Heroquest Ability Ideas

[Shiningbrow]

6 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Gifts can raise non-raiseable characteristics, but it doesn't say that that raises the species maximum. It could still work like Pentallion says, where it's temporarily above the maximum. I think that's a bit mean, though. You clearly have to have it already at maximum as well, you can't have POW 18 and raise your species maximum to 22 by gift.

Well, I'd say it'd either be +POW, or increased maximum (as per the shamanic ability). Obviously not both for the same HQ gift...

[PhilHibbs]

2 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Well, I'd say it'd either be +POW, or increased maximum (as per the shamanic ability). Obviously not both for the same HQ gift...

Yeah, I'd allow +1 to species maximum as a 2-geas gift.

[Shiningbrow]

39 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yeah, I'd allow +1 to species maximum as a 2-geas gift.

You'd still require a geas for a HQ gift???

[PhilHibbs]

45 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

You'd still require a geas for a HQ gift???

Sorry, I forgot, I thought we were talking about regular Humakti and Yelmalion gifts.

Edited April 28, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Quick Learner - automatically pass experience checks

Soltak Stormspear had an ability of "Use Double INT for Sword skills be half INT for other skills", his INT was 11 (Rolled under RQ2), so had INT 22 for Sword-based increases and INT 6 for non-Sword based abilities. Our GMs liked the idea of balance.

[soltakss]

21 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Pretty tough if your POW is already at species maximum, because the roll is impossible, unless you allow 01-05. Still, should it be harder to raise your species max if your POW is really high?

We played that you still had a 5% chance of increasing.

Also, in RQ2, Priests had a bonus to POW when determining POW Gain Rolls, so they effectively had an increased Species max POW for making rolls.

We played that if someone went over their Species Maximum via a POW Gain Roll, they could instantly sacrifice the extra POW as a RuneSpell.

21 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

So what I did this evening is offer each character an automatic increase with no roll required on one ability that they had successfully used. The Hueymakti took +1D6 to a sword skill, Harmast took 1D3-1 to STR (for breaking free of a Krarshtkid's goo) and rolled 2, and Vishi Dunn who had POW 21 took a +1 to his POW.

I think that makes sense, the way you increase your species max is by already having it at maximum.

That works as well.

[soltakss]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

You'd still require a geas for a HQ gift???

Sometimes, sure.

If I am a Humakti and go on a Humakti HeroQuest and gain a Humakti Gift as the result, then I'd expect it not to have a corresponding Geas. However, if I am an Orlanthi and go on a Humakti HeroQuest and gain a Humakti Gift as a result, I'd expect the associated Geas.

Soltak Stormspear did this several times, he had a Yinkin and Yelmalian Geas and, even though Illuminated, rigidly kept the geases. I think he had "Never let a Cat suffer needlessly", but can't remember the Yelmalian Geas.

[PhilHibbs]

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Also, in RQ2, Priests had a bonus to POW when determining POW Gain Rolls, so they effectively had an increased Species max POW for making rolls.

Yes, they get +20% in RQG too.

[Shiningbrow]

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yes, they get +20% in RQG too.

MY math just kicked in... IIRC, Priests (and Lords??) rolled POW gain as if they had POW species max of 25, instead of 21. At 5% per point, that would equal 20%...! Go figure!

 

(I admit I might be mis-remembering the use of the 25... It could also have been for POW v POW struggles)

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, soltakss said:

Sometimes, sure.

If I am a Humakti and go on a Humakti HeroQuest and gain a Humakti Gift as the result, then I'd expect it not to have a corresponding Geas. However, if I am an Orlanthi and go on a Humakti HeroQuest and gain a Humakti Gift as a result, I'd expect the associated Geas.

Soltak Stormspear did this several times, he had a Yinkin and Yelmalian Geas and, even though Illuminated, rigidly kept the geases. I think he had "Never let a Cat suffer needlessly", but can't remember the Yelmalian Geas.

I certainly accept the first -a Humakti is obviously going to care what their god thinks and cares about. It's just respect!

Not so sure about the Orlanthi caring so much about Humakt's geasa, given the "no-one can tell you what to do" bit! It would imply to me that all Humakti HQ abilities should come with a corresponding geas. That's a LOT of Spirits of Reprisal getting a ton of work (good for the economy, I suppose!) 😛

 

(Q: Does a SoR only attack once, and then off it goes? Or, if it fails in its mission - - or even if it succeeds - does it keep on hanging around to annoy for as long as it can? Or what's the deal?)

Edited April 29, 2019 by Shiningbrow
Typo

[Shiningbrow]

How about, for a Lhankor Mhy sorcerer, an ability similar to the Shamanic Expanded Presence, but for INT... +3d6 Expanded INT that is used to memorise spells and Runes/Techniques, but doesn't affect (positively or negatively) Free INT for casting?

 

ETA: I had an idea that if an LM went on an Orlanth HQ, if before every time they cast a spell (especially a sorcery spell), they had "Orlanth" turn his back, or otherwise hid his spell casting from that player, then at the end of the HQ, they could have the ability "What Orlanth Doesn't Know...", or "Orlanth Can't See", which would be the supernatural power that Orlanth (and his followers) were unable to perceive or accurately identify the character's sorcerous powers/spells... thus allowing the character to join Orlanth, and rise through the ranks.

Why would you want this? Because in Sartar, Orlanth is Rex, and so if you want to be the king.....

Edited April 29, 2019 by Shiningbrow

[Shiningbrow]

On 4/28/2019 at 1:26 AM, g33k said:

It can be a divisive issue.  Some vastly prefer the 2nd Age as presented by Mongoose; some despise it.  Some are in the middle somewhere.  Some use the MRQ elements as source-to-be-mined for 3rd-Age / non-MRQ games.  Overall, I think it's a more-negative inclination on BRPCentral.

I think everyone admits there were some good elements out if the Mongoose era, and some bad ones; folks differ on how much of each.

MRQII is held by most as the superior game over MRQ1. Nash&Whitaker really brought some serious design skills to their version (which went on to become TDM's RQ6/Mythras game (and also stayed at Mongoose as the Legend ruleset); to this day, the Nash&Whitaker fork of BRP is the favored variant of some grognards).

I /think/ the biggest issue is that Mongoose made a lot of choices that seemed to be oriented more toward producing a high quantity, than aiming for quality.

Authors complained about inadequate time, etc.  Chaosium & the Gloranthan fanbase made sure that LOTS of setting-expertise was available (at no charge to Mongoose), but Mongoose often skipped that, which in turn often altered the setting in ways that made folks less and less happy.

The MRQ era saw the innovation that a "rune" could be a physical object you could find, steal, lose, etc.  With the right object in your pocket you "had" the Death Rune; if someone crit'ed their Pick Pocket, you could "lose" it.

There is (you may have noticed) a LOT of passion for the world of Glorantha.  When Mongoose seemed to be disrespecting the setting, people got unhappy.

I find it disappointing that all of MRQ was relegated as irrelevant

Definitely MRQII was better! I liked Second Age Glorantha stuff... nice addition to the storyline.

I also preferred the Attribute + Attribute to the current X-Y = 5% stuff for categories. More natural. (but, obviously, much higher starting... I'd do Attribute -10.. so 14 would be +4.

Book quality was actually pretty good! I liked a lot of the imagery.

MSE sorcery was the powerhouse it was supposed to be, but....

The use of Runes annoyed me! (it still does in RQG for sorcery) I liked that Runes could be a tangible thing... but they were far too commonplace! And, as you exampled, having a Rune in your pocket stolen meant you couldn't cast any of those spells... nope!!! Don't like that whole concept at all!

 

I missed all the hoo-ha when it all went down due to life circumstances. Ironically enough, it was when I spent my time in Melbourne!

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I find it disappointing that all of MRQ was relegated as irrelevant

MRQ1 with the physical runes you just had to pick up was a blunder. Ok, Runequest got runes, but no. You'd have expected them to feature e.g. in Biturian's travelogue (one of the sacred documents of Glorantha). MRQ2 was nice, and you can still play it - in its current incarnation it is called Mythras, which is not an impossible match for playing in Glorantha in any age.

But Second Age Glorantha? I really wanted to enjoy playing EWF vs. God Learners, but the execution sucked.

Starting with the premise of the EWF - the Second Age source book managed to miss the important stuff about the EWF that Greg had provided background for, and the research tool that was up and running at chaosium.com at the time had all that only very few clicks away. Martial artists with sung dragonbone equipment? Fine with me, although attaining draconic features - e.g. Immanent Mastery-like - would have been good to see, too. Especially since the Ingolf story with all those dragon parts as his magic was already in King of Sartar, published a decade earlier. Vistikos Left-eye? Sure, he was one of the earliest pioneers of the Hunting and Waltzing bands, but never mentioned in the later EWF. Why make him the leader?

So, overall some cool ideas, and a lot of blunders, as far as the EWF went. So what about the other side?

While The Clanking City had some nice stuff, it had some quite stupid stuff, too, like those metal-reinforced sceletal combat monsters that aren't bad for necromantic sorcerers but which are completely out of the line for the city of the machine god aka the Flesh Machine... some clockwork punk or Arabian artificers' approaches combined with living  flesh would have been appropriate. Big hulking, partially mechanical flesh golems. But skeletons? Nope.

The gazetteer produced a number of wild ideas, several of which failed to map on what was well documented for Third Age Glorantha. As a result, the entire product line was an alternate Glorantha, but not the real thing. At least to me.

If that was your introduction (or re-introduction) to Glorantha, you wouldn't have noticed all the things that felt wrong. To give you a parallel for Tolkien's Middle Earth: You would wonder why the book version of The Hobbit fails to mention the love triangle between Legolas, Thorin's nephew, and that badass female elf ranger, as that was your canon, and heroic dwarves and elf beauties would fall for one another nine times out of ten in your experience. Same thing with Mongoose Glorantha.

Some of the stuff was nice, and not that divergent. Sure, a lot of the content was made up by the authors on the spot, and never checked against the background, making definitions that would become the "extended universe". The race books were nicely done, but suffered from extended universe canon, some more, others less.

I haven't taken a detailed look at the cults - from what I could see while skimming through, much was inherited from previous publications.

Jrustela was quite fun. I didn't mind the potentially non-canonical stuff about Malkionized timinits (although I would need a reason why none of those survived in Umathela or Seshnela).

Dara Happa Stirs was great. Glorantha done right, the author consulting with the authorities who were more than willing to contribute, and the result was excellent. (And little to no mention of the EWF blunders I listed above... but then, written from the anti-draconic perspective, with dragon magic in the hands of enemies only.) If the entire line had been like this, MRQ would be part of the Gloranthan canon. Unfortunately, this book was rather exceptional, and while other books from this period came close, the damage from the MRQ1 era lingered and festered as those books were updated for the second edition of the MRQ rules without correcting the Glorantha blunders.

 

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Definitely MRQII was better! I liked Second Age Glorantha stuff... nice addition to the storyline.

I suppose there are people out there who think that the additions to the short book that is The Hobbit in Jackson's movie trilogy should have been in Lord of the Rings, too.

 

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

IBook quality was actually pretty good! I liked a lot of the imagery.

I wasn't especially impressed. Better than Dobyski's art, sure, but no better than the pieces in the Genertela Book.

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

MSE sorcery was the powerhouse it was supposed to be, but....

The use of Runes annoyed me! (it still does in RQG for sorcery) I liked that Runes could be a tangible thing... but they were far too commonplace! And, as you exampled, having a Rune in your pocket stolen meant you couldn't cast any of those spells... nope!!! Don't like that whole concept at all!

That whole concept of physical runes was just plain weird. It reminds me of the Cypher system, a weird way of giving player characters some serious power that will be taken away from them soon.

 

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I missed all the hoo-ha when it all went down due to life circumstances. Ironically enough, it was when I spent my time in Melbourne!

IIRC that was a case of a license not renewed after some contractual obligations had been missed, nothing even to do with all the points of content criticism I fielded above. Adding injury to insult.

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

<Snip>

 

Thanks for the debrief.

My Glorantha History Lore is still only about 30%, and I didn't fully read the writeups, so some of those points were missed by me.

 

(Kili and Tauriel). But then, people also complained about the lack of Tom Bombadil... Personally, I would think that was too "kid's stuff" (as written) for the movie. But, he could still have been there.

[g33k]

11 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

(Kili and Tauriel). But then, people also complained about the lack of Tom Bombadil... Personally, I would think that was too "kid's stuff" (as written) for the movie. But, he could still have been there.

Bombadil was FAR to powerful a character for such a minor cameo in the films.

Moviegoer's without the book background would have been "WTF, dangling plotpoint much??!?!"

Not to mention that it would have added a good 20+ minutes to what was already seen (at the time) as a "dangerously" long film.

Much as I, personally, would have loved Tom Bombadil-o! singing merrily, Jackson was (or the scriptwriters were?) 100% correct to disinvite him from the film.   😢

[Tywyll]

On 4/27/2019 at 9:17 PM, Pentallion said:

During RQ3, I always allowed immediate gains in all skills used on a HQ.  No roll to go up, just go up.  That included power and allowed for increases beyond species max.  However, if the PC sacrificed that power the species max returned to normal.  In RQG, where they've made a serious attempt to slow down character growth, I've ruled that HQ's simply allow an immediate roll to try to go up in skills.  that would allow PCs to conceivably go up twice in one season, something they otherwise could not do.

Luckily that's not quite true...it does say the Gm can allow more experience checks in a season if desired (the one per season rule was one of my big beefs with RQG but it was pointed out to me that it wasn't as bad as I thought).

[Tywyll]

On 4/28/2019 at 4:47 AM, BalazarLightson said:

In my Griffin Mountain Campaign I had planned for King Skilfil could teach others how to obtain their own Heart-Piercer by following a particular Mythic Quest and hunt down a Manticore. 
You might also bring back the Femur Bone of a Storm God from the God time, using it like an almighty Club with Storm powers and such. Mythic Goods are Great to use, or to set up in a hero-shrine to grant powers to followers.

 

Oh that sounds awesome. I am about to run Griffin Island/Mountain. Could you tell me any more about the quest? I imagine some of my players would be interested!

[Tywyll]

On 4/28/2019 at 1:26 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Gifts can raise non-raiseable characteristics, but it doesn't say that that raises the species maximum. It could still work like Pentallion says, where it's temporarily above the maximum. I think that's a bit mean, though. You clearly have to have it already at maximum as well, you can't have POW 18 and raise your species maximum to 22 by gift.

They don't raise the max, but they can exceed it. Max is what is achievable without magic (or so it is described even though the earlier systems didn't make it possible to achieve) and gifts clearly are magic.

 

[Shiningbrow]

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier...

Similar to the Expanded Presence for Shamans to have more Spirit Magic spells than their CHA would normally allow, how about a HQA that allows for more Rune spells (+3D6?) than normally allowed?

In that way, we really do start to see more heroic adventurers and their attachment to their gods?

[Austin]

Don't have exact numbers involved in mind, but I can imagine doing a mix of Geas/Gifts and Oath to result in rewards from Humakt heroquests, particularly for non-Humakti. What I have in mind is basically "You're offered a gift from the god of Death; do you take it?" If yes, sacrifice any number of MP, and GM decides gift from list or other unique one. Get a geas as well, but instead of just losing the gift if you break the geas, you get nailed by a Sever Spirit of MPx2 or x3, with the Humakti perma-death attached if you don't resist. Sort of an Oath-backed gift, getting something meh or really good the riskier you're willing to play it.

[Shiningbrow]

On 4/27/2019 at 5:12 PM, soltakss said:

Some general ideas that we have used in the past:

• Heroic Casting of a Spirit Magic Spell - Casting a particular named Spirit Magic spell costs 0 MPs to cast. The spell has to be linked to something gained on the HeroQuest, for example Bladesharp gained on Humakt Gaining Death, or Sleep gained by a Chalana Arroy HeroQuest or Face of Lanbril gained on the Lanbril Loses his Face HeroQuest.
• Heroic Casting of a Rune Magic Spell - You can cast a particular Runemagic Spell using Magic Points rather than Rune Points. In effect, your POW becomes a secondary Rune Pool for casting particular Runespells. As above, the spell needs to be one gained on a HeroQuest related to that power. So, Humakt gaining Truesword on the Humakt Gains Death spell, Orlanth gaining Lightning in the Lightning Spear Quest and so on.

Are these in canon somewhere? If so, can you please point me in the right direction?

[soltakss]

On 4/29/2019 at 4:39 AM, Shiningbrow said:

I certainly accept the first -a Humakti is obviously going to care what their god thinks and cares about. It's just respect!

Not so sure about the Orlanthi caring so much about Humakt's geasa, given the "no-one can tell you what to do" bit! It would imply to me that all Humakti HQ abilities should come with a corresponding geas. That's a LOT of Spirits of Reprisal getting a ton of work (good for the economy, I suppose!) 😛

Oh, it matters. If you continually break Humakti Geases then the Spirit of Reprisal  comes for you and your swords shatter, until you get off the naughty step.

For me, HeroQuest Geases are more important than normal ones, break them at your peril.

On 4/29/2019 at 4:39 AM, Shiningbrow said:

(Q: Does a SoR only attack once, and then off it goes? Or, if it fails in its mission - - or even if it succeeds - does it keep on hanging around to annoy for as long as it can? Or what's the deal?)

Depends on the situation. A naughty Humakti might get Impests for a long while, but might get things thrown at him once. A bad Humakti might find that he can never use a sword again. 

It really does depend on the deity and the transgression.

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Similar to the Expanded Presence for Shamans to have more Spirit Magic spells than their CHA would normally allow, how about a HQA that allows for more Rune spells (+3D6?) than normally allowed?

In that way, we really do start to see more heroic adventurers and their attachment to their gods?

That's a good one, especially as Rune Pools are limited. You could do the same for Spirits, but effectively having a higher CHA.

 

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

On 4/27/2019 at 10:12 AM, soltakss said:

Some general ideas that we have used in the past:

• Heroic Casting of a Spirit Magic Spell - Casting a particular named Spirit Magic spell costs 0 MPs to cast. The spell has to be linked to something gained on the HeroQuest, for example Bladesharp gained on Humakt Gaining Death, or Sleep gained by a Chalana Arroy HeroQuest or Face of Lanbril gained on the Lanbril Loses his Face HeroQuest.
• Heroic Casting of a Rune Magic Spell - You can cast a particular Runemagic Spell using Magic Points rather than Rune Points. In effect, your POW becomes a secondary Rune Pool for casting particular Runespells. As above, the spell needs to be one gained on a HeroQuest related to that power. So, Humakt gaining Truesword on the Humakt Gains Death spell, Orlanth gaining Lightning in the Lightning Spear Quest and so on.

Are these in canon somewhere? If so, can you please point me in the right direction?

No, my RQ rules are better than canon! 🙂

Seriously, HeroQuesting has been woefully underdone in RQ in the past and this kind of ability has never been described before. They just made sense to me and I have used forms of them for years.

[g33k]

On 4/29/2019 at 4:58 AM, Shiningbrow said:

I also preferred the Attribute + Attribute to the current X-Y = 5% stuff for categories. More natural.

I find Attribute+Attribute to be too homogenous...

Some skills should simply be much more influenced by Attributes than other skills!  For a few skills, I might want more than 2 relevant Attributes, and in many cases, different attributes might be MORE relevant and others LESS relevant but not NON-relevant.  None of which are well modeled by simply adding 2 Attributes.

OTOH, the RQ2/RQG way of doing it is IMHO a bit off, too...

 

 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Seriously, HeroQuesting has been woefully underdone in RQ in the past and this kind of ability has never been described before. They just made sense to me and I have used forms of them for years.

I am REALLY very hopeful about the upcoming HeroQuesting rules, presumably from the (still being written (?) )  GM's book...