From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #23 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 Monday, March 13 2000 Volume 03 : Number 023 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Sheet opinions, please? [RQ-RULES] RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #22 Re: [RQ-RULES] Speeding up combat Re: [RQ-RULES] Speeding up combat Re: [RQ-RULES] Speeding up combat 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, 9 Mar 2000 17:46:57 -0500 From: Andrew Barton Subject: [RQ-RULES] Sheet opinions, please? There are a few ways I've found electronic aids useful when running/playing runequests. One was when we were throwing a large number of disruptions around and a player automated the die-rolling on his Psion - he programmed it in about two minutes, using a spreadsheet, I think. The other was in working out experience ticks for a sorceror character. Because RQ3 sorcery tracks experience in each spell separately, I was making an awful lot of rolls. What I did was out the character sheet on computer, then print out a fresh copy each time the character's stats changed (ah, that's a third thing the computer was useful for). I'd worked out in advance the result of the next ten experience checks for each spell, and just crossed off a number each time one came up. Of these three examples, only one requires using the computer -during- the game. 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: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 17:46:55 -0500 From: Andrew Barton Subject: [RQ-RULES] RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #22 > Read Sandy's Grimoire, available on my web site. Excerpt: > "Summoning Halls are common in Fonrit and the West. Several magicians each cast 3-4 points of area enchantment, with appropriate spell matrices set to attack disembodied spirits within the enchantment. Hrestoli Colleges of Magic use Drain Soul matrices. All colleges use Dominate spell matrices. This makes the hall relatively safe and convenient to do summonings in." Those Dominate matrices need to have enough intensity to deal with the nastiest creatures you expect to turn up after a fumble. (It's the intensity that has to overcome the intruder, not the caster's MP, however you calculate that for an area enchantment). Say 40 intensity, times the number of species you expect to have to deal with? Even linking them into a common area enchantment and magic point storage system, that's a pretty big investment. The Hrestoli would have a -huge- advantage here, because Drain Soul works on any species. Cast a few of those, then you only need a fairly weak Dominate. In my Glorantha, the usual thing is to have a couple of wizards on standby with a rack of Dominate wands. They supply most of the needed Intensity with their own free INT. What would be useful is a set of area enchantments that detect what species an intruder is, so they know which wands to use. Like most of these calculations, the results are extremely sensitive to how you interpret the RQ enchantment rules. Come to think of it, some of the older wordings of the Multispell rule would let you multispell all the Dominates together, and only charge you with the Intensity once. The casting time would get rather long, though. Once you have dominated an intruder, my technique is to command it to put all but one magic point into storage items, then cast another dominate with lower intensity and long duration - long enough to build a binding object. 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: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 22:13:40 EST From: SPerrin@aol.com Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Speeding up combat In a message dated 3/9/2000 9:04:17 AM Pacific Standard Time, stancliff@ccgnv.net writes: << Generally you start by dumping Statement of Intent and resolving all of each char's actions as you come to them. To allow for multiple actions in a round you might do events before SR6 and go around again for events SR6 or later. This 2-pass resolution system reduces the importance of SR's since they only exist to resolve who acts first, second, etc. >> Oh yeah, this is the other thing I dropped a long time ago. Steve *************************************************************************** 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, 10 Mar 2000 18:20:37 +1100 From: "Philipp Grawe" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Speeding up combat From: Timothy Byrd > We continued a combat in our game last night. There were about 40 > combatants (say 12 PCs, 6 NPCs, 22 enemy). One round took two hours, > and then we did a "speed round" which took a little bit over an hour. > > What would people on the list do to speed up such a combat? > For larger scale combats (where the whole group is fighting): The first thing I introduce is the taking the whole bunch of dice and rolling them all at once. Every new player gets his percentiles, rolls them, stops to check, says "Oh good, I hit, now then, 1d8+1 damage" then picks out his d8, rolls that and takes his D20 only to find the guy parried. It takes far too long. Take all the dice you need, roll them at once and don't bother the GM unless you hit. When I GM, I find organising by strike rank goes well. Just call them out, after the first session you tend to know the players strike ranks so it simply goes: "Right, first attack is strike rank 3 the Great Troll hits" "he hits, does 18 to your 20. You two are on strike rank 4..." "8 to his 14" "Doesn't get through. Next!" ...and so on... After a while, people roll before their turn and tell you what damage, which location on which person/monster. That speeds things up heaps and heaps.Sure, they might cheat, but our group isn't really that sort and if they do, what of it, you're bound to spring them turning over the dice to a higher number at some stage. I always make at least a rough map of the area where they are fighting and draw in where everyone is. I normally don't prepare maps for encounters because it tips everyone off that something important and pre-planned is happening. Kind of ruins the moment. We dropped fatigue ages ago and mostly ignore it. Philipp. *************************************************************************** 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: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 12:22:46 +1000 From: Robert McArthur Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Speeding up combat Timothy Byrd wrote: > > We continued a combat in our game last night. There were about 40 > combatants (say 12 PCs, 6 NPCs, 22 enemy). One round took two hours, > and then we did a "speed round" which took a little bit over an hour. > > What would people on the list do to speed up such a combat? Without changing anything, a simple thing to do is roll *all* your dice for a character at once: to hit, damage and location. This has saved lots of time without and rules changes at all. All the PCs should do this, and any NPC who you want to play as a though they are a real character - all the other NPC's can be abstracted away ;-) We do (did - sigh) the rounds calling out SR by SR. If you've setup your NPCs right you know which go on what SR so that parts easy, and PCs handle themselves. I find the hardest thing to do is think broadly - how do the NPCs see what is going on? Can they see and think enough to swap from an injured foe who will take a couple of rounds to recover to go help their friend who needs it *now*? Generally such fights I find are rare - it's much more usual IMG to have some sort of ambush situation where there's at least one round of surprise. As is usual in RQ, that round can knock out 50% or more of the combatants and makes the rest quite quick :-) Robert *************************************************************************** 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 V3 #23 ************************************ *************************************************************************** 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. 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.