Looking for practical combat tactics for GMs

[styopa]

Lots of good advice here already.

A few tips from our campaigns:

- packs of intelligent weak things ie trollkin can team up to be effective.  We have found that 3-4 trollkin grappling can be a surprising match for even a very powerful pc.  Realistically they have to be at least moderately intelligent and motivated, as it's likely at least a couple will die in the process.  I don't know the RQG grappling rules but if they're about immobilization of locations, that's the ticket.  A PC with 180% attack is a lot less mighty if she can't swing her arm.  And parrying works great against the first grapple....except you have given them either an automatic success imploding that arm, or you have to drop your shield....

- spirits.  Most players thing of their physical arms and armor, the more sophisticated think further to their magical defenses...but it takes someone who has played rq3 a while to appreciate how nasty spirits can be, and how readily you should have defenses against them at hand all the time

 

[womble]

I really wouldn't encourage the use of grapple rules. Not in any RPG I've ever played. The problem is, grappling against weapons isn't easy, or simple, and requires fine judgement of something that most combat rulesets for RPGs don't handle in any detail, if at all: fighting distance. As a result, grappling rules are largely oversimplified and hence... lacking in verisimilitude.

For example, in the RQG RAW on grapples, "...a parry with a weapon means the weapon arm was caught instead..."; similarly with shield parry. So the only defense is Dodge, or hope the grappler misses (or you roll a 'better level of success') . Which vastly overstates the ease of grappling someone armed: if they succeed with their parry, the grapple should at least fail to grasp (though probably, for consistency, not invoke damage to the grappler), in the same way that an ordinary weapon hit countered by a successful parry will often cause no effective damage to the target; call it being kept at distance.

But yes, the grapple rules, flawed as they are, are excellent ways to cheat your players of their hard-earned superiority. Or to encourage WWE-esque grappler builds.

[EpicureanDM]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

- packs of intelligent weak things ie trollkin can team up to be effective.  We have found that 3-4 trollkin grappling can be a surprising match for even a very powerful pc.  Realistically they have to be at least moderately intelligent and motivated, as it's likely at least a couple will die in the process.  I don't know the RQG grappling rules but if they're about immobilization of locations, that's the ticket.  A PC with 180% attack is a lot less mighty if she can't swing her arm.  And parrying works great against the first grapple....except you have given them either an automatic success imploding that arm, or you have to drop your shield....

One of the PCs in my game died yesterday after being overwhelmed by Rubble Runners. They were an assistant shaman, had low armor, and two of the Runners had attached themselves via their bites. I had borrowed a rule (maybe it was from elsewhere in the RQG Bestiary) that gave a -5% penalty to combat (like being overencumbered) for each Runner attached to a character, so that didn't help. It wasn't grappling, exactly, but it feels like the effect would be the same as you describe above.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

- spirits.  Most players thing of their physical arms and armor, the more sophisticated think further to their magical defenses...but it takes someone who has played rq3 a while to appreciate how nasty spirits can be, and how readily you should have defenses against them at hand all the time

Yeah, my players haven't faced any spirits or spirit combat yet. I'll need to be careful about how I introduce that. Probably with a small (POW 10-12) diseases spirit or two. 

[EpicureanDM]

55 minutes ago, womble said:

But yes, the grapple rules, flawed as they are, are excellent ways to cheat your players of their hard-earned superiority.

That seems a bit harsh. 

[jajagappa]

26 minutes ago, EpicureanDM said:

Yeah, my players haven't faced any spirits or spirit combat yet. I'll need to be careful about how I introduce that. Probably with a small (POW 10-12) diseases spirit or two. 

In RQG, the biggest factors are Spirit Combat and Spirit Combat Damage. Even a low powered spirit can have a high Spirit Combat. Most likely only a PC with assistant shaman or priest as background will have much beyond 30-40% in the way of Spirit Combat %. As Spirit Combat is an Opposed Roll, a spirit with a Spirit Combat of 50% will generally have a good edge, and if it is up at 75%+, will have a high likelihood of defeating the PC.

Spirit Block or Spirit Screen are critical for spirit combat, helping to reduce the possible MP loss as long as possible. If you're not a shaman and are encountering spirits, you want to spend your RP's and get Spirit Block cast as quick as possible. This will slow MP loss, allowing your PC to make more attacks longer, and a PC with good CHA+POW can likely score more Spirit Combat Damage providing some chance of success.

[EpicureanDM]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

In RQG, the biggest factors are Spirit Combat and Spirit Combat Damage. Even a low powered spirit can have a high Spirit Combat. Most likely only a PC with assistant shaman or priest as background will have much beyond 30-40% in the way of Spirit Combat %. As Spirit Combat is an Opposed Roll, a spirit with a Spirit Combat of 50% will generally have a good edge, and if it is up at 75%+, will have a high likelihood of defeating the PC.

Spirit Block or Spirit Screen are critical for spirit combat, helping to reduce the possible MP loss as long as possible. If you're not a shaman and are encountering spirits, you want to spend your RP's and get Spirit Block cast as quick as possible. This will slow MP loss, allowing your PC to make more attacks longer, and a PC with good CHA+POW can likely score more Spirit Combat Damage providing some chance of success.

That makes sense. 

How did old RQ2/3 GMs go about introducing spirit combat to their games? I recall that most beginning RQ3 characters were as competent in spirit combat as the beginning RQG characters you're describing. But I get the sense from reading mentions by RQ veterans and the text of various RQ products (past and present) that mature or advanced RQ combat has a spiritual component. There are allied spirits for Rune Lords (something that RQG characters start much closer to, mechanically) buzzing around and talk about shamans unleashing bound spirits held by their fetch.

So what should an RQG GM throw at low- and intermediate-level PCs in order to introduce the dynamics and dangers of spirit combat? I can figure out the straightforward answer: introduce one spirit with stats identical to (or close to) the party average and have one PC be a guinea pig. Given that RQG's character generation system largely produces PCs who aren't strong in spirit combat (unless they specialize), maybe it's best to hold off on introducing spirit combat until the PCs are more experienced? Maybe I've read too many descriptions of epic Glorantha battles involving both swords and spirits, and need to be patient?

EDIT: Then again, PCs won't get experience with spirit combat unless they actually use the skill and earn checks. But I know that players going into a fight where they know they're the underdog can get demoralized and perhaps disengage from the game. They know the difference in odds between having an 80% Battle Axe skill and a 35% Spirit Combat skill. RQG's spirit combat doesn't have a lot of mechanical nuance, as I recall, so there isn't much room for player creativity to take advantage of "maneuvers" or "tactics" that could give them a bonus to their rolls. I worry about forcing players to engage in lots of spirit combat with skills below 50%, because that's a steep learning curve. I wonder if they'd feel like they're eating their vegetables in order to get to the good stuff, i.e. advanced RQ combat with spirits as an accepted or expected part of the mix.

Edited March 4, 2019 by EpicureanDM
Additional thought about using spirit combat skills

[styopa]

3 hours ago, womble said:

I really wouldn't encourage the use of grapple rules. Not in any RPG I've ever played. The problem is, grappling against weapons isn't easy, or simple, and requires fine judgement of something that most combat rulesets for RPGs don't handle in any detail, if at all: fighting distance. As a result, grappling rules are largely oversimplified and hence... lacking in verisimilitude.

For example, in the RQG RAW on grapples, "...a parry with a weapon means the weapon arm was caught instead..."; similarly with shield parry. So the only defense is Dodge, or hope the grappler misses (or you roll a 'better level of success') . Which vastly overstates the ease of grappling someone armed: if they succeed with their parry, the grapple should at least fail to grasp (though probably, for consistency, not invoke damage to the grappler), in the same way that an ordinary weapon hit countered by a successful parry will often cause no effective damage to the target; call it being kept at distance.

But yes, the grapple rules, flawed as they are, are excellent ways to cheat your players of their hard-earned superiority. Or to encourage WWE-esque grappler builds.

Meh.  Particularly the snark "...excellent ways to cheat your players..."  Classy..

Yes, they lack verisimilitude, but EVERY melee combat system rationalizes granularity and detail for playability. 

Feel free to write a detailed PhD discursus on the details of grappling, wrestling, locks, pins, throws, holds between humans (be sure you cover not just two combatants, but up to a dozen-man scrum), and then make sure it comprehensively ALSO includes physiologically reasonable approaches for everything from individuals of SIZ 1 up to SIZ100, kraken tentacles, animated vines, a clasping dragon claw the size of a barn, constrictor snakes, and giant centipedes, not to mention combatants with everything from a single arm to eight.  I'm as sure it will be interesting (I'm a bit of a realism/simulationist geek myself...I actually TRIED to play Phoenix Command), as I'm sure nobody will play it.

FWIW a parry with a WEAPON I'd almost always treat it as an opportunistic attack against the grappler, but using their parry skill (I'm still in the benighted ancient RQ3 system where they're different; this is the same approach I use to parrying natural weapons like bites and such, except the counter doesn't have to roll a location).  If someone with a SHIELD is trying to parry an incoming grapple?  Seems pretty obvious that their only choices are - 1) STRIKE with the shield as a weapon and hope the opponent is hurt enough to drive them off, 2) dodge, or 3) let them grab the shield, pull it away, and try to murder them with the weapon in your other hand.  The dynamics of which of those make sense change extraordinarily if one is faced with more than one opponent, of course.*

*And considering we're talking about a world where death isn't necessarily irrevocable, I don't see it as all that unrealistic anyway.

[styopa]

3 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

One of the PCs in my game died yesterday after being overwhelmed by Rubble Runners. They were an assistant shaman, had low armor, and two of the Runners had attached themselves via their bites. I had borrowed a rule (maybe it was from elsewhere in the RQG Bestiary) that gave a -5% penalty to combat (like being overencumbered) for each Runner attached to a character, so that didn't help. It wasn't grappling, exactly, but it feels like the effect would be the same as you describe above.

I don't know what the RQG rules for Grappling are, but for ours it's that the grapple is a standard attack.  Can called-shot with the same penalty/delay.

If the attack is successful, the defender can dodge (as usual) or parry.  If the parry is with a weapon, the parryer can declare it's a counterattack, and attack the grappler (using their parry action and skill).  If the parry is with a shield, a successful parry means the shield was interposed and the grappler doesn't roll a hit location - its the shield.

If the attack is successful and not dodged, the attacker rolls the hit location. (EXC: if the grappler has the shield).

That location is now immobilized until the end of the round, unless in turn the defender wants to use their attack action to resist the grapple (STR vs STR).  If the defender wins, they've broken the hold.  If they don't, the hold is maintained.  While held and if capable, the defender can attack the grappler at +20%.  (If the held location is LEG, likely the defender will also get +20% because the grappler is prone!).  At the end of the round, the defender can drop a grappled shield as a free action, automatically giving up their shield but the grappler obviously doesn't have a hold on them anymore either.

In the NEXT round, at the end of the round assuming the grappler is still holding on (the defender or their friends haven't injured the grappler enough to break the hold, or the defender hasn't used their attack action to win a STR/STR contest) then the grappler will do their damage bonus to the location held ignoring armor.

Basically, with a shield, you're consuming the grapple's attack ablatively.  You can hold onto your shield and wrest it back, just like you could your arm, but obviously the grappler, stuck on your shield, would only hold on with the intent to immobilize your shield arm (they're not going to do damage to the shield).

There are a TON of ways we could make this more authentic, detailed...and unplayable.  This suits our group as being appropriately powerful if you're dumb enough to get swarmed and not get out, but not making judo experts into some sort of martial gods, either.

44 minutes ago, EpicureanDM said:

How did old RQ2/3 GMs go about introducing spirit combat to their games? I recall that most beginning RQ3 characters were as competent in spirit combat as the beginning RQG characters you're describing.

RQ3 Spirit combat was ENTIRELY different.  Instead of an attack and "damage", it was a opposed table roll, with IIRC the mp loss fixed at 1d3.  BUT, again IIRC (we have ended up with a different system that we like better & have used for years) it was MP vs MP, so there was a very strong spiral effect because your "strength" (MP) was also your effective hit points really (MP again).  As one side lost MP, they became successively weaker, and thus more likely to lose the next roll.  Once you were beating your opponent, it was unlikely you'd lose.  Not impossible, though.

Jajagappa is spot on in explaining the necessity of some magical defenses unless you had a friendly shaman nearby. Spirits are nasty.  From my quick perusal of RQG, I think they're toned down quite a bit, so I'd hesitate to advise you how to intro them.  Probably as you suggest, start with a very weak spirit by itself.  Or, maybe have their local shaman put the fear into them by telling them a story (play it out) of some brave warriors going somewhere they shouldn't, and getting attacked by a powerful clutch of ghosts or something. 

[EpicureanDM]

6 minutes ago, styopa said:

RQ3 Spirit combat was ENTIRELY different.  Instead of an attack and "damage", it was a opposed table roll, with IIRC the mp loss fixed at 1d3.  BUT, again IIRC (we have ended up with a different system that we like better & have used for years) it was MP vs MP, so there was a very strong spiral effect because your "strength" (MP) was also your effective hit points really (MP again).  As one side lost MP, they became successively weaker, and thus more likely to lose the next roll.  Once you were beating your opponent, it was unlikely you'd lose.  Not impossible, though.

I need to go back and open RQ3's Magic Book to get a better feel for my old memories of spirit combat. Reviving and translating my old RQ3 instincts into good RQG play has been hit-or-miss. Can't imagine what brand new RQG GMs are doing.

[g33k]

It's worth noting that RQG is similar enough to RQ2 and RQ3 that many play it "wrong" in one or more ways, in the belief that all their decades-old habits hold true (instead of just most of their decades-old habits).

It's worth further noting that NOBODY has those decades of comparable RQG experience.  Not even the devs/authors at Chaosium!  So we can expect various "best practices" and optimizations (and loopholes) to be discovered and shared over time.

 

[EpicureanDM]

58 minutes ago, g33k said:

It's worth noting that RQG is similar enough to RQ2 and RQ3 that many play it "wrong" in one or more ways, in the belief that all their decades-old habits hold true (instead of just most of their decades-old habits).

It's worth further noting that NOBODY has those decades of comparable RQG experience.  Not even the devs/authors at Chaosium!  So we can expect various "best practices" and optimizations (and loopholes) to be discovered and shared over time.

I generally agree. We saw evidence of unintended RQG loopholes in this forum's thread about Axe/Sword Trance. 

But we've seen at least a couple of new RQG GMs chime in to mention how helpful this information has been. As you say, most of RQ2/3's best practices can be imported into RQG; they're very similar. We just need old RQ2/3 GMs to exercise a little care and check the RQG rules before slamming down their nuggets of wisdom. Even when the advice isn't exactly translatable between RQ2/3 and RQG, the nature of the conversation can illuminate (small "i") the meta-structure of the game's design for new GMs.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

I need to go back and open RQ3's Magic Book to get a better feel for my old memories of spirit combat.

It was rare that I ran spirit combat in RQ3 - as @styopa noted because it was MP vs. MP, as soon as you began to lose MP, there was this rapid downward spiral that was almost impossible to recover from.  And there wasn't really an effective way to avoid the attack in the first place.  Now there is the Distraction spell, so there's opportunity for the PC with the best Spirit Combat to pull a spirit away from someone with low Spirit Combat. 

[EpicureanDM]

55 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

t was rare that I ran spirit combat in RQ3 - as @styopa noted because it was MP vs. MP, as soon as you began to lose MP, there was this rapid downward spiral that was almost impossible to recover from.  And there wasn't really an effective way to avoid the attack in the first place.  Now there is the Distraction spell, so there's opportunity for the PC with the best Spirit Combat to pull a spirit away from someone with low Spirit Combat. 

So who were the powergamin' RQ ninjas who were running epic battles with spirits flying all over the place?!

[Joerg]

44 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

It was rare that I ran spirit combat in RQ3 - as @styopa noted because it was MP vs. MP, as soon as you began to lose MP, there was this rapid downward spiral that was almost impossible to recover from.  And there wasn't really an effective way to avoid the attack in the first place.  Now there is the Distraction spell, so there's opportunity for the PC with the best Spirit Combat to pull a spirit away from someone with low Spirit Combat. 

Or you could share the burden of spirit combat around, letting the spirit attack basically everybody for a while. (If that spell had been available in RQ3, you would have waited for the current target to get their POW experience check before attracting the spirit to someone else. Possibly via Mindlink.) I note that the Distraction doesn't require to overcome the target's POW to take effect, so it doesn't generate a POW check by itself.

Rather than spirit combat ability, combat availability may also be a concern. A player with a hit location taken out but safely out of melee can still engage the spirit in spirit combat, letting the non-disabled party members concentrate on overcoming the physical foes.

5 minutes ago, EpicureanDM said:

So who were the powergamin' RQ ninjas who were running epic battles with spirits flying all over the place?!

Never happened in my games. Wraiths, Shades and Lunes were bad enough, and the occasional ghost was more than enough to send a party back for expert support.

But then, the POW gain mechanic never worked as supposed in my RQ3 games.

[g33k]

11 minutes ago, EpicureanDM said:

So who were the powergamin' RQ ninjas who were running epic battles with spirits flying all over the place?!

How 'bout @soltakss's River Voices campaign?

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7919-our-runequest-gloranthan-campaign-the-river-voices-legend-of-the-arganauts-has-come-to-an-end/?tab=comments#comment-111784

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/8098-the-tale-of-ambassador-king-emperor-mello/?tab=comments#comment-114684

 

[EpicureanDM]

40 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Rather than spirit combat ability, combat availability may also be a concern. A player with a hit location taken out but safely out of melee can still engage the spirit in spirit combat, letting the non-disabled party members concentrate on overcoming the physical foes.

 

41 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Never happened in my games. Wraiths, Shades and Lunes were bad enough, and the occasional ghost was more than enough to send a party back for expert support.

Two good tips there. First gives GMs some flexibility and an idea for what to do when a fight's gone south for a player. Keeping a downed PC's player engaged while a fight continues is a good thing. The second one provides context and guidance. Don't get too enamored with some tales of complex RQ combat. Some folks obviously do it and have chimed in on this thread, but it doesn't have to go that way.

[EpicureanDM]

22 minutes ago, g33k said:

How 'bout @soltakss's River Voices campaign?

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7919-our-runequest-gloranthan-campaign-the-river-voices-legend-of-the-arganauts-has-come-to-an-end/?tab=comments#comment-111784

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/8098-the-tale-of-ambassador-king-emperor-mello/?tab=comments#comment-114684

Soltakss has made some good contributions to the thread already! The links you provided don't have the sort of mechanical detail I find helpful, though.

[womble]

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Meh.  Particularly the snark "...excellent ways to cheat your players..."  Classy..

Whatever. Yes. Cheat. You see the poor rules that make no sense and use them to make otherwise unexceptional foes dangerous. Exploiting poorly designed rules isn't big or clever.

 

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Yes, they lack verisimilitude, but EVERY melee combat system rationalizes granularity and detail for playability. 

 How does it make any sense that a 100% grapple vs 100% weapon parry skill the usual result will be the grappler succeeding in seizing the limb of the parrying weapon without being harmed? That's not making an abstraction for ease, that's just cobblers.

 

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Feel free to write a detailed PhD discursus on the details of grappling, wrestling, locks, pins, throws, holds between humans (be sure you cover not just two combatants, but up to a dozen-man scrum), and then make sure it comprehensively ALSO includes physiologically reasonable approaches for everything from individuals of SIZ 1 up to SIZ100, kraken tentacles, animated vines, a clasping dragon claw the size of a barn, constrictor snakes, and giant centipedes, not to mention combatants with everything from a single arm to eight.  I'm as sure it will be interesting (I'm a bit of a realism/simulationist geek myself...I actually TRIED to play Phoenix Command), as I'm sure nobody will play it.

Exactly. However, it is no less 'realistic' to run a game where nobody grapples than it is to run a game where grappling is so much more potent than it ought to be against weapons.

4 hours ago, styopa said:

FWIW a parry with a WEAPON I'd almost always treat it as an opportunistic attack against the grappler, but using their parry skill (I'm still in the benighted ancient RQ3 system where they're different; this is the same approach I use to parrying natural weapons like bites and such, except the counter doesn't have to roll a location).  If someone with a SHIELD is trying to parry an incoming grapple?  Seems pretty obvious that their only choices are - 1) STRIKE with the shield as a weapon and hope the opponent is hurt enough to drive them off, 2) dodge, or 3) let them grab the shield, pull it away, and try to murder them with the weapon in your other hand.  The dynamics of which of those make sense change extraordinarily if one is faced with more than one opponent, of course.*

Probably a much better approach than the RAW of RQG.

[Dissolv]

I haven't looked it up for RQ:G, but it used to be a successful parry versus a natural weapon = roll damage against the attacker.  It was a high risk move, and it was hard to swallow 30 trollkin attacking, lemming like against extremely powerful opponents, PC or NPC.  Trollkin just don't have that kind of morale.  Now Lunar hell demons.....maybe there you have something 😉

[The God Learner]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

How 'bout @soltakss's River Voices campaign?

A prime example, that might be the campaign I always wanted to play back in the day. 

[Runeblogger]

On 3/1/2019 at 10:43 PM, EpicureanDM said:

Yes! I just bought this on DriveThru and it's exactly what I'm looking for. The advice about the importance of allied spirits, the different sections about tactics (especially Spell Tactics), and lots of other stuff reflects what I'm looking for. It's obviously written by people who have spent time with RQ's rules and have found effective combinations of rules and secrets that reflect a deep understanding of the rules, like casting Fireblade on a giant's sword to limit how much damage it can do. That's clever.

Fortunately, giants seldom use swords or axes because no one forges oversized weapons for them!
By the way, I'll houserule that Fireblade just adds 1D6 fire damage to an edged weapon. Otherwise, it has ridiculous effects, like casting Fireblade on a dagger axe means a dagger axe wreathed in magical flames inflicts exactly the same amount of damage as a normal dagger axe! 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Runeblogger

[Thyrwyn]

3 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

So who were the powergamin' RQ ninjas who were running epic battles with spirits flying all over the place?!

I played a dark troll in RQ 3 that had created a linked set of pain spirit binding matrices. He’d go into melee surrounded by a cloud of 5 or 6 of them. The matrices were linked so I could let them all out at once. Cost a lot of POW to set up, but it made the character very survivable in melee. Sure attracted a lot of enemy Missile and spell fire though. 

POW wise, though, it was cheaper than shades and harder to get rid of, too. 

Would be in even better in RQG since you now have to choose between fighting or spirit combat....

[g33k]

3 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Two good tips there. First gives GMs some flexibility and an idea for what to do when a fight's gone south for a player. Keeping a downed PC's player engaged while a fight continues is a good thing.

Archery and sling don't need legs to work, assuming you can arrange for everything else to not be in the way (they do take some space).

Casters (support spells, or a tactical-offensive caster, or a de-buff'er of the Foe)  don't need anything but head and torso to work (though I'd likely require a roll to focus & cast through the pain!  Dunno if RQG has a relevant rule, but "rulings not rules" and figure it out or HR later.)

If they are still mobile:  hauling the non-mobile to safety, (or to a healer!) are good options.

Taking a good solid look around the battlefield could be invaluable, spotting something nobody in melee is likely to notice... Even AFTER the battle, that info could be essential.

Those are ones I've seen & remember; they were SOP at our table.  I'm sure others occurred that I just don't recall...

 

[EpicureanDM]

55 minutes ago, Thyrwyn said:

I played a dark troll in RQ 3 that had created a linked set of pain spirit binding matrices. He’d go into melee surrounded by a cloud of 5 or 6 of them. The matrices were linked so I could let them all out at once. Cost a lot of POW to set up, but it made the character very survivable in melee. Sure attracted a lot of enemy Missile and spell fire though. 

POW wise, though, it was cheaper than shades and harder to get rid of, too. 

Would be in even better in RQG since you now have to choose between fighting or spirit combat....

Put some numbers and rules on this, Thyrwyn! How would you use RQG's rules to replicate this? Were other PCs in your game creating similar tricks? Share those, too.

[Ultor]

One important thing to remember is that once your party reaches Rune Lord level, a lot of them will be defending against every POW-based attack with an effective POW of 21. So most offensive spells, even those cast by high-POW opponents, are going to bounce off them.

Large elementals, however, have large POW stats and/or attack with their large stats against non-POW stats, so they will be the weapon of choice against Rune level parties - at least in my experience so far. A large Shade, for instance, not only has a good chance of hurting a Rune Lord, but a small chance of killing her outright. An enemy who knows they will be facing Rune Lords should have access to elementals, I suspect, even if they are moving terrain.

Similarly, spirits, which have been discussed above in spirit combat roles, can have high POW and spell capability, so a shaman who controls some of those can suddenly start hurting Rune Lord parties in a way to which they may have become unaccustomed.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Ultor