Playing More Experienced Characters

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, PaulJW said:

My approach to rolling up more experienced characters is:

1) Give the players broad guidelines that relate to rolling up characters suitable for the scenarios prepared.

2) Let them do their own thing.

3) Vet the end results and weed out anything silly.

 

So, laissez faire. As long as the PCs end up with broadly suitable skills and abilities for the scenarios they will be experiencing, anything goes.

Agreed, but not usable with all players. Some of my players (and some of them would say myself included) would produce some characters any sane GM should vetoed.

[soltakss]

On 9/2/2024 at 1:37 AM, Mr_Douglass said:

I've been looking for material on creating characters that are more experienced that the Core Rules generate.  Metaphorically, starting at 5th level instead of 1st. 

On p79 of the RQG Rules, starting Adventurers get "Adventurers have personal interests beyond that demanded by their occupation, cult, and culture. Add +25% to any four skills on the adventurer sheet, and +10% to five more skills. No skill may be raised to above 100% in this step. If your adventurer has a skill at 100% or greater through a combination of base chance, history, boons, skill category bonus, cultural skill bonus, occupational skill bonuses, and cult skill bonuses, you cannot add additional personal skill bonuses to that skill. If applying a personal skill bonus increases a skill beyond 100%, any benefit beyond 100% is discarded and the skill is 100%. It is possible to increase skills beyond 100% with experience earned through gameplay, however (see page 416 for more information)."

An easy way to get more experienced Adventurers is to double the skills, so instead of adding +25 to four skills you add them to 8 skills, and instead of adding +10 to five skills you add them to 10 skills. This gives you more rounded Adventurers with skills in more areas. Increase the number of Rune Points the Adventurers have to 6.

If you want higher powered Adventurers then drop the restriction to 100% as a maximum skill. I ignore that anyway.

Alternatively, use the miserly additional experience rules on p81.

[Akhôrahil]

25 minutes ago, soltakss said:

An easy way to get more experienced Adventurers is to double the skills, so instead of adding +25 to four skills you add them to 8 skills, and instead of adding +10 to five skills you add them to 10 skills.

Note that this doesn’t make the PCs much tougher, so you couldn’t throw much tougher scenarios on them.

[soltakss]

5 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Note that this doesn’t make the PCs much tougher, so you couldn’t throw much tougher scenarios on them.

True, so it might be OK to add +50 to four skills on top of those.

[PhilHibbs]

32 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Note that this doesn’t make the PCs much tougher, so you couldn’t throw much tougher scenarios on them.

It does if it lets them qualify for Rune Lord or Priest / God Talker. That's the next big step.

[Akhôrahil]

14 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

It does if it lets them qualify for Rune Lord or Priest / God Talker. That's the next big step.

Qualifying for Priest/God-talker is trivial anyway, apart from the POW requirement.

[PhilHibbs]

19 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Qualifying for Priest/God-talker is trivial anyway, apart from the POW requirement.

There might be some ways of running stanndard character creation to start with priest qualifications, for some cults, but not for all and not easily. 90% Bargain, you can get that if you have a +10 communications modifier. Poor old Harmast is a long way away because he's a noble by occupation, not merchant.

Edited September 9 by PhilHibbs

[Mr_Douglass]

On 9/3/2024 at 1:10 AM, smiorgan said:

I guess the intention was just to ask what kind of advice you needed. How to create them vs. how to play them / run adventures for them.

If that was the intention, then more words would have been helpful for me to understand it.  Instead, he pulled the very British tactic of using too few words to adequately communicate with a Yank, AND came across as a right, proper grognard who was happy to have scored a point against a newb.  jajagappa, on the other hand, was very kind to explain the nuance I was missing.

Here's a free tip: if someone says to you "I'm new" and asks a question that's a little off, chalk it up to them being new, and be kinder in your responses. Here's a quote from the sticky'd post I mentioned:

Scotty: "It’s the responsibility of all Tribe members to make sure this is an inviting place. Let’s work together to keep Glorantha around for another 40+ years by helping new people fall in love with it just like we did. "

Jeff: "Greg used to say that his definition of an "internet troll" was someone who did not positively contribute to a conversation - be it by providing an answer (and when possible what that answer is based on), providing additional ideas and thoughts, or just keeping things friendly and positive. Walls of text or snark do not positively contribute to a conversation. "

Edited September 10 by Mr_Douglass

[Mr_Douglass]

On 9/3/2024 at 4:50 AM, Nick Brooke said:

Some people want to know about playing as more experienced (e.g. "Rune Level") characters, and we would be wasting their time (and ours) telling them how to create them, if that's not what they wanted to know. (Some people can also be quite rude to people who misunderstand what they were asking for; but thank you for your polite reply. It's all water off a modmin's back.)...

Thank you for clarifying.  Now I understand the nuance I was missing before...

 

[Dragon]

On 9/4/2024 at 6:16 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Once Rune Points get to 10 or so...

Consider a fighter type (I know we don't officially have classes in RQ, but go with me) in good armor (~7 points), who also has Protection 6 and Shield 6.  That's 25 points of armor.  Plus a parry for ~12 points more.  The poor GM has a few options

1. Keep big bad guy (BBG) damage to "reasonable" levels, in which case only a crit will hurt.  This has been my approach when I GM.  It works o.k., you just need lots and lots of bad guys...  Like some Hollywood action movie where the good guy special forces cut through dozens and dozens of enemy rebels / terrorists / drug gangs.  Our other GM prefers #2:
2. Somehow boost up BBG damage to a high level, say, ~30 average.  ("Chaos" is one technique)  That will give the "tank" a worthy battle.  However, any  "non-tank" type, say, your LM Sword Sage with ~12 points of armor + defensive magics, who gets in the way, is pretty much toast.  The GM most arrange that the BBG only fight the tanks.  In effect, you get character classes...

 

Yep, that is the question for GMs. the rune levels in my long-running campaign tend to use Distract to call the BBG to force them to go against a 'tank', or just interpose. Generally either the Axe Maiden or Sword using Trance or the Storm Khan with Impede Chaos. An example is when they fought two very large giants. One giant was cut down charging in by a composite bow with Multimissile 3. Two criticals were rolled, the real one and a copy, for 27 points through armor.  Darn lucky! Note that did not kill the giant, but laid it out on the ground for a while and more incoming missiles that kept it from healing much.

Then the other giant had to fight a parry tank with boosted skill around 240. That makes the giant extremely unlikely to hit anything, and if it had hit with anything except an '01', the tank's actual parry had around a 48% to make it meaningless due to a special. The three Rune Lords ripped it apart.

The problem there is that if BBG can easily be overcome by Distract, they can be overcome by other spells like Befuddle. 

They have learned the problem with 20-30 trollkin shooting slings at them. They know they can crit at inopportune times.

I prefer using multiple approaches to keep them on their toes. Drain their rune points with some encounters, then spirits, then some BBGs.

Note: Sword of Humakt, Storm Khan, Priest/Shaman of Waha, Lhankor Mhy sage, Ernalda priestess, and Axe Maiden. They have completed a lot of the published Chaosium content, a few of the Jonstown Compendium ones, and a couple heroquests I interwove between myth and their previous history. The multimissile on the giant was from the Impala Shaman who is not quite yet a master with the bow - and his best melee weapon is around 55%.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

6 hours ago, Dragon said:

the rune levels in my long-running campaign tend to use Distract

We've played RQ or similar games for 40 years, and an effect like Distract often existed.  However, it was always something Heroic and special.  Because we are smart wargamers and realize that it is truly something special.

For a one point spell that doesn't seem to need to succeed with POW v POW (YGMV) it's far too effective.  We ignore the last paragraph on Distract.  It only works on discorporate spirits.

[DreadDomain]

Unfortunately, RuneQuest is not always written in the most accurate language. Distraction is another example of it. The description does not quite align with the rule components of the spell. It is a 1-point spirit spell (fairly weak), it is instant (not temporal), and it's called Distraction (not control or mind control). I see two main issues.

First, reading the description in the RBOM, the second sentence states "...it automatically draws the spirit...". Given it is a 1-point spell, I do not think the intent of using "automatically" here is to say that it foregoes the Resistance Roll where "Involuntary targets resist spells cast at them, and the caster 
must overcome their will (POW vs. POW) with a resistance roll".

Second, and this is worst part, the statement that "[the spirit] attacks the caster until the caster is unconscious or the spirit is defeated and returns to 
the Spirit World" does not align with an instant spell at all. As an instant spell, distraction "pulls an opponent’s attention to the caster as a 
more opportune target for attack". Once that (instant) attention has taken effect and has distracted the target to attack the caster instead of attacking someone else, the target has free will to do has they choose, may it be to continue attacking the caster or to move on to another target. Unless of course the caster casts it again the next MR. 

Edited Friday at 11:50 PM by DreadDomain

[Dragon]

On 9/13/2024 at 7:57 AM, DreadDomain said:

Unfortunately, RuneQuest is not always written in the most accurate language. Distraction is another example of it. The description does not quite align with the rule components of the spell. It is a 1-point spirit spell (fairly weak), it is instant (not temporal), and it's called Distraction (not control or mind control). I see two main issues.

First, reading the description in the RBOM, the second sentence states "...it automatically draws the spirit...". Given it is a 1-point spell, I do not think the intent of using "automatically" here is to say that it foregoes the Resistance Roll where "Involuntary targets resist spells cast at them, and the caster 
must overcome their will (POW vs. POW) with a resistance roll".

Second, and this is worst part, the statement that "[the spirit] attacks the caster until the caster is unconscious or the spirit is defeated and returns to 
the Spirit World" does not align with an instant spell at all. As an instant spell, distraction "pulls an opponent’s attention to the caster as a 
more opportune target for attack". Once that (instant) attention has taken effect and has distracted the target to attack the caster instead of attacking someone else, the target has free will to do has they choose, may it be to continue attacking the caster or to move on to another target. Unless of course the caster casts it again the next MR. 

I agree that the description of Distraction is not clear. As a one point spell without a very specific statement, it should require a normal resistance roll to overcome. IMHO I believe the 'it automatically draws the spirit' means that it enables the spirit to leave spirit combat with one target and go to another. RQG:RiG states "Once begun, spirit combat lasts until one of the following conditions are met:
. Both parties agree to end the conflict.
. One of the combatants disengages.
. One or both parties are reduced to 0 magic points.
Once a spirit attacks, it continues to attack its target until the spirit wins, loses, negotiates a deal with the target, or the target disengages. The spirit magic spell of Distraction, when cast on a spirit, can direct the spirit’s attacks to the spell’s caster (normally a shaman), at which point the spirit leaves its former target and attacks only the caster from that point forward."

So, I take that as normally just disparaging the spirit's mother is not generally enough to get the spirit to disengage, but successfully using Distraction will, even when the current spirit combat target (your friend) does not 'agree to end the conflict'.

In terms of the instant vs temporal, here is my take: Generally things keep attacking the same target. Someone casting Distraction forces a specific new target. Then they TEND to stay on that target. If Axe Maiden is being beaten by a disease spirit, the Waha Shaman casting Distraction would cause it to leave the Axe Maiden and engage the shaman. Which may annoy the Axe Maiden who is hoping to defeat it and get the immunity since she has already been infected (based on 'being beaten'), and the POW gain.

If our Axe Maiden cast Distraction on the Sword's target, and the Sword wanted it back, he could cast Distraction later. It would supplant the previous pre-occupation - if the Sword overcomes the spirit.

Which brings me to another way I interpret the rules. Disease Spirits are not intelligent. By themselves, they will continue attacking the same target until unconsciousness, granting the target a chance to get immunity. But Disease Spirits commanded by e.g. a Disease Master or broo shaman will ALWAYS be commanded to disengage after successful infection and go to a new target - because the shaman knows you don't want the target to end up with immunity - because that ruins the whole plan.

[jajagappa]

On 9/13/2024 at 9:57 AM, DreadDomain said:

Distraction is another example of it.

3 hours ago, Dragon said:

Disease Spirits are not intelligent.

Getting off-topic. These discussions should move to their own thread.

[DreadDomain]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Getting off-topic. These discussions should move to their own thread.

I think we were finished 😀