Bell Digest v930325

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 93 17:15:09 +0100
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: The RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 25 Mar 1993

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From: jeff@cotopaxi.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Freymueller)
Subject: Experience
Message-ID: <9303241812.AA03565@cotopaxi.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 24 Mar 93 18:12:33 GMT

I don't think there is anything wrong with the system for learning by
experience. Unless you give out too many experience checks that is!

Neil Taylor (NEIL@ARC.UG.EDS.COM) writes:
> I have a problem with the Runequest III experience rolls, which you get after
> succeeding with a skill:
> 	roll D100+category_bonus > MIN(skill,100)
> 
> If you have an unreasonable category bonus, you get unreasonable amounts of
> experience...  Consider CELEDORIE, an Avenger (Priest) of Babeestor Gor, and an
> Elf maiden too. 
> As an Avenger of Babeestor Gor, she gets to trail around Avenging (with her
> Axe...) wrongs done to Earth Cults, so she can expect a "tick" on her Axe skills
> about once a week (say), plus Tracking, and Cermony (as a priest).  She's
  ***********************1                    *********************2
> already well over 100%, so she gets 29% success rate at getting +1D6%iles.  Over
> a Gloranthan year, she gets

Neil, you're too generous!

1. I'd say once a season or less. Unless of course she is adventuring.
And even then, if she is getting Axe ticks, she should have a chance
of dying.  Better, the GM ought to roll some sort of "Danger Level"
for her Cult missions.  Missions with low danger would give her very
little experience (since she is a warrior after all). Missions with
high danger should be played out rather than being considered
"between-adventure background".

Note that if you go by the "once a season" standard rather than once a
week, she would increase by 3-5% per year which agrees with the
previous experience rules.

2. I don't think Ceremony (or any other Ritual skills) can be
increased by experience (I could be wrong, my RQ stuff is at home).
Same for Sorcery manipulation skills. You have to train them. Remember
that in previous experience Priests get no more than several
percentiles each year in ritual skills. Even if you consider that too
low, characters out of play shouldn't get more experience gains then
NPCs or starting characters in the same occupation would get.

Jeff

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From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
Subject: RE: Experience
Message-ID: <9303241857.AA09166@Sun.COM>
Date: 24 Mar 93 11:00:49 GMT

>From: NEIL@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Neil Taylor ext 315)
>Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 23 Mar 1993
>Message-ID: <01GW60TF3SRM00012J@UG.EDS.COM>
>Date: 23 Mar 93 17:25:43 GMT

>I have a problem with the Runequest III experience rolls, which you get after
>succeeding with a skill:
>	roll D100+category_bonus > MIN(skill,100)

>If you have an unreasonable category bonus, you get unreasonable amounts of
>experience...

I thought the limit on skill increases for RQIII was 6 (highest roll
on D6) plus category modifier plus 100. Are the US RQ III rules
different or do any of the errata refer to this? I keep finding NPCs
in RQ scenarios with skills higher than this (e.g. 150% when attack is
+22) - is this a mistake?

By the way ... one tick a week is a little steep for weapon skills
unless you lead a very dangerous life (and still survive). Also the
rules seem to suggest a week of rest after each adventure is necessary
for an experience roll. For most people this will give a limit of
approximately one roll every two weeks or so.

Thom

    _/    _/  _/_/_/_/  _/_/_/_/  _/    Human Cognition Research Lab
   _/    _/  _/        _/    _/  _/     The Open University
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 _/    _/  _/        _/  _/    _/       Tel: +44 908 65-4518  Fax: -3169
_/    _/  _/_/_/_/  _/    _/  _/_/_/_/  Internet:T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk

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From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
Subject: Re: Holy Days and Adventuring
Message-ID: <9303250444.AA24340@lum.asd.sgi.com>
Date: 24 Mar 93 12:44:50 GMT

SPB1@VMS.BRIGHTON.AC.UK (Ghost Dancer) writes:
> 
> (problem of characters not being able to travel deleted)
>
> Does anyone have any work round ideas for this, how was it done in house 
> campaigns. It may be easier when members of the party are up to Lord or
> Priest level but I run a starting group who are nowhere near such high
> offices yet.

Here is how we have gotten around this problem.

First you need to think about the needs of a Cult/God.  They often
have things that need doing that are more important then having
everyone attend the holy days.  If they could not have people in the
field on holy days it would make them very vulnerable.  Enemy's would
know when the best time to act was.  There fore it is not logical to
excommunicate cult members that are on cult business just because they
miss a holy day.

So if PCs are on Cult business there is no problem with them not being
at the temple on a holy day.  They should still say their prayers.
And perform any rituals they can do in the field.

For some cults such as Humakt it can even be appropriate to be out in
the field.  We have always considered the holy days of Humakt as
propitious days to make an attack.  The attack becomes the holy day
ritual.

The fuzzy part of this whole system is determining what cult business
is.  For a Storm Bull killing chaos is a farely good excuse.  Storm
Bull should not be upset at his worshipers for killing chaos.  As a
general rule of thumb just think about weather the Cult/God is better
off having the PCs doing what they are doing(or have been doing if
they just can't get back in time), or having them at the temple.  Here
is sort of a table.

No use to Cult/God:		Excommunicate them.
Some use to Cult/God:		Warn them not to do it often/make it harder
				to get promoted.
Equal use to Cult/God:		No problem, although they probably should
				try to make it to at least some holy days.
Important to Cult/God:		No problem.
Great importance to Cult/God:	Reward them.

I hope this helps,

Rob Mace





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From: etlanmy@aachen.ericsson.se (Allan Murphy)
Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 24 Mar 1993
Message-ID: <9303250856.AA07272@aachen.ericsson.se>
Date: 25 Mar 93 10:56:27 GMT

> As an Avenger of Babeestor Gor, she gets to trail around Avenging (with her
> Axe...) wrongs done to Earth Cults, so she can expect a "tick" on her Axe
> skills about once a week (say), plus Tracking, and Cermony (as a priest).
> She's already well over 100%, so she gets 29% success rate at getting
> +1D6%iles.  Over a Gloranthan year, she gets
>
>       0.29 * 42 * 3.5 = 42.6%iles to Attack and Manipulation tickers
>       0.28 * 42 * 3.5 = 41.4%iles to Magic skills like Ceremony
>       0.18 * 42 * 3.5 = 26.5%iles to Perception skills, like Tracking
>                               and to Parry/Agility skills
>
> After 10 years, she has accumulated 426% added to her Attack (ie best) skills,
> 414% to her ritual skills, and 265% to Tracking, Parry & Dodge... Wheee!
>
>       Why bother training yourself, just train your stats up...

No, she doesn't. Look again, skills are limited to 100% + modifier.
Ie, if she has an attack modifier of 29%, her maximum attack % is
129%, because the way the experience roll works is that you must roll
over your current attack % minus your modifier. If she has 2-H Axe
87%, she must roll over 58 % to get 1d6% experience. If she has 129%,
she must roll over 100 % - a bit tricky, really, I'm sure you agree. A
positive skills modifier indicates you have some kind of aptitude for
that type of skill ( thus you have the possibility of being much
betetr at these skills than more average people ).  A negative
modifier impedes your progress with learning a particular type of
skill. Personally, I think this mechanism works well.

This is why gifts from, say, Humakt, giving +5% to attack with a cult
weapon are so useful. When you reach Rune level as a Humakti, you may
well be at your maximum attack percentage with your main weapon. The
way we ruled the gift was that it added anyway. Thus my Humakti Sword
had a 1-h Bastard Sword attack of 145% :-)

Does anyone rule that these gifts do not add above maximum limits ?
This just occurred to me.

Allan.

--
Allan J. Murphy                  /     \ "The whole wide world...an endless
				 \     /  universe. Yet we keep looking
etlanmy@aachen.ericsson.se       /     \  through the eyeglass in reverse...."