[Runequest] POW gain - mechanically?

Thu Aug 28 11:41:03 UTC 2008

RQI and II had the limitation that you could only get a POW gain roll if you had a 90% or less chance of overcoming a target. Can't remember about RQ III though...

One "work around": Use (100% - chance of affecting target) as the chance of gaining POW. (or use the standard roll to succeed/roll to fail idea from RQIII). This means that if you have a 95% chance of overcoming those rats then you've only got a 5% of getting something out of it. It's a bit more work as instead of just recording that you used your POW you have to 
record what you overcame.

You could even extend this to using skills with penalties but that gets a bit trickier. You could end up with something like Hero System offset skill levels which can be used to offset a particular type of penalty but don't increase your chance of success over your base level.

Cheers,

Ash

--- On Tue, 26/8/08, steve at limitedchaos.com <steve at limitedchaos.com> wrote:

> From: steve at limitedchaos.com <steve at limitedchaos.com>
> Subject: Re: [Runequest] POW gain - mechanically?
> To: "RuneQuest Rules" <runequest at rpgreview.net>
> Date: Tuesday, 26 August, 2008, 10:37 PM
> <div id=yiv647200888><html><div><font
> face="verdana,geneva"
> color="#000000">Obligatory plug for SPQR -
> I've set up a system of self-training/meditation to
> regain POW. That said, I am comfortable with a relatively
> high-power game.</font></div>
> <div> </div>
> <div>In the scenario the OP described, I think the
> problem is in taking it to extremes. If rats have a POW of
> 3, zapping rats is fine as long as there is a real chance of
> failure. Using the Resistance Table, this gets you to about
> POW 12. Anything further is just a 5% chance of failure, and
> you have that in anything you do. If your POW is no longer
> being strained, you no longer get any benefit from the POW
> attacks. At the very least, you need to start attacking cows
> or something with a higher POW. I could have sworn that we
> actually covered this in the RQ rules, but perhaps I am just
> remembering some Chaosium house rules.</div>
> <div> </div>
> <div>These days I don't use the Resistance Table
> and, as said, have a system for regaining POW, but
> that's the best I can say from a "classic RQ"
> basis.</div>
> <div> </div>
> <div>Steve Perrin<br><br></div>
> <blockquote
> style="PADDING-LEFT:8px;MARGIN-LEFT:8px;BORDER-LEFT:blue
> 2px solid;">-------- Original Message
> --------<br>Subject: Re: [Runequest] POW gain -
> mechanically?<br>From: Wayne Shaw
> <shaw at caprica.com><br>Date: Tue, August 26, 2008
> 1:41 pm<br>To: RuneQuest Rules
> <runequest at rpgreview.net><br><br><br>><br>>At
> the end, we have what I feel is a mechanic that seemed for a
> long <br>>time to me to be reasonable, but when
> extrapolated it breaks the <br>>system. Am I right
> that this is broken? Any suggestions?<br><br>I
> was perhaps to offhand in my prior response, so let me try
> again.<br><br>We _don't_ give experience
> rolls for just "swinging at practice
> <br>butts". We give _training time_ which is not
> even close to as <br>efficient. Should it be possible
> to "train" Power? I've often <br>thought
> so. If so, then doing so is no better or worse than other
> <br>attribute training. Its only if you're focused
> on the idea that <br>Power shoul _only_ improve by
> adventure use that you run into
> problems.<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Runequest
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