Re: followers

From: David Dunham <david_at_...>
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 14:24:27 -0700


Wulf

> remember the Follower rating. If you have only
> Follower 13, that follower will not be available about 35% of the time
> (which is why I take only a couple at once).

We assumed a follower was always there (unlike an ally, where you did have to roll). They are a hireling, after all. However, you have to make the follower roll when you ask them to do something unusual or extremely dangerous -- a bodyguard has agreed to fight, but they haven't necessarily agreed to follow you into the lair of a dragon.

> Too many followers can be extremely unbalancing in a low level game

I wouldn't normally expect a lot of followers in a low-level game.

Jane

> If two starting keywords give you
> the same skill, but at different levels, what are you supposed to do
> about it?

You get the ability once, at whatever source (i.e. occupation keyword) makes it better. (Otherwise you'd get it twice, at two different ratings, which is silly.)

> Until we looked at the Close Combat skill, and
> said "spear & shield 13, sword & shield 12, what's the CC skill?" And
> totally failed to find it in the rules or examples. What is it? Lowest skill?
> Highest skill? Something else?

Close Combat is a generic skill. It's intended that, like Conan (or Luke Skywalker), you can pick up just about any weapon and be able to use it. It's also intended that you have some sort of combat specialization (see p.23). So if your keyword gave you spear & shield fighting, you'd have close combat 17, with the spear & shield specialty. See how this is done on p.28 (but I recommend you ignore weapon ranks altogether, and if you don't, write them under the Rank column instead of under the Rating column!).

Remember, this is isn't RuneQuest, it doesn't work like RuneQuest, it doesn't have the same results as RuneQuest. These 13s and 12s weren't generated using Hero Wars, right?

> Same for Ranged of course: what does my ex-hunter Vingan, with
> Archery 8 and Javelin 12 get for Ranged Combat?

I don't see why she'd have such abilities (but of course I don't recommend converting :-). But she ought to have Ranged Combat 12, with the specialties of Javelin and Archery. She'd be 12 with either weapon. If she picked up a sling, she'd have the standard improvisational modifier of -3 (and I wouldn't argue with a narrator who assigned a larger penalty the very first time she ever did so, even though I'd assume most Heortlings have tried a sling at some point in their youth).

> So all Close Combat abilities will always be the same.

Yes. Which actually makes some sense to me -- I've learned to use all three fencing weapons. Each is unique, and until I learned it (1 hero point) I couldn't apply my full fencing ability.

And you can certainly have character-specific bonuses (arguably the Humakti with the right geas is +5 to his Close Combat when using a sword).

> And we'd already decided we needed a generic Craft skill for one chap
> (he had Devise at high levels, plus Craft Wood, Craft Reeds and gods
> only know what else). The same rule will apply, when I find out what it is.

It's certainly plausible to have a generic Craft skill, with improvisational modifiers. The chart on p.32 implies that you can do this (though Craft is about the only skill I think it might be worth doing to).

> I have still to look up weapon ranks, edges, and armour (we ran out of
> time). I'm hoping this will simply be looking up the numbers and writing
> them in (pp145-147, from the look of it)

Broken record: don't bother. They frequently cancel out anyway, and IMO they add nothing to play.

> The way I understood Greg to explain this at Convulsion (and yes, it
> made sense to me), having a Mastery means that under normal
> circumstances, you don't fumble. Maybe if there are exceptional
> circumstances, then yes, but not normally. So, he asked, in your nomral
> everyday work, that you get paid for, how often do you fumble? How
> often do you fail? Right. You're at about 10W.

A bogus argument, since one fumble doesn't represent a botched job (my work at least takes all day, so it would be an extended contest). It's conceivable that I could suffer complete defeat without ever fumbling, of course.

Also, look at any Microsoft product. Presumably Microsoft can hire the best programmers in the business, and we know from reading books like McConnell's that they practice reasonable software management. By Greg's argument, wouldn't each bug correspond to a fumble? Yet this would limit the best programmers in the business to a 19.

> So I've got at least one mastery in Cooking.

Not having tasted your cooking, I'd say you are a self-respecting cook and never have to roll. Also that your magic refrigerator gives you +20 on avoiding food poisoning.

David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_...>
Glorantha/HW/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein

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