From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #72 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Friday, April 17 1998 Volume 01 : Number 072 RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS RE: [RQ-RULES] RQ 4 RE: [RQ-RULES] Re: Ghosts Re: [RQ-RULES] Bound Spirit & shamen Re: [RQ-RULES] Ghosts, Spirits, Matrices [RQ-RULES] Experience, Heroes, Spirits, Sorcerers, Elementals, Jars RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. 4. No anonymous posting, please. Don't say something unless you're ready to stand by it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 12:20:20 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] RQ 4 >Did anyone ever make an RQ4 character sheet? Yes! I've got a rather nice one, done in Corel Draw. I can provide the CDR file, or a laserjet or PostScript printer file. Shall I post it to the list, or individually? Can the list handle attachments, Tal? I can't lay my hands on it until I've been home, which would mean not until Monday. PS. Tal, my Compu$erve account seems to have subscribed itself to the list - I didn't do it! philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk or phibbs@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/phibbs A single death is a tragedy a million deaths are a statistic Josef Stalin *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:05:14 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Re: Ghosts >> "Well, I've got 2 POW to spare, I'll >> get the party shaman to summon me a ghost, and bind it". >Does this mean you allow people to make enchantments with >other peoples POW? ... >Just capture a sucker, tell him he have to cooperate or die, >and drain 5 point of POW form him. No, I didn't mean this. There are a few rituals Enchants that take the POW from another, but they are rare. The only one I can think of offhand is the Broo Skin Drum enchantment that Trolls have, but I'm sure I've seen at least one other. I once ran a game in Thieves' World, and I gave one of the wizards there (Markmor?) a ritual that would allow him to make enchantments with another participant's POW. It *had* to be willing, though, coercion simply didn't work, the mental state of the victim disrupted the ritual. I am never afraid of simply ruling out what I consider to be an abuse of the rules, by saying "It just doesn't work". Magic is strange stuff, not always predictable. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk or phibbs@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/phibbs A single death is a tragedy a million deaths are a statistic Josef Stalin *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 08:47:04 -0500 From: stancliff@commnections.com Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Bound Spirit & shamen RU>> In all three forms of magic you acquire, defeat, and bind. RU>>Everything else is details. RU>Which is a gross over simplification of the proccess. The proccess RU>itself, and the dangers associated with it, is what limits the amount RU>of power spirits in sorcerers' hands. Yes, I simplified, there is always danger in the details. You say below that Pow Spirits are 2d6+3 so the biggest they can be on a normal summons is 15 and they average 10. A sorcerer can throw Spirit Resist ahead of time and then try to Dominate the spirit before it leaves (if you allow them to leave). The real threat is the 10% chance that a huge version shows up. Without Spirit Block and Spirit Screen the sorcerer Will be possessed unless he is allowed to run for his life. RU>Pow spirits are almost always bigger 2d6+3 vs (depending on how you RU>play) 1 to 1d10 It is very clear that a Pow Spirit averages twice the MP's, but is it worth the extra time, money, and risk just to same one point of POW? This is a risk/cost analysis decision. In some remote locations the Summon & Dominate (Pow Spirit ) might not be available so a person has to use MP Matrix. RU>>Any shaman can discorporate and eventually find the spell spirit RU>>they need without outside help. RU>Not true under all systems, and possiably very dangerous under RQ3. Under RQ3 the rules say that a summoned spirit can leave when it chooses. Since no intelligent spirit will stay just to be captured, it is impossible for shamen to summon, defeat, and control most, if not all, spirits. They will leave immediately. I changed this in my game to say that spirits fanatically attack the nearest sentient creature, because I felt that shamen should be able to summon and defeat spirits so that they can use their control spells. Without this change a shaman HAS to discorporate to find any spirit he wants, he has no choice. Then it is even more dangerous since a young shaman has a low Pow and a small fetch. He is in great danger if he discorporates, and serious danger if he summons random spirits. A new shaman should only summon spirits he knows the name for so that he doesn't get those extra large mistakes. RU>By the copy of RQ4 I have, no sorcery takes up Int as spells are RU>treated as skills. I will double check on RQ3 since I do not have a RU>copy of it on me and will get back. In RQ3 & 4 all sorcery spells except rituals have a skill to cast that spell, but the spell still has to be learned and it takes a point of INT. The only difference with rituals is that the appropriate enchant/summon skill is used instead of an individual ritual spell skill. Bob Stancliff (Stancliff@commnections.com) (http://commnections.com/upgrades) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:07:44 -0500 From: stancliff@commnections.com Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Ghosts, Spirits, Matrices RU>In most cases, they'd CAUSED the person to die, so they were seldom RU>willing to chat much. In at least one circumstance, the deceased were RU>assassins who'd been paid handsomely, and still had relatives under RU>their control of their employers... one of them tried to possess the RU>shaman to finish the job... Cool RU>> I see no reason as to why sorcerers can not summon a spirit and then RU>> Dominate them into a binding matrix. RU>The one in my party generally did so on a semi-regular basis. He liked RU>things that would regenerate on their own. This is the big reason for binding most spirits, they get their MP's back in a day. Alain's (?) house rule that they only get back one point a day will pretty thoroughly kill most uses for bound spirits. RU>> That I would like to find out is how people play bound spirits. For RU>> example do you allow a player to give his power spirit to another player RU>> to use? Unless there is a limiting condition, anyone touching a bind can use it. They can be lent, stolen, or captured. The biggest danger is when you give a bad guy a lot of magic so that the players can't beat him and they do anyway. RU>On occasion, the shaman in the party would lend out the use of his RU>fetch-held spirits to recharge MPMs, but I always ruled that they went RU>back to the spirit plane afterwards (and shortly thereafter go fetch it RU>back; he'd coerced truenames out of most of his spirits). Any spirit released from a bind to do a job will go back to the spirit plane unless a control, command, or dominate spell was used to give the order. Spirits under a fetch are Always released as soon as they perform a task because the shaman made a promise and must keep it. RU>> Do you play what the spirit is released if its magic points go RU>> down to zero? Is the spirit released then the owner dies? Etc. I considered the zero idea, but it is not in the rules so I let it go. Since the bind is a permanent magic item, the spirit is stuck forever unless released. RU>I suppose it would depend on the ghost, and the form of insanity it RU>possesses. Most forms of madness would, IMG, filter the commands as RU>given, proddducing strnage results. Since most bound spirits are hostile, they will look for any valid mis-wording that allows them to escape. Commanding spirits to leave a bind for any reason is a good way to lose them. Most insane people are quite lucid and are often extremely smart. They may not like the command, but they usually understand it. Raving mad spirits like Mad Head Ghosts should be sent back to Daka Fal for cleansing. RU>Well, published sources appear to support the idea that bound spirits RU>can be forced to expend POW on the binder's behalf (not that I ever RU>allowed this...) so it's not unreasonable that such commands could turn RU>out to be bargains with the devil when it comes to the wording of RU>agreements.... Any hostile and most neutral spirits will fall into this category. Bob Stancliff (Stancliff@commnections.com) (http://commnections.com/upgrades) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:04:59 +0000 From: "Simon Phipp" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Experience, Heroes, Spirits, Sorcerers, Elementals, Jars Bob Stancliffe wrote: > RU>Leon Kirshtein > Thanks Leon, there are similar items on Simon Phipp's (? I > think?) > website. I believe he was the one who said that he eventually quit > requiring experience checks and just gave out percent points to > spread across the skill lists. The characters were 200 - 300% with > their weapons before magic effects that could do things like double > their skill and quadruple their damage. Nearly, but not quite. What I did was still require an experience check in order to be able to increase a skill, but only give out a certain number of increases per session. So, a light session may have 5 skill increases, a medium 10, a heavy one 20 or whatever. The PCs then allocated an increase to a skill and just rolled the increase or took 3% as a default increase. This allowed people to concentrate on their favourite or important skills, speeded up end of game book-keeping (no experience rolls, no arguments about whether people were cheating on their rolls etc.) > Long before this I would join Phillip's arguments regarding game > balance. I inherited the campaign when people were around 200% - 250% and eventually found ways to limit the PCs in a JUSTIFIABLE way, still keeping them powerful but not at the expense of fairness. It took a while but was worth it. > The only Hero in an official publication is Ralzakark in the > Dorastor > module. He is extremely tough by normal standards but it is made > clear that most beings will apotheosize long before this. He chose > to rule on earth rather than be a lesser god. Even at that, he is > quite killable using properly prepared warrior cultists. The > narative in 'Lords of Terror' is excellent for showing the progress > of a war against him in a believable fashion. But look at something like Cwim or the Crimson Bat, which also have stats. Then compare the Hero Counters in Dragon Pass/Nomad Gods. You need some way to explain how Harrek, for instance, can kill the Crimson Bat, Cwim or Cacodemon - he needs to be of comparable ability/skill/strength. > Most of the creatures in Dorastor can be killed by a few Rune > Lords. > I am far more bothered when a character can kill the Terrors listed in > Elder Secrets. They are intended to be beyond the power of any > mortal. But that is the whole point, these are not killed by mere mortals. Anyone capable of fighting these should be at the Hero stages. Now, there is an argument as to whether people should be playing Heroes, but that is an entirely different point. > While I am willing to let my players accompany these people, I am not > willing to let them replace these people. Ah! Now we have it. Why do you not like the idea of your players playing Heroes? Surely the idea of RolePlaying is to play many different parts? > Beings of the Hero level must be extremely rare, less than > 1:100,000 > and all of them are the leaders of their cult and/or the leader of > their country. Long before a player character achieves this level, > their loyalty and dedication will be tested repeatedly to insure > that they will work for the best interests of their followers. A Hero can work for the best interests of his followers and also be Illuminated. All illumination allows, in this case, is the ability to break the rules once in a while in order to achieve the correct result. After all, Orlanth broke the rules on more than one occasion, Argrath broke the Rules when he freed Sheng Seleris. Many HeroQuests have succeeded because people broke the rules and did things differently. Illumination is the best tool for this. Nikk Effingham: > In Glorantha I think there are lots of powerful deadly > Heroes and Monsters (see Dorastor) but I think that EVERYONE uses > HeroQuests. Check out Simon Phipps rules, this shows how HeroQuests > might be used without entering the exceedingly deadly GodPlane and > getting killed. There is a big difference in Level in performing HEROQUESTS which are in the GodTime and which Mythically change things, and in performing HeroQuests which are in normal time and are the equivalent of "going down the shops like Orlanth did". Anyone belonging to a cult can participate in HeroQuests. Powerful HeroQuestors can manipulate HeroQuests using their battery of HeroQuest spells or segments of HeroQuest Paths and can do things which normal people cannot. Heroes are those people who have made a change to the GodTime. Bob Stancliffe: > Duels at rune level fall into one of two categories, attack your > opponent's shield and weapon, or swing until the parry fails and you > crit. In RQ3 perhaps, which is why I used a number of House Rules to make combat at High Levels more dangerous. In RQ2, we had Anti-Parry which speeded up combat but made for ridiculous NPCs: how do you stop the Beserker with 300% attack - have NPCs with 350% Parry etc. In any case, you can use other means to speed up combat. Cast spells, use Spirits, gang up on opponents etc. Spirit Binding: > Shamen are greatly weakened because if they summon a spirit or > Discorporate to find one they have to defeat it in spirit combat, > which reduces it's MP's to 0, before they can Control it. Then it > is put into the bind and takes several days to recover. Not at all. A spirit regenerates all its MPs in a single day as it regenerates 1/24th POW every hour. In fact, if you round up, spirits regenerate MPs a lot faster. Anyway, some shamans can use Command spells obtained from worship of deities to control their spirits. Most shamans do not bind spirits to use immediately. They go out, bind a spirit, come back, have a cup of tea, go shopping, then maybe a couple of days later they will sell the spirit, use it on a HeroQuest or whatever. Even those spirits which are used instantly do not need MPs for use (Spell Teaching spirits, Healing Spirits). > Remember, the game was designed so that most people never have a > chance to get most spells. They can get their cult's spells and > they can pay three or four times as much to get allied cult's > spells. Even several types of shamen can only use certain types of > spirits and spells because of cult restrictions. Generally only > Waha, Daka Fal, and unaligned shamen can use all types of spirits > and all spirit spells. True for RQ3, sadly not true for RQ2. In the good old days, a character needed only put a bagful of gold on the counter and could learn pretty any non-cult special spirit magic spell. Leon kirshtein: > That I would like to find out is how people play bound spirits. For > example do you allow a player to give his power spirit to another player > to use? Do you play what the spirit is released if its magic points go > down to zero? Is the spirit released then the owner dies? Etc. i play that any spirit which is not specifically affected by Restrictions may be used by anyone in aura contact with it. Basically, this means that spirits may be handed around between PCs. If the owner dies, a spirit is normally kept bound, unless their are Binding Restrictions which say otherwise. When a spirit's MPs go to 0 it remains bound and simply regenerates MPs. In RQ2, a spirit whose POW went to 0 was destroyed. Also, a person who dies loses all bound Spirits. These were two rules which I abandoned in the move to RQ3. Philip Hibbs: >> I see no reason as to why sorcerers can not summon a spirit and then >> Dominate them into a binding matrix. > > I guess it's the same reason they can't join cults and sacrifice for > divine magic. They can, but they have religious objections to doing > it. Many Gloranthan sorcerers see using Spirits as akin to trafficking with demons. However, many Stygian sorcerers (Arkati, Waertagi, Lunars) have no objections to this at all. Certainly, non-Gloranthan sorcerers would quite happily trap spirits and use their powers/abilities. David Weihe: > Also, since spirit combat has been described like spirits wrestling, a > player who did this too often could find out that some spirits can go > "berzerk" (RW sense), even it the living character couldn't (ie, a > "hit" in Spirit Combat removes 2D3 MP rather than just 1D3, or even a > D3+3) (result: spirit combat even with known spirits can be MUCH more > dangerous to the PC, at GM discretion). I use a far stronger version of Spirit Combat which is actually dangerous and allows such things. Look at my Web Site for the details. Bob Stancliffe: > My > suggestion was to change skill/10 to skill/5 so that a master can > manipulate 18 points. Then you don't need a new Art. This works a treat, from low level to high level sorcerers. It is also easy to use and quick to calculate (special chance). Leon Kirshtein: > Sorcerers have the same availability to their spells as shamans, in > terms of rarety, priests are less restrained but more limited to their > god's sphere. Not at all. A shaman can gain spells from his cult, if he belongs to a cult, or from Spirit Cults, or from friendly shamans, or from summoning Spell Teaching Spirits, or from hunting down Spell Teaching Spirits. Sorcerers can only learn spells from their master or from spell books/enchantments. Of course, it may be possible to learn the spell from a friendly sorcerer or to gain a matrix, but those are the only ways. A Hrestoli sorcerer will not be able to learn cult special spells from other cults, other sorcerers may be loathe to teach him their powerful spells. He certainly cannot go out and duff up a Spell Teaching Spirit because Sorcerers don't have them. >>Learning sorcery spells is harder than learning spells in any >>other form of magic. > >I disagree here. It is not more difficult to learn, just takes longer >to get good at it. Well, it takes 1 day to learn a Divine Spell, a couple of minutes to learn a Spirit Magic spell and a couple of weeks to learn a sorcery spell. Looks harder to learn to me. > Summon, and enchant spells do not take up int in RQ3. Unfortunately, they do. The descriptions for the Ritual spells are generic ones which can be applied to each school individually. So, Spirit Magic ritual spells take several points of INT to remember, Divine Magic Rituals take POW to learn, sorcery Ritual Magic takes 1 point of INT per spell. Elementals: Alain Rameau: > I saw on this list a discussion on elementals power. The argument > was to say that they were somewhat weak as a few weapons strikes > could dismiss them. > > One of the solution proposed was to give some AP to elementals. > My problem with this idea is that it is difficult to explain how > such AP are here! My house rules make elementals considerably more powerful, based on their POW (as a measure of their power). Salamanders do 1D6 Fire damage per 10 POW or part thereof, with a minimum of 3D6. So a POW 25 Salamander does 3D6, a POW 61 salamander does 7D6. Shades, Lunes and Selenes do incidental damage (HPs, MPs, fatigue) at a rate of 1 point per 10 POW or part thereof, so a 23 POW Shade does 3HP cold damage per round, a POW 50 Lune drains 5 MP (i think) each round. Madness and Fearshock are enhanced by calculating the RAW chance to overcome POW as (Elemental's POW - Victim's POW) * 5 + 50. Use this to calculate the chance of a special or critical effect. This increases the chances of a Shade or Lune having a really good effect on its primary attack. So, a POW 40 Shad attacking a POW 15 person would have a (40 - 15) * 5 + 50 = 175% chance of overcoming POW (as opposed to the normal 95% chance) and would special on 35 and critical on 8. Syplhs and Undines move faster, + 1 Move per 10 POW or part thereof. Undines also increase drowning damage by 1 per 10 POW or part thereof. Gnomes do not need to be made any stronger, but I play that anyone attacking a gnome has damage halved if striking at the surrounding earth. This means that you need to be engulfed by the gnome to damage it properly, in which case you are already in big trouble. I have used these rules quite effectively in my campaign and they actually make elementals dangerous. Nikk Effingham: > This is a reasonably powerful magic item that I've thought about using > in my campaign. The talk of Binding Humans and other corporeal > creatures reminded of it. While Gloranthan, it will, like anything > else, fit pretty easily into any other game world. I used something similar in my Dorastoran Campaign. These were brass jars which could hold a single Spirit or being, no matter the size/POW. The PCs had stolen two of these from Ralzakark and used them in many ingenious ways including: smuggling people, holding prisoners, carrying animals, capturing demons, storing elementals. The best use had to be when they released two Zombie Bison on the spiral staircase in the Tower of Lead which promptly tried to charge down the stairs, tripped and rolled over a couple of Vampire Archers who were causing the party no end of trouble. They managed to roll over a good few guards down below, saving the party a lot of combat. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #72 ************************************ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Avalon Hill Games. 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