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

[JustAnotherVingan]

11 hours ago, davecake said:

Actually my feeling was that Brangbane on his own was quite vulnerable for such a classic villain - he has only one defensive combat option, parrying with his sword at 110% (really, far too low for an ancient horror). He can maybe overwhelm a single opponent with two attacks, but if multiple opponents survive his howl, especially if they have beefed up attack %ages (such as Berserk or Sword Trance, but Bladesharp 6 will do it, and always punch right through his armor). He also has no physical defences beyond ok armour (people taking him 9n are likely to have shield), and no magical defences either. He is also very vulnerable to spirit combat. And while the howl is a great ability, his other tough ability, paralysing venom, requires it to hit, to not be parried, and then to overcome Con with venom Pot - mostly, it will get parried, if he uses it at all. He also has no normal magic at all, and no healing of any kind, so could be befuddled, Mind Blasted, etc. He is unpleasant, but against a competent ‘rune level’ party able to take him on, he should go down very quick. 
He struck me as having been statted out by someone with limited familiarity with high powered RQ combat. He looks dangerous, but he is a bit of a glass cannon.

Against, say, a decent Death Lord or Kargs Son (at this point, I’ve statted out several troll rune lords that should end up in Chaosium publications, any of them would do) he is going down very quick unless his howl stops them. And they could arguably block that with Counter Chaos pretty easily. 

I don't think the scenario packs Chaosium has put out so far for RQG are designed with high level PCs in mind.

[soltakss]

Again, apologies for the long reply, I don't get to reply every day.

On 4/5/2022 at 11:58 PM, 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)

 

The time taken to cast the spell happens before the spell takes effect.

So, it takes 16 minutes to cast the spell, which then lasts for 15 minutes.

On 4/6/2022 at 1:39 PM, svensson said:

Folks, we are all seriously overthinking this.

My thought exactly.

On 4/6/2022 at 1:39 PM, svensson said:

> 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.

I let them see a version of the HeroQuest, with the Stations, if they make a Cult Lore or HeroQuesting roll, otherwise they just get a list of station names.

Personally, I don't mind if they have the HeroQuest open in front of them, as it will just confuse them when it doesn't go the way it says in the myth.

On 4/6/2022 at 1:39 PM, svensson said:

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.

Agreed.

 

On 4/6/2022 at 1:55 PM, Shiningbrow said:

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.

I can see a successful DI replenishing the Rune Points in your Rune pool, but not adding new Rune Points.

On 4/6/2022 at 5:36 PM, 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.

That is why I don't mind Players accessing source material while playing.

On 4/6/2022 at 8:33 PM, Nick Brooke said:

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

Agreed.

In my games, I tell the Players things that they should know, not as a long, in-game lecture, but just a quick summary. If they know more, then great. If they forget what I told them then I just remind them again.

On 4/6/2022 at 8:48 PM, 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.

Yes, the game should be fun.

If people think that HeroQuesting to bump up skills/abilities/powers is Not Fun then they shouldn't do it. Personally, I think it is Fun and do it all the while.

On 4/7/2022 at 5:37 AM, Aiun said:

So, another way to put it is that we ditched the RQ rules because combat ability became something it wasn't worth rolling for. We did the plot work to establish that my character and her allies are magical enough that fighting them isn't the brightest of ideas for nearly anyone in the canon. For a campaign devoted to changing the course of the Hero Wars through diplomacy, it was rather out of scope to plan out advanced spellcasting strategies, so I, at least, never gave it a serious try.

Which is a really good point.

Different campaigns have different play-styles.

A Campaign that focuses on Diplomacy will have a different feel to one that focuses on Combat. Neither is right or wrong, they are just different.

On 4/7/2022 at 8:20 AM, Soccercalle said:

That would be easier with official rules for heroquesting from the beginning. And nor after 40? years 😉

I would have liked them included in the core RuneQuest rules. That is why I write Secrets of HeroQuesting, to allow people to see rules for HeroQuesting, so they could use them now, rather than waiting for "soon".

On 4/7/2022 at 9:41 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

for sure !

but without guidance that is a door open for too much possibilities

What is the bump ? +10% ? +30%? without any limit ? or just gain 90% in the skill (like cult's gift) etc...

if there is no guidance some will follow a way, other another one, and we face the original issue :

a table / GM is not confortable with some JC publication (or another table / GM) just because the bumps are different.

Personaly, I have no issue to invent "bump" aligned (same level of) with the humakt/yelmalio/shaman gifts

But is it the "standard" level for anything ?

It depends on what kind of HeroQuest you are doing, and also how powerful your Adventurers are.

A boost of +50 is great for Adventurers at 50% skill level but is, by and large, meaningless for someone at 250%.

So, I vary the benefits according to the power-level of Adventurers.

In any case, skill increases pale into insignificance when compared to Abilities. A good Ability is worth much more than an increase in skills. So, for example. someone who gains "Double penetrating damage against Chaos" will be much better in fights against Chaos than just gaining +50 Sword.

On 4/7/2022 at 9:41 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

that is the same with mp : some will give extra mp at very high level:  the rules give a little cost to obtain matrix/enchant from npc.

Some will give 60mp (or other enchant)to a pc when other will consider that obtaining 10extra mp is already a great gain.

I know that is MGF.

Yes, GMs vary in what they hand out and what they don't.

People's experiences vary a lot.

On 4/7/2022 at 9:41 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

I was lost 20years (?) ago with heroquesting background before I found the great @soltakss website. It helped me a lot (Simon was the first, great thank for that) to understand heroquest in glorantha but I spent a lot of time to realize that the new issue I faced with his gain (and associate super critical rules) was not my understanding of the mechanics but just that @soltakss's MGF is not mine MGF (and that's fine, no issue).

Thanks for the mention.

People should find the sweet spot that suits them. My take on HeroQuesting is not the same as other people's take, but maybe they will find something that works for them.

On 4/7/2022 at 9:41 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

I may be wrong, I hope I am wrong, but my fear is that too many people may try runequest, face some issue because there is a wide range of interpretation and then feeling they are "lost", decide to stop with runequest and go to other rpg, less rich, but simpler and more conforting.

Yes, that is a danger, especially with the RAW Brigade.

My motto there is "Houserule and move on".

If people don't like something about the rules, change it and carry on playing.

On 4/7/2022 at 10:45 AM, Darius West said:

If you look at the old Dorastor module, one of the suggested motives for the campaign is that it is for Orlanth Pantheon characters approaching heroic level who have run foul of the Lunar Authorities.  The Lunars will let them migrate to Dorastor with a clean slate and free land.  Add to this the fairly gripping story told in Cults of Terror about the war against Ralzakark, and you have the basis for an interesting campaign that can potentially kill overly-powerful characters.

Yes, that is one route into Dorastor, and a very good one.

I am covering Hahlgrim's War in my Holiday Dorastor: Risklands supplement, that should appear later this year.

On 4/7/2022 at 10:53 AM, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

I'm a bit lost, what are these powers that seem so relevant to high level game play and at the same time not mentioned on the rulebook, what's the need of above 200% that I need to find and alternative form of experience/rules?

There aren't any.

Some people think that you need special rules for HeroQuesting. I don't.

Some people think that you need special rules for High Level gaming. I don't.

On 4/7/2022 at 10:53 AM, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

I know I must be missing the elephant in the room but I see the hero quests as a way to bypass social/cult conventions. To get and do things others can't. 

"You need 200L to learn this spell from another cult ... but since you did that... "

"The priests every year paint your neck blue and wherever you go 2 points of cloud call follows, you need to be back every year and delight us with your stories"

I see more power on enchanted matrices of forgotten cults, traded spells, spirit pacts with old gods,  extended spells, maybe shamanic powers, sorcery spells inscribed on your forehead, gems, runes, rune metals and truth stone. 

I have no idea why everyone finds a sudden power cap at not being able to have over 125% attack. 

What am I missing? The crimson bat has 100% and nobody is stopping him, you can do the same.

That is my view, too.

If a cult says "You must have this to be a Rune Lord" and you don't have that, you can HeroQuest to prove that the deity allows you to be a Rune Lord despite that. 

I honestly don't know why some people have a downer on High Level Gaming.

On 4/7/2022 at 11:17 AM, JustAnotherVingan said:

I don't think we need specific scenarios for Heroquests but perhaps a book of myths used in the better known heroquests with suggestions and examples of how DMs could use them in their games. From those GMs could  develop their own. The level of detail found in KoDP and Six Ages heroquests would probably be enough.

The Stafford Library has some excellent books that contain more myths than you can ever need.

On 4/7/2022 at 1:27 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Simon has published Secrets of Dorastor to present high level opponents, and Secrets of Heroquesting to provide the high level rules to go "toe to toe" with them, but that's all optional "non-canonical" material.

And even he recommends cheating and using strategic advantage, rather than just straight melee rounds and numbers.

I am eagerly awaiting official rules, so that I can blend them with mine.

I am all in favour of cheating, as long as it is done within the rules.

On 4/7/2022 at 5:36 PM, icebrand said:

Crimson bat used to have 3600%. My players (and myself) found that number immersion breaking so i nerfed it to a way more palatable 360%.

You wouldn't believe what happened next!!! (My players killed the bat, that's what lol)

Numbers don't mean that much, to be honest.

You don't kill the Crimson Bat by fighting it in combat and parrying its tongues, dodging its eye spit and resisting its screams. At least, that isn't the way I'd play it in my games. The Adventurers could try, but there are better ways of doing it.

On 4/7/2022 at 6:25 PM, icebrand said:

On 4/7/2022 at 5:49 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Diamond Iron Dwarves had 5000%, I believe?

Hmmm just 2000% afaik? (Enough for 100% crit AND completely breaking the game

So, god-like Mostali from before Time break the game when used in normal scenarios?

Good, I am not surprised.

For me, I was told by Greg Stafford/Sandy Petersen/Steve Perrin (I can't remember which one) that Adventurers on the God Plane divided their skills and Characteristics by 10. I thought that was too much, so I divide them by 5.

What that means, in effect, that the normal skill levels on the God Plane become:

• Novice (125% or less): A skill rating in this range suggests a largely untrained skill. The adage “knows enough to be dangerous” applies well here. 
• Amateur (130–250%): Ratings in this range indicate a little talent, some rudimentary training, or dabbling in the skill.
• Professional (255–375%): At this rating, the adventurer can make a living using the skill. 
• Veteran (380–450%): Skills in this range indicate advanced expertise. 
• Master (460%+): Ratings of 91% or more indicate mastery of the skill.

It is very interesting to see what skill level your Adventurer has when on the God Plane. So, a starting Adventurer is but a Novice on the God Plane.

The Diamond Dwarf with a 2000% skill represents an God Plane Adventurer with 400% skill, so very powerful regardless.

On 4/7/2022 at 8:19 PM, icebrand said:

Yeah, but you can't train above 75%.

So how did they get all their %?

These dwarves are... GOD level? Like, literally, 01-95 to *crit* with 9 -nine- skills? This is insane... 

Why is the GM even giving them checks? I don't give checks for free, and you sure as hell don't get a check to kill a random bestiary mob if you already have 200+. 

Those are pre-Time Mostali, not Mostali who have gained those skills.

On 4/7/2022 at 8:49 PM, icebrand said:

Can probably clap cacodemon if they have a nice enchanted shield and decent damage boosting (that's probably casted by a 2000% sorcery diamond munchkin dwarf).

Definitely clapping Cwim if you use 3 dwarves and fight in the praxian plains

If you have three pre-Time Iron Mostali fighting together on the Mundane Plane, then they should be able to take out powerful beings such as Cwim. After all, they are of the same magnitude of beings.

On 4/8/2022 at 3:39 AM, Shiningbrow said:

Except that there are officially published rules... just most people here don't want to talk about the oft-hated Mongoose publications.

I doubt the upcoming Chaosium variant will be overly different,  as they have the same core ideas that have been discussed (and used) for decades,  but there will be some relatively minor mechanical differences.

Those core ideas include stations, opponents,  success and failure results,  and rewards,  as well as a few example HQs, which pretty much align with what's been discussed above.

My guess, and it is just a guess as I don't know how the new HeroQuest rules are going to go, is that the new rules won't take the same approach as Mongoose did.

On 4/8/2022 at 4:39 AM, EpicureanDM said:

Oh, is that right? RuneQuest was entirely off my radar when Mongoose ran the show. I should track those down.

They are worth tracking down.

Secrets of HeroQuesting has a summary of the rules from other publications. I thought about including the Mongoose material but might have removed them.

On 4/8/2022 at 3:55 PM, EpicureanDM said:

As I said elsewhere, RQ old-timers might be surprised by how what they think of as "obvious" or "standard" isn't perceived that way by people with less RQ experience.

Hopefully, the examples given in this thread have made them more obvious.

On 4/8/2022 at 5:47 PM, ffilz said:

On 4/8/2022 at 12:28 AM, icebrand said:

You needed two weeks of downtime to reflect on your deeds to roll checks on rq3, so triple that time!

Also, having an adventure every week (or every 3) seems like... Too much?

In RQG those 4 years become 40!!! Much more reasonable!

I think that 4 years and an adventure every week was intended to be player time, not character time.

Yes, sorry, I was talking about our weekly RQ game.

On 4/8/2022 at 10:00 PM, davecake said:

I always find the idea that PCs are unimportant because they aren’t Argrath very odd. It’s a bit like saying it’s not worth playing in a WW 2 setting if you don’t get to replace Churchill - for most of the Hero Wars history, Argrath can be treated as a commander and a quest giver, and your characters defeat some unique threat (even one that threatens to destroy the world through Chaos, or reviving God Learner heresies, even one involving Argrath as part of the threat (perhaps he doesn’t know that he might provoke a second Dragonkill until you stop him from carrying out his plan)). 

That's how I approach my campaigns, as a GM.

On 4/9/2022 at 7:30 AM, Shiningbrow said:

I'm firmly on the side of "the PCs should be able to make it to superhero status".

However, I'd also like to emphasise something that's been hinted at before (especially about Dorastor). Some have said that it's a place that heroes go to die... I'd like to emphasise that this actually means - it's a place where the GM can kill off the PCs.

You could play it like that.

In my Dorastor Campaign, I did not have kid gloves. The NPCs were pretty much as written in Secrets of Dorastor, and were as deadly as they appeared.

The Adventurers took them out using clever tricks, special abilities, combining abilities and heavy combat.

As mentioned elsewhere, when I design an NPC I give zero thought as to how the Adventurers will take them out. That isn't my problem, it's their problem. If they find an NPC that is too powerful to take out in combat they go away and come back with bigger guns (cf Heidi the Hydra) or find another way to take them out (cf The Mistress of Light, Guardian of the Fires of Heaven). It is difficult to get a TPK at high levels, due to Healing spells and DI, so that is not a problem.

On 4/9/2022 at 10:59 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

Yes  that is another question however 

mass battle and mass magic 

how does it work ?

well priority to hq rules then mass rules 😛 

I've never been able to crack that in RuneQuest.

In HeroQuest/QuestWorlds it is easy. You give each unit of combatants and they fight as Adventurers, with their magic affecting other units.

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by soltakss

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

If I remember, hundred of wind lords souls were lost for that.

I think the story is that Broyan and companions teleported onto the back of the Bat.  They killed the priests of the Crimson Bat, which put the Bat out of control and drove in from the mundane world.

What the last bit consisted of is not clear.  But the first actions are fully manageable if you know Teleport and can fight the Bat's priests and guards.

[JustAnotherVingan]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

 

The Stafford Library has some excellent books that contain more myths than you can ever need.

 

More myths wasn't all I was suggesting.

If someone is looking for help and advice on running Heroquests in their game then pointing them to 10 volumes of background material isn't very helpful. If they are new to refereeing RQ then it will probably just drive them away.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

So, god-like Mostali from before Time break the game when used in normal scenarios?

Good, I am not surprised.

Not quite. These are entry-level requirements for Diamond Dwarves (so more elite Diamond Dwarves will be even better) from Elder Secrets, and it says that this takes about 700 years to achieve (using the Previous Experience system, one assumes).

So not necessarily God-Time, although some of those are likely around as well, even tougher than the newbie Diamond Dwarves with their mere 2000%.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

If someone is looking for help and advice on running Heroquests in their game then pointing them to 10 volumes of background material isn't very helpful. If they are new to refereeing RQ then it will probably just drive them away.

A framework for myths and heroquests will definitely be useful, and the "maps" Jeff has posted on FB suggest that this framework is well underway (and I believe shaped heavily by the work he has done on the cults). 

[EpicureanDM]

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

While making it to superhero level (and take on Harrek, Argrath, etc) should be possible - the actual chances of that should be extremely low, and I don't think the GM should be saving them just for this outcome.

I appreciate the sentiment, but as a player, there's no functional difference between "extremely low chance of success, although mathematically and logically possible" and "no chance of success." It's one thing to roll your 10% Mineral Lore skill to see if you can identify the real gold mixed in with the pyrite and another to risk your PCs life on a 10% chance of beating a foe. 😉

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Game balance isn't supposed to be a think in RQ. There are things that will kill your PC in a second. There are clearly things that stop almost anything that your PCs can throw at them.

I don't think that "game balance" is the same thing as "fights against foes that outclass you." Where I think we agree is that if a stat block's published in a game book, the designer should be able to describe the PCs and different tactics they might use to defeat it (hopefully because they've playtested it).

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

If someone is looking for help and advice on running Heroquests in their game then pointing them to 10 volumes of background material isn't very helpful. If they are new to refereeing RQ then it will probably just drive them away.

But, maybe reading a book on HeroQuesting that gives lots of advice on how to run HeroQuests might be the answer?

That is why I wrote Secrets of HeroQuesting.

When I start writing up HeroQuests. I will be doing exactly that, putting in ways of interpreting the Myths.

Our Jonstown Compendium supplement How Humakt Learned to Grieve, does exactly that, it takes a mYth and turns it into a HeroQuest with step-by-step guidelines.

1 hour ago, EpicureanDM said:

I don't think that "game balance" is the same thing as "fights against foes that outclass you." Where I think we agree is that if a stat block's published in a game book, the designer should be able to describe the PCs and different tactics they might use to defeat it (hopefully because they've playtested it).

So, would you like me to go through the Personalities from Secrets of Dorastor and list the tactics that I think they would use in combat?

Would that help?

We playtested the NPCs in an RQ2/3 Campaign that lasted about ten years. I am not sure how much playtesting I can do.

[icebrand]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

You don't kill the Crimson Bat by fighting it in combat and parrying its tongues, dodging its eye spit and resisting its screams. At least, that isn't the way I'd play it in my games. The Adventurers could try, but there are better ways of doing it.

Oh, you sure as hell fight it!!!

First you have to lure it into the open, so you bring your armies into lunar lands and start taking cities, looting them and torching them. So they send the bat!

Then you use all your priests (you need to have a lot of those) to call the greatest storm ever, that you heroquested for, so you can call the aid of the air daemons you allied yourself with. That will maybe ground the bat, or at least hinder its maneuverability and give your guys a fighting chance against its screams since the storm covers them.

Then you teleport up the bat, and there you fight all the cultists and the ticks (you need to grab a cultist ASAP and use their latching device in order not to fall, despite everyone flying the winds are too great for normal people to even stand at ground level.

While you massacre the whole crimson bat cult, you need to avoid stepping into the eyes (dodging helps depending on success level), and then you need to avoid the tongue that wants to grab you. This ain't THAT hard when you rock 15+ extended shield and stat + damage boosted everything at +30s + your own rune magic and stuff (using SP rules, and the wizard popped like 4 saints)

Once you violently murdered everyone, you start damaging the bats wings to ground it. St. Alsbo Black from Loskalm managed a crit to the neck, neatly severing the vocal cords, and by then it was game over, the daemons went away and the Glaurungha, Orlanth's Champion called in his dragon to finish off the beast.

Parkar the Humakti (who btw carries death itself) tried to permanently slay the bat via DI; of course that didnt work, so he bound it to himself (rq2 style), and retired to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere; the empire ain't bringing the bat back till he dies.

See? you can totally kill it!!! 

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

I am all in favour of cheating, as long as it is done within the rules.

Hold on, I need to write this down.

[soltakss]

57 minutes ago, icebrand said:

Oh, you sure as hell fight it!!!

That was a good description.

What the Adventurers didn't do was to go toe to toe against the Bat, its tongues, eye spit and scream.

Instead, they HeroQuested for ways to slow it down, killed the Priests and then got a Dragon to kill it.

Binding it was a good touch, as that prevents the Lunars from resummoning it.

[EpicureanDM]

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

So, would you like me to go through the Personalities from Secrets of Dorastor and list the tactics that I think they would use in combat?

Would that help?

We playtested the NPCs in an RQ2/3 Campaign that lasted about ten years. I am not sure how much playtesting I can do.

I think it would be very valuable to folks with less experience using the rules than you do, but this is a silly thread on an Internet forum. I'd be glad to see whatever you've got time for.

What I'd be more interested in seeing (and willing to pay money for) would be a Jonstown Compendium book where veteran RQ players shared their knowledge about high-level RQ combat, with specific references to RQG's rules and how to combine them to pull off incredible victories against worthy foes. Not just boss fights (one party of PCs against a single foe), but squads of Rune Lords facing off. 😉

 

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

The Diamond Dwarf with a 200% skill represents an God Plane Adventurer with 400% skill, so very powerful regardless.

apologies for pedantism,  but you might want to edit this.

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

My guess, and it is just a guess as I don't know how the new HeroQuest rules are going to go, is that the new rules won't take the same approach as Mongoose did.

You think there won't be stations? Or that certain locations give bonuses to entering the HQ? (which is basically saying... Mongoose took the general idea that's been around for decades,  and put some rules to them. I doubt Chsosium will go against those decades).

Mechanically,  there will be differences,  but the general underlying idea should be the same. The rewards will also be the same/similar. And I presume that the relevant skill will be Cult Lore.

I like your idea of HQs also being Rune Spells, as are the stations.

The one big difference may be how abilities (and even spells) gained on a HQ will work...

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

i appreciate the sentiment, but as a player, there's no functional difference between "extremely low chance of success, although mathematically and logically possible" and "no chance of success." It's one thing to roll your 10% Mineral Lore skill to see if you can identify the real gold mixed in with the pyrite and another to risk your PCs life on a 10% chance of beating a foe. 😉

I think you misinterpreted.

The low chance I was referring to was getting to that point of superheroism, not the final boss fight.

The low chance refers to all the combined adventures, fights, Heroquests etc that one needs to survive first.

First you need to survive to Rune Master level (not easy), then face other, tougher challenges,  and then go and face other - tougher -  challenges,  and then go and face.....

You get the picture. None of them should be a walk in the park, with low risk of player death. I think it does disservice to the players to a) present minimal challenge,  and b) ensure PC survival through handwavium or GM fiat ("the Eagles are coming").

Now, I'm not suggesting you think otherwise,  but merely clarifying. Fighting Harrek should be a tough fight... but getting to that point should be much much tougher overall.

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

 

What I'd be more interested in seeing (and willing to pay money for) would be a Jonstown Compendium book where veteran RQ players shared their knowledge about high-level RQ combat, with specific references to RQG's rules and how to combine them to pull off incredible victories against worthy foes. Not just boss fights (one party of PCs against a single foe), but squads of Rune Lords facing off. 😉

 

I think it would be better to wait for the HQ rules to come out first. The possible rewards will be significant for this discussion.

[davecake]

On 4/8/2022 at 3:19 AM, icebrand said:

Yeah, but you can't train above 75%.

The annual professional experience rolls in RQG are experience rolls, not training. 
And separate to any training you might get, even though many cults will offer free or cheap training to many. 

[soltakss]

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

apologies for pedantism,  but you might want to edit this.

Whaddya mean? 🙂

21 hours ago, soltakss said:

The Diamond Dwarf with a 2000% skill represents an God Plane Adventurer with 400% skill, so very powerful regardless.

Thanks!

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

21 hours ago, soltakss said:

My guess, and it is just a guess as I don't know how the new HeroQuest rules are going to go, is that the new rules won't take the same approach as Mongoose did.

You think there won't be stations? Or that certain locations give bonuses to entering the HQ? (which is basically saying... Mongoose took the general idea that's been around for decades,  and put some rules to them. I doubt Chsosium will go against those decades).

I don't know, I have had no involvement in the new HeroQuesting rules.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Mechanically,  there will be differences,  but the general underlying idea should be the same. The rewards will also be the same/similar. And I presume that the relevant skill will be Cult Lore.

I like your idea of HQs also being Rune Spells, as are the stations.

The one big difference may be how abilities (and even spells) gained on a HQ will work...

I am guessing that they will drop a lot of the very mechanical Mongoose stuff, for example a spell to bug out of a HeroQuest.

I would think that it would become more of a narrative exercise.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I think it would be better to wait for the HQ rules to come out first. The possible rewards will be significant for this discussion.

Not necessarily.

High Level Play does not equate to HeroQuesting.

You can reach a high level Adventurer without any HeroQuesting at all, and you can HeroQuest without being at high level.

There is value in a supplement that does this, but I am probably not the person to be doing it, as I am too rooted in RQ2/3 tactics, rather than specifically RQM tactics. Also, long fights bore me nowadays, whereas they used to be great back in the day.

 

 

[EpicureanDM]

10 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I think it would be better to wait for the HQ rules to come out first. The possible rewards will be significant for this discussion.

I agree with you on this one, while agreeing with Soltakss, too. I don't think Heroquest rewards need to be identified in order for the RQ rules champs to flex their mastery of what's already on the table. That's mostly what I'm interested in, since RQ2/3 and RQG have never had official Heroquesting rules and we've seen folks in this thread who have The Secret Knowledge without those rules. But if there's ever going to be a time where the game expects players to kill The Crimson Bat using the game's rules, we'll need the HQ stuff. 🙂

 

[davecake]

On 4/9/2022 at 11:22 PM, EpicureanDM said:

appreciate the sentiment, but as a player, there's no functional difference between "extremely low chance of success, although mathematically and logically possible" and "no chance of success."

I don’t think so, in that ‘extremely low chance of success’ implies that the chance is quantifiable, and can be increased, and probably made significantly larger. Sure, your character with 100% skill has a very low chance of success against someone with 200% skill, but increasing your skill beyond 100% skill is slow but possible. And other factors, like careful tactics, can maybe increase it more. 

Do I think your characters should be able to take on Harrek and Jar-Eel? Well, not really, but not so much because the idea of the sort of play doesn’t appeal. But it’s also not a useful question, because Heroes should have an extremely low chance of success against them, and we don’t yet have enough understanding of what a Hero is, and how an experienced Hero compares to an inexperienced one, and how Heroes deal with other Heroes, and what are successful Hero tactics are vs bad ones, or the pros and cons, and all that. 

Once we’ve done that, then we can talk about Jar-Eel and Harrek and what it means to fight them. Right now, we can only really only speculate about what Heroes do, talking about what Superheroes should be like is very uninformed speculation.  

On 4/9/2022 at 2:30 PM, Shiningbrow said:

I'm firmly on the side of "the PCs should be able to make it to superhero status".

I sort of am - but with a very big caveat, which is that Superheroes should be those that are those who are the top of the Hero game, not simply those that are the top of the SuperRuneQuest game. And we don’t have good rules for the introductory, basic, Hero game yet. 
 

On 4/9/2022 at 5:05 AM, icebrand said:

I kinda-sorta agree with you, my issue is on harrek having 1000% attack because "he's the main character" when this doesn't make sense in the rules.

Harrek shouldn’t (just?) have 1000% to hit and a lot of hit points. Harrek should be, to take an important example from the fiction, the guy that who, at Pennell Ford, when they tried to hit him with a massed Sunspear, caused some of the priests that we’re backing the casting effort to catch of fire. No current rules can explain that. Hell, they don’t even explain how to do that massed Sunspear. If you want to take on Superheroes, we simply don’t have the rules yet. 
(Also, Harrek isn’t the ‘main character’, frequently in the narrative he is a foil for Argrath as protagonist, which he could still be for your PCs. When he wants to loot your allies, or slaughter enemies (including non-combatants) without mercy or honor, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate that you are morally better, even if he is tougher). 

Now, when we do have them, Harrek and Jar-Eel are still going to be crazily formidable, and in ways we don’t really understand yet. Before Harrek killed and bound a god, amassed his own armada of pirate followers including expert killers and magicians from across at least half a dozen cultures, looted the City of Wonders and many other repositories of magical treasures, and led a magical expedition across half the world - before all that, he was already someone who could not only survive in the vicious and highly magical world of Lunar Dart Competitions, but so good at it that he killed the Red Emperor. Jar-Eel was heroquesting as an infant, led the attack on Boldhome as a child - and since then has gained numerous powers and resources, including the magical support of a regiment that not only are the best human soldiers in the entire Lunar army, but also all worship her. 
They shouldn’t beat you because their attack% is very high (though it surely is). They should bear you because they’ve been playing the Hero game at a high level for decades, and because they and their team of supporters are three steps ahead of you. Because their Tricksters whispers Lies into the ear of your sorcerers, because they heroquested to find and resurrect your enemies, because they learnt that secret you covered up and when revealed it causes your trusted companions to turn on you, because they have items from half a world away that provide magic you’ve never known, because your god refuses to aid you because they have earned a favour, and because they have a collection of heroquest boons and rewards that is long and formidable, as well as being at the top of what is attainable by more normal means. 
It’s not that I want Jar-Eel and Harrek to be undefeatable in the game, or for it to be impossible to get to that level. I want getting to that level to be comparable - something that requires years of successful adventure *after* becoming a Hero - and I don’t think there are going to be many such games (and they would far beyond the RuneQuest rules). I want defeating a Superhero to be like defeating Sheng Seleris, involving years of effort, and to involve the magical resources of Empires, fighting in heaven, side-quests that could be the whole story of a Hero (such as creating new gods by by fathering children on fearsome demon goddesses), unleashing old Curses against them that have been waiting for a century, etc, not just working out what you think is a clever way to twat them with a rules loophole of a particular spell or whatever. 

The issue that such a game of duelling Superheroes would likely drift far away from the standard future timeline, and as such doesn’t interest me personally that much, is a separate one - plenty of opportunities to get involved in other parts of Glorantha with a far less defined timeline, for a start.

But I don’t want Superheroes (or Heroes) to be the ‘Deities and Demigods’ syndrome - ie we took these characters from fiction, put pretty big numbers next to them, and then someone who has managed to get comparable numbers through dubious house rules says they’ve beaten them in a fight. Reminds me awkwardly of D&D culture in the 1980s, when the hobby was in its collective adolescence, and you’d often hear these stories. Making Superheroes undefeatable by fiat might be problematic to some, but I think making Superheroes defeatable by cheapening what they are is more problematic. Think of making Superheroes undefeatable by fiat, or defeatable only by GM nareative fiat, which is much the same thing, as just a rules patch until we have the right rules. We waited 30+ years, we can wait a few more. 

And yes, I know that back in the 1980s some of todays titans of gaming, including Greg, thought that the SuperHeroQuest approach was the way to go to make gaming around heroquesting etc work. I don’t think Greg would think that now. He tried and rejected a bunch of ideas for various things over his life, and was never afraid to change approach when he found something that worked better. 

And this already far too long post is not just me ranting about about an abstract point about Superheroes that will only be of significance to a tiny percentage of games. Because how we understand Superheroes is built on how we understand Heroes. And I absolutely do want PCs to become Heroes (with the general understanding that Heroes usually represent the efforts of a group, one often conveniently about the size of a PC party). I think that should not be every game, but an accepted and common style of game. And I want Heroes to be able to take on regiment level threats, and make a real difference. But I don’t want that to happen via big attack %ages, a bunch of Rune magic, and endless thousands of attack-parry-damage cycles (I’ve already run The Cradle now, and while it was fun, I really don’t want to spend multiple days of play of my PCs fighting hordes of soldiers again, plus it is still a bit unsatisfying - and still doesn’t really represent defeating a regiment, just holding them off until the deus ex machina kicks in). I want the PC Heroes to defeat regimental level threats as big gameable stories, by heroquests (which depend as much on choices and commitment as martial prowess), by use of powerful magic such as wyters that depend on community and cult support, by being clever and skilled commanders, by diplomacy and intrigue, by leveraging the cool rewards from earlier adventures, by drawing on new or established allies. And by extension, Superheroes should be like that, only more so. 

‘High level play’ in the sense of big fights that involve lots of use of the RQ rules is certainly something that should be part of that sort of game, and can be heaps of fun, but I don’t think wanting to be explain all of how Hero level fights without going beyond the current RuneQuest rules is a sensible goal. Which doesn’t mean I am not very happy to keep talking about high level play within the RQ rules, just recognise it’s limits. 

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

I don’t think so, in that ‘extremely low chance of success’ implies that the chance is quantifiable, and can be increased, and probably made significantly larger. Sure, your character with 100% skill has a very low chance of success against someone with 200% skill, but increasing your skill beyond 100% skill is slow but possible. And other factors, like careful tactics, can maybe increase it more. 

Do I think your characters should be able to take on Harrek and Jar-Eel? Well, not really, but not so much because the idea of the sort of play doesn’t appeal. But it’s also not a useful question, because Heroes should have an extremely low chance of success against them, and we don’t yet have enough understanding of what a Hero is, and how an experienced Hero compares to an inexperienced one, and how Heroes deal with other Heroes, and what are successful Hero tactics are vs bad ones, or the pros and cons, and all that. 

Once we’ve done that, then we can talk about Jar-Eel and Harrek and what it means to fight them. Right now, we can only really only speculate about what Heroes do, talking about what Superheroes should be like is very uninformed speculation.  

I sort of am - but with a very big caveat, which is that Superheroes should be those that are those who are the top of the Hero game, not simply those that are the top of the SuperRuneQuest game. And we don’t have good rules for the introductory, basic, Hero game yet. 
 

Harrek shouldn’t (just?) have 1000% to hit and a lot of hit points. Harrek should be, to take an important example from the fiction, the guy that who, at Pennell Ford, when they tried to hit him with a massed Sunspear, caused some of the priests that we’re backing the casting effort to catch of fire. No current rules can explain that. Hell, they don’t even explain how to do that massed Sunspear. If you want to take on Superheroes, we simply don’t have the rules yet. 
(Also, Harrek isn’t the ‘main character’, frequently in the narrative he is a foil for Argrath as protagonist, which he could still be for your PCs. When he wants to loot your allies, or slaughter enemies (including non-combatants) without mercy or honor, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate that you are morally better, even if he is tougher). 

Now, when we do have them, Harrek and Jar-Eel are still going to be crazily formidable, and in ways we don’t really understand yet. Before Harrek killed and bound a god, amassed his own armada of pirate followers including expert killers and magicians from across at least half a dozen cultures, looted the City of Wonders and many other repositories of magical treasures, and led a magical expedition across half the world - before all that, he was already someone who could not only survive in the vicious and highly magical world of Lunar Dart Competitions, but so good at it that he killed the Red Emperor. Jar-Eel was heroquesting as an infant, led the attack on Boldhome as a child - and since then has gained numerous powers and resources, including the magical support of a regiment that not only are the best human soldiers in the entire Lunar army, but also all worship her. 
They shouldn’t beat you because their attack% is very high (though it surely is). They should bear you because they’ve been playing the Hero game at a high level for decades, and because they and their team of supporters are three steps ahead of you. Because their Tricksters whispers Lies into the ear of your sorcerers, because they heroquested to find and resurrect your enemies, because they learnt that secret you covered up and when revealed it causes your trusted companions to turn on you, because they have items from half a world away that provide magic you’ve never known, because your god refuses to aid you because they have earned a favour, and because they have a collection of heroquest boons and rewards that is long and formidable, as well as being at the top of what is attainable by more normal means. 
It’s not that I want Jar-Eel and Harrek to be undefeatable in the game, or for it to be impossible to get to that level. I want getting to that level to be comparable - something that requires years of successful adventure *after* becoming a Hero - and I don’t think there are going to be many such games (and they would far beyond the RuneQuest rules). I want defeating a Superhero to be like defeating Sheng Seleris, involving years of effort, and to involve the magical resources of Empires, fighting in heaven, side-quests that could be the whole story of a Hero (such as creating new gods by by fathering children on fearsome demon goddesses), unleashing old Curses against them that have been waiting for a century, etc, not just working out what you think is a clever way to twat them with a rules loophole of a particular spell or whatever. 

The issue that such a game of duelling Superheroes would likely drift far away from the standard future timeline, and as such doesn’t interest me personally that much, is a separate one - plenty of opportunities to get involved in other parts of Glorantha with a far less defined timeline, for a start.

But I don’t want Superheroes (or Heroes) to be the ‘Deities and Demigods’ syndrome - ie we took these characters from fiction, put pretty big numbers next to them, and then someone who has managed to get comparable numbers through dubious house rules says they’ve beaten them in a fight. Reminds me awkwardly of D&D culture in the 1980s, when the hobby was in its collective adolescence, and you’d often hear these stories. Making Superheroes undefeatable by fiat might be problematic to some, but I think making Superheroes defeatable by cheapening what they are is more problematic. Think of making Superheroes undefeatable by fiat, or defeatable only by GM nareative fiat, which is much the same thing, as just a rules patch until we have the right rules. We waited 30+ years, we can wait a few more. 

And yes, I know that back in the 1980s some of todays titans of gaming, including Greg, thought that the SuperHeroQuest approach was the way to go to make gaming around heroquesting etc work. I don’t think Greg would think that now. He tried and rejected a bunch of ideas for various things over his life, and was never afraid to change approach when he found something that worked better. 

And this already far too long post is not just me ranting about about an abstract point about Superheroes that will only be of significance to a tiny percentage of games. Because how we understand Superheroes is built on how we understand Heroes. And I absolutely do want PCs to become Heroes (with the general understanding that Heroes usually represent the efforts of a group, one often conveniently about the size of a PC party). I think that should not be every game, but an accepted and common style of game. And I want Heroes to be able to take on regiment level threats, and make a real difference. But I don’t want that to happen via big attack %ages, a bunch of Rune magic, and endless thousands of attack-parry-damage cycles (I’ve already run The Cradle now, and while it was fun, I really don’t want to spend multiple days of play of my PCs fighting hordes of soldiers again, plus it is still a bit unsatisfying - and still doesn’t really represent defeating a regiment, just holding them off until the deus ex machina kicks in). I want the PC Heroes to defeat regimental level threats as big gameable stories, by heroquests (which depend as much on choices and commitment as martial prowess), by use of powerful magic such as wyters that depend on community and cult support, by being clever and skilled commanders, by diplomacy and intrigue, by leveraging the cool rewards from earlier adventures, by drawing on new or established allies. And by extension, Superheroes should be like that, only more so. 

‘High level play’ in the sense of big fights that involve lots of use of the RQ rules is certainly something that should be part of that sort of game, and can be heaps of fun, but I don’t think wanting to be explain all of how Hero level fights without going beyond the current RuneQuest rules is a sensible goal. Which doesn’t mean I am not very happy to keep talking about high level play within the RQ rules, just recognise it’s limits. 

I agree.

[French Desperate WindChild]

@davecake I agree a lot with you post. Just two differences:

 

A disagreement

1 hour ago, davecake said:

We waited 30+ years, we can wait a few more. 

No 🙂

 

An addition

hero level rules will not be enough to determine how Harreck or Jar-Eel can be defeated

there are the rules,but there are the description of Harreck's skills, powers and abilities too

 

 

What are the weakness of Harreck ? Can we say if yes or not he resists this magic and not this one ? maybe the bear skin  protects him from some magic ?

so "just" steal the skin, and now you have a strategy. But... what if it is not the skin ?

Does Jar-Eel sleep ? What is the radius of her passive powers ? How can resist a pc in the same situation than beat pot ?

 

these few questions answer  @EpicureanDM  question :  you will not have a satisfying answer to your own interrogation: it depends on what powers you give to your big boss. Steal is an option if the skin is powerful, not if only Harreck soul is powerful.

Without "canon" answers, the best strategy is so depending on the gm's definition of the big boss than there is no good strategy.

You can obtain idea, great ideat, but ridiculous (for your game style) too. For sure if a GM consider that Jar-Eel power is 20, without any external protection, a good idea would be to discoporate and challenge her, or even to use some deadly humakti power... But if just approaching her (spirit plan or mundane one) at less than 100meters put you in some area of nysalor illumination / harmony peace or i don't know what that is not the same 🙂

 

[Shiningbrow]

Just now, Shiningbrow said:

I agree.

Apologies for the personal in-joke*. (Especially @davecake)

One thing I do want to add is one thing that's been mentioned - even glossed over - is the idea of sacrifice. RQ is quite big on that, and is one of the things I really like about it.

There's the relatively mild sacrifice of spell options by being able to choose only a small amount of cults for their benefits, to sacrificing POW for RPs, to the bigger sacrifices of being a pacifist (CA) or not being able to be resurrected (H), or the various Gifts and Geasa (H & Y), to the taboos of shamans.

But, if you want to take on Jar-Eel or Harrek or Argrath, I think sacrifice should be a very important part of that. Be it personal sacrifice of one's own body, to those of possessions, to those of society (eg, as Arkat knew he was going to be hated by those he apparently betrayed when he changed into his next form).

Getting the PCs to journey all over the place collecting strange and wonderful magics and friends is what they want to do. Getting them to give up something actually important to them for a more nobler cause is even better...

 

 

(* personal in-joke... having just graded a stack of group discussions, and telling the students that bland, superficial comments like "I agree" are going to fail them ....🤪)

 

 

[icebrand]

5 hours ago, davecake said:

Harrek shouldn’t (just?) have 1000% to hit and a lot of hit points. Harrek should be, to take an important example from the fiction, the guy that who, at Pennell Ford, when they tried to hit him with a massed Sunspear, caused some of the priests that we’re backing the casting effort to catch of fire. No current rules can explain that. Hell, they don’t even explain how to do that massed Sunspear. If you want to take on Superheroes, we simply don’t have the rules yet. 

The priests stacked the sunpears so they could overpower harreks ridiculously stacked shield AND one-shot him.

Harrek askef DI for a reflection, nothing more, all RAW! 😄

Also, as per RQG harrek can't have 1000% because he's just not old enough 😉

Edited April 11, 2022 by icebrand

[Shiningbrow]

15 minutes ago, icebrand said:

The priests stacked the sunpears so they could overpower harreks ridiculously stacked shield AND one-shot him.

Harrek askef DI for a reflection, nothing more, all RAW! 😄

 

Depends on your definitions... if you mean "reflection" as per the rune spell - you're out of luck, because Sunspear doesn't have a resistance roll - it's all direct damage, so can't be reflected (as per the spell).

Stacking Sunspears isn't RAW...