New RQ Designer Notes - Part 4

[Pentallion]

To each their own but I will always use the tick box system.  Rosen nailed it.  that character sheet tells you something.  butchery?  How did I learn that?  So many unique and memorable characters developed skills they'd have never gotten good at using the RQ 6 method. 

[Pete Nash]

Whilst the GM and his setting can foster certain directions for development, skill improvement in RQ6 is ultimately based on the focus of the players.

Loz has just returned from our annual PeteCon over here, where he ran a RQ6 campaign set in Tudor England. Over the course of seven days we had just a single fight with weapons (the 2nd only involved lots of shouting and a thrown water jug) and the most outstanding skills used in play were Art, Glassblowing and Blacksmithing - which were all increased by the respective players, despite only three chances for skill improvement during the week.

As ever, its not what you have (RAW) but how you use it.  

[Zit]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

(And a sufficiently high subset of adrenaline hyped combatants will kick someone on the ground once or twice, too, needing to roll against that trait to stop. Which rune would that be? Disorder?)

 

The Eternal Battle ?

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, Pentallion said:

To each their own but I will always use the tick box system.  Rosen nailed it.  that character sheet tells you something.  butchery?  How did I learn that?  So many unique and memorable characters developed skills they'd have never gotten good at using the RQ 6 method. 

RQ uses the tick box system. We've added a little bit on "Experience Between Adventures" which Greg wrote back in 1981 as part of the Dragon Pass Campaign materials.

[Mugen]

As for myself, I would take the best of both worlds.

I would use Improvement Rolls rather than ticks, but I would assign half of those based on what happened in the session.

The other half would be left to the player to assign.

I really don't want to see players begging fo checks just to get ticks -even though it's not a good use of the rule.

[Atgxtg]

On 3/7/2016 at 0:43 PM, TRose said:

 To be honest I never liked how healing magic worked in any roll playing game but understand why it works the way it does. The hey a troll just cut off your arm, let me glue it back on presto good as new healing just seems wrong. But to stop an adventure after the first battle cause  the main fighter lost his arm to  lucky hit  would slow the game down big time. Perhaps some mechanism so if the player suffer a major wound  magic can fully heal it but have it take some time before its good as new.

Some RPGs do spread out the healing over time. Most don't because it is simplier, and the players don't want to deal with all the downtime. 

 

But...if you wanted to slwo down the healing you could have healing spells add to the healing gained at the end of a week. So instead of regaining a 1D3, they wold get 1D3 plus the healing magic. 

Or, if you wanted to you could either subtract the healing spell from the days required to heal (So Heal 5 would mean the character gets his healing 1D3 in 2 days. Healing 8+ would mean healing twice in one day.), or divide the healing time by the healing spell (heal 1 would mean healing in half the time, heal 2 would mean healing in 1/3rd the time, and so on). 

[Atgxtg]

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

This sounds very much like the theory that police aim for the legs when shooting folk in order to cause non-lethal damage. Evidence shows that they aim for the center of the body.

That's mostly because modern police usually resort to using firearms only when confronted with a culprit who is using lethal force or at high risk to do so. That forces the police into trying to disable to culprit as quickly as possible with the best percentage shot. Thus center of body shots. If the police have the luxury of going for a limb shot, they are either extremely good marksmen, have limited choices for targeting, or in a situation when using a firearm is probably excessive.

[Runeblogger]

15 hours ago, Jeff said:

Big healing magic - like Heal Body or Regrow Limb or Restore Characteristic (not to mention Resurrection) requires Fertility or Harmony magic. But Heal Wound is a Rune spell with countless names, known by countless cults, with countless different operating assumptions. Like all common spells, the rules effects are the same (albeit with different Runes used by different cults) so all these different spells are lumped together under the rubric of Heal Wound.

And Glorantha is darned dangerous - and RuneQuest is lethal. Even with healing magic, characters will die. Without healing magic, characters would drop like flies.

 

Yes, I understand that characters in RuneQuest need healing magic. I had just understood it like that for example Humakti would ask an Ernaldan priestess for healing magic, or a Chalana Arroy. But then perhaps if they always needed to look for a priestess there would be no humakti left alive...?!  xP

[TRose]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

That's mostly because modern police usually resort to using firearms only when confronted with a culprit who is using lethal force or at high risk to do so. That forces the police into trying to disable to culprit as quickly as possible with the best percentage shot. Thus center of body shots. If the police have the luxury of going for a limb shot, they are either extremely good marksmen, have limited choices for targeting, or in a situation when using a firearm is probably excessive.

 More important is that that shooting at the center of the body is far easier then shooting at a limb and a bullet that enter the center torso is less likely to travel and hit some one else.

[Atgxtg]

On 3/8/2016 at 6:38 PM, TRose said:

 More important is that that shooting at the center of the body is far easier then shooting at a limb and a bullet that enter the center torso is less likely to travel and hit some one else.

Yeah, but my point is that if a Police Officer fires his weapon today the threat must be sufficient cause to warrant the use of lethal force. So the cop is taking the best shot he can. Now if a shoplifter was running away a cop might be able to risk a  leg shot, but he would be far less likely to use his weapon under those circumstances today, as opposed to, say 50-60 years ago.  

[Baulderstone]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, but my point is that if a Police Officer fires his weapon today the threat must be sufficient cause to warrant the use of lethal force. So the cop is taking the best shot he can. Now if a shoplifter was running away a cop might be able to risk a  leg shot, but he would be far less likely to use his weapon under those circumstances today, as opposed to, say 50-60 years ago.  

As someone with a family history in retail and extensive personal history in dealing with both shoplifters and police, shooting at shoplifters seems highly unlikely to me, even 50-60 years ago. Maybe if the shoplifting in question is a big smash and grab and Tiffany's. 

[MOB]

As the new RQ doesn't have rules for firearms, and neither "Shoplifter" or "Police" are options in the previous experience let's get the discussion back on topic...

Here's something interesting: unlike RQ2, Heal-6 will not put a severed limb back on. For that you need what Jeff calls "big healing magic" (Rune Magic like "Regrow Limb" or "Heal Body")

[Jeff]

Gang - I am going to delete messages that are completely off-thread. A discussion of RQ's Design Notes is not the place to discuss modern socio-political issues unrelated to the game rules.

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, MOB said:

Here's something interesting: unlike RQ2, Heal-6 will not put a severed limb back on. For that you need what Jeff calls "big healing magic" (Rune Magic like "Regrow Limb" or "Heal Body")

As soon as RQ3 came out, we houseruled it so that you needed a Heal that was the strength of the HPs in the limb to reattach it. So, a 6 point limb needed Heal 6, a 4 point limb needed Heal 4 and a 10 point limb needed Heal 10.

[bturner]

23 hours ago, MOB said:

Here's something interesting: unlike RQ2, Heal-6 will not put a severed limb back on. For that you need what Jeff calls "big healing magic" (Rune Magic like "Regrow Limb" or "Heal Body")

Whether that's good or bad depends very much upon the availability of magic. and how conservative the referee wants to make the players. Effective healing really blocks into three categories - "prevent death" (e.g., stop bleed effects), "return to action" (bring hit points back) and "erase crippling / lethal wounds". In most RQ games, getting to that third stage usually requires significant specialization (learning Heal 6 cost a fortune and a half in RQ2, wasn't easy in RQ3, and doesn't exist in RQ6). Making it harder to manage crippling wounds will either make players more cautious or serve as an irritant to the one guy whose character loses a leg 20 minutes into a session and ends up sitting on the sidelines. The balancing question is the difficulty involved in getting "big healing magic" - and removing the path of battle magic is likely to make it quite a bit more difficult. The various actions taken to make rune spells easier to acquire and use for initiates will hopefully balance the matter.

[MOB]

1 hour ago, bturner said:

Whether that's good or bad depends very much upon the availability of magic. and how conservative the referee wants to make the players. Effective healing really blocks into three categories - "prevent death" (e.g., stop bleed effects), "return to action" (bring hit points back) and "erase crippling / lethal wounds". In most RQ games, getting to that third stage usually requires significant specialization (learning Heal 6 cost a fortune and a half in RQ2, wasn't easy in RQ3, and doesn't exist in RQ6). Making it harder to manage crippling wounds will either make players more cautious or serve as an irritant to the one guy whose character loses a leg 20 minutes into a session and ends up sitting on the sidelines. The balancing question is the difficulty involved in getting "big healing magic" - and removing the path of battle magic is likely to make it quite a bit more difficult. The various actions taken to make rune spells easier to acquire and use for initiates will hopefully balance the matter.

Yes, the new "rune points" approach to Rune Magic will definitely assist here, especially as "Heal Wound" is a common Rune spell

[Joerg]

37 minutes ago, MOB said:

Yes, the new "rune points" approach to Rune Magic will definitely assist here, especially as "Heal Wound" is a common Rune spell

In RQ3 there was the strange effect that you did not gain any "common" rune spells at shrines, only at temples. For a spell really to be readily available, it has to be available at shrines, otherwise you won't find a Heal Wound anywhere in the Elder Wilds except for Yelmalians, in one citadel.

[bturner]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

In RQ3 there was the strange effect that you did not gain any "common" rune spells at shrines, only at temples. For a spell really to be readily available, it has to be available at shrines, otherwise you won't find a Heal Wound anywhere in the Elder Wilds except for Yelmalians, in one citadel.

Agreed! Add that to the numbers requirements to maintain even a shrine and it seemed pretty likely that most communities would have access to almost no rune spells. The distribution of temple sizes needs to be balanced to expected population.

[Atgxtg]

On 3/14/2016 at 9:31 AM, Jeff said:

Gang - I am going to delete messages that are completely off-thread. A discussion of RQ's Design Notes is not the place to discuss modern socio-political issues unrelated to the game rules.

And this is EXACTLY why having Chaosium take over this forum is a bad thing. Triff would NEVER had done this. 

[styopa]

1) I very much like the "to reattach a limb you need a heal of the full hp of the limb".  Simple. Brilliant.  And does away with the archaic flat "Heal 6 needed" that was from the old days of non-scaling rules.

2) RQ has always suffered from check-hunting behavior.  Simply saying "that's not what your character would do" simply shows that the rules fail to incentivize players to behave realistically: that's a RULES failing, not 'powergaming'.  We came up with the following 'check-tick' system that still hewed reasonably close to RQ canon, but gave players enough incentive not to carry a golfbag full of different weapons for check-hunting.  It might seem elaborate, but it's pretty simple in practice (from our campaign notes):

(Checks, Ticks, and improving skills): If you succeed at an ability, put 1 check by it; if you get a fumble or special success, 2 checks; if critical success, 3 checks.  These checks will be used later for one experience roll on that skill, for each check.  Further successes/fumbles/specials/criticals (s/f/s/c) add checks only if it’s an increase to what you had already.  Otherwise, if you roll a (s/f/s/c) and already have checks to the appropriate quantity, you get the number of ‘ticks’ instead.  Ticks will be used to enhance your experience rolls, so there is always a good reason to keep using a skill, even if you already have checks.  All checks and ticks are cleared after the 'experience check' process; you cannot save them for later.

(Improving Skills) When the GM determines you’ve had enough rest to contemplate what lessons you may have learned, he may declare that it’s time to perform experience rolls.  For each skill that you have a “check”, you get an experience roll.  An experience roll is a % roll vs your current skill (base+modifiers, but NOT including your category modifier, such as Agility).  Add your category modifier to the roll, if it exceeds your (base+modifiers), you have learned something and you may choose to add 1d6% (or 3%, your choice before rolling) to that skill.  If you have multiple “checks” in a skill, you may perform multiple rolls sequentially.  TICKS are used to improve your experience roll.  Accumulated ticks may be spent:

Tick Cost	Benefit
1 tick	+1% to a specific designated experience roll (i.e. to make failure more likely) allocated before any rolls are made
4 ticks	+1 to a single d6 skill-gain roll, allocated after any experience rolls are made.

(You may buy as many of each as you can afford with the ticks you have in that skill; note that all unspent ticks are cleared anyway…)

For example: Rurik has an attack modifier of +8%, and a sword skill of 82% for a cumulative 90% chance to hit with a sword.  In combat he succeeds, and notes a check on his character sheet next to his Sword skill.  Later, he manages a special success, which would give him two checks, but since he already has one he only gets one additional check (now he has two), the other un-applied check is recorded instead as a tick.  In a subsequent combat, he succeeds two times.  Since he already has two checks, he cannot gain more from ‘simple’ success, so he gets two ticks instead.  Finally, he fumbles – this again would give him two checks (yes, you hopefully learn something from huge mistakes….if you survive) but he already has two checks, so he gets two more ticks.  Finally, when he gets back to town and is enjoying a celebratory ale, the GM rules he’s entitled to take his experience rolls.  He has two checks, so he’ll get to roll twice.  He has five ticks, so he needs to decide how to spend them.  He chooses to spend them all (since he can’t keep them): one as a +1% to fail on his first roll (he must designate which when he spends the ticks, before he rolls), and four as +1 to the d6 for a skill gain roll.  He rolls his first experience check.  He needs to fail against 82% (note his attack modifier is excluded).  He rolls a 76 adds his attack modifier of +8%, and another +1% for the tick spent = 85%, a failure!   When rolling the +d6, he adds that tick skill modifier he bought, and rolls d6+1 for skill gain, rolling a 4+1 = 5.  His Sword skill is now 87.  He rolls a 12 for his second experience check, which is not a failure, and gets no skill gain.  His checks and ticks are all cleared from his character sheet and he’s ready for the next adventure.

Yes, I know we were non-RAW as far as skill checks, rolling against skill without category mod, and then adding category mod to the roll.  I wanted them to skill up relatively quickly.

[styopa]

On 2/27/2016 at 2:50 PM, skoll said:

I like it. It makes rune magic more usable while keeping an element of sacrifice to it.

I assume sacrificing your POW decreases it for good. Will there be means to increase it apart from the normal method of increasing stats?

I'd guess the usual POW gain rules apply (species max - current * 5% chance to go up 1d3 points), so yeah.  Aside from actually-varying stats like HP and MP, POW has always been the most-variable of core stats.

I always DM'd that if your power gain roll was a result of core-cult functions (Storm Bull killing major Chaos, Humakti 'ending' a powerful lich, Ernalda saving a whole steading from starvation, etc) you could choose to either x2 your % chance to gain POW, or +2 to your actual POW gain IF you got it.

[jux]

Hows it goin?

[Byll]

Gaining an affinity for a rune power not in the initial human character template (such as Plant or Issaries), has been mentioned. When you gain this (say 5%) of Plant, do you lose 5% from amongst your 100% on the 'element-rune-mandala' and your 500% on the 'rune-tree-of-life' ? or does it come as extra affinity? Presumably when you increase Harmony from 75% to 80% Disorder automatically reduces from 25% to 20%, is the 100 total in elements similar to the 100% total in opposing pairs on the 'tree of life'?. If Darkness increases from 60 to 65 does Air have to decrease from 40 to 35, or Earth have to decrease from 20 to 15?

[styopa]

I believe Jeff's said that there's a teeter-totter link between some of the runes, but the main, element runes, no real comment?

I'd agree, there should also be a relationship between them somehow, as the GtG and lore definitely presents them as a rock/paper/scissors circular hierarchy, albeit it's not going to be as simple as the binary ones.  Given how fundamental the runes are supposed to be to this version, I wouldn't mind that relationship being a little more complex.

[Jim]

I put together the attached for rune magic based on the new RQ character sheet sketch. This is intended to change how rune magic is handled for RQ2 while waiting for the new RQ.

Players can write down the list of cult spells they use and a runic association of that spell, along with their skills in the specific runes. What I may have missed in this thread is if all cult spells are all associated with one rune, or at least one of the cult runes. I suspect this may be the case but not sure.

For instance if heal limb is common divine magic would a Humakti use her death rune skill to cast, truth rune skill or would they have to have some skill in fertility? That might explain why Humakt worshippers do not cast divine healing magic (or at least badly), or it may be a rules mechanic that Humakti always cast cult magic with their death rune skill.

Trying to get up to speed quickly before running a game on Saturday for the first time in quite a few years! Hence apologies if I missed an earlier clarification. I'd rather use the newer approach if I can, never liked initiates have one-use rune spells for the reasons stated in the pod cast.

rune_magic_sheet.pdf