Subject: Glorantha on Ten Pennies a Day, Volume 2, Number 2 This issue: Jack of all Trades (Mark Abbott) RQ enchantments (John Thompson) Re: Gurps combat (Andrew Bell) Re: Two-handed weapon use (Andrew Bell) [Ed's note: Due to the rearranging of our local network, most of my mail was being put in an inaccessible place without informing me. Thus I was rather slow in replying to a number of your notes. The problem still may be around, so please try acb@dukeac.ac.duke.edu if you get no response from me within a day or two. Number of subcribers is now 50.] --- From: abbott%dean.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (+Mark Abbott) Subject: Jack of all Trades On the Jack of all trades problem, I agree completely. That's always been one of my pet gripes with RQ. With some groups of players the problem isn't bad because the players tend to develop their characters without exploiting the rules. However, some characters almost always end up being able to do anything. One thing I've tried which helps somewhat is to limit the number of experience rolls per adventure. IE, if each PC can only take 7 experience rolls, he will tend to concentrate on those skills which are most important to him. This works fairly well but doesn't solve the problem. I've toyed with giving extra experience rolls for multiple uses of a skill, but this tends to lead to skill escalation. Also, as you pointed out, offensive magic ends up overpowering most other skills in combat. I see this as a problem in the general availability of magic. My solution has been to limit the availability of magic such that many characters do not have offensive magic, or even much magic at all. This means that most characters won't rely on their magic to make them powerful but will instead concentrate on skills. I think what I'd like to see is some sort of system where magic and skills are diametrically opposed methods to power. The more of one you have, the less of the other you can get. This is somewhat covered by the skill limits for Rune Priests. A couple of fixes I use to handle the kind of situation Andrew gave (the thief, the captain of the guard, and the thief's friend): At point blank range versus a stationary target, missile skill rolls are one "level" of success better, ie, a normal hit becomes a special hit, a miss becomes a normal hit, etc. 00 is still a fumble, it's up to the GM to determine what happens when a critical is rolled. It's also up to the GM to decide what qualifies as point blank and whether the target is close enough to being stationary. I base it mostly on my feel for the situation. Similarly, if someone attacks a helpless or completely unsuspecting opponent, the roll is one better. This means that a fairly good warrior can expect to special hit an unsuspecting opponent, making assassin style attacks quite powerful. Mark From: thompson@rb-dc1 (John Thompson) Subject: RQ rules, questions I noticed that there really aren't isn't very many rules on magic. The number of spells really are quite small, and there are very few ritual magic spells. As a matter of fact most items I have seen published are like mechanical devices -- I have a sword which Taps dex every time it is struck at a person, and the magic points stolen are used to cast the Tap spell. In other words, we have a device (Tapping) and a power source (magic point storage area) These strike me as too mechanistic. I welcome suggestions on rules to get around this. So I decided to come up with some different sort of enchantments Quickdraw Enchantment Cost: 1 POW This causes the weapon to be drawn and place in the wielder's hands immediately, without incurring the 3 SR delay. It will also pick up the weapon if it no more than one meter away, or put the weapon back to its sheath. Only the caster can acheive this benefit: if the owner is killed, the enchantment is worthless, and must be re-engraved. Enhance Intelligence Ceremony Cost: 5 POW This ritual raises the caster's INT by one, permanently. It is extremely rare, only a few magi know it. It may require exotic components. It is debilitating to cast, requiring (25 - CON) weeks rest thereafter. The character may not raise his INT more than the species maximum. (I use the RQII rules for this: Max possible roll + number of dice, with any plus counted as another die. This gives humans a max of 21.) Modifications: Magic Point Matrix Enchantment I recommend giving out a d6 of storage here. A player can simply store a power spirit, getting a regenerating 'battery' of average 7 pts,. for one POW pt, wheras the MPM maker must use 7, for a non-regererating power source. This needs revision. So now, a player must use two POW, but does not need to know the summon and command|control|dominate power spirit. Binding Enchantment The current rules suggest that a player must learn a separate binding enchantment for each otherworld creature. That is: Ghost Binding Enchant, Magic Spirit Binding Enchantment, etc. This really isn't fair -- A shaman can easily learn the spell, he summons the spirit that knows the spell and obliterates it. The sorcerer has to spend 100 hours learning it from someone else or waste 500 hours by himself. Divine magic users must dump a point of POW! The divine spell caster who has to dump POW for everything really hurts. My suggestion is that there is a generic "Binding Enchantment" which must have a Enchant roll to specify the exact creature to be held. Once created, this specificity could not be changed -- Athough you could sacrifice more POW for another enchantment which will contain your favorite creature. More spells: Accuracy: Sorcery Each point of intensity adds 3% to the attack chance to a specified weapon Frequently found in conjuction with Damage Boosting. Obscuration: Sorcery I don't like every apprentice with Mystic Vision knowing every secret gnome, Ghost, and power spirit of a powerful sorcerer. Obscuration allows one to put up a screening wall, and to see through it, the intensity of the Mystic Vision must overcome the points of Obscuration on the Resistance table. I have some more ideas, as well as some magic items, but I'll wait until later to send them in. I invite comments and questions. John Thompson ...!sdcsvax!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!rb-dc1!thompson --- From: acb@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Andrew Bell) Subject: Re: Gurps combat In Digest 1.11, Elliot Wilen said: >One thing I don't like [in GURPS] is the way that crushing blows get special >treatment for knocking a person out--it doesn't matter whether you're >being hit by a sword or a cudgel if the force of a blow on your helmet >is the same. I'm not sure I agree with you on this one, Elliot. (Gasp!) When a mace tries to break through armor, it doesn't try to cleave it in twain, it tries to dent metal armor and overwhelm leather armor. The sword, on the other hand, tends to try to cut through the armor to administer its blow. For this reason, maces should be somewhat better against plate armor, although I'd remove the idea of ignore armor for criticals, since I can't see it fitting between the cracks. Instead, make crushing weapons better against heavy armor normally (working against 1/2 the AP of rigid armors), but a critical would only let you aim your shot and ignore magical protection. In the same way, crushing weapons have a different effect on the head. A sword will tend to open up a big cut, but is unlikely to knock you out unless it is a very serious wound. An impact, however, is more likely to do stun (as per Champions), as you may note if you hit your head on a door frame or your hand against a projection on the wall or the like. Stabbing a steak knife through your hand, however, is only likely to do Stun by putting you into shock. (Kids, do not try this yourself...) Seriously, though, you can try a little experiment, even at your desk. Hit yourself on the hand with your other hand. I get a little tingle in my fingers if I do this; although no real damage is done, I would say the hand I hit is somewhat stunned for a brief moment after the blow. Thus I think I agree with the GURPS assessment. A further implication here is that a crushing blow is unlikely to "go through" a parry, but is likely to damage the shield arm without penetrating. Again, there seems to be a need for stun rules, where a certain amount of stun to a given location might break the appropriate limb. Extreme amounts of damage could crush the limb to uselessness, beyond the mere breaking of a bone. Also, a "very" broken bone might do damage as a compound fracture. Really, we'll have to come up with some stun rules; perhaps GURPS' will do. And perhaps rules on broken bones and various other forms of injury, as opposed to just "you take 4 points to the left arm." "My allied spirit casts Heal 4 on it."... Incidentally, Elliot, what is the implication of stunning an area? You mention stunning but not its effects. Obviously they will be in GURPS terms, but the general idea is what I'm after. -Andrew --- Subject: Re: Two-handed weapon use From: acb@romeo.cs.dduke.edu (Andrew Bell) In Digest 1.11, Steve Schrader writes: >Conceivably the reason one can attack AND parry in the same round is that >the person has two hands that they can do things with. But they can also dodge, which shouldn't really require one's hands to do. (Irrelevant for RQII, I realize) I don't think it's just the number of hands that is important, it's what the person is capable of doing in 12 seconds. Seriously, though, two-handed weapon fighting should be somewhat more tricky than sword-and-shield style, which should be more difficult than sword and mace style, and fencing should be quite different. However, if you make it so people with two-handed weapons can't parry as well as attack, then an unarmored viking with a two-handed axe will never last 12 seconds with a decent opponent. It may be more difficult to parry with a two-handed weapon while also attacking with it, but it should be possible. When I get a chance, I'll try to write up an article on fighting styles for this zine. Instead of having specific weapon skills, you'll have skills like: Swung weapon and shield Fencing Two-handed swung weapon Two weapons Two-handed spear and within those categories, you have extra skill with particular weapons. You train in a particular fighting style instead of particular weapon skills, so you train your shield parry at the same time you train your sword attack. The hours of training will basically be split between the various skills or something like that. Within each fighting style you may have some innate defense as per RQ II, perhaps as a third skill that is much harder to develop than the attack and parry portion. By having ENC affect this defense, a very heavy weight (like armor) can make one easier to hit, while a martial arts type, with no armor, would be harder to hit. -Andrew --- The RuneQuest(tm) mailing list is a courtesy of Andrew Bell. All opinions and material above are the responsibility of the originator, and copyrights are held by them. RuneQuest is a trademark of Chaosium, Inc. Send submissions, mailing list changes, requests for old article lists, etc. to: acb@romeo.cs.duke.edu acb@dukeac.ac.duke.edu or ...!mcnc!duke!romeo!acb Request old articles by volume number and issue number.