From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #69 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Monday, April 12 1999 Volume 02 : Number 069 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] DMD - Ezri for RQ/Greyhawk [RQ-RULES] DMD- Hod for RQ/Greyhawk RE: [RQ-RULES] Re : A few questions [RQ-RULES] Shamans & Fetches [RQ-RULES] Re : multiple attacks whilst riding [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #68 Re: [RQ-RULES] Shamans & Fetches 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: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 17:29:06 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] DMD - Ezri for RQ/Greyhawk Gods of the Nalshaval (For those who don't remember Everret's original posts, the Nalshaval are a race of 'grey orcs', who have moved away from the barbarism of their kin, and have a small enclave in the Vesve Forest). EZRI Runes: Air, Beast, Motion Ezri is the Zavik goddess ruling Birds, Freedom, and Roaming. She is sister to Kavylus. Cult in the World Ezri embodies the freedom of flight and the endless vista of the skies. Of all the Enlightened Ones, she is perhaps Torva's staunchest ally, for without his impetuous, she'd still be trapped underground, only dreaming of the endless horizons... Ezri's High Holy Day is the 1st of Planting, with additional services on the 1st of each month. Temples to Ezri are typically semi-circular open-aired structures, built directly into cliff-faces where possible, or on hilltops where it is not. Ezri's priests wear elaborate feathered cloaks of pidgeon, crow, and bluejay. Lay Membership Requirements: Because the nalshaval are few, most of Ezri's followers are hunters, who carefully cull the local avians for food. Because they are far-ranging, they are also considered unofficial diplomats of the realm. Most of Ezri's followers are females, as well. Skills taught include Climb, Jump, Throw, Orate, Sing, Speak Languages, various Crafts, First Aid, Read/Write, Scan, Track, Ceremony, Net attack/parry, Javelin attack and Atlatl attack. Initiate Membership Requirements: Standard. Most of Ezri's Skyfree accompany their brother-initiates of Khavylus as scouts on trading missions, in addition to patrolling the borders of their mountain vale for intruders. Spirit Magic: Farsee, Light, Multimissile, Protection, and True Net. Priesthood Requirements: Standard, though open only to women. Known as the Greyfeathered, they oversee matters of community defense, inter-species relations (the only major race they've had non-lethal contact with since fleeing the Pomarj are the aaracroka, with whom they share the peaks of the Lortmil range). Virtues for this cult include Calm, Energetic, Modest and Social. Common Divine Magic: all Special Divine Magic: Call Birds, Command Sylph, Flight, Grow Wings, Mask Scent, Retrieve Javelin, Speak with Birds. Associated Gods Khavylus: provides Path Watch Savidge: provides Sureshot - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 23:10:58 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] DMD- Hod for RQ/Greyhawk Gods of the Nalshaval HOD Runes: Mastery, Stasis Hod is the god of Building and Craftsmanship. Cult in the World Once one of Gruumsh's least respected sons, among the Zavik Hod has found a place of both honor and respect. Unlike their euroz brethren, the nalshaval are builders, not destroyers, and the massive stone buildings of Vren Tog are in their own way all monuments to Hod's artifice. Hod's cult observes the 27th of Patchwall as their High Holy Day, in addition to the 14th of Goodmonth, called the Memorial, which celebrates the day the last stone was laid on Vren Tog's walls. Temples to Hod are round, single story affairs built of quarried stone, with basements and archives below. Priests of Hod wear leather aprons similar to those worn by stonemasons, but of finer quality. Lay Membership Requirements: Though primarily interested in the raising of buildings and monuments, Hod is also the patron of craftsmen, so he is revered by smiths, carpenters, and others who create finished goods. Skills taught by the cult include Orate, Speak Languages, many Crafts, Evaluate, Lores (Euroz, Mineral, Nalshaval, Plant, World), Conceal, Devise, and Ceremony. Initiate Membership Requirements: Standard. Initiates of Hod are generally journeymen in their crafts, and use their status in the cult as a form of advertisement of their skill. Spirit Magic: Ease Pain, Heat Metal, Mold Metal, Mold Stone, Repair, Stronghammer. Priesthood Requirements: Standard. Known as Masters, Hods priests are generally considered to be just that - masters of their appropriate craft. Charged with bettering the skills of those beneath them in the cult, Hod's Masters perform a valuable service to their community even when not overseeing community projects. Virtues for Hod include Calm, Creative, Energetic and Social. Common Divine Magic: all Special Divine Magic: Bless Forge, Precision (all Crafts). Associated Gods Movos: provides Shield Torva: provides Enhance Gustbran - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 08:52:07 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Re : A few questions - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >But you DO "re-learn" one-use magic each time you sacrifice for it. >Actually, I think learning is the wrong way to put it; it's more like a >one-use power that is granted to you by the diety. You don't >understand the power, just the effects and how to release it. I play Gloranthan RQ, so to me, learning a divine (or cult spirit) spell is learning what your god did in certain circumstances to overcome a foe, and re-enacting it while appealing to your God to make it happen the way it worked for them. I think a lot of divine magic actually takes more than a couple of seconds to use, but for game balance terms it's okay to let it be cast more-or-less instantly, because a high price was paid for it. Remember, divine magic is *one* way of simulating powerful magics, Hero Wars takes a completely different approach to simulating the same game world. Opinions expressed may not even be my own, let alone those of any organisations, nations, species, or schools of thought to which I may be affiliated. http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk/ Failure is not an option, it's integral to the o/s. - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.0.2i iQA/AwUBNxGoD11SBDU3jy39EQKFQwCgndcQcQTQJ1w+mwZP9NmU555QteIAn3uB FOTrc8R6pdTFTSx+CCm93ft2 =s+iC - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 09:14:06 +0100 From: simonh@msi-uk.com (Simon Hibbs) Subject: [RQ-RULES] Shamans & Fetches Bob Stancliff : > I have allowed the same thing, but under my current ruling >the fetch cannot leave contact with the shaman's body >(about four feet) without a Discorporation. In my game, >Discorporation allows the Fetch to wander the Spirit Plane >guided by the shaman's will, and the fetch does all of the >work (they are two parts of the same soul). The shaman >stays in a ritual trance and guards his own body. IMHO that's too open to abuse. There is no theoretical maximum to the POW of a Fetch, so a POW 35 fetch is an acheivable goal, though gettign up to 20 takes a _long_ time. Even so, the primary reason that shaman's maintain their own POW at a decent level is so the are survivable on the spirit plane. If you allow this, then they don't need to bother with that. A Shaman could quite happily sacrifice his POW down to 10, relying on his Fetch's POW defence bonus for protection. This would leave more POW gains available to sacrifice to the fetch, and give a much better chance of passing POW gain rolls. Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:17:56 +0100 From: simonh@msi-uk.com (Simon Hibbs) Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re : multiple attacks whilst riding SirVishal@aol.com : >I think it's an excellent idea and that you may have misinterpreted the point >a little. Since the fighting skill was developed mounted, that is the ideal >environment for a Praxian beast rider to engage in combat. However, when >dismounted, the rider will inevitably experience some awkwardness that should >translate into a penalty of some kind. Surely, walking isn't "unnatural" but >if you trained all your life on horseback or the like, wouldn't you feel at a >kind of loss on foot? That's assuming that praxians only ever practice fighting from their mounts, and only ever get experience of fighting from their mounts in the normal course of their lives. I simply don't think that's the case. There are many circumstances in which praxians might fight or hunt on foot. There are some kinds of game that can't effectively be hunted while mounted, for example fast moving game which is best approached by stealth such as small agile antelope and birds. Raiding parties will often approach an enemy camp on foot, defeat the guards and ride off with whatever animals they can steal. Fighting at night is almost impossible while mounted. Fighting to defend a camp may require fighting from foot, especialy if the enemty has surprise on their side. I might be persuaded to acept a nominal penalty for praxians fighting on foot as it is certainly not their prefered option, perhaps -10% at most. A praxian will choose to fight while mounted over fighting on foot every time, all things being equal. Often though all things are not equal and they know that. I'm mainly thinking on weapons such as the bow and swords or axes which are equaly usefull while mounted or on foot. Lance skill on the other hand is only usable when mounted, unmounted spear skill should be a completely different skill even if you're using the same actual weapon. Note that from a game ballance point of view, although Praxians get an increased base percentage in Riding skill they do not get the skill for free. It still comes out of their allowance of skill points in character generation. Burdening them with further skill costs and penalties will severely weaken praxian characters. Is that what you want to do? Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:16:58 +0100 From: Pete Nash Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #68 First off, thanks for everyone's comments. > > I have a big problem taking your suggestion that praxians are as > > uncomfortable on foot as mermen are on land. How do you think these > > > guys live their lives? Do they set up their teepees while mounted? > > Do they collect plants, weave baskets, work leather, cook food and > > make weapons while mounted? Well, just to shock you a little, mounted nomads can collect plants (reindeer people in Russia who live in forests), weave baskets, work leather and make weapons whilst in the saddle. A fully nomadic mounted culture does as many things it can whilst mounted, only stopping to make camp at night to cook and rest. Why? Because you might be spending half a day in the saddle and to do nothing but watch the world go by is a waste of useful time and sunlight. Cooking and camping obviously require a nomad to stop, but I would think they'd only do this a night fall when herding becomes a problem. As an aside, of course mounted cultures do vary in the amount of time they spend in the saddle. The richer the food supply, the more static they become. I had always imagined that Prax being so infertile forced the tribes to migrate thousands of miles to keep their herds fed. Thus they would be mounted all day. American Indians being hunter gatherers could afford to spend less time mounted and retain semi static campsites in the game rich lands of the USA. (Then again the Indians were all foot based nomads originally anyway.) So I've based the nomadic lifestyle of the Praxians on Mongols rather than American Indians. Now back to the main point I was trying to make. ;-) SirVishal: > I think it's an excellent idea and that you may have misinterpreted > the point > a little. Since the fighting skill was developed mounted, that is the > ideal > environment for a Praxian beast rider to engage in combat. However, > when > dismounted, the rider will inevitably experience some awkwardness that > should > translate into a penalty of some kind. Surely, walking isn't > "unnatural" but > if you trained all your life on horseback or the like, wouldn't you > feel at a > kind of loss on foot? This was exactly the point I was trying to make. A mounted culture learns its combat skills atop a riding beast. The difference between fighting on foot and fighting on horse is very big. All I was trying to do was come up with a simple rule to limit the mounted warrior whilst on foot, and tried to use the same mechanic as mounted combat does. I never intended a 'Perambulate' skill to affect other things which a nomad might do normally on foot, only those he exclusively does whilst mounted. Scott B. Barrie: > Mermen and Praxians could have different starting values. Say, Mermen > start at 10%, and Praxians start at 50% (pulling numbers out of a > hat). Was this a suggestion for starting values of a 'perambulate' skill? I could go with those.Rich Allen > I agree with Simon. But I think a better way to handle this > would be to > split up the skills. Mounted Spear would be a separate skill from > Spear, > and skill progression would occur separately. This means that the > riding > based cultures have better skills for combat when mounted, and lesser > combat > skills when on foot. I don't think this negates the need for > penalties for > mounted combat, just don't apply them on someone who is using a > "mounted" > version of a skill. This was something I wanted to avoid, although logically its the best thing to do. I don't like the number of different combat skills characters have to note already, let alone doubling those for mounted nomads, or mercreatures. If I used this method, then I would feel that I'd have to do the same thing for foot based characters too. So an Orlanthi Thane would need Sword + shield, and then mounted sword and shield. Otherwise there is a rule which favours PC's from mounted cultures over foot based ones. What I am trying to do is put in place a similar limit as 'Riding' for cultures who live in a different environments, but only use it to limit skills which are exclusively learned in the original environment, which are then applied outside of that. For mounted PC's, 'Perambulate' would mainly affect combat. But individual GM's could apply it to climbing, jumping or running too, to represent a mounted persons lack of experience of performing these skills since they ride all the time. With a starting percentage in 'Perambulate' of 50% as suggested by Scott above, I don't really expect it to affect mounted characters badly at all (50% being a level where you don't need to check to perform everyday actions, just stressful ones). For mercreatures again it would affect combat. But there are a plethora of other skills a sub aqua creature might be badly limited on land. Walking, jumping and climbing (why learn when you can swim?), throwing etc. I simply thought it was an elegant rule, and it is better to have a single limiting skill to improve, rather than a multitude of combat skill to improve. ;-) Pete *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 15:16:20 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Shamans & Fetches This is FYI to my players... > > In my game, Discorporation allows the Fetch to wander > > the Spirit Plane guided by the shaman's will, and the > > fetch does all of the work. Simon Hibbs wrote: > IMHO that's too open to abuse. There is no theoretical maximum to > the POW of a Fetch, so a POW 35 fetch is an acheivable goal, though > gettign up to 20 takes a _long_ time. Since large (30 - 40 POW) spirits are encountered on the spirit plane, I play that these are experienced Fetches (often hostile) or dead shaman ghosts (merged with their fetch). The Fetch is supposed to be the mirror or representation of the shaman for the spirit plane, it only makes sense that it will perform all activities needed there. The fact that it takes a long time to get a large fetch shows that it is hard to abuse. It also tends to keep my players in line when they run into a fetch that is twice their POW and they don't have nearly enough defense to fight it. > The reason shaman's maintain their own POW at a decent level > is so they are survivable on the spirit plane. It is perfectly possible to run a shaman that will never enter the spirit plane. It is slower to play, since summoning has to be used for all spirit encounters, but Discorporation is not needed. > A Shaman could quite happily sacrifice his POW down to 10, > relying on his Fetch's POW defence bonus for protection. Even under the official rules, a beginning shaman Should do this to get his fetch started at a decent level, and bring his own POW up later after the fetch is a reasonable size. It may be 2 years or more before Discorporation is marginally safe, depending on the rate of POW checks. I consider the REAL shamanic apprenticeship to start after the student has survived the Spirit Walk and has a fetch. Then the elder shaman knows that he isn't wasting time on another corpse. Having gained his fetch, the student shaman can start learning the things he had to have a fetch to understand. > This would leave more POW gains available to sacrifice to the fetch, > and give a much better chance of passing POW gain rolls. This is a good point and a legitimate worry; it has to be handled. I have stopped giving POW checks for fighting even moderately weaker spirits... if it isn't a fair fight, then there is no gain. If you drop your POW to 10, you may make half of your POW checks, but you will get less checks to test since the fetch does not help with spell attacks (this applies to everyone). Also, a lower POW will make summoning a chore since you will have such a small attack chance. I suspect that the reality is that a shaman will keep his POW over 12 to have a decent attack and if he gives all of his POW to his fetch, then he will never make enchantments or get rune spells (spirit cults, Daka Fal, etc). This is a trade-off. I didn't make this change for game balance, I made it because it made more sense, but I do think it balances shamen better vs. priests and sorcerers (What is the stacking limit on Shield? How much Damage Boost can you put on your __, __, __, etc?). All shamen have to work with is Spirit Magic, bound spirits, and their Fetch. Shamen are Rune Level characters who are the anchor for an entire branch of magic, they deserve to be more powerful than listed. This also makes it clear why spirits such as Oakfed can be forced to perform a task by an experienced shaman. By the time a shaman gets a fetch big enough to defeat Oakfed, he Should be hero-questing, or he should be the shaman to the High Khan of the Tribe, or something similar. So far, I have played the shaman hero-quests as being in discorporate form; it has been rather humbling to the player for the PC to meet a god while not having a body or defense support (that goes away during Discorporation). Bob Stancliff (stanclif@ufl.edu) http://commnections.com/upgrades *************************************************************************** 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 V2 #69 ************************************ *************************************************************************** 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 Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. 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.