From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #28 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Friday, 25 November 1994 Volume 01 : Number 028 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 Kevin Rose RQR: Enchantments Kevin Rose RQR: Effects of Reduced Damage Loren Miller RQR: Dispel Damage alex RQR: They shoot from horses, don't they? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kevin Rose Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 00:43:49 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: Re: Enchantments This is my interpretion of what a couple of Chaosium types said was the way that they used the RQ3 magic rules for enchantments. This was early/mid 80's at Gencon, with the original question being "So what do sorcerers do with their POW increases?" The answer was they produce magic items. The examples they came up with made it clear that they had a diferent interpertation of how enchantments worked than I had obtained from the magic book. Kevin Modifications to RuneQuest's Magic System (RQ3) Magic Item Creation 1) Sorcery Matrices can be modified after creation. A failed skill roll in the modification leaves the matrix unaffected, although a fumble will destroy the matrix. 2) Attack conditions Matrices with attack conditions will automatically work, with no skill roll needed. Attack conditions will trigger the spell as soon as the condition is fulfilled, with no time delay. (ie, on the strike rank that the condition is fulfilled the enchantment is triggered.) A enchantment with an attack condition requires a magic point supply LINKED to it with sufficient mp's to power the enchantment. The enchantment can also be powered by a bound spirit that is linked to the enchantment. This obviously doesn't apply to divine matrices that are not boosted with magic points, as they are self-powered. The trigger to an attack condition can be quite broad or very specific, but must be something detectable. When the triggering character is touching the enchanted item the trigger can be fairly subtle, such things cult membership and intent being allowed. At range the trigger must be more obvious, such as race, carrying an item or saying something. Examples of allowable triggers. A fireblade that activates when drawn by an authorized user; A wand that fires a spell at whoever it is aimed at when a USER says a command word; a Heal Body spell that triggers when the authorized carrier's total hit points reach zero or less; A doorway (area effect) that attacks anyone attempting to pass though it with the intention of harming the occupants. (This last is essentially a Ward) Not so good triggers: Attempting to determine the cult affiliation, nationality, or intentions of someone at range (although race is acceptable). Essentially the condition ranged capabilities are limited to what a human could see and hear. Another way to control the device is to use target conditionals. 3) Magic items that are not triggered by attack conditions (ie. they are activated by the user) will go off at the Dex strike rank of the user, without a time delay due to the magic point cost of the spell. 4) A trapped otherworld creature can be targeted and commanded by a complex attack conditional that casts a control spell on the creature before releasing it to carry out it's orders, with the creature returning to the trap after completing it's orders. 5 A complex enchantment will follow the specified conditions to the letter. The enchantment will not attempt to pervert it's instructions, but has no way of understanding the enchanters intent. Bound creatures are fairly likely to attempt to pervert the casters instruction. Increasing Enchant skill teaches how to properly formulate enchantment conditionals, so the GM should generally point out player stupidities, although subtle errors require significant amounts of skill to detect minor problems. ------------------------------ From: Kevin Rose Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 02:00:05 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: Re: Effects of Reduced Damage Regarding pre-gunfire wounds & maiming. My understanding was that amputation was the way that serious wounds to the limbs were treated. I know this was how they were treated during the ACW, and assume that this was because it was the most successful treament available for dealing with infected wounds. And most serious wounds will become infected due to the the weapons being dirty, debris getting driven into the wound, and the tendency of wounded people to fall down. If you mean "Traumatic Amputations" from swords and such, you normally just die. Lots of arteries spraying blood. Not always, as sometimes the vessels lock down under the shock, but it is not someting that many people would live through. I would expect, if there is someone is running a "realistic" game with some sort of skilled medical assistance available, that there will be a lot of people dying of blood loss, shock, and trauma; many still living wounded getting amputations of damaged limbs; and most of the still living wounded dying of "fever" while recovering. Of course, wounds that punctured the gut were 100% fatal. Kevin (who does not run a "Realistic" game) ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 03:04:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: Re: Dispel Damage As far as I know, the rule that you can only magically heal a wound once doesn't have a name. If I had to name it I'd call it the "sensible" healing rule. I don't know if it was an official RQ2 rule but that's the way we played in RQ2. The other variants are Dispel Damage (the POT of the spell has to exceed the POT of the wound to work) and Healsharp (the spell is a First Aid helper spell, +5% and +1HP per POT). - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller "I don't have to practice what I preach 'cause I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to!" The Book of The Subgenius ------------------------------ From: alex Date: Thu, 24 Nov 94 18:38:49 GMT Subject: RQR: They shoot from horses, don't they? Kevin Rose: > Unfortunatly I think the only place that they still do organized horse > archery is in Japan, and it is not exacly a wildly popular pastime there. > So practical experiance is somewhat lacking. I'd be intersted in hearing > if anyone has tried it, and has some idea as to what someone who is good > can do. Haven't tried it, saw a demo once, though. About all I can report is that when attempting to gallop down a muddy, steepish slope on a rainy Glasgow morning, accuracy seems to be on the limited side. (At least as compared with indoor kyudo, at any rate.) Alex. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #28 ****************************** 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. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists.