Rune Lords

[Godlearner]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:57 AM, Godlearner said:

And then there is Uleria, or are you guys taking away the D10 from her priests? I mean she her role is to act on the physical world 😈

In part this was a serious question. Do priests of Uleria still maintian their D10 DI in RQG?

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Godlearner said:

In part this was a serious question. Do priests of Uleria still maintian their D10 DI in RQG?

Yes:

Quote

 

A priestess of Uleria checks for divine intervention on 1D10, rather than D100.

Upcoming Cults of Glorantha

 

It's essential to stop worshippers from dying from broken hearts, or exertion.

Once a Uleria priestess reaches 10 Rune points (as Rune Lords), they can DI every season to start increasing their CHA to 21.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Yes:

Once a Uleria priestess reaches 10 Rune points (as Rune Lords), they can DI every season to start increasing their CHA to 21.

Wow.  Chaosium deliberately wrote and intended the broken DI rules?

This is another reason why players care if a cult has rune lords or not.  Using stock DI rules (we don't) Rune Lords will fairly quickly get many of their key stats to 21.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Rodney Dangerduck

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Wow.  Chaosium deliberately wrote and intended the broken DI rules?

This is another reason why players care if a cult has rune lords or not.  Using stock DI rules (we don't) Rune Lords will fairly quickly get many of their key stats to 21.

Remember it takes a permanent Rune Point each time. Still a pretty good deal, but "many stats to 21" is possibly over stating it. Vasana's DEX starts at 11, that's 10 points of POW to get it to 21.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

5 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Vasana's DEX starts at 11, that's 10 points of POW to get it to 21.

Most mini-maxers would do most of that as soon as possible, dropping Vasana's POW to around 10-13.

1. She has an Ally Spirit to cast spells for her, compensating for the lower % chance to cast.
2. She resists at 21, so her POW doesn't matter as much for defense.

In any case, the change went from D10 POW lost in RQ2, to 1.  Huge change.

[PhilHibbs]

13 hours ago, davecake said:

Consider that there are some priests who are specified to have non-martial, primarily non-physical, duties, and whose physical skills are limited to DEXx5, and that Argan Argar is not one of them.

Where is this rule now? Is it still a thing? Is it coming back in the new cults book?

[Brian Duguid]

15 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Remember it takes a permanent Rune Point each time.

Am I misreading Well of Daliath in this regard?

Here it says DI requires a permanent loss of a Rune Point, as per the rulebook:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-13-rune-cults/#ib-toc-anchor-1

Here it says no Rune Point is required (it refers to page 273, but it's page 272 in my copy):

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-13-rune-cults/#ib-toc-anchor-8

@David Scott?

[Joerg]

Color me slightly confused as well, and away from my rules, so disregard if I type nonsense.

Rune level DI requires at least one unused rune point, with the DI cost paid in rune points as far as available and with POW points for exceeding demand.

Initiate DI does not work on rune points but on the initiate's POW instead, with the rune points not added to the success chance or substracted from the cost.

Rune points are a measure of divine favor earned by sacrifice, given for the specific purpose to re-enact a feat of the deity (or one of its allies). When a character is promoted to rune level, the favor may be used to call for intervention, too.

Cost of and probability for DI varies greatly, and is one of the few items in RQ2 which were not inherited by RQG, working with a modification of RQ3 instead by bringing the rune points into play.

This is a big divergence from RQ2. (Again, I am away from my books/pdfs:) RQ2 had a one point rune spell for Divine Intervention for priests. I don't recall whether that was a one use spell (would make sense with the RQG design), but AFAIR a priest's DI was a lot cheaper and more reliable than any (!) rune lord's DI that cost POW directly. With the RQ2 option of becoming a rune lord/priest, a rune level could graduate to use either method.

RQ3 got rid of both the POW 18 requirement for priests and Acolytes (RQ3 God-Talkers, at least for a selection of cults) and the 1 point divine spell and gave priests only the same chance and cost to DI as initiates would have. RQ3 also got rid of most rune lord ranks in the cults. (And RQ3 was my entry to GMing mainly non-Gloranthan RQ.)

Having flipped through "Rune Masters" (one of my latest RQ2 purchases, and to me perhaps the funniest with its mechanistic elaboration of the RQ2 appendix character generation and all the cults in Cults of Prax), I can see the point for reducing the rune levels for most cults except for the few society-bearing ones (Orlanth, Yelm, Aldrya, Kyger Litor, Seven Mothers in lieu of Red Goddess, and weirdly also the fringe deity Yelmalio) with some weird omissions like Lodril and Ernalda. Yelm, Aldrya and Kyger Litor also get shamans...

I wonder whether shoe-horning all cults into these two-and-a-half forms of rune masters is such a good idea nowadays, having experiences other game systems. Gloranthan gaming has a different definition of "game balance" than D20 gaming and especially old school GMing offers (and that includes RQ2-isms coming from contemporary gaming conceptions despite having taken a quite different course). There is the soft restriction on GMing DI as having to be within the deity's domain except for a few traditionally included effects like the teleport to safety, anyway.

Using DI to undo gaming system restrictions e.g. on raising stats in RQ is one of these extremely old school relics in the discussion. Why should a deity care?

 

On mechanical considerations, why should the success chance be so different for the various types of rune master? And why the backflip for priestly DI from RQ2 via RQ3 to RQG?

The entire mechanic is sort of contrived. Having a one percent chance to expire/ascend as the result of a DI (as an initiate) by expending all your POW is somewhat cool, but the effects of expending all your POW but 1, 2 or 3 give a totally uncool result. I have played a character with a starting POW of 5, and while that sucked for a while, he got over it inside a few adventures and a Sacred Time freefer.

The mechanic is as contrived as is the hero point currency in HeroQuestWorlds. The rather low chance to succeed for any but a few select cults' rune lords just to break a game mechanic (like "unraisable stats" or "stat ceiling") feels extremely old school, and might be hard to explain to people joining after the height of the Grognardian Age.

 

What's the mythical reason for the success chance be so different for the various types of rune master?

There seems to be an agreement that a rune master (or even a mere initiate) achieving a successful Divine Intervention request doesn't break the Compromise or the magical stability of the world (much).

DI as a low to reasonable chance to Get Out of Fix is a useful counterbalance for bad dice luck in RuneQuest combat (or too good dice luck for the opposition). To have something like that is a good countermeasure for that design choice, but why shoe-horn breaking the game system in non-critical situations onto this not overly exciting mechanic?

 

Disclaimer: I had most of my experiences roleplaying in Glorantha in Hero Wars/HeroQuest (while my GMing in Glorantha was mostly using RuneQuest, most recently RQG but mostly older editions or playtest variants) or possibly even in multi-player freeforms, which makes me think of RuneQuest as just one system to play in Glorantha, and not necessarily the last word in doctrine. I have also GMed RuneQuest more in my own setting or occasionally in one of RQ3's "Fantasy Earth" settings than in Glorantha, with rules aspects of my own setting lending heavily from rules published for RQ3's treatment of Glorantha and other BRP incarnations.
I am still trying to use as few house rules as possible, trying to evangelize the (German translation of) RQG when GMing and playtesting scenario elements for possible publication on JTC. Should I manage to return to a regular face-to-face GMing of Glorantha, I will probably fall back to heavy house-ruling in order to let my players develop their character stories against my attempts to throw plot at them alongside allowing them to tangle with situative hooks that may further my plot or just a totally new direction, or use QuestWorlds once it comes in a user-friendly presentation for both me as narrator and the players.

[PhilHibbs]

On 11/4/2022 at 3:06 PM, Joerg said:

Color me slightly confused as well, and away from my rules, so disregard if I type nonsense.

Rune level DI requires at least one unused rune point, with the DI cost paid in rune points as far as available and with POW points for exceeding demand.

Initiate DI does not work on rune points but on the initiate's POW instead, with the rune points not added to the success chance or substracted from the cost.

The first step in Divine Intervention is the same for everyone, p.272:

Quote

In appealing for
divine intervention, the adventurer must first permanently
sacrifice 1 Rune point and then the player must state in a
precise way what their adventurer wishes the divine intervention
to achieve.

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

Oh!

Divine Intervention: Procedure (page 273)

Change

Correction

In appealing for divine intervention, the adventurer must first permanently sacrifice 1 Rune point and then the player must state in a precise way what their adventurer wishes the divine intervention to achieve.

I never spotted this. I must admit I was never entirely happy that initiates had to pay even on a failure, but the 1 point cost for Rune Lords is fair. I might rule a middle ground in my game, that if it works then you pay 1 Rune Point permanently regardless of rank.

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by PhilHibbs

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

I never spotted this.

Wait what? You can explicitly get permanent characteristic increases through DI and now it doesn’t even have a permanent cost? This makes no sense - RAW, every Rune Lord should very quickly and at little cost max out all stats.

(Yes, the GM will put a stop to this, but if the rules require DM intervention to stop their use, this is bad.)

Edited November 7, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[PhilHibbs]

There is the minor inconvenience that you have to keep 10 RP unused between each major worship ceremony, so if you're adventuring once per season you need to fill your Rune Pool up so you can use some and still keep the spares for munchkin-DI.

The best munchkin strategy is straight after a worship you DI and if you roll low, do it again.

[Akhôrahil]

8 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

There is the minor inconvenience that you have to keep 10 RP unused between each major worship ceremony, so if you're adventuring once per season you need to fill your Rune Pool up so you can use some and still keep the spares for munchkin-DI.

The best munchkin strategy is straight after a worship you DI and if you roll low, do it again.

If you have a cult like Orlanth, you can pick up about as many RPs as you like through Associated Cult worship, too

[Scotty]

Note that the wording is under review. It will be along the lines that on a successful DI, there is a minimum permanent cost of 1 RP. while the correction above is correct, there is still additional text to add.

[Akhôrahil]

11 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Note that the wording is under review. It will be along the lines that on a successful DI, there is a minimum permanent cost of 1 RP. while the correction above is correct, there is still additional text to add.

You may want to consider some limits to DI for characteristics, as well. Trading (in effect) POW for other characteristics is already extremely powerful. 

[Scotty]

10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

You may want to consider some limits to DI for characteristics, as well. Trading (in effect) POW for other characteristics is already extremely powerful. 

The limits are already there, not more than species maximum. The same limits were in RQ2. 

Adventurers who are Rune Lords will have plenty to do each season, than just burning Rune points on DI. There's the Hero Wars to fight. There will of course be situations where such a practice is useful.

[Akhôrahil]

6 minutes ago, Scotty said:

The limits are already there, not more than species maximum. The same limits were in RQ2. 

Maxing out your stats is pretty danged good already, though.

This was a lot less doable when the cost was 1d10 instead of 1.

6 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Adventurers who are Rune Lords will have plenty to do each season, than just burning Rune points on DI. There's the Hero Wars to fight. There will of course be situations where such a practice is useful.

Depends on the situation - if you’re a Wind Lord belonging to a decently-sized temple, you will have very high RP regain due to associated worship.

The factor that does somewhat limit it is your POW gain rate, but it could still be a few points yearly (more if you gain POW from heroquesting).

[Scotty]

15 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Maxing out your stats is pretty danged good already, though.

This was a lot less doable when the cost was 1d10 instead of 1.

the cost is still D10 Rune points and with a permanent loss of 1 Rune point

15 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Depends on the situation - if you’re a Wind Lord belonging to a decently-sized temple, you will have very high RP regain due to associated worship.

I would hope so. Rune Lords are the leaders of the cult.

15 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

The factor that does somewhat limit it is your POW gain rate, but it could still be a few points yearly (more if you gain POW from heroquesting).

I'm interested to hear how this is impacting your game, or has done in the past (even in RQ2). Do you have Rune Lords with 10 Rune points in your game? Remember, as a GM you are always free to limit player actions if you feel they are over emphasising an element of the rules that is unbalancing your game. 

[Akhôrahil]

46 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I'm interested to hear how this is impacting your game, or has done in the past (even in RQ2). Remember, as a GM you are always free to limit player actions if you feel they are over emphasising an element of the rules that is unbalancing your game. 

Which I have - I house-ruled against it already (as well as characteristics training), reserving permanent non-CHA/POW increases for heroquests and similarly high-level events.

But it’s  pretty obvious how it could be very powerful, resulting in considerably higher stats for Rune Lords than others, as well as ”optimized” characteristics (13, 17, and so on). It’s more ”gamey” than I like, and there seems to be a high risk that it would result in more similar statlines for those with access to it, as well as make Rune Lords play in a different league than everyone else when it comes to characteristics. (It also doesn’t feel ”earned”, but that’s just my personal taste.)

When a problem is predictible (not saying it would happen for everyone, but I know my players!), I want to head it off in advance. 🙂

Edited November 7, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[whitelaughter]

On 11/2/2022 at 5:40 AM, Jeff said:

You are welcome to add Rune Lords to your Glorantha.

This seems like a worthy goal for a PC; to be the first Rune Master of the cult. Requesting it via Divine Intervention, or heroQuesting, or whatever.

I would enjoy having an Initiate of Lhankor Mhy become 'Sea Lord': with a minimum 5% chance of any ship being eaten by the Closing (the Open Seas spell seems to be a pass/die casting, though hopefully I've misread it) having the backup of a Runelord who who can DI "boss, we need this spell to work" would be very popular.