From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V3 #65 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, 12 September 1996 Volume 03 : Number 065 TABLE OF CONTENTS albert@emerald.cybergate.com Sorcery Frederic J-M Moulin Armor vs Critical Del Padilla [none] Paul Heinz Armour vs Critical Glenn Glazer Truestones & Physics Jesper Wahrner Sorcery Jesper Wahrner Sorcery David Dunham criticals, protection, Truesword Frederic J-M Moulin Truestones & Physics Frederic J-M Moulin criticals, protection, Truesword David Weihe Partial successes David Weihe Sorcery 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: albert@emerald.cybergate.com Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 09:51:06 +0000 Subject: Re: Sorcery > Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 10:31:05 -0400 > To: RQ-Rules@hops.wharton.upenn.edu > From: Frederic J-M Moulin > Subject: Re: Sorcery > Reply-to: RQ-Rules@hops.wharton.upenn.edu > >The duration of sorcery spells is the biggest problem with the > >sorcery system. Becuase of it, everyone in the party ends up with a > >Damage Boosting on almost every weapon they own and everyone has > >damage resistence up at all times. Granted, because of the duration, > >they can only put a few points of these speels up, but it is still > >unbalancing. > > Sandy's system solve that problem. The way I personnally used to do before > it wasto make each point of duration use free INT for as long as the spell > was running. For example a duration 6 spell effectively reduced the free INT > of the sorcerer by 6 for the time of the spell. But I like the vows system > better: it's a lot more fun to have really weird sorcerers, and it gives > magician a sort of equivalent to the gift/gease system that in my experience > was very appreciated by players. > Frederic > How do I get a copy of Sandy's system? Is this Sandy Peterson you are talking about? Albert Ramirez, J.D. : Deep Space Nine: To boldly stay where albert@cybergate.com : no one has stayed before. "Trucha con la lucha" : ------------------------------ From: Frederic J-M Moulin Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:08:30 -0400 Subject: Re: Armor vs Critical > I was happy to see other people (Frederic Moulin for exemple), played > the critical/armor protection rule the same way as I do, i.e magical > armor protects against critical too. That means that the rules are not > clear on that point and can be understood different ways ! Alas, it only means that Frederic Moulin cannot read and remember every line of the RQ Rules !!! And maybe also that his players have a tendency to forget his mistakes as long as they are favorable to the survival of their characters... But all of this will be corrected, and from now on I shall memorize five lines of the Holy Roolz every evening. By the way, who's going to be RuneMaster at the next convention this winter in Chicago, cause I can't wait to display my new skill: Nothing like a 30 mn argument with a rule lawyer to enhance the atmosphere of a scenario ;-) Have a nice day, Frederic ------------------------------ From: del_padilla@Merck.Com (Del Padilla) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: [none] unsubcribe RQ-Rules ------------------------------ From: "Paul Heinz" Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 11:10:33 UT-8 Subject: Armour vs Critical With all the discussion on magic armour and criticals, I thought I'd post the house rule I use which is also similar to the system that Steve Perrin uses in his house RQ system: A special gives you 1 level of extra success A critical gives you 2 levels of extra success You can effects from the following list for each level of success: 1. double damage (or whatever special damage you use) 2. bypass physical armour 3. bypass magical armour This way, on a critical, you can't BOTH ignore both magical AND physical armour and get the special damage effect. One idea I've toyed with is that you can only ignore magical armour if you have some form of attack magic on the weapon criticalled with i.e. ironhand, truesword, bless weapon, etc. This means that _ordinary_ animals can't ignore magical armour on a critical, whereas _supernatural_ animals (like weres, dragons, etc) can. Opinions anybody? TTFN, Paul. ====================================================================== Paul Heinz Scalable Development Inc., Victoria, B.C. Profax International Limited, Auckland, New Zealand E-mail: pheinz@direct.ca #include ====================================================================== ------------------------------ From: Glenn Glazer Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 11:14:00 -0700 Subject: Re: Truestones & Physics At 17:13 09/10/96 -0400, Ian wrote: >David Cake: >"The rules fix we came up (I think it was mostly Loren and I that >were advocating it, but I don't know whose it was originally) back in >RQ4/RQ:AIG days was that any divine spells could not be recovered until >after the duration had ended." > >Just the same idea I had. It is the same logic for divine spells going into >Truestone. You can't recover it until the spell is cast out of the Truestone. I >also applied it to things like Yelorna's meteor arrow spell whose duration was >"until shot". I decided that the Yelornans could not stockpile these things. >Each one could cast her spells on arrows but she couln't recover the spell until >that arrow had been used or destroyed. > This reminds me of something I forgot to mention during the earlier "how much does POW weigh?" argument. I still agree that POW doesn't weigh anything and that trying to quantify parts of a person's soul is a Bad Idea (sounds suspiciously God Learner :) if you ask me) in that most philosophies would tell you that such things are indivisible. However, for game purposes, we need to. Anyway, someone asked how much POW weighed and the response was that the question confused physics and metaphysics. In general, I agree. HOWEVER, one good counter-example is in _Cults of Prax_ in the Biturian scene with the Truestone. Note that the stone GOT HEAVIER with each spell put in it. This leads to one of four conclusions: 1) POW has mass 2) POW disconnected from a spirit (i.e., in enchantment or divine spells) has mass 3) Divine spells outside of their sacrificer have mass 4) The effect is a special effect of Truestones and independent of the other three ideas I favour the last one as it does the least damage to my sensibilities and conforms the most to common sense and RW philosophies and religions. Best, Glenn \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ "You can't prove that there's no God. You have to take it on faith." -Woody Allen /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ From: jewahr@hts.pp.se (Jesper Wahrner) Date: 12 Sep 96 16:06:34 +0100 Subject: Re: Sorcery Chris Klug: CK> In my campaigns, what I did was allow the spells to be taught as NPCs CK> and characters desired, but made the sorcery skills strictly known CK> only by adepts and mages. Thus, anyone might know Damage Boost, but CK> could only cast it at an Intensity of 1, and Duration of 10 minutes. Did anyone bother to learn them? I don't know of a single sorceryspell that is useful without Intensity. Possibly some light spell or Treat Wounds. Yours, Jesper ... Paranoids have enemies too! - --- Blue Wave/386 v2.21 .--> | Jesper Wahrner 2:201/293 | internet email: jewahr@hts.pp.se `----> ------------------------------ From: jewahr@hts.pp.se (Jesper Wahrner) Date: 12 Sep 96 16:06:34 +0100 Subject: Re: Sorcery Albert Ramirez: al> The duration of sorcery spells is the biggest problem with the al> sorcery system. Becuase of it, everyone in the party ends up with a al> Damage Boosting on almost every weapon they own and everyone has al> damage resistence up at all times. Granted, because of the duration, al> they can only put a few points of these speels up, but it is still al> unbalancing. Does this mean that they are actually fighting with better weapons than they would otherwise? Most fightertype characters have weaponenhancing magic that would be just as good as a few points of damageboosting. What they win is the few rounds it would take to cast them and enhanced ready- ness at surprise attacks. But this is hardly unbalancing? Remember that two weaponenhancing spells don't add together; only the most powerful counts. And damage resistance at a few points is such a lousy spell that I would not really bother about it. Think about it. It will almost never stop the blows that really need stopping. Only those that things like armour would take care of anyway. There are spells that could be bothersome if the entire party is running around with, such as "Enhance DEX". But it shouldn't be to hard making sure that these aren't available to the PC sorceror's tradition. And then there is the cultural thing. In my (gloranthan) campaign most divine magic using characters of repute would rather die than having soulless sorcery cast upon their persons or belongings. You can't force your players to do this, but you can stress the social damage they would suffer if found out. Characters from a sorceryusing society wouldn't have this limitation, but this is IMHO how these cultures should work. A rich divine magic using character might spend his money on learning a Bladesharp 4 spell in order to be more successful at a coming battle, whereas a warrior from a sorcery using culture might spend his money on petitioning the local sorceror to cast damageboosting 4 on his sword with duration enough to last over the batlle. It's their way of buying magic. Yours, Jesper ... Quodcumque incedis sequitur mors corporis umbra. - --- Blue Wave/386 v2.21 .--> | Jesper Wahrner 2:201/293 | internet email: jewahr@hts.pp.se `----> ------------------------------ From: David Dunham Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:31:24 -0700 Subject: Re: criticals, protection, Truesword Alain Rameau wrote > I was happy to see other people (Frederic Moulin for exemple), played > the critical/armor protection rule the same way as I do, i.e magical > armor protects against critical too. That means that the rules are not > clear on that point and can be understood different ways ! The English edition is quite clear (at least to an English speaker). I think some people just don't like that rule, and have magic protect against crits because they feel it should (perhaps from some theory that you're surrounded by a protective field). Hal Bowman defends just such a variant, but apparently has never had to deal with people using Shield 8, stacked with Protection, and armoring enchantments. (Luckily, I never have either, but the rules have to deal with this sort of thing. Obviously, it's not a problem in his campaign, and should work well in any low-level campaign.) Frederic Moulin claims > It appears clear to the court that the spell protection should only be > envisioned as the magical hardening of a piece of armor and not in anyway as > a protective field surrounding the character. Then Protection cannot be used while naked, which is patently false. (There is no armor to harden. And it can't be skin, because then it couldn't be bypassed by a critical.) You're right on the rules (and about limits applying only to training), but this model of the spell doesn't work. In fact, I believe making models of spells (in any game system) is pretty much doomed to failure -- spells are rules constructs designed for easy or balanced play. And magic is governed by laws that don't exist in the real world, so we'd have a hard time imagining them. If you must model Protection, something weird and not totally predictable, based on quantum mechanics, would be better. As for Fireblade + Truesword, a possible interpretation is that the damage would be 3d6 + d8+1. I would be unhappy with any rule that made it 3d6. David Dunham Glorantha/RQ page: Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein ------------------------------ From: Frederic J-M Moulin Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 17:37:31 -0400 Subject: Re: Truestones & Physics >one good counter-example is in _Cults of Prax_ in the Biturian scene with >the Truestone. Note that the stone GOT HEAVIER with each spell put in it. >This leads to one of four conclusions: > >1) POW has mass Power is energy. Energy is mass: RuneQuest follows quantum mechanics. Just as simple as E=mc^2 Ha, ha, just kidding... fred ------------------------------ From: Frederic J-M Moulin Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 18:06:25 -0400 Subject: Re: criticals, protection, Truesword >> It appears clear to the court that the spell protection should only be >> envisioned as the magical hardening of a piece of armor and not in anyway as >> a protective field surrounding the character. > >Then Protection cannot be used while naked, which is patently false. (There >is no armor to harden. And it can't be skin, because then it couldn't be >bypassed by a critical.) Well, how about the idea of a magical layer on top of the normal one: then it can be on top of skin or whatever... The point I was trying to make is that I (and at least my players) was mistaken in viewing it as a "protection" field. Now about the protection field, aka damage resistance, the description is specific about the spell protecting only the person of the caster and none of his material possessions: "...This spell will protect only the body of the target (no possessions on his or her person)..." So presumably, the magical protection field sits right against the skin, UNDER the armor. As a results, only damages passing through the armor should be matched against the intensity of the spell, but then if they pass through, the player should be directly affected. However the description then says"...If the damage overcomes...The target's armor will then absorb as much of the damage as it can..." Obviously armor is not considered as a material possession of the player, but an integral part of his/her body: Maybe true for a hero of Humakt, but difficult to imagine for the average Joe Peloria... Cheers ;-) Frederic ------------------------------ From: David Weihe Date: Thu, 12 Sep 96 19:33:15 EDT Subject: Re: Partial successes > Another possibility is by using chance modifiers. To play a simple > tune decently well, use the straight chance. The player might take > penalties in an attempt to be more expressive, or a piece might be > assigned a penalty for difficulty. This is similar to the way the game Bushido handled fancier versions of normal skills. There, it meant that you had to track the normal skill (ex: use sword) and the harder version of the skill (ex: use sword in off hand), The harder version could never exceed the skill at the ordinary version, of course. Presumably, most artistic skills would have several levels of success, each of which depending on the skill at the previous level. ------------------------------ From: David Weihe Date: Thu, 12 Sep 96 20:12:12 EDT Subject: Re: Sorcery > >The duration of sorcery spells is the biggest problem with the > >sorcery system. Becuase of it, everyone in the party ends up with a > >Damage Boosting on almost every weapon they own ... > > Damage Boosting - "Sorry, can't let you into our town/inn/temple/whatever > while such obviously offensive magic is present" > or > "You pretend to be a follower of our lord while openly displaying the gifts > of the godless - ha! No runespells for you, matey!" But Sorcery effects are declared to have no visible signs. How do they detect that the weapons have high powered Damage Boost, unless you have a sorceror casting their improved version of Detect Magic (whose name escapes at the moment) on the door or gate involved? Isn't the reason that sorcerors have such a bad reputation supposed to be that their spells are invisible, unlike everyone else's? Besides this misses the cases of weapons enchanted to automatically cast that high intensity Damage Boost (or Fireblade, Enhance Dex, and Protection 4) when drawn from the scabard, which I have seen far more than high level sorcery since we started using RQ3. No that everyone can learn enchantments of such complexity, this is the big power-gamer approach that I have seen. It does require a lot of diligence in learning magic, but most of the players seemed to unconsciously choose spells that disappeared "When the Magic Changed", which helped a lot. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V3 #65 ****************************** 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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