From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #15 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Tuesday, 15 November 1994 Volume 01 : Number 015 RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to say "Yeah, I agree." Those who do will be lynched. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. RQR: will be prepended to it. 3. Do not engage in a point-by-point analysis or rebuttal of another person's message. It is too confusing for others to follow, qualifies as nit-picking, and it usually leads to flame wars. 4. There is no number 4. TABLE OF CONTENTS RQR: Re: spirit defense; JS's rules RE: RQR: Shamans ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Dunham Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 11:09:59 PST Subject: RQR: Re: spirit defense; JS's rules David Cake suggests > I would simply make spirit combat attack an action, and remove the >idea of an explicit spirit defense. A nice simplification. Jonas's rules looked reasonable at first glance, but as he knew I would say, they don't seem much like RQ. The changed idea of partial success (reducing damage) may work well for people less-armored than Pendragon knights, tho since the damages are all different it's hard to tell without trying. ------------------------------ From: rollin@EQL12.Caltech.Edu Date: Mon, 14 Nov 94 11:23:58 PST Subject: RE: RQR: Shamans [Parts of the discussion have been removed to avoid sending a book by email.] >>At that point, would prefer to go back to the RQ3 MP vs. MP combat? > > It is still rather boring. Perhaps I would rather have RQ3 mp vs mp >be the default, and the Spirit Combat skill and other innovations be the >standards for shamans? Interesting. I wonder if, at that point, you'd be better off using Spirit Combat or MP bashing? Or could you use either, depending on which was more effective? Given two characters of equal Mana Points spirit combating, I'd like to see the shamen have an advantage, although not necessarily an insurmountable one. > it is very important to remove the idea of separate 'attack' and >'parry' actions necessary for spirit combat, though. In RQ2, fighting in >spirit combat cost you one of your two actions, so you could spirit combat >fight and defend. If you didn't, you still got to defend. In otherwords, >everyone got to 'spirit combat defend' for free, and to 'spirit combat >attack' cost an action. I would like to return to this. I agree. Its tempting for me to argue otherwise (beacuse I still believe that Shamans are underpowered), but I think you're correct. > I would simply make spirit combat attack an action, and remove the >idea of an explicit spirit defense. I will probably end up doing this (or something similiar). Its unfortunate that the spirit plane adventures are a little like net-running in Cyberpunk games: uninteresting to the majority, while absorbing to the few actually doing it: taking the GMs attention away from the majority of the players (often for long periods of time.), interacting intensely with a single member (or maybe a couple) of the players. Although this is not necessarily something that shouldn't happen, it certainly shouldn't happen a lot... > >And I suspect they didn't playtest it to find out how dangerous it could >be! I did and was quite surprised at how bad it was (it looked OK on >paper...). It was both even more dull than RQ3, and far more lethal if >attacked during melee. Yes, it is quite lethal. When both sides have one or two shamans, the battle can be very interestingly three-dimensional. Sorta like someone used to ship-to-ship combat having to deal with sub-to-sub combat, instead. >>I assume that a Shaman has to join one of the spirit cults to get the divine >>magic, correct? >> > Yes. It seems that most Gloranthan shamans are part of a larger >religion (Waha, Telmori or other Hsunchen, Ancestor Worship, Flamal or >Aldrya, Kygor Litor, Pamalt, are all well known and fairly large examples), >which is a major source of responsibility, and grants a moderate selection >of Rune spells, and that a shaman remains in for his entire career. Then in >addition there are many spirit cults (Troll gods has an excellent list for >trolls, and the Digest/Daily has featured writeups for some Praxian ones), >and I suspect that most shamans will have been in a few at various times. >So most shamans have at least some rune magic, and many have quite wide >access to rune magic. That should certainly keep them more competative, at that point. \Rollin. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #15 ****************************** This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. 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