From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V3 #26 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, 13 August 1996 Volume 03 : Number 026 TABLE OF CONTENTS crom@erinet.com Crom ideas floating around SPerrin@aol.com ideas floating around cromlech cromlech@zip.com.au Yes I would like your stuff Hasni Mubarak Using others POW for Enchantments nilsw@ibm.net Stat training Andrew O. Mellinger Using others POW for Enchantments Sandy Petersen magic answers to Aug 05 questions Jim Bickmeyer Sandy's Sorcery Jim Bickmeyer Befuddled Glenn Glazer Using others POW for Enchantments 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: crom@erinet.com (Crom) Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 02:11:39 GMT Subject: Re: ideas floating around On Mon, 12 Aug 1996 22:27:46 -0400, SPerrin@aol.com wrote: >Since I've done a slight rewrite on my game rules, I thought I'd post the >revamp sheet to see what kind of response they got. [snip] >One Background point buys: >1. a 15% increment of an Easy Skill >2. a 10% increment of a Medium Skill >3. a 5% increment of a Hard Skill [snip] A thought I had on this -- I would propose that skills with experience check boxes go up one difficuly level when they have been raised above 75%. For instance: a character uses 2 BP to raise an easy skill (which started at 50%) to 80%. Any further BP's spent to increase this skill would only increase it by 10% (as per a medium skill). Hard skills would be a special case -- they could not be raised using BP's after the 75% barrier had been broken. Thought this may help balance your game, encouraging characters to use their BP's on a wider number of skills....... Brian T. Forsythe crom@erinet.com ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 00:57:12 -0400 Subject: Re: ideas floating around In a message dated 96-08-12 23:03:06 EDT, crom wrote: >I would propose that skills with experience >check boxes go up one difficuly level when they have been raised above >75%. For instance: a character uses 2 BP to raise an easy skill >(which started at 50%) to 80%. Any further BP's spent to increase >this skill would only increase it by 10% (as per a medium skill). >Hard skills would be a special case -- they could not be raised using >BP's after the 75% barrier had been broken. > >Thought this may help balance your game, encouraging characters to use >their BP's on a wider number of skills....... > >Brian T. Forsythe >crom@erinet.com Might be a good idea if I find that the players are concentrating on one or two skills. Haven't really noticed this as yet, but I'm working with a good crew of roleplayers, even though one managed to get almost his entire allottment of Problem points through the difficulties of one romantic quadrangle (three men, including the PC and another PC [his brother], after one woman). I allowed it through admiration for the sheer audacity. One of the players, Wayne Shaw, has been around RQ-wise since before the first rules were published. Also note that I am, with my "number-of-successes" system, actually encouraging some people to be more than 100% in some skills. Any other questions or suggestions? Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: cromlech Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 22:38:13 +1100 Subject: Yes I would like your stuff I would greatly appreciat it if you would send me your scenarios and Runic sorcery. Waiting for your reply. ------------------------------ From: Hasni Mubarak Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 09:32:06 -0400 Subject: Re: Using others POW for Enchantments Simon D. Hibbs wrote: > > I realy don't like this idea at all. It strikes me as being a fairly > cynical attempt to manipulate game mechanics for an advantage. It is also > greatly at odds with magic which is already described in the game. I play that there is a really nasty, sick, evil and chaotic ritual that will let you strip a victims POWer to use in an enchantment. It usually involves human sacrfice and one of those curvy daggers. And the items are allways tainted in some way. It also costs the caster POWer, but no where near as much as it costs the victims. Say, Caster drops One point of power, each victim drops ALL their power, and the item gets that power at a 10:1 ratio. (Maybe a little better if the evil-nasty guy specials or crits.) ------------------------------ From: nilsw@ibm.net Date: Sun, 11 Aug 96 12:31:14 Subject: Re: Stat training I ignore the official stat training rules and let the characters train all characteristics (including INT) 3 points from the original. It is thus possible to train up to 21 if you had an untrained 18. _____ The RQ4 situation: in the Glorantha Digest, there have been some vague allusions to some big revelation about the future of RQ/Glorantha at Convulsion, but nobody who has been willing to speak up and tell what it was. __________________________________________________________ Nils Weinander | Everything is dust in the wind Home: nilsw@ibm.net | Office: nils@carasoft.se | WWW: http://www.angelfire.com/pages1/nilsw/index.html ------------------------------ From: andrew@criticalpath.com (Andrew O. Mellinger) Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 09:47:07 -0700 Subject: Using others POW for Enchantments Simon Hibbs Says: >I realy don't like this idea at all. It strikes me as being a fairly >cynical attempt to manipulate game mechanics for an advantage. It is also >greatly at odds with magic which is already described in the game. No it has nothing to do with being cynical. It has to do with modern ritual therry, reality and rationality. Let me present the idea as I proposed it to Martin, he may not have accurately portrayed it in the rq-rules group. The idea is to allow the person who is sacrificing the POW to be part of the ritual. Glorantha (and most cultures) easily support multi-participant rituals. Look at any good workship ceremony. So in multi-user enchantments, the enchanter leads the ritual with the person scrificing POW being participant as well. The POW sacrificer would have to make a ceremony roll; albeit modified due to their small role, technically speaking. The modification I was proposing was +50%. So any normal farmer or whatnot with no ceremony skill (0%) will blow it half the time. Is there anything in Glorantha (not some rules-based contivance) that prohibits multi-user ritual? >The final nail in the coffin of POW stealing is the Tap spell. Even using >this, the most widely feared and abhored Sorcery spell, all that a >sorcerer can gain by draining another character's POW is mere Magic >Points. Note, Tap is a spell, usable against an unwilling opponent. The enchantment is a ritual, something altogether different, and the POW sacrifice was volutary. >Glenn Glazer says : > >>>If every Tom, Dick, and Harry can provide the POW for the enchantment, >>>then the skilled enchanter will just work steadily, churning out magic >>>items on a daily basis using the excess POW of the peasant classes. >>>Industrial magic item manufacturing! If you assume this, then enchanted >>>objects are going to be pretty damn common. The skilled enchanter will work as often as people can pay him. In RQ:AiG the enchant cost is 1000 per point of POW for non-technical items, or 1500 for technical. It the enchanter wasn't the person who sacrified for the POW, he'd still make 500 per point of POW. Looking at the rules I proposed above an inexperienced adventurer (0% ceremony) would fail half the time anyway. They'd still owe the enchanter money if they failed their roll. Also, how often would character have POW to spend? There are few strata that have 500 lunars to spend anyway. So it wouldn't be every Tom, Dick and Harry. Sacrificing a point of POW to an item, and a point to a god has a completely different feel. Why would a person pay 500, with a 50% chance of success, to get an enchantment when they can sacrfice one point of POW (for 0 lunars) for a guaranteed divine spell? Especially if the person is pious? For items that are enchanted how many will have restrictions? If I were a farmer and I got a Heal III matrix for the family I'd put a restriction on it. I would let everyone know there is a restriction on it so they wouldn't kill me for it. Sure a restriction would cost an extra 500, but when the family relic starts to build up an inventory of spells over the years, restrictions are certainly going to be utilized. How many enchantements will be on people, or fragile items? In our adventure the Orlanthi Acolyte has had about 8 POW of enchantments made as Tatoos on his body. Sure, they can be tanned if he is killed, but flesh (even preserved) doesn't wear well (sorry about the pun.) Some of the enchantments are armoring enchantments which would be useless anyway. Unless you plan on using his tanned shoulder tatoo as a shield. - -Andrew ------------------------------ From: Sandy Petersen Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 13:57:33 -0500 Subject: Re: magic answers to Aug 05 questions Martin Kelly >Does a sufficiently strong dispel/dismiss magic targeted at the >control/command spell on a controlled/commanded creature remove that >control? Absolutely. Not only that, but I play that a control/command spell cast on an already-controlled creature, if successful, will wrest control away from its master. When this is done, I match the caster's MPs vs. the _master's_! However, defensive spells only help if they're on the creature, not the master. Example: A shaman looses a madness spirit from his fetch to attack. Our Hero casts a Dominate Passion Spirit at it. He must overcome the shaman's MPs with his own to succeed. Martin Kelly >What do folks think will result? The creature, once control is removed, will take whatever actions are best for it. Example: Pacifistic entities flee or return to the otherworld. Aggressive entities attack. If vengeful, the entity attacks its former master Other entities act according to their nature. Salamanders seek flammable materials, gnomes churn up the ground, etc. NOTE: a spirit already engaged in spirit combat cannot disengage unless both parties are willing to do so. (Or it has at least 10 MPs more than its target.) Paul W. Stolar >Does anyone have a decent create familiar spell? Judge for yourself. This is my version. CREATE FAMILIAR (Reverse form = Loose Familiar) ritual Enchant You must still give points of your own stats to the familiar, just as before, but only 1 point in any one missing category. You cannot provide points for stats that are not missing in your familiar. When the familiar dies, you get your lost stat back exactly 1 year later. INT = adds 2d6 to familiar's fixed INT and makes it normal INT. POW = gives a POW equal to your own, but this new POW can only be increased by an experience roll of 01-05. SIZ = either transforms familiar's SIZ to real SIZ or gives it SIZ 1 STR = as per SIZ CON = as per SIZ DEX = gives a DEX of 2d6 Familiars have mental contact with their masters, and he can use any spells they have learned (and vice versa). In addition, familiars automatically have all the sorcery skills and arts equal to those of their master. The reverse effect, Loose Familiar, enables you to free your familiar from your mental control and fellowship. It still retains the Stat(s) you provided it. If it dies, you get your lost stat back after a year. NOTE: if the master dies, the familiar retains its status under these rules, and is still active and magical until its own death. Robert McArthur >Given the RQ3 enchantment rules, is it possible to have someone else >do the ceremony and cast the enchantment spell while you, who wants >to receive the enchantment, simply puts in the POW? Neither in RQ3, RQ2, nor my own house RQ rules allow this. It would be Bad, because it would encourage a number of bad things in the universe (bad, IMO). The normal means of making magic items would be to have the enchanter hire a slave or use a prisoner to provide the POW, under threat of punishment. This would become a mass industry most places, since magic items are so useful. Magic items would become incredibly numerous. Normally, whenever PCs were captured by bad guys with any pretensions fo magic, they would be "pumped" for POW before their release. Failure to have the enemy do so involves the GM in phony-sounding rationalizations. Also, when PCs capture enemies, they'll probably make them give up POW. Thus even a trollkin provides the PCs with a magic item or two. Blech. Now, there is at least one known case in which magic swords were mass-manufactured. However, I do not believe it was done by the foregoing technique, because otherwise it would have been much more common. I believe that the Machine City mass-produced its swords by some other technique, more God-Learnerish, such as by chipping off little pieces of the Sword God and thus weakening death (perhaps Resurrections were less common before this time?) NOTE: I have had occasional spells, and at least one magic item crop up in my campaign which permitted person B to sack his POW for person A, but these are normally considered to be really bad things -- like unto Tapping, and not available to most folks. (The spells are from bad sects with foul restrictions, and the magic item was owned by a vampire king. The PCs stole it and ran away, trying to figure out if they should destroy it or give it to someone they trusted.) Anyway, permitting this activity changes so much of the basic nature of a campaign, that I can't accept it in a Gloranthan game -- the world would have been too much changed by it ere now. Brian J. Kondalski >how are people handling attuning of rune metal? When does an item >become un-attuned? Is it only considered "attuned" for the person >who cast the spell? Does it only become un-attuned when it breaks? I no longer "attune" rune metal. I just enchant it (though I don't play that engravings, etc., need to be done to Rune metal). It stays enchanted permanently, unless something drastic is done to it, like melting it or having an extremely hostile spell cast at it. For instance, a strong Lightning spell might disenchant a suit of aluminum (water-metal -- note that the foes of water are air and fire, both present in the Lightning). I'd only have this happen if the lightning was so strong it killed the guy inside the armor, or if the spell was specifically targeted at the armor. >Also, does anyone else have other systems of dealing with the RQ3 >fatigue and encumbrance rules? Yes. I play that CON+STR minus ENC gives you your initial fatigue. Fatigue does not affect combat at first. However, every time you roll a 96+, 10 is subtracted from your fatigue. In addition, after the first failure, you must look at your fatigue total each time you make such a failure. If it is ... < 0 subtract 10 from all skills < -10 subtract 20 from all skills < -20 subtract 30 from all skills etc. Rest after combat will restore you. It's actually pretty easy to keep track of. Let me give you an example. Harry Hoplite has a CON+STR of 21, and wears 25 ENC of gear. His starting fatigue is -4. He fights normally until he rolls his first 96-00 of the fight, at which time his fatigue (FP) drops by 10 to -14. In addition, because this is < -10 he loses 20 from all his skills (i.e., he is near exhaustion). Mark Man-and-a-Half has a CON+STR of 27, and wears 5 ENC of gear. His starting FP is 22. He fights normally until he rolls his first 96-00. His FP now drop to 12, and he suffers no penalty. With his second 96-00 roll, his FP drop to 2 -- still no penalty. On the third time he rolls 96-00, his FP go to -8 and he now has -10 from all his skills. The fourth time he rolls it, his FP go to -18, and he now has -20 from his skills; the same as Harry Hoplite suffered after only one bad roll. It's easy for players to keep track of, it makes heavy armor problematic (so there's a choice as to whether you want it or not), and it doesn't affect most short combats. Also, it's easy for GMs to fake for their bad guys. AND it has no effect on the vast majority of monsters (who wear no armor). All very good, IMO. Finally, it makes the various Fatigue-boosting spells worthwhile without needing to change their descriptions. Sandy P. ------------------------------ From: "Jim Bickmeyer" Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 23:50:21 UT Subject: Sandy's Sorcery I have made the move over to Sandy's sorcery rules. While playing them my players and I have come up with some questions. 1. Is the water produced from Evoke Water drinkable? 2. Does the Treat Wound spell cure damage or does it allow for multiple first aid attempts? Hoping that Sandy enlightens me. Jim 0- ------------------------------ From: "Jim Bickmeyer" Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 23:50:14 UT Subject: Befuddled Simon responded about the effects of befuddled and said that when a character is attacked they "immediately becomes defensive." Not possible. When a character is befuddled the only action possible is to try and shake off the effects of the spell. If they fail the attempt they can do nothing, not even dodge or parry. I do allow a befuddled character to resist spell cast at them, but at this point they resist all spells cast including any friendly spells. For role playing effect, I try to describe, to the unhappy player, what their befuddled PCs confused point of view is. Some times they are just confused and other times they have effects similar to hallucinates. Jim 0- ------------------------------ From: Glenn Glazer Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 17:51:34 -0700 Subject: Re: Using others POW for Enchantments At 09:47 08/13/96 -0700, Andrew wrote: >>Glenn Glazer says : >> >>>>If every Tom, Dick, and Harry can provide the POW for the enchantment, >>>>then the skilled enchanter will just work steadily, churning out magic >>>>items on a daily basis using the excess POW of the peasant classes. >>>>Industrial magic item manufacturing! If you assume this, then enchanted >>>>objects are going to be pretty damn common. THIS IS A MISQUOTE. Someone else wrote this, and I DISAGREED. In general, I have been agreeing with what you said in this email. Best, Glenn \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands. -Oscar Wilde /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V3 #26 ****************************** 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