exceptional party!

In general, I agree that to get to that level, the party will need to heroquest. That means having the approval of a clan or tribe which will provide magical support, e.g. murder hobos are frowned upon. It means having a basic understanding of the myth involved. It means having the party put in game time to prepare. But the GM can provide pointers the character would know that the player may not recall in the instant. YGMV.

At the moment, I am playing a game where our party, so far, has 13341 words of notes (I have them in Word). Most of them are contradictory. Many of them appear to be jokes. We just finished an encounter where we successfully gleaned dozens of things from those notes, and we were told the canned response written before we even mentioned what we know. How do I know it was canned? Four pages of new notes were loaded into Roll20 seconds after my character had explained what we had gleaned. That canned response boiled down to 'we know nothing, and we have to LISTEN', but not which of the many different accounts should be listened to and which ignored. So I am a little annoyed at GMs who think we should spend vast amounts of time to be prepared for a recreational activity.

[JustAnotherVingan]

58 minutes ago, Dragon said:

I am confused. You don't allow the player a reference beyond their own notes, and so those players that spent multiple times reading the entire two volume set of Guide to Glorantha will have a distinct advantage over those who only take the RQ sessions as a break from their real life learning. You complain about player's omniscience, when the truth is that the characters have been immersed in that world for 20+ years and will know much more than the player about the myths and legends they were taught. Excepting that player who really did read Guide to Glorantha four times cover to cover.

By that I mean that the Chalana Arroy character will have heard the story of Chalana Arroy Heals The Scars over 100 times, chanted it for hours at least every Sacred Time. The character will know it backwards and forwards. The player will have heard it mentioned once by the GM acting as the High Priest once. Thus they player may not recall how to respond when Elmal laments how everyone would follow the Emperor if the Storm Tribe hadn't brought Death into the world. At least the character will know the orthodox answer. The player is the one who can role play it and perhaps try a different way.

Not all my players want to spend their recreational time drilling themselves on Gloranthan myth or playing King of Dragon Pass for hours to get to a point where they can save and run through that heroquest a few times to see the effects of different options in order to note the answers they want to give at each station. If all your players are willing to do that, you have an exceptional party!

In general, I agree that to get to that level, the party will need to heroquest. That means having the approval of a clan or tribe which will provide magical support, e.g. murder hobos are frowned upon. It means having a basic understanding of the myth involved. It means having the party put in game time to prepare. But the GM can provide pointers the character would know that the player may not recall in the instant. YGMV.

At the moment, I am playing a game where our party, so far, has 13341 words of notes (I have them in Word). Most of them are contradictory. Many of them appear to be jokes. We just finished an encounter where we successfully gleaned dozens of things from those notes, and we were told the canned response written before we even mentioned what we know. How do I know it was canned? Four pages of new notes were loaded into Roll20 seconds after my character had explained what we had gleaned. That canned response boiled down to 'we know nothing, and we have to LISTEN', but not which of the many different accounts should be listened to and which ignored. So I am a little annoyed at GMs who think we should spend vast amounts of time to be prepared for a recreational activity.

As a referee I have to take into account that most of my players did not start with Runequest over 40 years ago and have not invested the time that I have into learning about Glorantha (and I know a lot less than most of the posters here). The game needs to appeal to more than just Gloranthaphiles.

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Considering the straight character generation rules (page 53) -- the "total < 92 -- allot three more points as desired" is almost a guaranteed action. Consider: average 3D6 is 10.5 * 5 => 52.5, average 2D6+6 is 13 * 2 => 26, total is 78.5... Add three ad-hoc points and the "typical, as-rolled" character is still only 81.5 points... Over 10 points below the break point of 92. Heck, it's even below the sidebar break for "discard an ... average 12 or less"

(...)

 

true but I consider that all players must start with the same "luck" so depending on the campaign, it is 92 for everyone or 102 for every one. don't want player A with 112 and player B with 92 for example

And the other point is that the situation where the total is ok (aka 82+) but the most important characteristic for the pc is bad (example 8+3 =11 INT for a sorcerer ....) is very frustrating.

 

 

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

By that I mean that the Chalana Arroy character will have heard the story of Chalana Arroy Heals The Scars over 100 times, chanted it for hours at least every Sacred Time. The character will know it backwards and forwards. The player will have heard it mentioned once by the GM acting as the High Priest once. Thus they player may not recall how to respond when Elmal laments how everyone would follow the Emperor if the Storm Tribe hadn't brought Death into the world. At least the character will know the orthodox answer. The player is the one who can role play it and perhaps try a different way.

 

24 minutes ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

As a referee I have to take into account that most of my players did not start with Runequest over 40 years ago and have not invested the time that I have into learning about Glorantha (and I know a lot less than most of the posters here). The game needs to appeal to more than just Gloranthaphiles.

It is also worth pointing out that while we have Chalana Arroy Heals the Scars, we don't have, say, Chalana Arroy Neutralizes the Poisons. It's not very hard to end up in a situation where you quite simply do not have any existing lore on the subject and have to make something up, at which point the idea of learning Glorantha breaks down and you need to engage in creating Glorantha. 

And fairly obviously, for this to be an enjoyable experience for most people, either the GM has to give some narrative control to the players or tell the players the answer right off the bat, because "guess what I'm thinking?" is rarely a fun game to play. 

[Nick Brooke]

“You don’t know enough about Glorantha to have fun in my game” is a terrible message, and flies in the teeth of MGF.

[Nick Brooke]

8 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

True. My players were new to the setting and the system. So they didnt optimize their skills for reaching Rune Level. Humakti abd Orlanthi have weapon skills around 90 but some other skills started around 50.

There’s a genre expectation that heroic adventurers could heroquest / obtain tomes & blessings etc. to bump up skills that would otherwise be slow or tedious to increase.

The alternative is No Fun, which is in direct conflict with MGF and is therefore deprecated.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

16 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

There’s a genre expectation that heroic adventurers could heroquest / obtain tomes & blessings etc. to bump up skills that would otherwise be slow or tedious to increase.

We ended up "heroically fudging" one or two skills for most all of our PCs to make Rune Levels.  My PC spent well over a year, both real time and game time, failing that last check to get her Devotion Vinga up to 90%.  In other skills she has been lucky: she sings awesomely like Annie Lennox, but apparently Vinga prefers Alison Krause?  A Humakt PC had some troubles raising Death or Truth,  and got a special boost.  Our Storm Bull mysteriously gained a 90% Understand Herd Beast because the GM thought that was funny (and useful for a 90% cult skill).  Our LM candidate recently got 90% boost in Lore <Block> to  help qualify.  Oh yeah, our candidate Shaman failed his "Put me in coach, I'm worthy to become a Shaman" roll, and we just ignored it.

If you look at the starting stats for Vasana, it is absolutely clear that Chaosium "magic" was involved for her to make Rune Lord in roughly a year.  So feel free to do a little magic yourself for MGF.

[EpicureanDM]

10 hours ago, Darius West said:

Pages 201-202 Combat with skills above 100% and (more importantly) splitting attacks.  You may have 300% but unless you are mighty fast, you will never deliver 3x100% attacks, and those 150% attacks might net you an 8% Critical and a 30% Special, but you can't rely on either showing up when you need them.

Ah, right. I must have a blindspot for that section due to RQG's inconsistency allowing split attacks but not split parries.

32 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

There’s a genre expectation that heroic adventurers could heroquest / obtain tomes & blessings etc. to bump up skills that would otherwise be slow or tedious to increase.

The alternative is No Fun, which is in direct conflict with MGF and is therefore deprecated.

I dare say that another alternative is to design the game so that bumping skills isn't slow or tedious. 😉

4 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

If you look at the starting stats for Vasana, it is absolutely clear that Chaosium "magic" was involved for her to make Rune Lord in roughly a year.  So feel free to do a little magic yourself for MGF.

After seeing "MGF" in this and the Glorantha forum, my brain finally dredged up its meaning.

[svensson]

Let me be a bit more clear about my take on Heroquesting.

Firstly, I'm not asking players to obsessively dig into Glorantha like I do. For one thing, it's not fair to them and for another the game would devolve into long grognard discussions. While that might be MGF for me, the other players would immediately become bored silly.

Secondly, I think it's safe to assume that all characters [as opposed to players] have chanted the main tales of their faiths to the point of rote memorization. Every Orlanthi knows 'Orlanth and Aroka' by heart. However, there is a bit of danger in that. In every religion, there are subjects and issues that tend to get glossed over. There's a lot of good Catholics and Anglicans out there that know about the transubstantiation of souls but can't really discuss the subject. The Devil is in the details, as the saying goes. In the Gamemaster's Adventure Booklet from the GM Screen Pack, the players are faced with having to defeat a dragon. They are advised to go to the most powerful spellcasters and priestly loremasters they know, the Tribal Ring. Advice from the Ring helps them separate the practical tactics from the poetic allegory.

Lastly, it's unlikely that the PCs will be doing the standard, well-known mystical paths that everyone knows. There is a difference in reenacting 'The Wedding of Orlanth and Ernalda' during Sacred Time and having to free the soul of Hofstaring Tree-Leaper from the Lunar Hells as required in HQ's 'Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes'. Everybody knows the first one reasonably well, but the PCs will have to tread a new path for the second. And it is these lesser known mystical pathways that powers like being able to kill with you left eye like Sarostip Prince-Killer come from.