From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #121 Reply-To: runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Friday, July 30 1999 Volume 02 : Number 121 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic RE: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic Re: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic Re: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic [RQ-RULES] Conversion to RQ [RQ-RULES] Enchantment Gluttony [RQ-RULES] RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #120 Re: [RQ-RULES] Enchantment Gluttony RE: [RQ-RULES] Enchantment Gluttony [RQ-RULES] Currencies Re: [RQ-RULES] Conversion to RQ 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: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 01:02:53 -0600 From: "Emmanuel Ponette" Subject: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic Woaw, a treasure tables. I feel like an info sucking vampire, but is it possible to have a copy of treasure tables. It could be useful someday. Cheers Manu >>> "Hibbs, Philip" 07/28 5:22 >>> >Another way I limit the purchase of Magic items is to raise >the "cost" of power. I put a basic price tag of 2000 L per >point, though if you want more than a point, the cost is >probably going to double. I only very rarely allow purchase of magic, and if I do, I usually make a few of rolls on my treasure tables to see what is available. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 08:37:27 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic >Woaw, a treasure tables. I feel like an info sucking vampire, >but is it possible to have a copy of treasure tables. It could >be useful someday. They're on my web site. 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. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 10:40:23 EDT From: MurfNMurf@aol.com Subject: Re: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic me too!me too! treasure tables are great! -Ken- *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 10:41:59 EDT From: MurfNMurf@aol.com Subject: Re: Objet : RE: [RQ-RULES] Buying Magic web site?whats a web site?lol! *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 09:00:50 -0600 From: "Emmanuel Ponette" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Conversion to RQ Hi, I finally managed to take some times to read the TotRM 18 and the Stormwalk Path. I'm playing RQ3 and it seems that this adventure was written for another game. Could somebody help me converting it to RQ3. Thanks Cheers Manu *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 13:37:00 -0400 (EDT) From: simon_hibbs@lycosmail.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Enchantment Gluttony Nikk, Here are a few questions that might help define the nature of the probelm you've got and how to come to a solution. How many commercial magicians are there within easy reach of your player characters? What are their typical POWs? How much of their POW is a typical commercial sorcerer likely to be prepared to use up to make custom enchantments? Will a magician with, for example 17 POW, charge simply five times the ammount for 5 POW as for 1 POW? Eventualy, unless there is an unlimited supply of highly skilled commercial sorcerers, all prepared to use up high levels of personal POW for a fixed rate, the supply of available POW is going to start drying up. Prices will rise, especialy if there are people arround willing to pay huge ammounts of money on enchantments. Just apply a little basic economics. As a secondary point, where is all this wealth coming from? Mediaeval and ancient societies weren't cash economies. Even with a cash economy, there is a finite supply of cash money. Especialy if you're considering a single source of coin (royal mint?). There are also now a large number of very wealthy sorcerers. As they become more wealthy, their incentive to sell personal POW for cash diminishes. Their ability to buy other good rises and so prices on some commodities will rise. >I've charged a differing price based upon what you are buying. Strengthening >enchantments pre-made for you (in other words, not tatoos, but just items >that have been plundred and sold over the years) are about 2000. Well, I'm afraid if you've built this house for yourself I'm afraid you'll probably just have to live in it. How do these enchantments work? The point of a strengthening enchantment is that the thing being enchanted gets the HPs. How deos an HP enchanted thingy give anyone higher HPs? Surely all it takes is for someone to take them off him? If he's befuddled, posessed, etc that's not hard. If I knew someone was walkign around with over a dozen POW worth of enchantments he'd be a very tempting target.... >he country my PCs play in has 300,000 people in it. About 10% of those are >n the Wizard Caste, which makes 30,000 potential enchanters. 30,000? Bloodey hell! Just think about that. One in ten of the population have at least moderately high grade magical powers. What proportion of these guys are scribes and administrators? How many such characters does a mediaeval society need? What do they all do? Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 21:00:37 -0400 From: Andrew Barton Subject: [RQ-RULES] RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #120 > gorgons are immune to each other visage In the original myth there was only one Gorgon in the world, so the question didn't arise. But she was certainly vulnerable to her -own- visage, since that's how Perseus slew her. Andrew *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 00:46:45 +0100 From: "Nikk Effingham" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Enchantment Gluttony Simon raises a few good points about RQ/Gloranthan socieites. Be warned, I am not prepared to get into a Magical Demographics debate ; ) >How many commercial magicians are there within easy >reach of your player characters? What are their typical >POWs? It is less the commercial magicians than the magical items just floating around. This is not to be flippant, it is as if there is a hoard of magical items everywhere, but Glorantha, certainly as I see it, is a pretty magical place. There are just lots of magical items around, and the Goldentongue traders and Wizard Caste in Otkorion do make profit off of this. There is a chance, every game session, of a magical item you want becoming available if, and only if, you happen to be in one of the two cities where they are sold, my characters are in a metropolitan area and this is where the best business is to be done. Normally magical items only have 1 POW invested in them (70% chance of that) but sometimes more (with the highest being 7 POW if you roll 99-00 on 1d100, which I see as being reasonably fair). Most magical items have only a 20% chance of being available when you want to buy them. Basically those are the guidelines I use for purchasing magical items. >How much of their POW is a typical commercial sorcerer >likely to be prepared to use up to make custom >enchantments? Precious little. Hiring a sorceror to do a task is possible about 5% of the time. When my PCs actively search for one, they have never found one. >Will a magician with, for example 17 POW, charge >simply five times the ammount for 5 POW as for 1 POW? Good point, increasing the cost for higher POW enchantments seems reasonably common sense, but at 2 thousand pennies a piece my characters can rarely afford anything above 1 or 2 POW anyhow, so this is less than a problem. >Eventualy, unless there is an unlimited supply of >highly skilled commercial sorcerers, all prepared to >use up high levels of personal POW for a fixed rate, >the supply of available POW is going to start drying >up. Prices will rise, especialy if there are people >arround willing to pay huge ammounts of money on >enchantments. > >Just apply a little basic economics. I would already have ruled that Str. Enchantments would be unavailable for a time to come, to somehow make up for my previous mistake of letting him buy a few in one go. >As a secondary point, where is all this wealth coming >from? Mediaeval and ancient societies weren't cash >economies. Even with a cash economy, there is a finite >supply of cash money. Especialy if you're considering >a single source of coin (royal mint?). My characters sometimes get about 1,000 pennies a piece for an adventure, when they're lucky. But they have recently hunted down and killed a dragon (which shocked me) and took it's hoard and also killed a powerful being in my campaign and received a reward for recovering certain items (an even bigger shock, but they did it and deserved the reward). There are not millions of pennies knocking about my game. Mind you, after seeing some of the cash in Apple Lane or Snake Pipe Hollow there could be an argument for me being stingy : ) >There are also now a large number of very wealthy >sorcerers. As they become more wealthy, their incentive >to sell personal POW for cash diminishes. Their ability >to buy other good rises and so prices on some >commodities will rise. Again, it's more the wealthy traders trading the magical items plundered from other people. Good use of user conditions could rule that out (can't sell something you can't use) but user conditions are rare in my game, and always have been (just not worth the POW : ) Perhaps something I should keep in mind for a future campaign : ) >Well, I'm afraid if you've built this house for yourself >I'm afraid you'll probably just have to live in it. Oh, I've learnt the true nature of that comment quite well : ) >How do these enchantments work? The point of a >strengthening enchantment is that the thing being >enchanted gets the HPs. How deos an HP enchanted thingy >give anyone higher HPs? Surely all it takes is for >someone to take them off him? If he's befuddled, >posessed, etc that's not hard. If I knew someone >was walkign around with over a dozen POW worth of >enchantments he'd be a very tempting target.... General power hunting bounty hunters aren't a problem to my PCs, after all the people who just want them dead, dead, dead are bad enough. I _could_ think of many ways to disempower the character quickly, some plausible even, but he _has_ done something to get these enchantments. He didn't just wander across them, he went through real effort, and I feel somewhat that I am cheating him just to remove them from him. The problem is more general - in your common and everyday garden brawl with the creatures I've placed in the game, which let's say happens once or twice a session, he is just silly to fight against. Very silly. With that many hit points he is just rock hard, I was more worried about the any rules I may have missed which would limit his powers and bring him back down to a more playable level. >>he country my PCs play in has 300,000 people in it. About 10% of those are >>n the Wizard Caste, which makes 30,000 potential enchanters. > >30,000? Bloodey hell! Just think about that. One in >ten of the population have at least moderately high >grade magical powers. What proportion of these guys >are scribes and administrators? How many such characters >does a mediaeval society need? What do they all do? I reckoned Oktkorion as havinmg 70% Farmers, 5% Lords, 10% Wizards and 10% Warriors. A, not unrealistic, assessment from my best guesstimation. I think a good half or more are scribes and general administrators, a quarter are full time sorcerors in one capacity or another, and another quarter are acolytes and priests for the Orlanthi temples. That leaves 15,000 people capable of making magical items. Supply and demand. The Church needs money, the people need enchantments. I think some, certainly not a large percentage, make a magical item now and again and pay it as tithing to the Church who sell it off on the market for good, hard cash. As a 1 POW magical item brings in a new house or piece of land for the Church, this isn't unreasonable. And what do all the Wizards do? Worry about the trolls from the west, the barbarians from the north, the Telmori from the northeast, the evil Tapping Galvosti in the west and the scary monster lands of Tinaros in the south. I think this is a fair assessment, the society does not have wizards and warriors popping up all over the place, but has enough to handle the domestic problems that it has with it's neighbours. All IMO, Nikk *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 10:53:58 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Enchantment Gluttony >30,000? Bloodey hell! Just think about that. One in >ten of the population have at least moderately high >grade magical powers. What proportion of these guys >are scribes and administrators? How many such characters >does a mediaeval society need? What do they all do? Mr Shiny, he say: > [Sandy Petersen, Mon 20/04/98 16:48] > Figure a second-rate hedge-wizard needs an income of maybe 10 > guilders a day and has a Presence of 25 or so. He could rent out his > abilities at the rate of 2 Presence for 1 guilder for 1 day and make > an easy living just maintaining spells. Thus if your knight wanted a > Bless Bow 6 (say), it would cost him 3 guilders a day, probably > payable seasonally for 164 guilders a season or 882 a year -- no doubt > a bulk discount could be arranged of 800 a year or something. I don't > think that sounds all that unreasonable. > Of course, this system of rent-a-sorcerer would probably only > work for the Rokari. Other social systems either have much rarer > sorcerers (Hrestoli), or their sorcerers have too much to do > (Stygian), but the Rokari have impoverished sorcerers sitting around > in monasteries just looking for things to do. That's spellcasting, not enchanting, but it's an interesting point and worth sharing. 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. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 14:11:50 +0100 From: aevans5@csc.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Currencies Reading through the RQ3 rule book in the odd spare minute, I notice that although there are world chapters for both a European and Gloranthan setting, all the monetary values in the Player's Book and elsewhere are quoted in Pennies. for a Gloranthan campaign, is anybody able to suggest a reasonable conversion factor to Wheels/Lunars/Clacks? I was thinking about a one-to-one conversion of pennies to Lunars, but being a bit of a novice to RQ, I really don't know what a Lunar is supposed to be worth. Can anyone make any suggestions to enlighten me? Regards, Andy. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 14:43:46 +0100 From: "MHopkins" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Conversion to RQ From Manu: > > I finally managed to take some times to read the TotRM 18 and the Stormwalk Path. I'm playing RQ3 and it seems that this adventure was written for another game. Could somebody help me converting it to RQ3. > It's written for Pendragon Pass (PDP) - a Gloranthafied version of Pendragon (mainly in the magic system). The most recent version of the rules were published in Encounter 1 and are also available at David Dunham's home page: http://www.pensee.com/dunham/pdp.html As Pendragon uses d20 instead of d%, the easiest way to convert it in broad terms is to multiply all skills by 5 to give you a percentage value. As there are only weapon skills in Pendragon, attack/parry is not subdivided. Shields are also not given their own skill. Give NPCs equal attack and parry skills, or dodge if it is more appropriate. Work out RQ hit points and locations in the usual way, convert armour, weapons and other equipment to their closes RQ equivalent. Spirit magic spells have the same names in PDP, but variable pointage is handled differently. It is easiest to assign suitable point values for them according to you best judgement. IIRC divine magic spells are generally the same as in RQ3. PDP has no INT stat. It has a memory(ize?) skill which is similar (it governs the number of spells you can remember among other things). You will have to assign this yourself using best judgement or random rolls as you see fit. You can ignore any references to personality traits/passions (unless you have seen and RQ version of the system). I hope this is of some help! Meirion *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #121 ************************************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. 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