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From: RuneQuest-Request@glorantha.holland.sun.com (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@glorantha.holland.sun.com (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 19 Aug 1993, part 1
Reply-To: RuneQuest@glorantha.holland.sun.com (RuneQuest Daily)
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Status: O

The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.

Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue.  Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily...  on replying.

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.

Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:

RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)

---------------------

From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
Subject: Free Ghost & Humakt
Message-ID: <9308180917.AA28636@Sun.COM>
Date: 18 Aug 93 09:13:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1411


Ref: X-RQ-ID: 1395 (Neil Robinson)

> Why doesn't Humakt teach Free Ghost?

Ah, Neil, this question shows that you have been playing other games like DnD.  In RQ Ghosts are classified as spirits that have been bound to areas and not 
as undead.  Therefore, they are not on Humakt's automatic hate list.  
Basically RQ undead are creatures that still have a fraction of their former 
spirit bound into their bodies, but they are cut off from the flow of life 
and thus have no POW (but often MPs).  Ghosts most definately have POW.  
In fact, to prove the point, in Snake Pipe Hollow there is a Humakti ghost
(Bright Blade Blue) and we know that Humakti cannot be turned into undead, 
ergo, ghosts are not undead.  

General question to all you experts out there.
How do you classify Hellions, Lamia and Succubi (or as my old granny in Greydog village used to say SuckYouDry).  These all do not have POW and have to get 
their sustainence in interesting ways.  

-----
Lewis
-----

---------------------

From: b_kondalski@vssi.trw.com (Brian J. Kondalski)
Subject: Spirit Scan
Message-ID: <9308181320.AA12363@Sun.COM>
Date: 18 Aug 93 13:21:03 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1412

What rules do people provide for spirit scan in RQ2?  I'm interested in the
following situations:

1) When can a spirit be detected (no power, just know a spirit is there).
2) When can a spirit be detected (not exact power within 5 points)
3) When can a spirit be detected (exact power).
4) When can runic ties be seen.
5) Should it be harder to detect a bound spirit as opposed to one free floating?

I was looking at providing a system where free floating spirits would have a
larger range than spirits bound in items (ie, ally in armor, weapon, animal as
opposed to a free floating fetch or controlled spirit).  Something like (with
distances in meters):

1) Free floaters at POW*10, bound can not do
2) Free floaters at POW*5, bound at POW
3) Free floaters at POW, bound only at contact
4) Both only at contact unless a character chooses to project them, and then
   they are visible at phase 3.

The runic detection is the hardest part.  To me it seems that any system that
has a way to detect your runes without your permission is quite dangerous.
Imagine how easy it would be to find an enemy cultist if you could detect
runes at range (try to hide your Lanbril from the Pavis cult!)  

The reasons that I give different ranges for bound and free floaters is that
I feel a bound spirit is out of touch with the spirit plane, and is less
able to pick up power sources from it.

I have also thought about throwing into the system the fact that it might be
easier to detect free-floating spirits as opposed to bound spirits.

Any thoughts/suggestions out there for changes/refinement?  How does RQ3 handle
this?

Brian J. Kondalski      b_kondalski@vssi.trw.com

---------------------

From: mstrong@cix.compulink.co.uk (Mike Strong)
Subject: Re: Criticals, Specials, Fumbles and E Prime
Message-ID: 
Date: 18 Aug 93 14:17:13 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1413


In-Reply-To: <9308180515.AA29552@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM>
I agree with Lewis' comments about mathematically deriving crits, 
specials, and fumbles rather than looking up tables all the time. Been 
doing this for years.

However, dividing can be tricky stuff; it's easier to calculate crits 
and specials with multiplying.

i.e Critical: multiply by 5
    Special: multiply by 20

You should then divide by 100 (but since this is simply a case of moving 
the decimal point two places it is easy), and ignore anything after the 
decimal point. The only additional thing to remember is that 01 is 
always a critical, and 00 is always a fumble...

Mike



---------------------

From: ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de
Subject: ELRIC
Message-ID: <5660*_S=ngl28_OU=rz_PRMD=uni-kiel_ADMD=dbp_C=de_@MHS>
Date: 18 Aug 93 20:59:13 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1414

Using Elric as RQ-Lite

Some thoughts and ideas

1. Allegiances

If one wants to transfer the gameworld to Glorantha, the allegiances need 
to be rethought. This paragraph is based on the assumption that one keeps 
the threepart allegiance system presented in Elric!.

Chaos is quite evident, and not a thing to aspire on 
Glorantha for normal characters. Balance is the great compromise, i.e. the 
thing all the Deities and religions other than chaotics stand for. Law is 
the most difficult to describe, since Moorcocks definition is not the 
meaning of the Gloranthan Law rune. I'd assign Mostali Stasis loving powers 
and God Learner secrets to Elric! law. Opinions?

Gaining allegiance points would have to be changed. Magic on Glorantha is 
not chaotic (most isn't, anyway), and doesn't deserve the Chaos penalty.


Another course to follow would be the old idea of runic ties. Or the slow 
rise to hero status. Any ideas?


2. Magic

The magic types on Glorantha shouldn't change too much. Spirit magic and 
divine magic could stay mostly the same, at least for initiate types. The 
demon summoning rules rethought could give interesting variants for 
shamanistic magic apart from spirit magic. Sorcery of one kind or the other 
(the RQ3 system admittedly is not too Gloranthan, other versions are being 
worked on in the RQ4-discussion, and were presented here earlier.


For Non-Gloranthan RuneQuest, one could work the other way round: include 
the demon- and elemental-summoning business into RuneQuest and adjust it in 
power to the level known from RQ. For my own campaign world, I certainly 
will (in fact I'll combine it with the Stormbringer crossover I tried to 
work out before). Maybe I'll post it some time, although it is tied to the 
cultures which use it. And it's still in German language :-(

Enough for now.

Joerg

P.S. Due to a hard disk crash (one day after extensive backupping :-) I 
cannot reply to any mail posted to my regular account at 
joe@sartar.toppoint.de. Please have patience with me. I may have lost some 
issues of the daily (July mostly). Does anybody archive them apart from 
Shannon Appel on soda.berkeley.edu (the last entries are from May 93)? As 
soon as my machine runs again I'll specify a list. Please help a collector.

P.P.S. Work on Free INT 6 is delayed by that, too, but I'll try to keep my 
schedule. Contributions are welcome, this time we'll concentrate on magic. 
If nothing else goes wrong it'll be out end of September/start of October.

Joerg Baumgartner
ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de

---------------------

From: nrobinso@sirius.UVic.CA (Neil Robinson)
Subject: RE: High Level Combat
Message-ID: <34616.nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca>
Date: 18 Aug 93 17:36:52 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1415

Thanks Rob, you cleared a few things up.  A drop in parry of 140%
did seem a little bogus.   We're still spending about half our time
discussing rules during combat in the high level game (only 2 combats
so far), but are getting much faster with the other (lower-level) game.
Its like we were playing 'Beginner' and are now moving into
'Intermediate'.

Isn't the combat system you use for high level based on one Steve Maurer
(?) put out, or at least it was originally published like that?  I
remember it from a few years ago.  The table concept for attack vs.
parry is good, and I wish RQ II had one out.  It took us quiet a while
to work out what a special attack did to a normal parry, or a special
parry and a normal attack.

----------------
And now back to healing.....(the current digest favourite)

It seems that our group has been neglecting the 5mr wait between
spells (RQ III did it to me :-).  I wasn't even aware of the 10mr
time limit - although it should be extended a little if you have a
5mr wait between healing spells.  The one spell per location rule
is ok if you allow a higher level healing to add its extra points to
that location.  It does limit max healing on an area to your parties
best healer.

I still think that Rune Healing ignores any other restrictions, and
can be cast on top of battle/spirit magic healing without a problem.

-----------------------------------
To Greg Fried:
RE: Buying Direct from AH

I do not want to purchase directly from AH, even though I have to
wait 2+ months to buy it locally.  This isn't knocking AH, as I have found
its mail-order system to be very fast and accurate, including sending
me a free copy of RQ Cities when my old one was missing pages.

However, I want to ensure that our local gaming store, ok there are
2 stores, still stocks RQ.  For Stormbringer, er Elric, I have to
spend $50.00+ to travel across the water to Vancouver.  Although AD&D
munchkins dominate the area, I'm hoping that more people will consider
RQ.  Of course, it doesn't help that RQ gets hidden in the back corner.
Neil Robinson              | "Never underestimate the power of human
nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca    |  stupidity." - L. Long
2996 Dysart Rd. Victoria B.C. V9A 2K2     (604) 385-1642

---------------------

From: pmichaels@aol.com
Subject: product format
Message-ID: <9308181715.tn172581@aol.com>
Date: 18 Aug 93 21:15:43 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1416

In my issue of _Dorastor: Land of Doom_ (still feverishly reading!) there is
a buyer response card asking me to respond to several questions about product
quality, etc...   One of the questions asks about what product format I
prefer, with the choices being:
     - softbound perfect binding
     - softbound saddlestitch
     - hardbound book
     - box
     - other

Does anyone out there know the differences between these formats?  Could you
please describe them to me, including strengths and weaknesses?  To throw
this open to all those who may not buy _Dorastor_, what do *you* prefer?

Thanks!  and Peace,
     Peter

---------------------

From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
Subject: healing
Message-ID: <9308192231.AA01077@lum.asd.sgi.com>
Date: 19 Aug 93 08:31:26 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1417

Here is how we do healing.

- Healing spells on a single wound must be cast at least 10 rounds apart
  for multiple spells to take effect.
- Only the largest healing spell in a ten round period will take effect.


As far as having healing take longer here is a suggestion:

Divide the number of points of damage in a wound by 3 rounding down.
This is the number of long term points of damage for that wound.  Healing
spells cast on such a wound will take longer to heal these points.

Long term damage points get healed as follows:
   1st long term point comes back in  6 hours.
   2nd long term point comes back in 12 hours.
   3rd long term point comes back in  1 day.
   4th long term point comes back in  2 days.
   5th long term point comes back in  4 days.
   6th long term point comes back in  8 days.
   7th long term point comes back in 16 days.

Example 1:
   Bob takes 6 points of damage to the arm.
   6 / 3 = 2 long term damage points
   Joe cast healing 6 on Bob's arm.
   4 points get healed immediately
   1 more point is healed after 6 hours
   1 more point is healed after 6 more hours

Example 2:
   Joe takes 9 points of damage to the leg.
   9 / 3 = 3 long term damage points
   Bob cast healing 6 on Joe's leg.
   4 points get healed immediately
   23 rounds later Joe casts healing 3 on his leg.
   2 more points get healed immediately
   1 more point is healed after 6 hours
   1 more point is healed after 6 more hours
   1 more point is healed after 12 more hours


I have not tested this.  I just thought it up as a possible solution to
Greg Stafford's suggesting that wounds should hurt more and take longer
to heal in Glorantha.  Personally I think this is probably more paper
work then it is worth.  I guess my vote is for RQlite.  If anyone does
decide to try this I would like to hear how it works.

jarec@cix.compulink.co.uk (Simon Basham) writes:
> Also I don't know if anyone uses this but I force people performing magical
> Healing on other to make a POW vs. POW roll. I can't remember if this is
> by the book or not but it sure places a new slant on things.

We do this only if the spell is not accepted.  Basically any time you are
casting a spell on a vessel(body, sword, etc.) with a spirit in it.  The
spirit has the option of resisting.  If it decides to resist then you must
succeed in a pow vs. pow roll.

Rob Mace





---------------------

From: justin_cann@netmail.washcoll.edu (Justin Cann)
Subject: Other RuneQuest Worlds
Message-ID: <9308182239.AA21593@martha.washcoll.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 93 00:17:33 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1418

        Reply to:   Other RuneQuest Worlds
   In the Daily of the 18th, Donald Wilton mentioned starting another RQ
mailing list, but for (it ould appear) _his_ world.  I have long used RuneQuest
as the rule system for my campaign world of five or six years.  I have plenty
of information in files on my computer.  I would be glad to contribute to an
idea like this, but it might be better to keep it open to all non-glorantha
worlds.  
   Between the high cost of Glorantha supplements (just try to find the out of
print things!) and my natural inclination to create my own campaign world, I
have altered the standard RQ rules a bit to reflect my world.  For example, not
all characters have the ability to use magic.  NPCs must roll less than their
Magic Modifier on d100 and PCs get Magic Modifier x 5.  There's more, but
that's the sort of things I've done.
   However, my world, since it was primarily designed within the RQ system,
still reflects RQ's unique style, especially with regard to magic, which is
usually the most distinct difference between role-playing games.  I found that
shaman, priests and the occasional sorcerer fit in perfectly, as opposed to
"magic-users and clerics".  RQ allows characters to fit different cultures
better.
   On another note, does anyone have any interest in assembling a group of NPCs
of varying abilities and skill levels and passing them around?  Sort of a
net-"Rouges Gallery" for RQ?  If so, contact me.