From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #221 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, 22 March 1996 Volume 02 : Number 221 TABLE OF CONTENTS Kevin Rose RQ Rules Digest: V2 #220 SPerrin@aol.com Fatigue Alain_RAMEAU_at_03__paris__t Sandy's Sorcery System and Miscellaneous I Brad Furst Fatigue mark groff Sandy's Sorcery System and Miscellaneous I Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG Fatigue RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kevin Rose Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 00:03:48 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #220 which we calculate as the sum of STRength plus SIZe, rather > >than STRength plus CONstitution. > > > Just curious to why you used size? > > James. Don't know why he used size, but it is reasonable. For example, the ratio of weight of equipment carried to body weight is used to evaluate loads for troops, at least for the US. Objective is 30% of body weight for actual fighting, 45% for traveling and being fit to fight quickly. So it makes sense. (The army has lots of loads that grossly violate this, but it's the objective.) Big, strong people can carry big heavy loads better than small, not so strong people. There is a good reason why the 6'2, 230lb soldier normally gets to carry the 30 some pounds of machine gun rather than the 5'5, 145lb soldier. (or the 5'4, 110lb female soldier). Kevin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 02:57:32 -0500 Subject: Re: Fatigue In a message dated 96-03-21 21:51:20 EST, Brad Furst wrote: > In actual practice, the characters choose to carry only so much >ENCumbrance as to nearly maximize their Resistance rolls, so we can usually >ignore fatigue since the characters are believably outfitted.... Exactly what happened in my game, which is why I like this system. Two players were of the old school of RQ play (one was the son of one of my original playtesters--both of his parents and his sister and brother were also in the game), and paid for it with bad Fatigue rolls. Again, given that my campaign was primitive Celt (post-Roman/pe-Norman), the ability to find heavy armor was strongly curtailed. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: Alain_RAMEAU_at_03__paris__tep@internet.total.fr Date: Fri, 22 Mar 96 15:00:57 MET Subject: Sandy's Sorcery System and Miscellaneous Items I) Sandy's new sorcery system. At least, I had a little time to look through the new sorcery rules proposed by S. Petersen. I will start by saying that I like some of the new ideas of this system such as the new spell classification (fewer (?) spells but many options : Resist (......), Bless (......) etc....), Presence limitation and Vows system, ... But, contrarily to many people discussing here, I am not completely happy with some other principles of the system. I try to make a synthesis of my remarks, as follows (Sorry Sandy ! "Critic is easy, Art is difficult". Please, do not blacklist me !). I do not think it is useful to create new skills or Arts. the four basic ones seem sufficient for me, and the three other could be handled differently : a) I prefer to keep skills instead of Arts, as I think it is too easy to get all the Arts (9 POW is a lot in the absolute, but compared to the right to acquire all the magic manipulation, it is not so much. And in fact, by a Divine Intervention, 9 POW are sometimes spent, with no such advantages as final result). I agree that in the former skill system, it was difficult to increase to the Apprentice and Magus status, but as a reward, becoming good in all such skills gave a lot of power. The new Art system is still either difficult (Brithini) or too easy (Malkioni, even with St Malkion restriction of keeping 10% magic bonus). a) Permanence: the fact it is a skill or Art, plus the fact it costs POW for a "dispelable" spell, is worthless IMO. I prefer using such POW for Enchantment purpose. I do not think that the willingness of avoiding the Duration former system excess is satisfactory handled with this Permanence system. The Presence level limitation could already limit such excesses, and the duration table could be modified (one and a half increase per point, as per various Divine Magic spell instead of the doubling system ?). In addition, I have specific questions on this Art of Permanence : Can we cast a temporal spell if we do not have Permanence Art ? Does it lasts 10 mns in this case ? Why the duration of the spell Smother is based on intensity, not Permanence (Intensity could be used to lower CON resistance roll, if any) ? b) Ease : I think this should not be a specific skill or Art, but should be allowed to any sorcerer. In fact, it already exists with the system of Ceremony skill for increasing spell casting (and therefore increasing the level of usable MP). May be however, the "lot of D6" RQ3 system could be improved. For example, 1% per additional SR, with twice original skill as maximum. c) Speed. This skill also should not be a specific skill or Art, but should be allowed to everybody, at the cost of 1 additional MP per SR diminution (with mini being 1 SR). d) Concerning the maximum usable level of Arts, may be this could be skill/5 instead of skill/10. This for two reasons: the first one is that the RQ system is based on a /5 factor (resistance roll, ...). Secondly, with a skill/10 limit, a 100% Magus would be limited to 10 levels ? I think that it is sufficiently difficult to reach that 100% skill level. A reasonable reward would be to use 20 levels (skill/5) instead. II) Other miscellaneous aspects discussed during the last three months (as I remember). Somebody asked if something was agreed upon concerning fatigue rules. Unfortunately, I do not think it is possible, due to too many different opinions, to reach an unanimous agreement on a new rule. But I consider this digest very useful to pick various ideas for our campaigns. For example, I became fan with three new ideas proposed in this digest (sorry, but I do not remember who are the authors) and I now use them in my campaign : - the new encumbrance SR, to be added according to the level of remaining fatigue points. - The modification of the Dismiss Magic Divine Spell, for it to work as a Heal Wound, with addition of MP. I think a modification of this spell is necessary to give it value in comparaison to a Dispel one. (I have a friend of mine who used another rule, but I disagree with him as I considered it was too powerful : each level of Dismiss cancel ALL the spells of the victim which are under this level, and not simply one). - The possibility of using Extension with spirit spell, giving them long duration. (however, I allow boosting of the spell (useful to avoid dispelling) only at the cost of one Extension additional level per boosting point). Otherwise, even if the Extension spell would not be reusable (6 POW spent, but not completely lost in fact), all the players could use all their magic points (included those in matrix and bound spirits) in order to have a very boosted spell, obtaining a quasi-undispelable permanent spell. Alain ------------------------------ From: Brad Furst Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 08:35:21 -0800 Subject: Fatigue At 11:50 PM 3/21/96 -0500, James Griffith wrote: >>which we calculate as the sum of STRength plus SIZe, rather >>than STRength plus CONstitution. >> >Just curious to why you used size? For example, to correlate with the large size of armor worn by creatures larger than average human SIZe, like trolls or horses (These were the two most common discrepancies we discovered when using the sum of STRength plus CONstitution). Our premise was that suits of armor/barding should be about the same effect whether creatures be small or large. Brad Furst esoteric@teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~esoteric ------------------------------ From: mark groff Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 12:31:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Sandy's Sorcery System and Miscellaneous Items Speaking of Sandy's Sorcery System, is there any where (specifically) where a copy can be found/downloaded from? say the exact Digest for example. Mark Groff We are the Bison Brothers and our Bison sister Dot... ------------------------------ From: bernuetz.oliver@ic.gc.ca (Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 16:21:02 -0500 Subject: RE: Fatigue > For example, to correlate with the large size of armor worn by creatures > larger than average human SIZe, like trolls or horses (These were the two > most common discrepancies we discovered when using the sum of STRength plus > CONstitution). > Our premise was that suits of armor/barding should be about the same effect > whether creatures be small or large. > Brad Furst That's a good point and it makes a lot of sense. It reflects the fact that a larger creature has to be able to move more weight around than a smaller one (all other factors like physical condition being equal). I'm 6'8" and people are amazed at how heavy my parka is yet I'm sure it doesn't encumber me anymore than their's would. However you should factor CON in as it would help determine how long you could carry this weight or encumbrance (I realize they're not the same thing) around. It's goes back to the problem with RQ that rolling each stat separately can result in some weird combinations-STR of 18, a CON of 6 and a SIZ of 8. I'm not saying it isn't possible in the "real" world but there should be a closer correlation. When you train your CON your STR should go up and vice versa. In most RQ worlds training these stats would be general fitness training rather than just endurance or strength. I guess you could roll a group stats like physical fitness and then assign numbers to the physical stats. That's what you do in the Jeux Descartes system (whose name escapes me). Oliver Bernuetz bernuetz.oliver@ic.gc.ca ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #221 ******************************* 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. WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html