Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 17:15:08 +0200 From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Subject: The RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 29 Mar 1993 This digest was generated automatically. You may find messages that should not belong here, like subscription requests, etc. Sorry. You will of course send such requests to RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM. All mail sent to RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM will automatically be included in a next issue. Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM. -Henk Langeveld -- Send Submissions to:Enquiries to: The RuneQuest Daily is a spin-off of the RuneQuest Digest and deals with the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. Maintainer: Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM --------------------- From: NEIL@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Neil Taylor ext 315) Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 27 Mar 1993 Message-ID: <01GWD0B9I1K2000FFU@UG.EDS.COM> Date: 28 Mar 93 17:26:37 GMT Re: characters with gross stats. My copy of the rules agrees with dustin@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (Dustin Tranberg) - you have to beat your skill level until your skill exceeds 100%, but then only have to beat 100. The point I was making was not a matter of how many ticks etc. (she's actually an NPC so it doesn't matter!), but one of relative rates of acquisition of gross skills. At the time I noticed this, I was trying to estimate skill levels for Rune-levels, extrapolating from skill bonuses. Someone with a 5-10% bonus reaches 100% in a time which is similar (a bit slower) than the 25% bonusers, but after that it's all different: the one with the gross bonus shoots ahead! How many ticks, and at what rate? I compared her with PCs who were wandering around, and meeting various opponents & hindrances, and getting in scrapes about once a game week. The rules indicate that successful use, is enough, but in a "real" context (ie not practice). A fight is certainly enough as I read it! As your (combat) skill climbs, its value to you climbs (keeps you alive/kills your enemy), but the experience % is level, so you can climb faster (by taking risks lesser people can't). Dustin Tranberg again: >Well, IMHO, the stats say it all. First, maybe it MEANS SOMETHING >to have an Intelligence that is higher than human MAXIMUM. This >means that this elf maiden is smarter than Einstein, Nikolai Tesla, >Rommel, or Aragorn or Ged for that matter. Yeah, I'll BET she's >a quick study!! Humans are almost all average (5-10%, perhaps 15%) (even if the blew all their time & money on what stat training they could get), it's Elves and such that cause the problem - they have high average rolls & HIGH species max. If you take 10,000 elves & 10,000 humans, you will find a bell-curve distribution: 1-in-216 humans have INT 18; 1-in-216 elves have INT 24! 56-in-216 elves have INT 19+ Thats 2600 elves with supra-genius INT.... Watch out guys, the pointies (Vulcans?) are coming! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Holy Day attendance & loss of cult-status, there are 3 classes of HD: once a week usually the "day of the Rune" once a season "week of Rune A", "day of Rune B" once a year "season A", "week B", "Day C" Cults with fewer than 3 runes double up; cults without elemental runes fudge it (ie refer to their mythos if available, or make it up). Any initiate near (same town) as a Temple, should attend all Holy Days (weekly) to show Good Standing, but if you're away, it doesn't matter too much, especially if they know you are pious when you do show up. [ie Attend on Sundays]. If you're out of town, you should return to attend the Seasonal ones or present a good excuse [like the major festivals of Christmas, Whitsun, Harvest etc]. If you miss the once-a-year High Holy Day, and especially if you also missed all the seasonal days too, my impression was that you had better have a Good Excuse. [This is like missing Easter - the mystery of the Resurrection etc.]. It's not just a matter of keeping the priests happy - a good bribe can do that much more easily - but of satisfying the Deity -- the Cult as a whole. On the HHD, and the SHD the Cult enacts rituals of immense significance, which explain and justify their very existence. Not participating in these is pretty outre! mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace) says: >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. Too true! In Cults of Prax, that's exactly what they DO! Biturian Varosh attends an Eiritha/Ernalda ritual at the Paps, and up pop the Darkness cultists from tunnels under the earth, trying to spoils it all. What the DC's don't realise, is that they are almost "fated" to do this - it's their part to play in the Wheel of the seasons. [True, there are a few minor enemies who have a temporal grudge & cause trouble, but the ones to worry about are the ones for whom the grudge is Real.] Taking the Christian Church as an example again... On HHDs & SHDs Priests in the field can improvise ceremonies, and should (*must*) do so for initiates who present themselves to them. At the temples, worship starts early (Dawn for most, Dusk for some, other ritual times for the oddities), and continues all day. Initiates can attend at any time, and any of the day's cereemonies; even priests can do so, as some must to fulfill the normal duties around town/temple. [They may bear the day's special significance in mind as they perform their duties, but that's just extra] --------------------- From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox) Subject: RQ IV comments and stuff... Message-ID: <9303291039.AA00673@Sun.COM> Date: 29 Mar 93 10:21:00 GMT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sent to: Oliver Jovanovic RuneQuest Daily ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi. I recently obtained a copy of the RQ IV playtest rules, thanks to Arganth (dickmj@uk.ac.essex) and yesterday a few friends and myself ran through them in an attempt to see what we thought. Generally we were impressed with the improvements made, the system feels much nicer to use, and quite a few holes have been closed. We especially liked the new fatigue rules, character generation and spirit combat. A few things that came out that we were unsure about (these may purely be due to us missing things in the rules as they stand at the moment): Fatigue ------- - Is there any effect for a critical or fumble result on a fatigue or March roll? - Are the effects of fatigue itself applied to further fatigue rolls i.e. if you are weary, are further fatigue rolls at +10% on the dice roll? (This would seem a bit harsh!) - Regaining fatigue: 30/CON hours of sleep to regain 1 long term fatigue level seems a bit low, especially at Exhausted/Incapacitated level. Combat ------ - What is the sequence for attacking an opponent who has been knocked over, given that all movement takes place before combat? e.g. in our trials, an opponent was knocked back, and fell over. The attacking character, on the next round, declared a single move and two actions. The actions were taken as two attacks with the same weapon (at -10% per attack. How does this relate to the guy trying to stand up? We (temporarily) ruled that the first attack came in as he was kneeling (+10% to hit), and the second as he stood up (no +% to hit) - Manoeuvreing: To cross over dead body: DEX x 5 or Manoeuvre skill. If you fail the roll, character falls down at the point he or she entered the terrain. This seems a bit excessive! I would tend to prefer that all further movement in the current move phase is lost as a result of getting tangled up etc. Also Fumble states fall over, take 16 damage - I'm sure this should be 1d6 (?). - Critical Hits: I'm surprised that critical hits ignore magical protection, I can see the argument for ignoring normal protection but feel that magic should always count. (However, that is just an opinion, there are arguments for both ways of resolving this). - Firing into a melee: This is difficult to resolve. I don't really like the old method of +5% to hit per figure in the melee and then roll randomly to see who is hit, the person firing the missile ought to have the chance to use skill to hit their target (How about add +5% per figure, as above, firing character then rolls to hit. If they score 50% or less of their modified skill, they hit their target, if they score 51-100% of their skill, they hit someone else, otherwise they miss the whole melee?). Spirit Combat ------------- - POW increase: Spirit Combat no longer uses POW vs POW contests. How does a character gain a POW experience roll in the case of spirit combat? Earlier, there is a passage which says: 'POW gain rolls use a related system. The GM should assign a POW gain roll to characters depending on their use of magic and involvement in spirit combat...' Is this an arbitrary assignment by the GM, or are there some concrete rules pending? - If fighting spirits and using powerful defensive spells eg Spirit Block 2, would this tend to also block off the chances of POW gain rolls? - Is there any ruling on why spirits cannot just run away when they are being defeated in spirit combat to avoid being bound? Divine Magic ------------ - Resurrection spell: Is there a clarification of this? The RQ III rules seems to imply that the priest must succeed in ONE round of mp vs mp struggle to force the spirit back into the body. I think Cults of Prax implies the spirit must be fought down to ZERO mp. Which is correct? SpellTeaching ------------- - Would this count for a POW gain roll (I assume not, as the spirit is not resisting). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Buckley Remember: King Kong Died for your sins -------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Steve Gilham | GDS Solutions) Subject: Excommuniation & such Message-ID: <01GWD427E6UA000BVA@UG.EDS.COM> Date: 28 Mar 93 19:13:49 GMT regarding >> Excommunication is for when you've been a very bad boy and they don't want >> you back, but not quite naughty enough to want to kill you. and other postings on the topic of inactive/non-attending members There are a number of possible levels of sanction that can be placed on an initiate - denial of services (e.g. access to cult magics or mundane benefits) loss of benefits (e.g. known rune spells, god-gifts, allied spirit) declared anathema (not to be recognied in any way by cult members) open to the spirit of reprisal totally outlawed and a variety of levels of penance that might be required to regain good standing (good works, financial restitution, indenture to the cult); those with much chutzpah could even try appealing the ruling all the way to the top - performing a suitable heroquest. It seems to me that an excommunicate Orlanthi might well be able to gain himself back into good graces if he were to perform the Lightbringer quest (he might more likely get very dead, but let's allow that he succeeds), --------------------- From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox) Subject: RE: The RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 27 Mar 1993 Message-ID: <9303291104.AA01106@Sun.COM> Date: 29 Mar 93 10:57:00 GMT >The Mystic Musk Ox writes... >Gark! Doesn't anyone play ordinary characters? You know, the ones with >stats of 9-12, skills of 50%-75% and no money? When you start pushing... >"Gark!" do you worship him/her/it? Chaos!!! Kill!! snort rage berserk. >Sincerely, >Storm Khan Thorvold Dear Mr S.K.Thorvold, I was most distressed to hear of your disapproval of my comments the other day, and hasten to assure you that these were not intended as inflammatory remarks, but were merely intended to point out the fact that at the extremes of any system, breakdowns will occur, and that in fact most characters probably fall somewhere in the middle ranges of human (?) ability. I am sure you will be pleased to hear that we were able to heal most of the staff, albeit at some expense in Lunars, and the fire damage will (I am told) be repaired in a few weeks. yours, M.M.Ox