Subject: Glorantha Today, Volume 2, Number 10 This issue: Skill Increases (Charles C. Allen) Re: RQ Spell Power? (Jeff Okamoto) --- From: cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu (Charles C. Allen) Subject: Skill Increases What's this, another unplaytested idea? Aaarrgh... :-) =============== Skill Increases Charlie Allen =============== RuneQuest 2 & 3 simulate how hard a skill is to learn by giving "difficult" skills a lower starting percentage. As several people have pointed out from time to time, this is not a good solution. It's easy to train when skills are at low %'s, which is the only place a difference exists. One method for differentiating among various skills is to have the increase be different. To avoid having to come up with Yet Another Number associated with each skill, base the increase on the starting percentage. As a first pass, let F = 1 + (M/5) where F = the "Learning Factor" (see below) M = modified starting % = base starting % + skill bonus When a character gets a chance to go up in a skill via experience, the player rolls 1dF to get the % increase. M F Avg 0 1 0.5 5 2 1.0 10 3 2.0 15 4 2.5 20 5 3.0 25 6 3.5 The modified starting % is used so that characters with a bonus in a particular skill learn faster than those without a bonus, which certainly seems reasonable. Yes, they already do since the bonus is included in an experience roll, but the effect is pretty minimal. If the increases seem a little low, just up the additive constant from 1 to 2 or 3. This has not been playtested at all. This solution affects the rate at which the skill increases, it does not affect the final numbers. In the long run, it'll still be as easy to parry with a maul as with a large shield. But, that's the subject for Yet Another Note.... Charlie Allen cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu --- From: Jeff OkamotoSubject: Re: RQ Spell Power? In volume 2, number 8, Andrew Bell writes: > Don't forget, also, the missile-affecting spells. Speeddarted arrows > are much more likely to penetrate armor, and multi-missiled arbalest > or heavy crossbow bolts can be devastating. Firearrow also > dramatically increases the damage of arrows. One local rule we use: to add one extra missile takes as many points of Multimissile as the number of D6's that you roll for damaged. Thus, a weapon that does 2D6+2 would need a Multimissile 2 to get one extra bolt, MM 4 for two, etc. --- Subject: Spell fumbles and Monty Haul From: bell@cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell) In article 2.8, Andrew writes: > By the way, Jeff, I'm sorry if I seem to be picking on you. I > agree with the majority of your comments. Hopefully the system I > just described would satisfy your (and my) desire for a clean system, > and still add a little variety (and risk) to spell-casting. No offense taken. Jeff --- 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 bell@cs.unc.edu ...!mcnc!duke!romeo!acb ...!mcnc!unc!bell Request old articles by volume number and issue number.