Cult Rankings

[Rodney Dangerduck]

40 minutes ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

 

If you are a spear hunter (as in you throw it) it makes you more likely to fell your quarry, and in Glorantha there is always the risk of running into a monster while hunting so spells to help survive those encounters make a lot of sense.

 

They are associate cults so they can learn each others rune magic (Page 283)

They can only learn rune magic specifically offered.  Usually a single spell.  For example, Orlanth: Provides Summon Air Elemental (small) to Odalya.

None of the three hunting cults provide rune magic to each other.  Their "benefits" to being associated is that they participate in the same Great Hunt together.  Nothing more.  Well, I guess it is more o.k. to join both (or all three) cults.

In the example on page 283, Flight is the one, specific spell that Orlanth offers to Issaries.  (see page 298)

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

19 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

They can only learn rune magic specifically offered.  Usually a single spell.  For example, Orlanth: Provides Summon Air Elemental (small) to Odalya.

None of the three hunting cults provide rune magic to each other.  Their "benefits" to being associated is that they participate in the same Great Hunt together.  Nothing more.  Well, I guess it is more o.k. to join both (or all three) cults.

In the example on page 283, Flight is the one, specific spell that Orlanth offers to Issaries.  (see page 298)

You are right I was being an idiot 

Edited June 1, 2022 by FlamingCatOfDeath
Fixed Verb tense

[French Desperate WindChild]

9 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Probably for another thread, but these seem to be three hunting cults that are mediocre at hunting, though they'd be effective if combined.  And how they fit in mythically / culturally is fuzzy to me.  For example, Bear's Strength is awesome for a warrior, one of my Vingan's favorite spells (she's also in Thunderous) .  I'm not sure how it helps a "hunter."  Hopefully GoG will elaborate.

for me, they are the weirdos people who prefer wilderness than farm & sheep way of life.

the bear is the one who defends with all it strength is few teddy companions but prefer to be alone than meet too many people

the cat is the one who prefer to sneak, caress and watch the stars but avoid any community work

the bull (yes a hunter god, the chaos hunter god) is like the bear but, when the bear is more a "protector", the bull is more an "aggressor" and has no problem to live inside the community and take advantage of its opportunities (beer, etc...). Then of course there is the chaos fighter aspect

 

foundchild is different, he is the wild human. Would say he is for those who have less attachement to the community than others but without this "special" beast attributes and instincts.

 

don't know if it fits with the expected gods of glorantha, that's just my opinion

[soltakss]

For me, Yelorna is a good Hunting goddess, as she has magic that assists Missile Weapons and to help with tracking at night.

[Martin Dick]

21 hours ago, icebrand said:

Because you are playing RuneQuest and understand math?

That's not really an an answer, with my current Orlanthi thane, when I stack my character, I'm hitting and parrying at around 220% without using runes or passions, have 30 points or so of armour, does 1d8 +1d4 +12 points of damage, so I think I'm okay at RQ maths, though obviously there are many people better at it than me. But it doesn't make a game particularly fun, the most exciting combat I had in RQG was fighting a Cacodemon for the second time after it had revived from its first death, as I had used most of my RP the first time and I now knew that it would explode on death and that explosion had a very good chance of killing me, so I couldn't just kill it, so I had to rely on the rest of the party to save me from the explosion when we finally got in to a position where I took it down without killing us all. The fact that I was completely overkill on it, turned out to be not that important.

And of course the other reason that min/maxing to the nth degree is pointless, is because the GM generally just min/maxes back at you, so the chance of dying doesn't really change whether you are 16 year olds fighting trollkin or RuneLord/Priests fighting Chaos monstrosities. But some people like a powergaming campaign (e.g. Secrets of Dorastor) and the various RQs are well-suited to that style of game and obviously that's MGF for some people, but you shouldn't assume that we all prefer that sort of game and that maybe the design decisions of Jeff and Jason are not jokes etc, but just aiming at a different type of game than the one you play.

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by Martin Dick
Posted by accident

[Akhôrahil]

On 6/1/2022 at 6:14 AM, Rob Darvall said:

So is this in any way dependent on their God? Or is it a skill any culture could learn?

Yes - basically, how is the pike use a cult secret? If it’s merely mundane training, it could (and should) be copied by others. And if it’s magical, just how does that work? Do you have the necessary magical experiences during initiation, ones that are necessary to be able to do it?

[metcalph]

11 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Yes - basically, how is the pike use a cult secret? If it’s merely mundane training, it could (and should) be copied by others. And if it’s magical, just how does that work? Do you have the necessary magical experiences during initiation, ones that are necessary to be able to do it?

I suspect it's because when things go south, most gloranthans have a tradition of running away or (more rarely) charging like crazy.  On the other hand, Yelmalio teaches his followers to stand fast and accept their doom (ideally they should also be stoic, have a stiff upper lip etc but Yelmalio tolerates soiled garments).  As a result, his pikes hold formation better than other pike regiments and consequently win or survive more battles.

Yelmalio himself never fought in a phalanx formation and so he teaches no special magics for doing so.  But his spirit (represented by the passion: Devotion (Yelmalio) if you want to be game mechanical about it) is important in imbuing his regiments with the required mindset to give them that edge over over phalanxes.

[Akhôrahil]

6 minutes ago, metcalph said:

As a result, his pikes hold formation better than other pike regiments and consequently win or survive more battles.

I was specifically thinking of the cult-unique ability to use pike and shield together. This doesn't seem like it would be just a question of mindset?

Edited June 2, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[metcalph]

6 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I was specifically thinking of the cult-unique ability to use pike and shield together. This doesn't seem like it would be just a question of mindset?

Not described as a cult secret in Cults of Prax and there are several non-Yelmalion regiments that use pike and shields.

[Shiningbrow]

One thing Yelmalio could definitely use then, is a good strong anti-magic spell or buff. In a world of magic, those mundane phalanxes are somewhat vulnerable to AoE spells, or the quick movement of other higher magic types (eg, flight, teleport, mobility for flanking)

[Akhôrahil]

14 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Not described as a cult secret in Cults of Prax and there are several non-Yelmalion regiments that use pike and shields.

Huh, I had no idea about this - I thought they used either spear and shield or just pike, and that pike + shield was exclusively a Yelmalio thing. 

And it is described at the very least as an exception in RQG, and no way to learn it outside of the cult is offered: "The Yelmalio cult teaches its initiates how to use a shield in conjunction with the Pike skill. This is a special exception to the rule that a shield cannot be used with a two-handed weapon."

Since the pike use is the single best thing about Yelmalio - the cult USP, if you will - I'm a little surprised if it's widely available.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[French Desperate WindChild]

24 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I was specifically thinking of the cult-unique ability to use pike and shield together. This doesn't seem like it would be just a question of mindset?

in the garhound festival, I remember lunar and sartarite (garhund people)  competitors too, probably not only yelmalian

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

in the garhound festival, I remember lunar and sartarite (garhund people)  competitors too, probably not only yelmalian

Phalanxes and shield-walls yes, but actually pike + shield? Wasn't this just using the shields, in Shield Push?

Edited June 2, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[French Desperate WindChild]

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

Phalanxes and shield-walls yes, but actually pike + shield?

bah... I m not a specialist, but what is a phalanx without pike + shield combo ? (I m really not a specialist, so maybe phalanx is something different than what I imagine)

[Akhôrahil]

6 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

bah... I m not a specialist, but what is a phalanx without pike + shield combo ? (I m really not a specialist, so maybe phalanx is something different than what I imagine)

Early modern pike didn't bother with shields, and the classical Greek hoplites didn't use a pike. The Macedonians were the ones with pike + shield. And I believe the Macedonian pike only used the shield passively (slung from the neck, the way it worked in RQ3), unlike the RQG Yelmalio style where you can actively parry with it while using a pike?

Edited June 2, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[icebrand]

29 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Early modern pike didn't bother with shields, and the classical Greek hoplites didn't use a pike. The Macedonians were the ones with pike + shield. And I believe the Macedonian pike only used the shield passively (slung from the neck, the way it worked in RQ3), unlike the RQG Yelmalio style where you can actively parry with it while using a pike?

Macedonians used a pelta, which is smaller than a hoplite shield. The shield was slung from the neck and the arm; its size doesnt cover the hand so you can use your 2h spear.

The shield does have mobility, it's not just hanging there. In real life skilled people would attack the eyes or other unarmored locations, a fixed shield would have been pretty useless.

Anecdotically, it's kind of imposible to use a pike and a large shield (like a hoplon and a sarissa). In real life you have either longspear (1h) + large shield or pike (2h) + medium shield.

source: google 

Edited June 2, 2022 by icebrand

[icebrand]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

For me, Yelorna is a good Hunting goddess, as she has magic that assists Missile Weapons and to help with tracking at night.

Yelorna is the best!!!

Star track to find your prey, then you spend *all* your runepoints in shooting star and bam! Pre-cooked food!!!

[icebrand]

2 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

That's not really an an answer, with my current Orlanthi thane, when I stack my character, I'm hitting and parrying at around 220% without using runes or passions, have 30 points or so of armour, does 1d8 +1d4 +12 points of damage, so I think I'm okay at RQ maths

I imagine thats not an RQG character, i mean how do you get 220% without dying of old age? Thats like 20+ years of experience if you start with 100% and like a 35% modifier. Also 30 AP??? What are you wearing, castle wall armor? 😅

And +12 damage? Thats like 11 pts of bladesharp or what?

Anyway, what i meant by being good at maths is that even your character can die if they fail to parry a crit, so you need to play accordingly.

2 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

, the most exciting combat I had in RQG was fighting a Cacodemon for the second time after it had revived from its first death,

THE cacodemon? Or a fiend?

2 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

And of course the other reason that min/maxing to the nth degree is pointless, is because the GM generally just min/maxes back at you

In my current campaign you play with semi-pregens and enemies are as they are in the book or veterans with +20% for random encounters, or whatever comes in the scenarios for NPCs.

There is no minmaxing going on unless you consider picking a cult, your skills and spells minmaxing.

Also as a GM i feel *zero* need to minmax; like if you are homebrewing the encounter, no need to tweak anything, you can just add more creatures until You win. I mean your orlanthi clearly mops the floor with a teen that works at mcdonald's (he has no magic, 9 all stats, club 25% 1d6), but can you win against 20? 100? 500?

2 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

 But some people like a powergaming campaign (e.g. Secrets of Dorastor) and the various RQs are well-suited to that style of game and obviously that's MGF for some people, but you shouldn't assume that we all prefer that sort of game and that maybe the design decisions of Jeff and Jason are not jokes etc, but just aiming at a different type of game than the one you play

I don't play that type of game anymore. Been there, done that, D&D does it much much much better (i don't like D&D btw).

I play published stuff, if Jeff and Jason design with a different aim i'm probably playing as intended what am i even playing if not?

If anything i'm playing *less* powergamey than RAW; for example at my table shield only gives 1 armor / point and i don't allow trance spells. (Also some other tweaks, i have jeffs written permission btw 🤪)

Edited June 2, 2022 by icebrand

[Shiningbrow]

36 minutes ago, icebrand said:

I imagine thats not an RQG character, i mean how do you get 220% without dying of old age? Thats like 20+ years of experience if you start with 100% and like a 35% modifier. Also 30 AP??? What are you wearing, castle wall armor? 😅

And +12 damage? Thats like 11 pts of bladesharp or what?

I can guess....

A character that's been around for a few years, and collected a few trinkets - nothing too excessive. 5 or 6 pt POW Enhancing crystal doubles your variable spells - so, Bladesharp 6 goes to 12 (so, + damage, +60% sword), and Protection 6 gives 12 AP, on top of the 8pt Iron plate (plus 1pt leather underneath) to take you to 20 or so, plus a 4-5pt Shield. To get to 220%, you'd have to start at (220-60 is 180, and I don't know what other ways they're stacking... Bear's Strength? Strength? something for Dex enhancement?) Or, of course, Sword Trance could be from an enchantment...

@Martin Dick How am I going?

 

@icebrand TBH, I'm surprised you're even sticking with RQG. I would have thought you'd be playing 13th Age instead, which seems to suit your ideals much better, but still in a version of Glorantha.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Shiningbrow

[Martin Dick]

51 minutes ago, icebrand said:

I imagine thats not an RQG character, i mean how do you get 220% without dying of old age?

Start with base RQG character at 90% Broadsword - Be relatively lucky and increase it to a natural 128% from experience rolls over a number of seasons, do a HeroQuest and get plus 10% to your Broadsword, use Bladesharp 6 and have a Power enhancing crystal that boosts it to Bladesharp 12 (+60%) and have the magical broadsword Wrath with a +20%, adding up to 218%. I haven't really even been trying that hard or using Runes/Passions. And when the HeroQuest rules come out, then there will be even more ways to boost something. Which is entirely something a Yelmalian player character can do

30 points armour - 6 point plate, 8 points of Shield (=16 points) Protection 5 with power-enhancing crystal = Protection 10 = 5 + 16 + 10 = 32 points of armour

Of course this all when supercharged, he can only do this once per season as he has 10 RP, so it's got to be something epic for him to go all in.

of course, a Humakti/Babeester Gor with Trance and True Weapon would still be able to take him down pretty easily, assuming they had 30 magic points or so. And that damn Lunar sorceress can take him down pretty easily with a Madness spell and there are a bunch of others.

So, he's the tank of the party, with a shaman, a Chalana Arroy, a Yinkini, an Odaylan, and an Orlanth Thunderous farmer, all of who are extremely dangerous in general. But you know, despite being a bit of a killing machine, his Orate skill has probably been more useful and just as much fun to use as his Broadsword skill.

PS. it was a Fiend, not Cacodemon himself, though he did fight Gagarth for two rounds and survive

Edited June 2, 2022 by Martin Dick

[Martin Dick]

12 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

How am I going?

Pretty close, it's not rocket science 😆

[Martin Dick]

58 minutes ago, icebrand said:

If anything i'm playing *less* powergamey than RAW; for example at my table shield only gives 1 armor / point and i don't allow trance spells. (Also some other tweaks, i have jeffs written permission btw 🤪)

Based on this, I'm really not clear why you are so down on Yelmalio, give them a decent array of spirit magic and a power enhancing crystal and they'll be reasonably competitive with Humakt/Babeester Gor. 

[icebrand]

13 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

@icebrand TBH, I'm surprised you're even sticking with RQG. I would have thought you'd be playing 13th Age instead, which seems to suit your ideals much better, but still in a version of Glorantha.

Why are you surprised? I think you are very confused about the type of games i run. 

13th age looks super cool but it's very complicated to run and doesnt have much content.

2 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

Start with base RQG character at 90% Broadsword - Be relatively lucky and increase it to a natural 128% from experience rolls over a number of seasons, do a HeroQuest and get plus 10% to your Broadsword, use Bladesharp 6 and have a Power enhancing crystal that boosts it to Bladesharp 12 (+60%) and have the magical broadsword Wrath with a +20%, adding up to 218%. I haven't really even been trying that hard or using Runes/Passions. And when the HeroQuest rules come out, then there will be even more ways to boost something. Which is entirely something a Yelmalian player character can do

30 points armour - 6 point plate, 8 points of Shield (=16 points) Protection 5 with power-enhancing crystal = Protection 10 = 5 + 16 + 10 = 32 points of armour

Of course this all when supercharged, he can only do this once per season as he has 10 RP, so it's got to be something epic for him to go all in.

Oh, ok! If i had your character i would have said "138% attack 6 AP" since the rest is all magic and in our group never add that to baseline stats! 

 

[Martin Dick]

1 hour ago, icebrand said:

There is no minmaxing going on unless you consider picking a cult, your skills and spells minmaxing.

Picking Humakt/Babeester Gor as your cult, making sure in character creation that you get your weapon skill as high as possible and choosing Axe Trance/Slash or Sword Trance/True Sword is basic warrior min/maxing in RQG, so yes, it sounds like min/maxing is going on

[icebrand]

9 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

Based on this, I'm really not clear why you are so down on Yelmalio, give them a decent array of spirit magic and a power enhancing crystal and they'll be reasonably competitive with Humakt/Babeester Gor. 

I'm sorry, "being down with" means being ok with it, right? They already were competitive in my campaign a year ago, i have no horse in the yelmalio race other than discuss mechanics which is something i enjoy.

Also humakt got nerfed because a starting character with some MP automatically wins every single melee and that made for very boring/frustrating gameplay.

5 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

Picking Humakt/Babeester Gor as your cult, making sure in character creation that you get your weapon skill as high as possible and choosing Axe Trance/Slash or Sword Trance/True Sword is basic warrior min/maxing in RQG, so yes, it sounds like min/maxing is going on

I don't think so. If you want to play a warrior those are the warrior cults, why pick something else? Also a (young) warrior definitively should have their weapon skill as their highest? 

Id argue that a humakti whose best skill*isnt* sword is a poorly built. Reverse minmaxing if you will.