Re: Converting a low-level RQ campaign

From: Sarah Newton <sarah.newton_at_...>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 15:28:33 -0000

Hi Jane! I've recently been through pretty much the same thing, over Apple Lane way, although we're currently not a million miles away from you round Indrodar's Necklace!  

> So to start with, what ability ratings should I be giving them?

For my "low-level" game, I opted for the following levels: Cultural Abilities : from 13 down to 8
Occupational Abilities : from 17 down to 12 Magic : from 17 down to 12
Other : from 13 down to 8
Best Ability : from 5W down to 17
Second-best Abilities : from 1W down to 14 Defaults : remain at 6

What I found is that the Best Ability is likely to shoot up a couple of points within a few sessions. If you want to hold your PCs off getting a Mastery in an ability for a while, you might want to consider lowering the 17/14 down a point or two! Apart from that, game play has felt just about right, with the party doing a fair bit of running away and a fair bit of bandaging.

A word about healers: now that the ole Magic Point / POW restrictions on Spell Use are gone, you may find having a healer at the very start of your game to be 'unbalancing' if, like me, you like PCs to fight for their perks! I ran the first four or five sessions with only lowlevel  first aid skills, and by the time the party found a healer with even the most basic magical abilities, were they ever appreciative!

> Spirit magic: how do I represent this in HW? Some spells will just
> transalte as abilities, some perhaps as edges on personal weapons
> (Bladesharp focus on a spear), but how about the duck with STR7 and
> three points of Strength spell to make up for it?

I'm afraid I chickened out at this point. As an old RQ2 veteran, Battle / Spirit Magic has become part of our "Gloranthan Reality", to the extent that we couldn't just wipe it out (for one of our characters it was part of his prime business!). So, I've reinvented the wheel with a "fifth type of magic" - Low Magic. It's basically very low key cantrips, some of which are available to all - for a price - and some of which are restricted by cult membership. Basically, they act as very low-power feats, but I also restrict the number of times a day they may be used by a Magic Point analogue (I can go into more detail elsewhere if you want it!). Also, I've required that Initate-use of Improvised Feats require a Hero Point; I still wanted to preserve the old "hallowed nature" of Runic powers. Clearly Rules Variants creeping in here! Obviously you probably won't want to go down this road - YGMV!

> Yes, that's the other problem. Three of my PCs are Ducks. Brought
> up as Lismelder, but ducks. And the Durulz "writeup" gives me Hold
> Breath 18, Swim 3w and Small 14 (at least, I assume this applies to
> all ducks, not just the boatmen). Any more ideas? Will Anaxial's
> Rooster (when it arrives) tell me any more?

A little... at least with regard to abilities... Actually, I'd've done exactly what you've done - the Durulz have always seemed to me to be a very Sartarite "tribe" anyway, and their uniqueness has always popped out in roleplaying in our campaigns.

> The male PCs are new initiates of Orlanth. Which aspect? By
> occupation, they're just normal farmers, crafters, fishers, that
> sort of thing.

I'd go with Peter's comments - make them "general" initiates for the time being. At age 16, I'd imagine they still have time to gravitate to specific aspects. That's if you don't want them to be initiates of Odayla, Barntar, Voriof, Gustbran, etc. The HW rules (I can't remember offhand where) seem to suggest it's possible to "move" from deity to deity within a pantheon during a person's life - and of course it's possible (though time-consuming) to be an initiate of more than one god...

Good Luck, and Happy Questing!

Grins, Sarah

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