From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #60 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Wednesday, April 8 1998 Volume 01 : Number 060 RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Re: Dart Wars & Heroquests [RQ-RULES] Fwd: House rules for shields Re: [RQ-RULES] Re: Dart Wars & Heroquests Re: [RQ-RULES] Re: Dart Wars & Heroquests 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. 4. No anonymous posting, please. Don't say something unless you're ready to stand by it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 23:53:29 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: Dart Wars & Heroquests Leon Kirshtein wrote: > > Nice summary of the Dart War action. I dare you to summarize and > explain my run. So be it then. :) After my Dart War scenario, Leon ran what amounted to a Heroquest for his friend Scott and I. My character was an amphibious semi-broo acolyte of Yanafal Tarnils, initiate of Ragnaglar & Thed, with a grudge against Thanatari, IIRC. Scott was running a former human now embodied disease spirit/broo, Sword of Yanafal, and initiate or acolyte of at least half a dozen other chaos cults. The action began at the remains of a decimated Thanatari ceremony. A gateway to the heroplane opens, and my character follows his Sword within, pausing only to down some chaos apples (I lucked; three beneficial features) and to tank up on magic. The outskirts of (Leon's) Heroplane is known as the Plane of Conflict, where my character faced a berserk dark troll follower of Zorak Zoran, whom I defeated by spitting on him (I had acid spittle worth 6d6 damage at the time). My actions there drew the attention of Pocharngo, who gifted me with a reuseable Wither spell. Scott's Sword faced a female Yelm Imperator, who fell to the disease spirit bound into his sword, which caught the attention of the Void, causing the sword to manifest the Void whenever it killed something (Leon kept shaking his head and vowing he'd regret that sword; see below). Once on the Heroplane proper, we sought out the realm of Malia. (Note: Scott's character was also a Priest of Ragnaglar; he was seeking one of Malia's daughters to take as a mistress, step one in his goal of re-creating the devil and thereby ruling the world). Malia received us, and granted Scott's request, directing him towards an imprisoned Daughter on another mundane plane. When Malia addressed my character, I expressed my desire to bring low the Thanatari who had enslaved my people, and, upon joining her cult as an initiate, was made a carrier of a disease that would ONLY affect Thanatari heads, and that upon killing them, would free the spirits trapped within, not turn them into head ghosts. Setting off on the trail of the Daughter, we found ourselves once more in the 'real world', We soon met a mounted knight who, upon seeing us, swore that we were an abomination that must be wiped from the face of the world. When he saw Scott's sword, he swore an oath to destroy it, and us, then and there. I spat at his horse as Scott fought him sword to sword; a blow from the horse stunned me, while Scott's sword shattered that of the knight, drew the sword's spirit into the void, followed by the knight's, and very nearly by the knight's God's soul, as well. We then camped for several days to recover spells and whatnot. Setting out upon the path again, we soon came to a citadel ruled by various species of dragonmen (the world was Krynn, the 'men' draconians, if you must know) and permitted to enter on the oddity of our appearance (Scott's character had the head of a dragon, frex.). Within, we made our case that we sought someone imprisoned there, and after some initial misunderstandings with the draconians, established that their most valuable prisoner was not the one we sought. So I scanned the reception hall with Soul Sight... Upon doing so, I noticed that the ice throne the local lord sat upon housed the soul of... something. When I brought this fact to my leader's attention, the dragon who had thusfar listened impassively to our dialogue with his representatives went berserk. In the ensuing battle, I endevoured to get the dragon to bite me (I had acidic blood, as well) but the dragon bit my head off... oops. Scott dispatched the beast quickly enough to rescue me, and we set about freeing whatever was frozen into the throne. The Daughter turned out to be a disease spirit that affected only dragons... and as her parting gift, she slew every draconian who arrived to prevent us from leaving, which we did, with great haste. And there ended our Heroquest; the Priest of Ragnaglar has his Mistress of Malia, and Necrot the Semi-Broo was a carrier of Thatatari Head Blight.... but another Heroquest would be needed to embody that disease in spirit form... *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 06:58:31 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] Fwd: House rules for shields This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------466F593F4D2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: ppofandt@ebsworth.com.au Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:33:47 +1000 Subject: House rules for shields This is a little off-topic for the current discussion on Shield use. However... In order to simplify (and speed up) combat IMG, I've ruled that any successful parry with a shield or otherwise, blocks ALL damage. (or deflects it) A special parry is required to fully block a special hit, same as a critical for critical. (similar to the dodge rules) A special parry vs. a crit. hit results in a normal hit as most of the force of the blow was deflected. The introduction of these rules speeded up combat enormously IMG (since if parried, damage and location were not rolled), adding to the enjoyment of the game (Less bogging down into hours of combat playing). In order to differentiate between the different sizes of shields, I emposed a shield parry skill bonus/penalty. The parry skill was for a standard sized shield (round shield). Smaller shields gave penalties to use; larger, bonuses. Buckler use was, I think, at -20%, Tower shield was at +30% The %s were based on the difference in armour points. Alternately, the wielder could shield a number of contiguous locations on his/her body, following standard rules. This all worked fine, with the exception of knockback rules. Something I regret loosing. Since no damage was rolled on a successful parry, no knockback check was rolled. I could rationalise that the blow was deflected, not blocked but these becomes at creature (e.g. Giant) who's blow will nearly always knockback. I've yet to come up with a graceful way to include knockback checking. Any suggestions? Paul. From talmeta@bellatlantic.net Wed Apr 8 01:32:30 1998 Received: from Mithril.MPGN.COM (Mithril.MPGN.COM [206.66.87.8]) by phaser.Showcase.MPGN.COM (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id BAA25034 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 01:32:29 -0400 Received: from oznet14.ozemail.com.au (oznet14.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.120]) by Mithril.MPGN.COM (8.6.9/8.6.9) with ESMTP id BAA29798 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 01:32:27 -0400 From: ppofandt@ebsworth.com.au Received: from ebsworth.com.au (ebsbne1.ozemail.com.au [203.108.63.104]) by oznet14.ozemail.com.au (8.8.4/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA12159 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:32:22 +1000 (EST) Received: by ebsworth.com.au(Lotus SMTP MTA v1.06 (346.8 3-18-1997)) id 4A2565E0.001E90D4 ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:33:51 +1000 X-Lotus-FromDomain: EBSWORTH To: runequest-rules@MPGN.COM Message-ID: <4A2565E0.001D32D4.00@ebsworth.com.au> Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:33:47 +1000 Subject: House rules for shields Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII This is a little off-topic for the current discussion on Shield use. However... In order to simplify (and speed up) combat IMG, I've ruled that any successful parry with a shield or otherwise, blocks ALL damage. (or deflects it) A special parry is required to fully block a special hit, same as a critical for critical. (similar to the dodge rules) A special parry vs. a crit. hit results in a normal hit as most of the force of the blow was deflected. The introduction of these rules speeded up combat enormously IMG (since if parried, damage and location were not rolled), adding to the enjoyment of the game (Less bogging down into hours of combat playing). In order to differentiate between the different sizes of shields, I emposed a shield parry skill bonus/penalty. The parry skill was for a standard sized shield (round shield). Smaller shields gave penalties to use; larger, bonuses. Buckler use was, I think, at -20%, Tower shield was at +30% The %s were based on the difference in armour points. Alternately, the wielder could shield a number of contiguous locations on his/her body, following standard rules. This all worked fine, with the exception of knockback rules. Something I regret loosing. Since no damage was rolled on a successful parry, no knockback check was rolled. I could rationalise that the blow was deflected, not blocked but these becomes at creature (e.g. Giant) who's blow will nearly always knockback. I've yet to come up with a graceful way to include knockback checking. Any suggestions? Paul. - --------------466F593F4D2-- *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 08:01:38 PDT From: "Leon Kirshtein" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Re: Dart Wars & Heroquests Some explanations are needed. > >After my Dart War scenario, Leon ran what amounted to a Heroquest for >his friend Scott and I. Scott Krepps is my brother in-law and is inocent of all char... Ah, he can take the blame for this as well as Tal and myself. My character was an amphibious semi-broo acolyte >of Yanafal Tarnils, initiate of Ragnaglar & Thed, with a grudge against >Thanatari, IIRC. Scott was running a former human now embodied disease >spirit/broo, Sword of Yanafal, and initiate or acolyte of at least half >a dozen other chaos cults. Priest of Ragnaglar, Acolyte of Yanafal, Initiate of Malia (later became an Associated Priest) > >The action began at the remains of a decimated Thanatari ceremony. From a former run, where I killed the rest of the party running at the time. The ceremony was taking place at a Chaos Holy Ground and was a success which opened the gate while the fight was going on. >A >gateway to the heroplane opens, and my character follows his Sword >within, pausing only to down some chaos apples (I lucked; three >beneficial features) and to tank up on magic. I'll say three features, all benefitial. Blood turn to acid, 6pt skin, (i don't remember the third of hand) > >The outskirts of (Leon's) Heroplane is known as the Plane of Conflict, >where my character faced a berserk dark troll follower of Zorak Zoran, >whom I defeated by spitting on him (I had acid spittle worth 6d6 damage >at the time). Tal's original chaos feature was acid spit 4 time per day for 3d6. This was enhanced, as well as the other chaos features, through one use divine magic from Ragnaglar, a spell called Strenght of Chaos (this doubles the effect of of all chaos features). Considering the type of features this character had, it made him a very formatible foe indeed. My actions there drew the attention of Pocharngo, who >gifted me with a reuseable Wither spell. Scott's Sword faced a female >Yelm Imperator, who fell to the disease spirit bound into his sword, Scott had a Soul Waste spirit bound into his sword. The fight started with him using his favorate magical scimitar, but did not go to weel for Scott. She managed to disable his left arm (sword arm) and almost nocked him of the Hero Path. At this point he dropped his shield and grabbed the "sword". A successful hit did just enough damage to penetrate, however five or six rolls under the spirits power to inflict disease upon the Yelm Imperator destroyed her soul. On the mundane plane she would probably just be very sick (terminal case) but on the Hero Path no such luck. >which caught the attention of the Void, causing the sword to manifest >the Void whenever it killed something (Leon kept shaking his head and >vowing he'd regret that sword; see below). I am still regreting this! > >Once on the Heroplane proper, we sought out the realm of Malia. (Note: >Scott's character was also a Priest of Ragnaglar; he was seeking one of >Malia's daughters to take as a mistress, step one in his goal of >re-creating the devil and thereby ruling the world). Malia received us, >and granted Scott's request, directing him towards an imprisoned >Daughter on another mundane plane. When Malia addressed my character, I >expressed my desire to bring low the Thanatari who had enslaved my >people, and, upon joining her cult as an initiate, was made a carrier of >a disease that would ONLY affect Thanatari heads, and that upon killing >them, would free the spirits trapped within, not turn them into head >ghosts. Still need to write this up. > >Setting off on the trail of the Daughter, we found ourselves once more >in the 'real world', We soon met a mounted knight who, upon seeing us, >swore that we were an abomination that must be wiped from the face of >the world. When he saw Scott's sword, he swore an oath to destroy it, >and us, then and there. Wouldn't anybody? > >I spat at his horse as Scott fought him sword to sword; a blow from the >horse stunned me, while Scott's sword shattered that of the knight, drew >the sword's spirit into the void, followed by the knight's, and very >nearly by the knight's God's soul, as well. The kinght was a paladin with an intelegent Holy Avenger. He an the sword were one, which proved to be his undoing. PS another series of extrimely lucky rolls by Scott. > We then camped for several days to recover spells and whatnot. > >Setting out upon the path again, we soon came to a citadel ruled by >various species of dragonmen (the world was Krynn, the 'men' draconians, >if you must know) and permitted to enter on the oddity of our appearance >(Scott's character had the head of a dragon, frex.). A blessing/curse from Ragnaglar Within, we made our >case that we sought someone imprisoned there, and after some initial >misunderstandings with the draconians, established that their most >valuable prisoner was not the one we sought. The draconians thought that the prisoner in question was a princess who was in their possesion. They were gearing up to take on the rescue party which they expected to arrive at any time. Lead by a certain paladin ... >So I scanned the reception >hall with Soul Sight... > >Upon doing so, I noticed that the ice throne the local lord sat upon >housed the soul of... something. When I brought this fact to my leader's >attention, the dragon who had thusfar listened impassively to our >dialogue with his representatives went berserk. The dragon was white, and started breathing ASAP, but the characters managed to avoid the worst of its attack. Not so the draconians on the other hand. > >In the ensuing battle, I endevoured to get the dragon to bite me (I had >acidic blood, as well) but the dragon bit my head off... oops. He rushed forward with a cry of 'Eat me' and did not even bother to parry. The damage from the acid blood howether, did distract the dragon greatly (3d6 to the head hurts you know) >Scott >dispatched the beast quickly enough to rescue me, A lucky (critical) blow to the abdomen, followed by another low roll to take his soul. >and we set about >freeing whatever was frozen into the throne. > >The Daughter turned out to be a disease spirit that affected only >dragons... and as her parting gift, she slew every draconian who arrived >to prevent us from leaving, which we did, with great haste. She is the source of all dragon, reptile, and dino diseases and is the major reson, IMW, while they did not get sick. Till now at least. > >And there ended our Heroquest; the Priest of Ragnaglar has his Mistress >of Malia, and Necrot the Semi-Broo was a carrier of Thatatari Head >Blight.... but another Heroquest would be needed to embody that disease >in spirit form... Yeh, this run left more threads to follow up on then any other five quest I have ran. Leon Kirshtein PS Thanks to Scott and Tal for a good time. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 13:55:30 PDT From: "Leon Kirshtein" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Re: Dart Wars & Heroquests My first reply did not seem to make it. So here again: Some explanations and corrections are in order. >Leon wrote: >> >> Nice summary of the Dart War action. I dare you to summarize and >> explain my run. > >So be it then. :) I should have know better then to ask. > >After my Dart War scenario, Leon ran what amounted to a Heroquest for >his friend Scott Scott is my brother-in-law and is totally blameless for th .... Ah, what the heck it is all his fault. >and I. My character was an amphibious semi-broo acolyte >of Yanafal Tarnils, initiate of Ragnaglar & Thed, with a grudge against Thanatari, IIRC. Vorluti/Broo semi aquatic strain that seems to breed true and is not as virulant as regular broo. The bit on Thanatari is cultural, his tribe was the major prey for the local temple. Tal chose as gifts/geases: 1) double damage to head/wear no armor on head 2) chaos feature -> spit acid 3d6 4/day >Scott was running a former human, now embodied disease >spirit/broo, Sword of Yanafal, and initiate or acolyte of at least half >a dozen other chaos cults. Technically not a broo, but an embodied disease spirit with a head of a dragon. Acolyte of Yanafal, priest of Ragnaglar, associate priest of Malia. > >The action began at the remains of a decimated Thanatari ceremony. A This is where the previous campaing ended, with 90% of the former party dead. Scotts character being the leader of that group and the lone survivor of the PCs >gateway to the heroplane opens, The gate/path was opened during the batle by the Thanatari, but who were unable to take advantage of it. >and my character follows his Sword >within, pausing only to down some chaos apples (I lucked; three >beneficial features) and to tank up on magic. Very lucky rolls here. All benificial: 6AP skin, acid for blood substitution, and (I can remember the last, i do not think he used it) On top of this he cast a one use Ragnaglar divine spell 'Strengh of Chaos', which doubles all chaos features. This made him into a very good semblance of a tank. > >The outskirts of (Leon's) Heroplane is known as the Plane of Conflict, >where my character faced a berserk dark troll follower of Zorak Zoran, >whom I defeated by spitting on him (I had acid spittle worth 6d6 damage >at the time). My actions there drew the attention of Pocharngo, who >gifted me with a reuseable Wither spell. Scott's Sword faced a female >Yelm Imperator, who fell to the disease spirit bound into his sword, >which caught the attention of the Void, causing the sword to manifest >the Void whenever it killed something (Leon kept shaking his head and >vowing he'd regret that sword; see below). The fight started badly for Scott. He was wounded in his sword arm and drooped his favorate magical scimitar and then had to drop his shield to use 'The Sword' in his off hand. 'The Sword' was just a standard iron bastard sword with a Soul Waste spirit bound to a matrix in it. Scott managed to nick the Imperator, and then it happened. Scott rolls five rolls under the spirits power in an attempt to infect the Yelmite. Under the normal circumstances she would have contracted terminal case of the disease, but this is the Hero Plane, ergo no time, and her soul is destroyed. And yes, I do regret the whole thing. > >Once on the Heroplane proper, we sought out the realm of Malia. (Note: >Scott's character was also a Priest of Ragnaglar; he was seeking one of >Malia's daughters to take as a mistress, step one in his goal of >re-creating the devil and thereby ruling the world). Personally I think he is sick in the head, but that is probably my sister's fault. > Malia received us, >and granted Scott's request, directing him towards an imprisoned >Daughter on another mundane plane. When Malia addressed my character, I >expressed my desire to bring low the Thanatari who had enslaved my >people, and, upon joining her cult as an initiate, was made a carrier of >a disease that would ONLY affect Thanatari heads, and that upon killing As a far as he knows ... >them, would free the spirits trapped within, not turn them into head >ghosts. > >Setting off on the trail of the Daughter, we found ourselves once more >in the 'real world', We soon met a mounted knight who, upon seeing us, >swore that we were an abomination that must be wiped from the face of >the world. When he saw Scott's sword, he swore an oath to destroy it, >and us, then and there. As any right thinking paladin should do. > >I spat at his horse as Scott fought him sword to sword; a blow from the >horse stunned me, while Scott's sword shattered that of the knight, A very bad thing since it was an intelegent 'Holy Avenger' and spiritually linked to the paladin > drew >the sword's spirit into the void, By succeding in POW vs POW against the 'Holy Avenger' >followed by the knight's, By succeding in POW vs POW against the paladin and very >nearly by the knight's God's soul, as well. If he had done this (would have needed a roll of 01 followed by 01) Krynn would have had an opening for Paladine's spot and the Dragon Lance war would have gone very differently, IMW. >We then camped for several >days to recover spells and whatnot. > I play you can repray for used divine magic in a Sanctified area yo setup. >Setting out upon the path again, we soon came to a citadel ruled by >various species of dragonmen (the world was Krynn, the 'men' draconians, >if you must know) and permitted to enter on the oddity of our appearance >(Scott's character had the head of a dragon, frex.). Within, we made our >case that we sought someone imprisoned there, and after some initial >misunderstandings with the draconians, established that their most >valuable prisoner was not the one we sought. Lots of laughts here, as they almost had to fight for the princess the draconians were holding before they realised they were talking about different things. >So I scanned the reception >hall with Soul Sight... > >Upon doing so, I noticed that the ice throne the local lord sat upon >housed the soul of... something. When I brought this fact to my leader's >attention, the dragon who had thusfar listened impassively to our >dialogue with his representatives went berserk. > The white dragon Cry'Stal'Racts was the guardian of this prison. A mostly cushie assigment for the knowledge of that was traped here was known only to a few dragons. His intial attack however did not cause much damage to the questors, although it did wipeout the nearby draconians. >In the ensuing battle, I endevoured to get the dragon to bite me (I had >acidic blood, as well) but the dragon bit my head off... oops. I belive Tal's batle cry was "Eat me.", and he did not even choose to parry. A bad decission on his part since I rolled a special. The acid damage to the dragons head (from blood) did cause the dragon a lot of pain and a distracted him, which lead to his death. >Scott >dispatched the beast quickly enough to rescue me, and we set about >freeing whatever was frozen into the throne. A special to the belly killed the dragon and a successful POW vs POW drained his soul. > >The Daughter turned out to be a disease spirit that affected only >dragons... and as her parting gift, she slew every draconian who arrived >to prevent us from leaving, which we did, with great haste. > She is the source of all disease which effects dragons, reptiles, and dinosource, IMW. While she was imprisoned no wyrm or reptile had to fear sickness. >And there ended our Heroquest; the Priest of Ragnaglar has his Mistress >of Malia, and Necrot the Semi-Broo was a carrier of Thatatari Head >Blight.... but another Heroquest would be needed to embody that disease >in spirit form... > This quest spawned more threads for my campaing than I care to mention. Easily more than any five other quest I ran. If anyone has any questions or comments please post them and I will be happy to answer on the list or of. Leon Kirshtein PS Thanks Tal and Scott for a good time. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #60 ************************************ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Avalon Hill Games. 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