From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #272 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, 6 June 1996 Volume 02 : Number 272 TABLE OF CONTENTS David Dunham gifted skills; death Allan Henderson Linear Stats and Balanced GMing Colin Watson Book-keeping Loren Miller list owner vacation 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: dunham@pensee.com (David Dunham) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 22:25:50 -0700 Subject: Re: gifted skills; death Brett Evill asked how GMs handle geas-raised skills. By how I phrased that, you can tell my answer. They raise the skill. On the other hand, I also believe in writing down net skill values; I understand there's a small number of people out there who don't, and always add the bonus in their head. Simon Phipp wrote >> Furthermore, I think you have the rule wrong. You die at the end of the same >> melee round in which you were killed [p.43] > > Ugh, the book-keeping phase. Why should a character killed on SR10 die > virtually immediately without chance of healing, when a character wounded on > SR1 has 9 SR to heal? I don't know why you should, but that's the rule. You *should* die CON rounds later or something. (20 - CON rounds later, on the theory that you have more vitality and your blood pumps faster? Anyway, long enough that you can be saved.) A much wider unconsciousness band (i.e. dying at -HP) also gives you a reasonable chance of being healed, which is really what I'm after. I'm not sure which is simpler or works better. ------------------------------ From: Allan Henderson Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 10:37:29 +0100 Subject: Linear Stats and Balanced GMing Simon says : > We cannot fall into the trap of thinking that all characteristic stats can be > treated in the same way, either all liner or all non-linear. So what characteristics are linear and which are exponential. I think we are all agreeed that STR and SIZ are exponenetial as they stand and that POW is linear, but what about any other characteristic. Jim Bickmeyer says: >I still say that UNLESS you want to stomp your players >then adjust the spirit to a level that can be dealt with. I must agree with Jim on this point. Now that we know just how dangerous spirits are I think that we should all be a lot more careful in what size of spirits we put the players up against. A situation I can think of involved a lot of bad dice rolls in a wilderness encounter with the result that a lot of MPs were used in healing after the event. The party then went into the spirit pool and would have been shafted had I not knocked down the spirit MPs just before combat began. I don't think that I cheated the party out of a glorious defeat, but I do think that I added an extra two hours of enjoyment onto what would otherwise have been a very short gaming night. An important part of being a good GM involves being able to think on you feet. That includes increasing and decreasing the potency of opponents to keep the danger rating high without killing the whole party in the interest of realism. Allan Henderson ------------------------------ From: Colin Watson Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 11:52:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: Book-keeping Simon Phipp: > Ugh, the book-keeping phase. Why should a character killed on SR10 die > virtually immediately without chance of healing, when a character > wounded on SR1 has 9 SR to heal? The 10 SR was brought in straight away > to keep the rules standard, rather than using the dreaded book-keeping > phase. I agree that "death at the end of the round" can lead to anomalous situations. 10SR seems a somewhat generous alternative - considering that the average death-blow lands around SR5. Mind you, including a 3SR change-of-statement it can take 6 or 7 rounds to cast a simple Heal 1... What do I do? I fudge. (Usually in favour of the good guys - if it's an NPC then he's out of luck.) If it seems reasonable we nearly always allow one chance to heal before death regardless of when the blow lands. > In fact, if you use the book-keeping phase, you can take 100 Hp > damage in SR1, 2 and so on, still remain fighting and only die when > damage is crossed off in the book-keeping phase- all quite valid in the > rules No, this is not valid in the rules (unless you have an inordinate number of HPs). The book-keeping phase is for making sure your character sheet tallies with what happened to the character during the round - nothing more, nothing less. The fact that you might not record damage until the book-keeping phase *does not* mean that the effects of damage are delayed until the end of the round. The Results Of Damage rules are pretty clear about which effects kick-in immediately and which effects happen at the end of the round. If you take 100hp on SR1 and, say, your leg is severed on SR1 then you fall on SR1 and can do nothing more (except heal). If you take a further 100hp on SR2 then you will almost certainly be rendered unconscious. You won't be dead until the end of the round - but you certainly won't be fighting. ___ CW. ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 18:20:39 EST Subject: list owner vacation Hey everybody. I'm going on vacation tomorrow and have unsubbed from all the lists in preparation. I don't want to come back from vacation with 100 digests of backlog to read. So be excellent to each other. And if you need a vacation as badly as I do, then go get it. And if you need to unsub from the lists in the meantime, make sure you can read and follow the directions on the web page. Cheers, Loren - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women, and penguins ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #272 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. 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