From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #134 Reply-To: runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Wednesday, August 25 1999 Volume 02 : Number 134 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Re: multiple attacks RE: [RQ-RULES] Wasp problems [RQ-RULES] Re: removing magic items from the party [RQ-RULES] Magic item supply problems [RQ-RULES] Multiple attacks for non-humans Re: [RQ-RULES] Wasp problems [RQ-RULES] Re: taking magic items from the party [RQ-RULES] Magic Items [RQ-RULES] Fighting beasts and their multiple attacks [RQ-RULES] DMD - Dispater for RQ/Greyhawk 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: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:00:33 -0700 From: Brad Furst Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: multiple attacks >From: "Bob Stancliff" >There is a reference in RQ3 to >allowing one attack per two possible attacking limbs. This was to justify >giving multi-armed monsters several attacks. I believe you, but where can I find it in the publications? Brad Furst esoteric@teleport.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 08:59:35 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Wasp problems >Base movement rate is listed as 25m/SR in TrollPack, and >Sprout Wings multipliers speed by ten. It sounds like Sprout Wings is intended to give flying ability to non-fliers, and it being usable on creatures that already have wings is not intended. I don't have Troll Gods to hand, though. Opinions expressed may not even be my own, let alone those of any organisations, nations, species, or schools of thought to which I may be affiliated. http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk/ Failure is not an option, it's integral to the o/s. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:28:47 +0100 From: "Mark Buckley" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: removing magic items from the party > How do any of you referees ever deplete the supply of magic items possessed > by the character party? Last game, quite a lot of stuff went AWOL. The party were trying to get into the good books of some Dwarves (non-Glorantha), who asked them to retrieve a "ring of silver and amethyst" from a local merchant, who had obtained it as part of a debt payment from someone who shouldn't have had it in the first place. Now the characters don't speak Dwarf, and the Dwarfs were speaking through a "talking box" (translate from Lang X to Lang Y at reduced %, you can connect several together to eventually get the language that you want, usually at a horrible %age reduction). What the dwarves meant by a "ring" was a 3' diameter disc of silver. It also had the side effect of being an alchemical transformer, that turned anything nearby (10 radius) into lead over a period of about 12 hours. However, the Dwarves didn't see this as an important fact for retrieving it, so they didn't mention it. So the players, surprisingly, decide that they will go to the merchants villa and see if they can buy it first...they wander in, ask about the ring (which the merchant is somewhat surprised to find that they know about), and start bargaining. Now the merchant is fairly desperate to get rid of it, and would accept anything over 2000 silver for it, but the players start bargaining at 10,000, so he decides that if they want to pay a lot, he won't disagree, and they settle on 8,000 silver. The players gather up all their cash, sell various items etc and get together the 8,000, buy the object and take it away in a wagon that they hired. At this point one of the players decides that as it's so valuable, they should protect it, so he goes to the War temple and hires 10 initiates to guard it overnight until they can take it to the Dwarves the next day. In the morning they are awoken by angry initiates and a wagon owner, all of whose stuff now seems to be made of lead. To avoid trouble, they sell most of their other goods and items to replace those lost by the hirelings. They are now feeling very poor, and decide to take up the offer they were given some weeks ago by a minor merchant to transport some goods to some windswept islands off the West coast... At least they figure that it was their fault, not me being out to get them!! cheers, Mark *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:01:10 -0400 (EDT) From: simon_hibbs@lycosmail.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Magic item supply problems Brad Furst : >How do any of you referees ever deplete the supply of magic items possessed >by the character party? I've never had to. I think the real lesson is that fiddling with the enchantment rules and being overly generous with cash or magic item availability have to be very carefully thought out. The standard rules as writ are pretty well balanced in this regard. Having said that, one very nice way to achieve this might be through weregild settlements. PCs have notoriously itchy trigger fingers and restless sword arms. Bring on those court cases, which are also a good opportunity for roleplaying. Even if the PCs are found not guilty of murder, they may be expected to contribute to the welfare of the widowed and orphaned families of those they have slain. If a magic weapon was used in the slaying it may be forefeit. Also, the judge in the case may require payment in the form of magic items. I'd never rob magic off the character in my game unless there was a clear in-game reason for it. They worked hard for their stuff, by and large. On the other hand, easy come - easy go. Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:02:35 -0400 (EDT) From: simon_hibbs@lycosmail.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Multiple attacks for non-humans Brad Furst : >We are accustomed to allowing two actions per round: Attack and defend, >Attack twice, or Defend twice. Right? > >The tiger "gets two simultaneous claws and one bite each round." Okay, >this is more than two, but it seems reasonable, yes?, so we allow it. Do >we call this a single Attack (the combination)? It sems reasonable because, simply put, that's exactly how tigers attack. Have you ever play-fought with a pet cat? They routinely grapple with their fore paws, do raking kicks with their hind paws and bite. They can do all these effectively simultaneously as they are instinctive responses. They're custom built to fight this way, while humans aren't. In this specific case, the two claws are clearly seperate attacks, rolled seperately on the same strike rank. How can a single attack be simultaneous with itself? Treating them as one attack maked the wording absurd. The attacks can hit seperate locations. The tigre doesn't necesserily come at it's target in a regimented, orderly fashion. It could leap up on top of it's prey, or roll over sideways on the attack making almost any location available for a rake. >But now do we also allow the Tiger to use its Dodge skill (40%)? I'd give it a Grapple ability and let it use that to block attacks, but you could use the dodge percentage to reflect this as the tiger twists and heaves on the target, making it very difficult to bring a weapon to bear. After all, at this stage the tiger is 'closed against a long weapon user' anyway. Bob Stancliff : > Yes, for humanoid sentients. The monsters are often given a major >advantage in attack number and speed to increase their threat level. I think that's unfair. The combat rules for tigers, rhinos and scorpion men seem to be reasonable interpretations of the natural creature's attack methods. I can't think of any natural or semi-natural creatures in the rules that seem overly deadly. In fact, quite the opposite. I think the rules for many creatures make them far too easy to defeat. You can get round this by using creative tactics. The tiger could do a knockback attack to down an opponent before raking and biting. Remember to apply the rules for closing against a long weapon. Make use of stealth and night attacks. Remember that some natural creatures in Glorantha are born sentient and will likely have appropriate totemic magic. Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:02:56 +0100 From: "Nikk Effingham" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Wasp problems >>Base movement rate is listed as 25m/SR in TrollPack, and >>Sprout Wings multipliers speed by ten. > >It sounds like Sprout Wings is intended to give flying ability to >non-fliers, and it being usable on creatures that already have wings is not >intended. I don't have Troll Gods to hand, though. Cast on a non-bee it causes them to sprout wings and fly at 12m/SR, cast on a bee flying speed is multiplied by 10 and no fatigue is lost for flying. Nikk *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:30:03 PDT From: "Roland Volz" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: taking magic items from the party Brad Furst asked: >How do any of you referees ever deplete the supply of magic items possessed >by the character party? > >Destruction by magic (Disruption? Sunspear)? >Ransom from a defeat? How often is the party ever defeated? >Taken by a local chief or noble? How do you role play that? And Isn't the >party strong enough to successful resist? > >Forced release of bound spirits? Remind me of the parametric procedure of >releasing someone else's bound spirits.... I always figured that anyone who expended the necessary amount of energy and resources to enchant an item would put safeguards in to limit its effectiveness when used by others. For instance, by simply enchanting a very fine sword with Truesword, Turn Undead (x2), Bladesharp 10 and Protection 10, you can make the Humakti equivalent of a minor holy sword -- it was made by a ritual sacred to Humakt, after all, and it bears some of his powers. Can you imagine any Humakti with the power and knowledge to make such a thing *not* putting Conditions on the Enchantment to restrict it from being used by the Undead? And that represents the very least restriction; since they only cost one additional POW, a priest has no reason not to put a number of restrictions on there. Alternatively, he might just put a restriction on limiting it from being used by non-Humakti. The sword will have cost thousands of Lunars and bears secret Humakti powers; his high priest should require several such Conditions when the priest asks him for permission to make the sword. What's that you say? The players have never had to ask permission to make a magic item before? Well, they should; the powers of one's god are very special, the result of secrets learned and quests completed in Higher Planes; if you don't put conditions on objects, they might very well be used by cult enemies. Even if you put conditions on them, they might not be safe - -- in River of Cradles there is an adventure where the players try to find some Orlanthi cult regalia in order to keep them out of the hands of the Lunars. Anyway, because of all these Conditions, my players are very leery of using new magic items. They prefer ones of known power that they might get from their cult, despite the fact that they might be less powerful. I have been known to include secret Conditions, hidden by special Enchantments, that caiused nasty side effect powers to work on the wielder. Some weapons have benn guarded by powerful spirits who controlled the wielder. Still other items contained powers that had unforeseen side effects. Rather than take items away, I like it when the players dump them of their own accord. Roland Volz _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:09:22 +0200 From: "Erik Sieurin" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Magic Items In my games, you have to attune to most enchantments, like you attune to magic crystals. The creator, or anyone who helped him, need not bother with that, however. Also, I have borrowed/stolen the Harnmaster idea that magic items (regardless of the way you create them) tend to be either 'minor' or 'major'. Minor items can never hold more than one power, major items can, but are practically always sentient, either by binding a spirit (most theists, animists) or by creating one (most mystics and sorcerers). These spirits generally have an opinion of who they want to work with - most have fixed INT ruleswise, but so do cats... One of my players was very happy about his self-repairing Mostali-made iron chainmail byrnie, until he found out it was 'tagged' - the pesky little buggers could find him whenever they wanted, watch him alll the time, and if they wished, they would simply have snapped the byrnie back to them... So he had a "friendly" magician "remove" the tag... cough cough, some people never learn. Being controlled by pseudo-Brithini is somewhat worse than being in the hand of the War Machine's Covert Operations Unit (aka 'the Silk Glove')... Erik Sieurin, feeling nasty *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:11:36 +0200 From: "Erik Sieurin" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Fighting beasts and their multiple attacks I agree with Simon, that's the way animals do fight. I think that there ought to be similar concessions for the punch-followed-by-punch as well - at least there should be no left-hand-penalty for striking with your left fist. Erik Sieurin, jabbing *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:47:10 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] DMD - Dispater for RQ/Greyhawk Lords of the Nine DISPATER Runes: Law (Malign), Evil, Hunger The Lord of Dis, Hell's Second Layer is Dispater, who rules over the fabled Iron City. Cult in the World Dispater is well regarded as one of the easiest arch-Devils to lose one's soul to, as he willingly caters to whatever lusts a mortal harbors in his heart of hearts. For those willing to pay Dispater's price, no fantasy is impossible to make reality. The only catch, of course, is that Dispater can only provide 'things'. He cannot make you smarter, or wiser, or turn you into a king. And while he might not be able to make the woman of your dreams love you, he can provide a woman who looks just like the one you seek, who will act in all ways as though she were the one you desired. Mainifestations Dispater is among the more humanoid arch-Devils, possessing a stern, rugged face on a head that is bare except for a pair of small pointed horns and a small goatee. A long tail descends from beneath his robes, and his left foot (only) has the appearance of a cloven hoof. Dispater commonly wears satin robes of dark purple, accentuated by sholder boards and cuffs of shiny black leather in a dragon-wing motif. Dispater never appears alone when manifesting in the world, typically he is accompanied by at least two of his loveliest erinyes, who will fawn over their master as he speaks with whomever has summoned him. Both will, when their master's attention is diverted, glance at their master's summoner with wanton eyes and lick their lips or caress their own bodies suggestively. Lesser Contracts Requirements: Those who seek Dispater's assistance in maing their dreams come true must be prepared to meet his price in both POW and 'other considerations'. Dispater's gifts are ephemeral at best. Lesser Contracts all have varying expiration dates, after which the summoner must renew the contract if he wishes it to remain in force. At such a time, Dispater will often send one of his servants to visit his clients, to remind them that it is time to renegotiate the contract with their master. Each such renewal typically costs 1 POW additional to the prior contract, for 'maintenance costs', as Dispater puts it. The following services are available at the initial costs listed below: 1) For this cost, Dispater will provide a sumptous feast, a banquet beyond compare. Food enough for a small army will be provided, all of it delicious and expertly prepared. 1) A single night with the loveliest of Dispater's erinyes, during which she is the summoner's to command. 3) The services of an imp, for one year's time. 5) The services of a barbed or erinyes devil, for one season. Greater Contracts Requirements: Those who would enter into a Greater Contract with Dispater must possess a score of at least 14 in the Indulgent virtue. Dispater likes those mortals who have tastes like his own; lusts should be fullfilled, not repressed. But it is not enough that Dispater gains the souls of those who serve him directly, he expects his servants to bring him even more souls if they are to truly be bound to a Greater Contract with him. Dispater's Talismans allow the bearer to summon an erinyes to their own service for a period of 1 year for only 3 POW, and can summon a banquet for the cost above. Unlike those who enter into a Lesser Contract, the cost does not rise with each summons (as the summoner's soul is already guaranteed to Dispater upon their death). Additionally, the bearer of one of Dispater's Talismans is authorized to grant the services listed under Lesser Contracts to another, for the costs stated above, to be born by the receiver of the gift. In this way, Dispater's servants can damn those around them in addition to themselves, without giving away the secrets of making a better deal directly with their master. Dispater's Talismans are circles of cold iron, within which is streched a membrane of human skin. Markings on the flesh reflect the current POW stored within, as well as the amount of time that has passed since the summoner first bargained with Dispater. Spirit of Reprisal Duke Titivilus: Dispater's primary messenger is Titivilus, a smallish devil whose form partakes equal parts of both Dispater and a satyr. Titivilus is a master wordsmith, and can Befuddle or Demoralize any creature merely by speaking with them. He typically visits those who have made Lesser Contracts with his master, informing them that the time of their contract is nearly up. When encountered as a Spirit of Reprisal, Titivilus likes to make the punishment fit the crime. Those guilty of failing to keep their concubines suitably entertained may be spirited off to serve another's fantasies, and one who has misused an erinyes will be given over to her sisters for their own amusement... - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Heretic, Dilettante, & God-Machine ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #134 ************************************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. 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