From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #215 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Thursday, 14 March 1996 Volume 02 : Number 215 TABLE OF CONTENTS Tal Meta Hrestol's Blessing david boatright Impaling - Slashing - Crushing david boatright Limbing severing Fantome@eworld.com standard of medicine /Chalana Arroy costs Alain_RAMEAU_at_03__paris__t Breaking Weapons Bruce Lionel Mason Hero Points (was Limbing severing) Kevin Rose RQ weapon damage Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG RQ weapon damage Sandy Petersen Sorcery Sandy Petersen clerical maces ANDOVER@delphi.com Limbing severing 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. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tal Meta Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 00:48:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hrestol's Blessing I was looking over this particular Blessing this afternoon, and had some questions concerning it. According to the most recent text I have, when invoked, Hrestol doubles the supplicant's POW for one whole day. My question is, if the supplicant in question spends that day creating a 10 POW enchantment, is his "normal" POW on the next day 1 less than it was (for invoking Hrestol) or is it 11 less (1 for invoking Hrestol, plus the 10 he spent on the enchantment)? If its only 1 less, then Hrestol is far too easy to gain as a Patron, for my tastes! There are other Saints, with higher POW requirements, that don't give back nearly as much! (I'm still trying to figure out what the benefit of being turned translucent white ala Arkat is, and why it should cost 9 POW!) ------------------------------ From: david boatright Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:13:05 +0000 Subject: Impaling - Slashing - Crushing The house rules we have used are is a mixture of 2 and 3. Impaling weapons roll damage twice and require a special x 2 to remove. Slashing weapons do half again and need a half skill roll to remove. Crushing weapons do max damage and halved all armor. I am not sure where the slash came from, I think may be an influence from GURPS. ------------------------------ From: david boatright Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:27:31 +0000 Subject: Re: Limbing severing I think people are getting carried away with the severing bit. As far as I remember severing only takes place when the limb is hit for twice its location pints in one blow, with a a heavy cutting weapon and is also at the desecration of the GM. Any way if you think about it if a cutting weapon has broken your arm, it would not take much more damage to remove it or leave it hanging by a few tendons. If broken limbs are set at 2 times location hit points, then two broken limbs make a character thoroughly dead. Since RQ does not have detailed hit location then why not use the damage as an indication. Maybe damage to the arm exceeding 2 times LHP is a severed hand while three times LHP represents a sever from the upper arm. I have played RQ III since it came out in various settings with and without major healing magic. During this time I think only about 6 or so character have lost limbs. Big Boys Rules, Big Boys Games. If you are worried about brittle PC's use a hero point system and make sure they don't get hit in the first place. Otherwise you fall into the GDW mould, where getting shot the head with a .44 magnum usually does not worry the average PC. ------------------------------ From: Fantome@eworld.com Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 03:48:46 -0800 Subject: standard of medicine /Chalana Arroy costs Aden Steinke typed >> Though some plants appear to bring arroin fairly close to magical healing. << Thank you kindly for helping to promote my main point (which follows). >>> My thoughts are that physical aspects of health are researched within the Arroin subcult... <<< Their research into herbal remedies is obviously reasonably advanced, having had a couple of ages of research to get better at it. And still continuing.. C/A Priest to a petitioner (being shown around the hospice): And these our are research rooms/tables/bench to help research a better standard of health care. Unfortunately the cost of the materials are _so_ expensive... Brian Fantome@eworld.com ------------------------------ From: Alain_RAMEAU_at_03__paris__tep@internet.total.fr Date: Thu, 14 Mar 96 13:47:54 MET Subject: Breaking Weapons David Dunham wrote <> I use a similar system coming from long rules discussions with my players concerning weapon breaking. At the origin, I considered that a weapon can break if it takes a lot of damages, but also if it inflicts a lot of damages on something hard. During a great fight, my Zorak Zoran Runelord, using damage boosting and STR enhancement spells inflicted a lot of damages which, according to my rules, would be capable of breaking his weapon. He made a roll and the weapon broke. Unfortunately, it was his cult mace with his allied spirit, plus some enchanted spell matrices. You can imagine the reaction. He made a Divine Intervention to have it back (and succeeded, with, as I remember, losing 6 POW). Since that time, we decided to improve this house rule. We are not completely satisfied of it at the present time but I propose it anyway: A weapon loses 1 AP per each fraction of damage above its AP. For example, a 8 AP weapon receiving (or inflicting on hard material) 20 damage points would lose 2 AP. According to my previous rules (I do not use for the moment), the weapon could also break immediately (chance of breaking is 5% per point in excees of twice AP, which is 20% in this example). To calculate the exact AP of the weapon for this rule (but it can also be used more generally) I do the following calculation : AP (including effect of enchanted metals and armoring enchantment) +1 per other enchantment (i.e. 1 per sacrified POW) + 1 per temporal Divine spell (or per two points of Spirit or Sorcey) in effect on the weapon. Alain. ------------------------------ From: Bruce Lionel Mason Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:22:34 -0330 (NST) Subject: Hero Points (was Re: Limbing severing) On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, david boatright wrote: > If you are worried about brittle PC's use a hero point system and > make sure they don't get hit in the first place. Otherwise you fall > into the GDW mould, where getting shot the head with a .44 magnum > usually does not worry the average PC. I would be interested in knowing how your Hero point system worked. I used a very simple one when running the Dragonlance campaign under RQ3 (twice) and it worked very well. For the slightly camp, high fantasy genre it had the effect of letting PCs survive for long enough to die heroically. Basically you spent 1HP to adjust the success of a d100 roll by one category (eg fail became success, success became special etc). Once you used a HP it was gone and you had to decide before the die roll. Finally you could only modify your own roll. You could also spend HPs to avoid certain death at a cost of 1-3 depending on how dumb the player had been to get their PC into that position. Although I would only use it for certain fantasy genres (eg never used it in my Sanctuary campaign) it seems to be one of those neat optional ideas. Back to work, ---Bruce ------------------------------ From: Kevin Rose Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:55:45 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: RQ weapon damage On Steves idea that you limit weapon damage bonus to equal max damage of the weapon: This would work for magic also, getting rid of the munchkins with two firebladed daggers who do 3d6 with each hand. ------------------------------ From: bernuetz.oliver@ic.gc.ca (Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 11:53:22 -0500 Subject: Re: RQ weapon damage >On Steves idea that you limit weapon damage bonus to equal max damage of >the weapon: > >This would work for magic also, getting rid of the munchkins with two >firebladed daggers who do 3d6 with each hand. I wouldn't agree to any limit on direct magical enhancement like this. The whole point of the spell is to make your weapon more effective. Besides if you're using the rules about weapon length a person with a sword or pole arm should make mincemeat of the dagger user (if there's room to maneuver). Oliver Bernuetz ------------------------------ From: Sandy Petersen Date: Thu, 14 Mar 96 13:36:29 -0600 Subject: Re: Sorcery Tal Meta >Question: In the description for Phantom [TOUCH], it states that this is >the only illusion spell that can have non-illusion spells placed upon it. >Would that include spells like Tap, that require the caster to touch his >subject? I'm not sure if Tal's question is about my own sorcery system or not, but because he's previously asked about it, I'll reply. Yes, you can cast Tap upon a Phantom Touch, but this would Tap the _Touch_, not whoever it touched. You cannot cast a harmful spell upon the Touch and then use it to activate on anyone it hit, unless the harmful spell was something like Produce Heat, which made the Touch very warm -- in which case the Touch isn't casting Produce Heat on the target, but just giving off a side-effect. You _can_ cast stuff like Boost Damage, Resist Magic, etc. on a Phantom Touch. Sandy P. NOTE: if you want to put an instant-activation harmful spell upon an object, I suggest doing it onto a Protective Circle. A Tap would cause anyone walking through the Circle to be Tapped. ------------------------------ From: Sandy Petersen Date: Thu, 14 Mar 96 12:31:01 -0600 Subject: Re: clerical maces David Boatright: >the Church banned churchmen from using edged weapons. This is where the crapy >D&D rule about clerics only using blunt weapons came from.. Except they didn't not really. Churchmen weren't expected to fight at all, and fighting bishops were of course rare. The only documented connection I've seen between the Church and maces is that a certain Bishop Odo fought in battle (considered unusual, even in the Middle Ages), but wielded a club because he said this kept him from shedding blood. Sandy P. ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:32:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Limbing severing A nice Freudian slip!: as I remember severing only takes place when the limb is hit for twice its location pints in one blow, with a a heavy cutting weapon and is also at the desecration of the GM Those darn GMs; they are probably all chaotic! ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #215 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. 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