From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #12 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Tuesday, January 19 1999 Volume 02 : Number 012 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS RE: [RQ-RULES] Errata armor rules RE: [RQ-RULES] Why Sorcerers Build Magic Point Matrices Re: [RQ-RULES] Hold vs. Presence Re: [RQ-RULES] Stinkin Sorcerers A Plug for SotB (was: Re: [RQ-RULES] The Blood of the Gods) [RQ-RULES] Summoning sorcerors RE: [RQ-RULES] Summoning sorcerors [RQ-RULES] Sorceror familiars Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorceror familiars Re: [RQ-RULES] Why Sorcerers Build Magic Point Matrices 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: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 11:38:12 -0000 From: Ashley Munday Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Errata armor rules According to Nick Brooke on the Gloranthan digest recently this Bronze Age mapping may be a bit overzealous on our part. He suggested that certain areas have more in common with the renaissance. Anyway, enough of this chaff as it belongs elesewhere, Ash -----Original Message----- From: Terje Tollisen [mailto:tollist@ca30s.iu.hioslo.no] Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 1999 11:28 AM To: runequest-rules@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Errata armor rules Jim Bickmeyer: > To me that read that it is possible to place chain male under plate now. > It is even possible to layer light leather, chain and plate for a total of 16 AP. > > To me this is more in line with Middle Ages armor, not the Dark Ages I have > always believed RQ to relate to. I agree this is a sounds like a Middle Age armor "configuration". But RQ is only a game system and can be used in all periodes. Ok, it is made mostly for Glorantha, but it is not limited to that world. In Glorantha however you would probably not find this combination of armor; perhaps in parts of the West. As Glorantha is close to RW bronze age I would not allow this type of armor to be used but in very special cases. Come to think of it, bronze age cultures would probably only have low quality plate armor which is not suited for wearing much underneath. -Terje "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." -Tanenbaum ********************* Terje Tollisen Kjelsaasveien 99 0491 OSLO Norway ********************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 11:50:20 -0000 From: Ashley Munday Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Why Sorcerers Build Magic Point Matrices Simon said: I think step number one for any sorcerer character is realy 'create familiar'. Its a fairly low-risk spell and it gets you both extra Free INT and an MP reservoir. It's very good value, even at the cost of a point of INT. The adventurer wasn't an adept, just an apprentice, so he couldn't make a familiar. Ash *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 08:30:07 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Hold vs. Presence Rich Allen wrote: > > This is a personal gripe on my part, I admit, but IMO modules don't > provide errata to games rules. Anything stated in a module that is > different that published rules are OPTIONAL new rules. I don't want > to go out and buy every module that somes out in the chance that > some kind of errata may be in there somewhere. If something is > so broken in the published rules that errata is needed, it should go > into an official SOURCE book, or better yet, a new edition of the > game. I don't buy modules, I run my own adventures. I only wish that the odds of actually seeing what you're asking for above were actually possible. As it stands, RQ is unlikely to ever see print again (though Hasbro has been making sounds to that effect, it is unknown if what they are planning is RQ or the RQ:Slayers that AH almost published. In defense of the "modules", AH only really produced 5. Books like River of Cradles and Sun County, while they contained adventures, were effectively sourcebooks as well. - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 08:38:22 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Stinkin Sorcerers Richard Ohlson wrote: > > I guess the reason I have allways thought this is because they don't > learn their spells from spirits. If sorcerers use spirits a lot also, > is there any good reason why sorcerers don't commonly have Heal 2 or > Heal 4? I mean, lets be honest, there are quite a few spirit magic > spells that beat the heck out of sorcery spells. Of course, you have to > deal with the Free Int issue, but there are also matrixies. While they don't learn their spells from spirits, there isn't any reason that they can't teach their spells to spirits. I'd be willing to wager that most of the magic spirits on Glorantha that know sorcery began their careers as normal spirit-magic weilding spirits, who were bound by sorcerers, forced to forget the spells they knew, and taught "holy" magicks instead. (Of course, I could make an equal case for the magic spirits are ghosts who have forgotten their "past lives", too.) > Maybe it's just a matter that 95% of the spirits stronger than 2 or 3 > are actually cult spirits or pets of Shaman. Who knows? Maybe somebody > else has a better idea. Using ideas from Sandy's shaman rules, a good many spirit nodes IMC represent "RW" locations of temples or former temples. The rest are the sites of major religious battles, current or former shamanic sacred ground, or a similar point of confluence. - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 08:44:44 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: A Plug for SotB (was: Re: [RQ-RULES] The Blood of the Gods) Rich Allen wrote: > > and Eldar Secrets, for the expansion of the player races. I tend not > to pick up the smaller publications though, like Apple Lane, > Shadows on the Borderland, etc. You missed a good one in Shadows, IMO. The Thanatar writeup is the major gem, but I've used the rules for cavern crawling to good effect several times. The ogre philosophy writeup is potentially useful, too, though I tend to prefer the "brutish" AD&D style of ogre over RQ's more human type. - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 09:24:51 -0500 From: Andrew Barton Subject: [RQ-RULES] Summoning sorcerors > To summon and control his or her first POW spirit, a sorcerer would probably use a magic point matrix Only if he's doing it unaided by any other magician. The discussion of summoning in the base rules suggests summonings be perfomed by two people, one to Summon, one to Dominate/Control/Command. Where's your sorceror's master? Either he'd help out, or he'd arrange for two apprentices (perhaps one from another master) to co-operate as part of their training. Andrew *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 15:21:00 -0000 From: Ashley Munday Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Summoning sorcerors Personally, had the Adventurer asked "Master, can you cop us a hand?" he'd have been answered: "(a) Who pays who around here and (b) Do it yourself, it's character building. Haven't you got some washing up to do?" The way I see it, it's better for the player to sweat a bit and make his own gear. He got a far greater sense of achievement out of it than had his master summoned it and he used Dominate on it (or vice versa.) Ash -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Barton [mailto:AndrewBarton@compuserve.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 1999 2:25 PM To: INTERNET:runequest-rules@mpgn.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Summoning sorcerors > To summon and control his or her first POW spirit, a sorcerer would probably use a magic point matrix Only if he's doing it unaided by any other magician. The discussion of summoning in the base rules suggests summonings be perfomed by two people, one to Summon, one to Dominate/Control/Command. Where's your sorceror's master? Either he'd help out, or he'd arrange for two apprentices (perhaps one from another master) to co-operate as part of their training. Andrew *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 12:16:48 -0500 From: Andrew Barton Subject: [RQ-RULES] Sorceror familiars > I think step number one for any sorcerer character is realy 'create familiar'. Its a fairly low-risk spell and it gets you both extra Free INT and an MP reservoir. It's very good value, even at the cost of a point of INT. Some reasons why not: (1) if you're playing the rules as written, only adept sorcerors are taught how to create familiars. (2) Each point of free INT allows you to double the duration or range of your spells. In any contest between sorcerors, the one with the higher free INT has a great advantage. Giving up a point of INT becomes a huge cost as soon as all your characteristic INT is free (which should be an early objective for all sorcerors). (3) Unless you have high levels of Enchant skill, there's a substantial risk of failure. My interpretation is that any failure costs you the characteristic points without reward, though now I come to check the spell wording it doesn't say so explicitly. (4) Later in their careers, sorcerors are more likely to be able to arrange to make familiars from incomplete characters that lack other stats, but not INT. Giving up SIZ is far less important than INT, other stats can be trained back, any stat except INT can be increased with Enhance spells. Also, such creatures may (a matter of GM ruling) be less subject to aging. Andrew *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 13:59:15 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Sorceror familiars Andrew Barton wrote: > > (1) if you're playing the rules as written, only adept sorcerors > are taught how to create familiars. Yes/no. The mark of an adept is having already created a familiar, sort of a graduation exercise. > (2) Each point of free INT allows you to double the duration > or range of your spells. In any contest between sorcerors, > the one with the higher free INT has a great advantage. So? Instead of a lion cub, choose a nymph, or some other intelligent but incomplete creature. > (3) Unless you have high levels of Enchant skill, there's a > substantial risk of failure. My interpretation is that any failure Ceremony is everybody's friend, even under the old rules. - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 16:49:55 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Why Sorcerers Build Magic Point Matrices > I think step number one for any sorcerer character is realy 'create > familiar'. Its a fairly low-risk spell and it gets you both extra Free INT > and an MP reservoir. It's very good value, even at the cost of a point of > INT. The vast majority of new characters will not meet the requirements for becoming an adept, and only those apprentices "graduating" to Adept would be allowed to create their own familiar. And what if the creature you want to make your familiar needs more than INT? Granted, most new Adepts will probably choose some kind of mundane animal, complete except for the fixed INT, so it won't come up much. Just curious: do you have an alternate method for creating characters than what's listed in the book? Or do you just allow starting characters more than the 2d6+15 for starting age? I'd really like to see some good rules for creating more powerful mid- level characters. > > I stand by my statement that a sorcerer cannot cast Damage > >Resist 20, Damage Boosting 20, and Spell Resist 20 in any useful > >period of time. > > Probably not, but 15 points is certainly doable. Why you would want to > cast all three spells on the same traget is a mystery to me though. ME TOO!!! Look, this whole discussion started when someone said RQ3 sorcerery is broken when you could have sorcerers running around with the above three spells at those levels. I replied that if you had a sorcerer that could cast those three spells before a combat, you weren't playing by the rules. That was before I was shown the errata'd multispell, so MP isn't an issue anymore, but Free INT still prevents it. > BTW in the latter case if I come across a 10 point MPME with 10 MPs > stored in it, according to your rules I can't use the MPs. > Does that mean that the enchantment is useless to me? After all I can't You must have missed my earlier post where I said we use a rule that requires POW crystals to be attuned before they can be used, and that the process of attuning them empties them of any previous owner's MPs. This is an additional rule to fill a gap where none exist, we're aren't changing an existing rule, because none exist for this situation. > Perhaps in your game, but most sorcerers will get a POW check per > session most of the time. That probably equates to a point of POW every Do your adventures only last one session? Ours last, on average, about five or six sessions. POW gain rolls, according to the rules, can only be done when experience gain rolls are done, and that is at the end of an adventure, after the character has had time to relax and reflect on what happened during the adventure. I know, it doesn't make sense, but it's in the rules, and we really do try to play within the rules as written. > >The rules doo not specify the opposite, either, so how are we > >changing rules? In fact, the rule states that "the user of the item" can > >move his MP's into the item. We choose to interpret that as the person > >attuned to the crystal. You don't. Both are correct, as far as the > >rules go. > > What's this got to do with crystals? I thought we were talking about See above. We basically extend the attuning rules of crystals to cover all MPME. YCMV. > >What rules have I proposed changing? We have created rules to fill > >in gaps that weren't covered in the published rule books. > and I quote : > > { We rule that MP's stored in a crystal (or any other magic point > {matrix item) can only be used by the individual that put them there, {and > only one person's MP's can be in an MPMatrix at a time. Once again, there is no rule to contradict this, so what rule are we changing? We are adding rules to cover situations were none exist, that's all. > { I don't allow sorcerers (or priests) to summon spirits with the > {Summon(creature) spell. If you allow that, there's really no need > {for the Shaman as a player character. No rules have been changed here, we simply make knowledge of the sorcery summon spell very rare. Adventuring characters (which, by the way, make up 100% of our characters) simply can't find anyone to teach them the spell, and even if they could, none of them want to "waste" several months of adventuring sitting around being a servant to a sorcerer while he teaches them. > >Where are these tables? The encounter table for the "Inner > >Region" of the spirit plane....... > > Er... I think you just answered your own question....... How does 4d6+3 cover 35 POW spirits? Or 50 POW, or 100? > I think you'll find that you don't have to increase the intensity of the > summon spell to put more MPs into it, any more than a shaman has to cast a > 15 point spirit spell to summon a POW 15 spirit. You cast the spell first > _then_ you sacrifice the MPs to summon the spirit. I admit it's not totaly > clear in the rules paragraph, but the example given in the side bar is > pretty clear. Maybe we have different versions of the rule books; that would certainly explain the differences we seems to have in interpretation. My rule books (RQ3 Deluxe Edition) have no side bar examples of summoning spells or rituals of any kind, and the rules themselves very clearly state that enough extra MP's must be pumped into the summon spell to cover the MP's of the summoned creature or that summon spell automatically fails. One interesting contradiction I found in the Magic book though. In the Manipulation section, it says that rituals cannot be part of a multispell stack, and this is stated in the errata for Multispell as well. But in the last section of the ritual magic, it says you can multispell the summon ritual with the dominate spell so that the dominate can be cast before the spirit either runs away or engages you in spirit combat. Probably more of an exception to the rule, rather than a contradiction, but it's interesting, don't you think? > I know, that's what it says in the rule book. Did I say otherwise?...... > No, I didn't think so. Damn dude, that message was not aimed at any one person! Do you think these disussion are with you alone? I'm just trying to understand how powerful characters can do what is claimed they are doing, pointing out that rules as stated make some of the examples given here by other people either impossible or very improbable. Relax! I'm not attacking anyone! Rich Allen *************************************************************************** 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 V2 #12 ************************************ *************************************************************************** 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 Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.