Egregious munchkinnery!

[soltakss]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:17 AM, Akhôrahil said:

Bless Woad and Bless Thunderstone are being limited by only being able to cast on the HHD, meaning that while you can empty your Rune Point pool on them, you can only do it once yearly (maybe twice if you can convince your GM you cast both just before and just after the HHD worship). Otherwise you would be able to keep doing it and stack up huge stores of permanent magic.

One of the PCs in our RQ2/RQ3 campaign HeroQuested and got permanent Bless Woad equal to his POW, also stackable with Woad. It just meant that he had to be naked to fight. However, his PC was notoriously shy and hated being seen nude, so kept asking Orlanth if it was OK to keep one sock on.With permanent, non-dispellable woad 19, I'd have taken my kit off all the while.

[PhilHibbs]

11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

The whole line of reasoning is that if you don’t cast the spell as part of trading it, then you can work around the casting restrictions.

Not quite sure what you mean. Personally I would say that the conditions do not have to be met to trade the spell, but they do have to be met to activate it. I suppose that technically could allow you to mitigate the danger of, say, a Sunspear by doing the trade indoors. Maybe the conditions should be required for both.

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Not quite sure what you mean. Personally I would say that the conditions do not have to be met to trade the spell, but they do have to be met to activate it. I suppose that technically could allow you to mitigate the danger of, say, a Sunspear by doing the trade indoors. Maybe the conditions should be required for both.

Then you do understand what I mean. 🙂

The idea is to save up for multiple castings of Woad/Thunderstone, and then cast them all on the HHD, bypassing the normal limitation.

[PhilHibbs]

Ah, I'd forgotten we  were talking about those spells. So you trade them to Issaries, get the points back, then trade the spell back from Issaries, then cast it? Welcome to the munchkinnery thread, I like your thinking!

The Issaries has to make a profit, though, so that has to be figured in somehow.

Lets say you trade 5 points of Bless Woad to Issaries, and he gives you... something in return, doesn't matter what as long as he makes "a profit".

Then you trade those 5 points back later on... what are you going to give the Issaries? 5 or more points of... ok, so there go your Rune Points. How does that make you any better off?

I suppose you could give him the original spell back plus some cash and say that it's a monetary profit. Not sure that that is what the intention of the rules is though. Seems to me like it's there to put the kibosh on this sort of thing.

[Akhôrahil]

14 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

The Issaries has to make a profit, though, so that has to be figured in somehow.

He could also just be a PC - they're usually cool with this kind of thing. Plus, getting handled an enormous Woad can certainly help survivability...

14 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Then you trade those 5 points back later on... what are you going to give the Issaries? 5 or more points of... ok, so there go your Rune Points. How does that make you any better off?

For each 5 Woad castings, he receives one? 🙂

Edited February 14, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

(Actually, how do you delete a post?)

Edited February 14, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

(Actually, how do you delete a post?)

You edit the post and choose Delete Post.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

(Actually, how do you delete a post?)

You edit the post and choose Delete Post.

Like the Post I deleted before this one.

Actually, you can't. I am sure that you used to be able to do that, but can't now.

Edited February 14, 2020 by soltakss

[Akhôrahil]

1 minute ago, soltakss said:

You edit the post and choose Delete Post.

I don’t get any Delete button, as far as I can tell.

[soltakss]

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

I don’t get any Delete button, as far as I can tell.

Nor do I now. I am sure we used to have a delete button.

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

For each 5 Woad castings, he receives one? 🙂

I'm not sure the Issaries initiate would want to be running around, naked and blue, for 1pt protection... Or even 2 or 3 points..  

However, there's no reason greater deal can't be struck, in which the Bless Woad and some other spell are traded first time,, and a more useful spell the second.

[HreshtIronBorne]

Bless woad would be stacked with all available Rune Points for maximum munchkinnery, theoretically up to 21 without Heroquesting or other magical shenanigans. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by HreshtIronBorne

[Akhôrahil]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm not sure the Issaries initiate would want to be running around, naked and blue, for 1pt protection... Or even 2 or 3 points..  

Yes, what could an Issaries merchant possibly do with valuable stuff he doesn’t want to use himself? 😉

[Shiningbrow]

11 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Yes, what could an Issaries merchant possibly do with valuable stuff he doesn’t want to use himself? 😉

I question the value of only a couple of points of Bless Woad... 

If you want to munchkin this spell, or Bless Thunderstone, you'd be better off doing it via the clan Wyter... That way, you get the entire clan to put in the POW, and you'd get some ridiculously high Pots. And, then we can also have the argument about whether the multiple target (5 per point of POW can apply to lots of woad).

 

Hasn't this idea been brought up in this thread before?

[Akhôrahil]

I doubt the average Clan wyter would be an actual priest of Orlanth?

[Shiningbrow]

8 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I doubt the average Clan wyter would be an actual priest of Orlanth?

I was just checking over the wyter segments in both RQ:G and Bestiary. The wyter could be the spirit of a cult hero, so I'd actually disagree with that statement (for Orlanthi in particular). It'd be very appropriate for them. 

Obviously, not every wyter is going to be.

Back to munchkinnery... How about a spell trade with said clan wyter??? "I'll give you my 1 point Pathwatch, and you give me your 35 points of Shield" 😁

[Dragon]

On 5/22/2019 at 6:15 PM, HreshtIronBorne said:

I agree 1000% because of one thing in Glorantha that terrifies me above all others... ACID!

When I originally played RQ2, my dabbling alchemist asked the GM if I could learn to make Bases as well as Acids. He allowed it. 

I then made Base (potency 10) where the flasks were from acid-affecting materials and threw them at gorps. I would usually comment about the 'energetic reactions' that ensued. Needless to say we rarely worried about gorp after that. Even works under water! Though...we did encounter many more gorps with Leap 10 meters or +movement rate chaotic features so I couldn't get them to all explode before they got within 3 meters.

When I began discussing how to drop a HUGE barrel of Base into the gaping maw of the Crimson Bat with my fellow adventurers, the GM began to get concerned. I wasn't certain how to guess when the Bat would use acid breath though. Because if it used the other attacks, it may just disappear into the Chaotic Void of its stomach without exploding to stomach acid. But if it was using Acid Breath when the Base hit the jaw...that would do some real damage to it and everything nearby.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Dragon

[soltakss]

5 hours ago, Dragon said:

When I originally played RQ2, my dabbling alchemist asked the GM if I could learn to make Bases as well as Acids. He allowed it. 

We agreed that Acids and Bases worked the same way in RuneQuest terms, if only for convenience. They did double damage against Gorps in our game.

[Akhôrahil]

This isn't exactly egregious munchkinnery, but still pretty danged good: 

The disarming rules in the December rules update are pretty potent - for instance, if you try to disarm your opponent by striking the weapon from the hand, you only need a successful attack in order to manage it (no defence possible, although it's possible to also send it flying far away). This becomes particularly interesting if you can manage multiple attacks in a turn (two weapons, splitting attack, or anything else like that) and your opponent only has one weapon. Or just when you have a very high-damage attack, such as with a two-hander, and you can expect to knock the weapon far away. 

First attack, strike for disarm. Second attack, strike to hit, and now your opponent will have no weapon to defend with (and if you go earlier in the turn, you even ruined the opponent's attack). This tends to get painful.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

We have frequently returned to the seemingly hard cap on Woad and Thunderstone that comes from the PC being limited in the amount of Rune Points by CHA. But I just realized that this is easily exceeded by making use of your Allied Spirit. An Allied Spirit is an Initiate and can have Rune Points (and it will have at least one, being an initiate), and the PC can spend freely from its pool. This means that your Woad is no longer limited to 21, but rather to 42 (your Rune Point max + Allied Spirit's rune point max). Note that it's going to be a lot harder to increase your spirits Rune Points, though, as spirits always have only a 5% chance of increasing POW. Perhaps it's worth to DI it? Or if you could actually sacrifice POW to it (you probably can't as there are no rules about it, but perhaps there's some general rule about spirits that you can sacrifice POW to them?), that would be superb.   

42p Woad? 42 points of magical armor and countermagic? Losing power only slowly over several weeks? That's alright. So is 42d6 damage with a Thunderstone - with just a little luck, you one-shot the Crimson Bat. If not, it's going down on the second one.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

Actually, one little mini-bonus of Woad, if it's not just an error — at first glance, you would think that the countermagic is of the regular kind, but it's not. Woad is smart enough to only stop hostile magic, but lets friendly magic through! 

So you can most definitely top up your 42 points of Woad with an additional 42-point Shield. For when you really need 126 points of magical armor, I mean.

[Joerg]

What is the species max POW for a shadowcat? Surely at least 26, as you can roll 24, plus whatever the +12 does when you calculate the minimum rollable POW added to the maximum rollable POW.

Although I would probably cap the practical use of woad by the character's strength. With skin paint that potent, movement is going to become hard.

But even so, you don't get much more than half a season out of that amount of rune points. Better choose wisely when to present your dangly bits died blue. Late Dark Season, and you don't need woad to appear in that skin color.

 

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

What is the species max POW for a shadowcat? Surely at least 26, as you can roll 24, plus whatever the +12 does when you calculate the minimum rollable POW added to the maximum rollable POW.

While not explicit, it's supposedly 28 (24 as max roll, plus two dice, plus that a +6 counts as a die so that +12 presumably count as two dice).

I don't think there's any even munchkin-level reason why the Allied Spirit should get the Shadowcat's POW instead of the POW it explicitly gets by the rules, though.

[Crel]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Note that it's going to be a lot harder to increase your spirits Rune Points, though, as spirits always have only a 5% chance of increasing POW.

Where is this in the rules? I don't remember anything written regarding an allied spirit's POW Gain being abnormal.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

plus that a +6 counts as a die so that +12 presumably count as two dice

Glorantha Bestiary, page 6:

Quote

Species maximum amongst the various races portrayed is the maximum dice roll plus the number of dice, as with humans. If the characteristic concerned has an addition, such as 2D6+6, the remaining addition is considered as one die. Thus, a characteristic of 3D6+3 has a species maximum of 21+4, or 25. This also applies to additions of 12, 18, or 24. They all count as one additional die.

I would rule that an allied spirit's max POW is, like everything else, based on their characteristic roll. So 21 for Rune Priests (rolling on 3D6) and 28 for Rune Lords (rolling on 3D6+6). I don't know of any this-edition text which would state otherwise.

[Akhôrahil]

I offer you... Daka Fal-specific egregious munchkinnery! I'm proud of this one, and was pleasantly surprised with how well everything interlocks. If I made any rules mistakes, please point them out - this all gets a bit tricky, and a true munchkin merely abuses the rules, not cheats.

1. Keep using Summon Ancestor. This is part of what you're doing anyway. Roll on the table every time. Make note of and roll up every Ancestor. There's a 4% chance every time that you will get one of the two best classes of friendly Ancestors (the third best might work on occasion as well, with a good Rune Point roll). This is your goal. The GM may also allow you to research your ancestors. The point is to gain access to a friendly ancestor with decent amounts of Rune Points (and preferably way more than one).
2. Once you have access to good friendly ancestors, cast Summon Ancestor + Summon Specific Ancestor + Summon Spirit Guardian. You have now created a kinda-Allied Spirit for a day (or more). By my reading, Axis Mundi isn't required.
3. Since it counts as an Allied Spirit, you have free access to its Rune Points. These will be for Daka Fal, so you will be fine spending them. As long as they have more than 3 Rune Points, you will get a net Rune Point gain, here.
4. Ancestors count as worshipers of Daka Fal, so after you blow through the Ancestor's Rune Points and spend the 3 Rune Points for it, on the next Daka Fal Holy Day, both you and the Ancestor can regain them. It's also unusually easy to maintain your own Daka Fal shrine.
5. Special pro-tip: Since you don't particularly care about the Ancestor's Rune point status post-summoning (especially if you have multiple good ancestors to choose between), you can use their Rune points to cast one-use spells, which in this case means Resurrection. Good way to save Rune Points from permanent loss! (Also, shamans are exceptional resurrectionists, as they are spirit combat experts and far more likely to force the spirit back into the body than your average CA initiate). A smart Daka Fal cultist uses less useful ancestors with only 3 Rune Points for this, as you want to save the ones with more Rune Points for more important stuff! You're on slightly shaky rules grounds here, though - while the most immediate reading of the rules is that Rune Points used to cast One-Use spells cannot be regained, the rules also talk about the caster of the spell, and in this case, those two parts of the rule start to contradict (as the caster and the source of the rune points are different entities).   
6. Special pro-tip 2: This may require a bit of GM wrangling, but honestly, you're in the right here. Ancestors don't know Common Rune magic. But you do, and you can cast Extension using their Rune Points. The point? These Rune Points can't be regained while the Extended spell is ongoing, but you don't care all that much that one Ancestor can't regain the Rune Points. (The same goes for casting other common Rune Magic, and Daka Fal Rune Magic that you know but the Ancestor doesn't.) Oh, and I'm pretty sure that you can cast Extension from one cult to Extend a spell from a different cult, so if you have better Rune Spells from another cult (could be even just a spirit cult), the Rune Points from an Ancestor can extend those.
7. You thought this couldn't be turned up to 11? Once you have a decent set of Ancestors with, say, 5 or more Rune Points each (even the third-best type can work if you roll well), you can cycle through them - spend Rune points from one until they're down to 2 Rune Points on it, then use those 2 Rune Points to cast Summon Ancestor + Summon Specific Ancestor for a new ancestor. Dismiss your current Spirit Guardian and cast Summon Spirit Guardian on the new one. This way, you spend 1 of your own Rune Points in order to gain access to [Rune Points - 2] points of Daka Fal Rune Magic from an ancestor. At Holy Day, fill up everyone's Rune Points.
8. Is it far to the next Holy Day? You and your ancestors have Odayla and Yinkin (and probably Kyger Litor going by older books, but this might be tricky in play) as Associated Cults, so Rune Points can be regained on their Holy Days as well, albeit at a slow pace.

Ancestors... gotta cath'em all!

Edited February 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil