From aescleal at btinternet.com Wed Jan 4 01:40:53 2006 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 14:40:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20051229140429.18508.qmail@web51009.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060103144053.3510.qmail@web86105.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I'm a bugger then - since the mid 90s I've had players taking a heal (species) spirit magic rather than a general purpose one. I usually fudge 'round the edges a bit and have things like "Heal Aldryami" which heals anything plantish and "Heal Uz" which works on everything which eats rocks. Oh, Dwarves don't use heal, they use repair. Cheers, Ash From bick10 at comcast.net Wed Jan 4 03:54:00 2006 From: bick10 at comcast.net (bick10 at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 16:54:00 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal Message-ID: <010320061654.16423.43BAAC280000A451000040272207300033CFCE050C070D@comcast.net> From: Ashley Munday > I'm a bugger then - since the mid 90s I've had players > taking a heal (species) spirit magic rather than a > general purpose one. Actually, that is a good way to cut down on the Heal everything issues I had. I think I like that. Might be possible, in a mystical since, to limit healing to clans and worshipers as well. Only if you feel the need to reign in too much healing going around. > I usually fudge 'round the edges a bit and have things > like "Heal Aldryami" which heals anything plantish and > "Heal Uz" which works on everything which eats rocks. Like. > Oh, Dwarves don't use heal, they use repair. Make perfect since. > Cheers, > > Ash Jim From carpgachair at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 04:51:33 2006 From: carpgachair at yahoo.com (Paul Cardwell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 09:51:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <010320061654.16423.43BAAC280000A451000040272207300033CFCE050C070D@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20060103175133.40404.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in abuse of the Healing spell was to add another item to the character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing is essentially just a more rapid version of natural healing, have the character age at the same rate as if the healing took the normal time span. Since there are penalties for growing old (after various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be rolled or there will be a drop in those primary characteristics as well as the secondary ones derived from them), too much use of Healing (or Xenohealing) will invoke these penalties at an earlier chronological age. It is amazing how many characters decide to leave injuries to normal healing rather than magic, with a shorter lifespan in the balance. Paul Cardwell --- bick10 at comcast.net wrote: > From: Ashley Munday > > I'm a bugger then - since the mid 90s I've had > players > > taking a heal (species) spirit magic rather than a > > general purpose one. > > Actually, that is a good way to cut down on the Heal > everything issues I had. I think I like that. > Might be possible, in a mystical since, to limit > healing to clans and worshipers as well. Only if > you feel the need to reign in too much healing going > around. __________________________________ Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ From IQuinn at surewest.net Wed Jan 4 05:36:34 2006 From: IQuinn at surewest.net (Robert Hoffman) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 10:36:34 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060103175133.40404.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <016a01c61094$a025e4c0$6401a8c0@QUINNLAND> Ouch,... slightly sadistic, but I like it. How did you calculate the age increase? Did it become a bookkeeping hassle? Cheers, Bert -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com] On Behalf Of Paul Cardwell Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 9:52 AM To: Discussion of RuneQuest rules. Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in abuse of the Healing spell was to add another item to the character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing is essentially just a more rapid version of natural healing, have the character age at the same rate as if the healing took the normal time span. Since there are penalties for growing old (after various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be rolled or there will be a drop in those primary characteristics as well as the secondary ones derived from them), too much use of Healing (or Xenohealing) will invoke these penalties at an earlier chronological age. It is amazing how many characters decide to leave injuries to normal healing rather than magic, with a shorter lifespan in the balance. Paul Cardwell --- bick10 at comcast.net wrote: > From: Ashley Munday > > I'm a bugger then - since the mid 90s I've had > players > > taking a heal (species) spirit magic rather than a > > general purpose one. > > Actually, that is a good way to cut down on the Heal > everything issues I had. I think I like that. > Might be possible, in a mystical since, to limit > healing to clans and worshipers as well. Only if > you feel the need to reign in too much healing going > around. __________________________________ Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules at crashbox.com http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From carpgachair at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 06:07:10 2006 From: carpgachair at yahoo.com (Paul Cardwell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 11:07:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <016a01c61094$a025e4c0$6401a8c0@QUINNLAND> Message-ID: <20060103190710.91185.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Robert Hoffman wrote: > Ouch,... slightly sadistic, but I like it. How did > you calculate the > age increase? Did it become a bookkeeping hassle? > > Cheers, > Bert No bookkeeping problems. As mentioned, there is an EA (effective age) on the character sheet which indicates how much older the character is than their chronological age. Birthdate is a terciary characteristic (rolled or chosen separately - rolled in this case, modified by how long they took to gain journeyman status in their trade and thus graduate from apprenticeship). It is also on the character sheet. Most PCs will either die in action or retire from adventuring before the critical ages set in (50 or 60 for humans) - one is more likely to damage primary (rolled) characteristics from injury or disease than aging. But it is there just the same, and too frequent use of Healing will get it relevant a whole lot faster! Paul Cardwell __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com From IQuinn at surewest.net Wed Jan 4 06:29:07 2006 From: IQuinn at surewest.net (Robert Hoffman) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 11:29:07 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060103190710.91185.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <016f01c6109b$f7045770$6401a8c0@QUINNLAND> Actually I meant what is the direct effect from Healing; ie how many days would they age per point of healing or how much would it take to gain a whole year to their EA? -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com] On Behalf Of Paul Cardwell Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 11:07 AM To: Discussion of RuneQuest rules. Subject: RE: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal --- Robert Hoffman wrote: > Ouch,... slightly sadistic, but I like it. How did > you calculate the > age increase? Did it become a bookkeeping hassle? > > Cheers, > Bert No bookkeeping problems. As mentioned, there is an EA (effective age) on the character sheet which indicates how much older the character is than their chronological age. Birthdate is a terciary characteristic (rolled or chosen separately - rolled in this case, modified by how long they took to gain journeyman status in their trade and thus graduate from apprenticeship). It is also on the character sheet. Most PCs will either die in action or retire from adventuring before the critical ages set in (50 or 60 for humans) - one is more likely to damage primary (rolled) characteristics from injury or disease than aging. But it is there just the same, and too frequent use of Healing will get it relevant a whole lot faster! Paul Cardwell __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL - Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules at crashbox.com http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From carpgachair at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 07:03:23 2006 From: carpgachair at yahoo.com (Paul Cardwell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 12:03:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <016f01c6109b$f7045770$6401a8c0@QUINNLAND> Message-ID: <20060103200323.25338.qmail@web31804.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Five days per point, or about the time it would take for a properly treated injury to heal to the extent that the victim could return to normal activities. Obviously complete healing takes longer, but it is a sufficiently balanced penalty for game purposes. The EA part of the character sheet is subdivided into years, months, and days (y, m, d for space reasons). It must work well because we have not had any PCs age more than a year from this effect - natural aging is relentless enough! Paul Cardwell --- Robert Hoffman wrote: > Actually I meant what is the direct effect from > Healing; ie how many > days would they age per point of healing or how much > would it take to > gain a whole year to their EA? __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Wed Jan 4 17:30:21 2006 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 08:30:21 +0200 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal Message-ID: Ay caramba! I didn't pick that point up when I scanned the Mythworld rules, but wha a concept! Gonna suggest it in my RQ group, although we for the mstv keep the magic low, bordering on zero, so magic healing usually comes out in dire emergency only. -----Original Message----- Paul Cardwell Sent: 03 January 2006 07:52 To: Discussion of RuneQuest rules. Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in abuse of the Healing spell was to add another item to the character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing is essentially just a more rapid version of natural healing, have the character age at the same rate as if the healing took the normal time span. Since there are penalties for growing old (after various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be rolled or there will be a drop in those primary characteristics as well as the secondary ones derived from them), too much use of Healing (or Xenohealing) will invoke these penalties at an earlier chronological age. It is amazing how many characters decide to leave injuries to normal healing rather than magic, with a shorter lifespan in the balance. Paul Cardwell __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Wed Jan 4 21:38:47 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 10:38:47 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1136371127.9c6cdff6b18b5@webmail6.leeds.ac.uk> The first campaign I played in was a multi-racial party, and our GM kindly allowed Heal to apply equally to all species (on and point for point basis). I kept the idea (even though I'm playing a human only game nowadays) just because I liked the idea that multi-racial parties shouldn't be discouraged (if that's the kind of game you want to run). As well as the normal Heal spell I let certain cults grant specific Heal (species) spells which are twice as effective - although there's no heal Human, Heal Troll etc... more like Heal Deer, Heal Cow granted from the various cattle cults. Nikk From stolenbjorn at hotmail.com Wed Jan 4 21:53:27 2006 From: stolenbjorn at hotmail.com (Bjorn Stolen) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 10:53:27 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060103190710.91185.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I just wanted to say that I liked this one very much, and will impose it on my players next time we play RQ (hehe) I'll allso start using the heal-species-thing; that spirits that are likely to heal plants won't like to heal Mostali/dwarves, and vice versa. This way, a human closely related to/worshipper of Aldrya or a pantheon closely related to/friendly towards aldrya could be healed by an aldryami and vice versa. The same thing should go for divine-spells; not likely that Yelm would heal an UZ... As for Sourcery, one can easily say that the physical mechanisms operating in a Mostali is so fundamentally different from a homid/UZ/aldryami, that it takes separate healing-sourcery. >From: Paul Cardwell >Reply-To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >Subject: RE: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal >Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 11:07:10 -0800 (PST) > >--- Robert Hoffman wrote: > > > Ouch,... slightly sadistic, but I like it. How did > > you calculate the > > age increase? Did it become a bookkeeping hassle? > > > > Cheers, > > Bert > >No bookkeeping problems. As mentioned, there is an EA >(effective age) on the character sheet which indicates >how much older the character is than their >chronological age. Birthdate is a terciary >characteristic (rolled or chosen separately - rolled >in this case, modified by how long they took to gain >journeyman status in their trade and thus graduate >from apprenticeship). It is also on the character >sheet. > >Most PCs will either die in action or retire from >adventuring before the critical ages set in (50 or 60 >for humans) - one is more likely to damage primary >(rolled) characteristics from injury or disease than >aging. But it is there just the same, and too >frequent use of Healing will get it relevant a whole >lot faster! > >Paul Cardwell > > > > >__________________________________________ >Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about. >Just $16.99/mo. or less. >dsl.yahoo.com > >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From aescleal at btinternet.com Thu Jan 5 04:28:16 2006 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:28:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060103175133.40404.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060104172816.41696.qmail@web86108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I toyed with a similar idea for a while, but haven't used it for a while. Essentially every character keeps a record of the number of points of damage healed by magic per hit location. Bit fiddly, but not too bad. Each week this number drops by one. Whenever a healing spell is cast on the character you compare the number of points in the spell to the total healed on that location on the resistance table. If you succeed, spell worked, if you fail, it doesn't. Cheers, Ash PS: I also had a variant in which if you'd been healed to by more than your total hit points healing spells effects are halved. Healed by more than three times your hitpoints healing spells effects are quartered, etc. --- Paul Cardwell wrote: > In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in abuse > of the Healing spell was to add another item to the > character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing is > essentially just a more rapid version of natural > healing, have the character age at the same rate as > if > the healing took the normal time span. > > Since there are penalties for growing old (after > various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be > rolled > or there will be a drop in those primary > characteristics as well as the secondary ones > derived > from them), too much use of Healing (or Xenohealing) > will invoke these penalties at an earlier > chronological age. > > It is amazing how many characters decide to leave > injuries to normal healing rather than magic, with a > shorter lifespan in the balance. > > Paul Cardwell > > > > --- bick10 at comcast.net wrote: > > > From: Ashley Munday > > > I'm a bugger then - since the mid 90s I've had > > players > > > taking a heal (species) spirit magic rather than > a > > > general purpose one. > > > > Actually, that is a good way to cut down on the > Heal > > everything issues I had. I think I like that. > > Might be possible, in a mystical since, to limit > > healing to clans and worshipers as well. Only if > > you feel the need to reign in too much healing > going > > around. > > > > > > __________________________________ > Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. > http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > From stolenbjorn at hotmail.com Thu Jan 5 20:05:49 2006 From: stolenbjorn at hotmail.com (Bjorn Stolen) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 09:05:49 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060104172816.41696.qmail@web86108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: What if excessive healing cause damage? That would be a bummer (hope that is an OK word to write in english; you're all so polite in your language, and I -a stupid foreginer-doesn't allways know what is OK to write and what is not = haram in arabic, by the way)! I mean; healing is serious business; doing speed-up-repair-job on living tissue...scary when you come to think of it! Say someone is down 2 hp, and someone does "heal-3". That would heal two, but cause 1 hp damage as a result of too much. This might not be the case with spirit healing, as healing-spirits might know when to stop, but for divine healing or sourcery, this might be a fun way to reduce the coincidental way with healingspells! >From: Ashley Munday >Reply-To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal >Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:28:16 +0000 (GMT) > >I toyed with a similar idea for a while, but haven't >used it for a while. Essentially every character keeps >a record of the number of points of damage healed by >magic per hit location. Bit fiddly, but not too bad. >Each week this number drops by one. > >Whenever a healing spell is cast on the character you >compare the number of points in the spell to the total >healed on that location on the resistance table. If >you succeed, spell worked, if you fail, it doesn't. > >Cheers, > >Ash > >PS: I also had a variant in which if you'd been healed >to by more than your total hit points healing spells >effects are halved. Healed by more than three times >your hitpoints healing spells effects are quartered, >etc. > >--- Paul Cardwell wrote: > > > In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in abuse > > of the Healing spell was to add another item to the > > character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing is > > essentially just a more rapid version of natural > > healing, have the character age at the same rate as > > if > > the healing took the normal time span. > > > > Since there are penalties for growing old (after > > various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be > > rolled > > or there will be a drop in those primary > > characteristics as well as the secondary ones > > derived > > from them), too much use of Healing (or Xenohealing) > > will invoke these penalties at an earlier > > chronological age. > > > > It is amazing how many characters decide to leave > > injuries to normal healing rather than magic, with a > > shorter lifespan in the balance. > > > > Paul Cardwell > > > > > > > > --- bick10 at comcast.net wrote: > > > > > From: Ashley Munday > > > > I'm a bugger then - since the mid 90s I've had > > > players > > > > taking a heal (species) spirit magic rather than > > a > > > > general purpose one. > > > > > > Actually, that is a good way to cut down on the > > Heal > > > everything issues I had. I think I like that. > > > Might be possible, in a mystical since, to limit > > > healing to clans and worshipers as well. Only if > > > you feel the need to reign in too much healing > > going > > > around. > > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. > > http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ > > _______________________________________________ > > RQ-Rules mailing list > > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > > >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From nphillis at shaw.ca Fri Jan 6 00:35:06 2006 From: nphillis at shaw.ca (Newton Philis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 07:35:06 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal Message-ID: <1213fe51212ee0.1212ee01213fe5@shaw.ca> I really like the idea of Aging to heal (seems very cool). However, from a game balance point of view, doesn't this penalize Players? (Generally, few monsters, NPCs, townsfolk, bad-guys, etc, are encountered more than once or twice, so their age is irrelivant. I.e., an evil monster can heal [and age] as much as he likes, because he will probably not live to see the end of the encounter.) While good Game Masters may 'play' the monster as if he was afraid to get old, this rule is open to abuse for Game Masters who are not as vigil. (However, this same argument could be made for debilitating critical hits...) Thoughts? > > > >--- Paul Cardwell wrote: > > > > > In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in abuse > > > of the Healing spell was to add another item to the > > > character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing is > > > essentially just a more rapid version of natural > > > healing, have the character age at the same rate as > > > if > > > the healing took the normal time span. > > > > > > Since there are penalties for growing old (after > > > various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be > > > rolled > > > or there will be a drop in those primary > > > characteristics as well as the secondary ones > > > derived > > > from them), too much use of Healing (or Xenohealing) > > > will invoke these penalties at an earlier > > > chronological age. > > > > > > It is amazing how many characters decide to leave > > > injuries to normal healing rather than magic, with a > > > shorter lifespan in the balance. > > > > > > Paul Cardwell From aescleal at btinternet.com Fri Jan 6 01:16:50 2006 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 14:16:50 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <1213fe51212ee0.1212ee01213fe5@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <20060105141650.93571.qmail@web86110.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> One thought: Rules don't exist to protect players from GM "abuse." Cheers, Ash --- Newton Philis wrote: > I really like the idea of Aging to heal (seems very > cool). > > However, from a game balance point of view, doesn't > this penalize Players? > > (Generally, few monsters, NPCs, townsfolk, bad-guys, > etc, are encountered more than once or twice, so > their age is irrelivant. I.e., an evil monster can > heal [and age] as much as he likes, because he will > probably not live to see the end of the encounter.) > > While good Game Masters may 'play' the monster as if > he was afraid to get old, this rule is open to abuse > for Game Masters who are not as vigil. > > (However, this same argument could be made for > debilitating critical hits...) > > Thoughts? > > > > > > >--- Paul Cardwell wrote: > > > > > > > In Mythworld, we found the best way to rein in > abuse > > > > of the Healing spell was to add another item > to the > > > > character sheet: Effective Age. Since Healing > is > > > > essentially just a more rapid version of > natural > > > > healing, have the character age at the same > rate as > > > > if > > > > the healing took the normal time span. > > > > > > > > Since there are penalties for growing old > (after > > > > various ages, STR, CON, INT, DEX, etc. must be > > > > rolled > > > > or there will be a drop in those primary > > > > characteristics as well as the secondary ones > > > > derived > > > > from them), too much use of Healing (or > Xenohealing) > > > > will invoke these penalties at an earlier > > > > chronological age. > > > > > > > > It is amazing how many characters decide to > leave > > > > injuries to normal healing rather than magic, > with a > > > > shorter lifespan in the balance. > > > > > > > > Paul Cardwell > > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Fri Jan 6 01:21:02 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 14:21:02 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060105141650.93571.qmail@web86110.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20060105141650.93571.qmail@web86110.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1136470862.6bce26102819a@webmail8.leeds.ac.uk> I have to admit I like the sound of all of these ideas, but I'd like to follow up on Newtons point - why do these things? Not that this is a criticism, not in the slightest, but I'm wondering why you want to stop the PCs from Healing themselves as often as possible. If you play a hefty combat orientated game then they'll need to heal all the time just to live as their arms and legs drop off at the pretty common rate that they do in RQ, and if you don't play a hefty combat orientated game then why is it an issue? If combat doesn't happen all that often then you needn't try and prevent them from doing it surely? I am intrigued. Why try and discourage your PCs from Healing? As a note, I do insist on one penalty, all Healing in my game leaves scars (I do in fact use a spirit magic spell of Chalanas Touch which leaves no scars but acts as a Heal spell of one point less then the pointage of the Touch), just because I like the idea of my Gloranthan warriros covered in scars. And, of course, not every cult grants Heal so it can be pretty hard just getting hold of the damn spell! I am I being too generous a GM? Nikk From aescleal at btinternet.com Fri Jan 6 02:29:47 2006 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 15:29:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <1136470862.6bce26102819a@webmail8.leeds.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20060105152947.77434.qmail@web86108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> You're not being too generous a GM by any stretch of the imagination. Without any restrictions in almost every case I've seen the rules as written work okay. What I originally wanted was a way of providing a sense of dwindling resources - make the players feel their adventurers had to manage and control things. Both the suggestions I've made and used in games I don't use anymore as they turned out to be more trouble than they're worth. I found adventurers running themselves out of magic points gave me the tension I wanted. Cheers, Ash --- Nikk Effingham wrote: > I have to admit I like the sound of all of these > ideas, but I'd like to follow > up on Newtons point - why do these things? Not that > this is a criticism, not in > the slightest, but I'm wondering why you want to > stop the PCs from Healing > themselves as often as possible. If you play a hefty > combat orientated game > then they'll need to heal all the time just to live > as their arms and legs drop > off at the pretty common rate that they do in RQ, > and if you don't play a hefty > combat orientated game then why is it an issue? If > combat doesn't happen all > that often then you needn't try and prevent them > from doing it surely? > > I am intrigued. Why try and discourage your PCs from > Healing? > > As a note, I do insist on one penalty, all Healing > in my game leaves scars (I do > in fact use a spirit magic spell of Chalanas Touch > which leaves no scars but > acts as a Heal spell of one point less then the > pointage of the Touch), just > because I like the idea of my Gloranthan warriros > covered in scars. And, of > course, not every cult grants Heal so it can be > pretty hard just getting hold > of the damn spell! > > I am I being too generous a GM? > > Nikk > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > From IQuinn at surewest.net Fri Jan 6 03:58:07 2006 From: IQuinn at surewest.net (Robert Hoffman) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 08:58:07 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060105152947.77434.qmail@web86108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001001c61219$34101770$6401a8c0@QUINNLAND> I generally restrict the players to a maximum healing potency PER WOUND per week, meaning that if they cast 2pt Heal on a spear wound to the leg, another 2pt spell or potion will have no effect, and a 3pt spell would heal only the additional one point (though the resistance chart idea was also nice). This was mostly to offset the bonus I granted when casting out of combat (ie taking minutes of concentration to cast a spell rather then strike ranks). So even while I really like the idea of aging as a side effect I agree with Nikk that healing is often a tool for the GM to control the pacing of the game. If you want to delay the players in an interesting city then a plague may have all the healers tied up and if you're anxious to get the players moving then in walks a merchant with an ample supply of potions for a bargain price. Same holds true for the availability of the spells. And to the original point I also go with the lesser potency when casting heal on another race,... back when xenoheal was even offered it was most commonly used by the wealthy who worried about thier mounts. Cheers, Bert -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com] On Behalf Of Ashley Munday Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 7:30 AM To: Discussion of RuneQuest rules. Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal You're not being too generous a GM by any stretch of the imagination. Without any restrictions in almost every case I've seen the rules as written work okay. What I originally wanted was a way of providing a sense of dwindling resources - make the players feel their adventurers had to manage and control things. Both the suggestions I've made and used in games I don't use anymore as they turned out to be more trouble than they're worth. I found adventurers running themselves out of magic points gave me the tension I wanted. Cheers, Ash --- Nikk Effingham wrote: > I have to admit I like the sound of all of these > ideas, but I'd like to follow > up on Newtons point - why do these things? Not that > this is a criticism, not in > the slightest, but I'm wondering why you want to > stop the PCs from Healing > themselves as often as possible. If you play a hefty > combat orientated game > then they'll need to heal all the time just to live > as their arms and legs drop > off at the pretty common rate that they do in RQ, > and if you don't play a hefty > combat orientated game then why is it an issue? If > combat doesn't happen all > that often then you needn't try and prevent them > from doing it surely? > > I am intrigued. Why try and discourage your PCs from > Healing? > > As a note, I do insist on one penalty, all Healing > in my game leaves scars (I do > in fact use a spirit magic spell of Chalanas Touch > which leaves no scars but > acts as a Heal spell of one point less then the > pointage of the Touch), just > because I like the idea of my Gloranthan warriros > covered in scars. And, of > course, not every cult grants Heal so it can be > pretty hard just getting hold > of the damn spell! > > I am I being too generous a GM? > > Nikk > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules at crashbox.com http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From carpgachair at yahoo.com Fri Jan 6 04:24:36 2006 From: carpgachair at yahoo.com (Paul Cardwell) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 09:24:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <1213fe51212ee0.1212ee01213fe5@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <20060105172436.50631.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Newton Philis wrote: > I really like the idea of Aging to heal (seems very cool). > > However, from a game balance point of view, doesn't > this penalize Players? > > (Generally, few monsters, NPCs, townsfolk, bad-guys, > etc, are encountered more than once or twice, so > their age is irrelivant. I.e., an evil monster can > heal [and age] as much as he likes, because he will > probably not live to see the end of the encounter.) > > While good Game Masters may 'play' the monster as if > he was afraid to get old, this rule is open to abuse > for Game Masters who are not as vigil. > > (However, this same argument could be made for > debilitating critical hits...) > > Thoughts? Trouble getting this sent. If you get two, my apologies. PCs will also get into situations where healing is necessary to live to see the end of the encounter. The aging rule is not just to prevent abuse of Healing spells, but also to challenge the player to decide whether the situation requires magic or the character can let nature take its course. There is a general skill of First Aid and will be used in most cases. However, one point of Healing (or Xenohealing) will stop bleeding, and six points at once after three successive successful First Aid roll (to get everything properly aligned) is needed to reattach a limb. Obviously the latter cannot be done over time by nature, although the loss of the limb is survivable. Except for severing, there is essentially no difference between cumulative injuries, the wear and tear of battle, and the instant damage of a critical hit of the same hit-point damage. Both require the decision to go with Healing or with nature. There is an added problem in Mythworld. A character has a Pain Resistance Factor (CON + INT + MNA [mana, much the same as RQ's POW]) which must be rolled if a hit location drops to +1 (0 if the character has only one local point normally). If fails, the character is completely incapacitated for a round due to the pain, but can try again on the next round. This is in contrast to D&D where a character functions quite normally until the last hit point is lost to a mosquito bite, whereupon dies suddenly. There are a lot of stages between healthy and dead! Also, remember while Mythworld has a common heritage with RQ, they are different games, and getting more so as rules revisions occur. However, it is a game RQ fans will enjoy, especially if they want more detail (too much detail is why Greg rejected it as the basis for RQ3) at the expense of a detailed setting like Glorantha. Mythworld can be played in a Glorantha setting, but also in Iron Crown's Middle Earth, or one of your own design. However, attempts to use D&D settings could do no more than a complete rewrite within the same plot line. And yes, it is susceptible to the same problems of the quality of the referee - as are all games, including [ugh] video puzzles where the "referee" is in the softwear and highly restrictive as to possibilities. Paul Cardwell __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com From tcantine at incentre.net Fri Jan 6 16:46:19 2006 From: tcantine at incentre.net (Tom Cantine) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 22:46:19 -0700 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060105172436.50631.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060105172436.50631.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I also like the idea of including a downside to healing magic. I think it's because with healing magic being too cheap, the consequences of combat are not taken seriously enough. Players just don't feel what their characters suffer, so it's difficult to model the disincentive of sheer pain effectively. In RQ, it's less severe a problem than in games with lots of hit points and no hit locations, but it's still there. I like the way Harnmaster deals with the problem, by describing an injury graphically in a way that has a practical effect on how one goes about treating it. In fact, in my own game, I use a modified version of the Harnmaster wounding system for PC's, while sticking with basic RQ hit points for NPCs and beasties. Another approach is to give Heal a duration, rather than to make it an Instant spell. Make it last maybe 24 hours, or even 12, during which time it will hold everything together well enough to be used for battle and so forth, but when it wears off (or is dispelled!) the wounds open up again, although you could of course cast a new bunch of Heals five minutes before the last one expires. Natural healing only happens when it's actually damaged, though, so to properly recover, the spell would have to be maintained at less than the full injury. For example, if you've got a 4 point wound to the chest, you'd have three points of Heal cast on you every 12 hours for five days or so, and then two points for the next five days, and so on. From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Fri Jan 6 21:39:41 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 10:39:41 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: References: <20060105172436.50631.qmail@web31801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1136543981.45bcd6797aa72@webmail6.leeds.ac.uk> > Another approach is to give Heal a duration, rather than to make it an > Instant spell. Make it last maybe 24 hours, or even 12, during which > time it will hold everything together well enough to be used for battle > and so forth, but when it wears off (or is dispelled!) the wounds open > up again, although you could of course cast a new bunch of Heals five > minutes before the last one expires. Natural healing only happens when > it's actually damaged, though, so to properly recover, the spell would > have to be maintained at less than the full injury. For example, if > you've got a 4 point wound to the chest, you'd have three points of > Heal cast on you every 12 hours for five days or so, and then two > points for the next five days, and so on. Y'see, I'm not certain how this is meant to work in practice. Within the space of a few adventures, if each adventure has, let's say, a fight with four foes in it eventually one of them is going to critical with a sword blow to the chest, head or abdomen and do nine or ten points of damage to that location. This is enough to take your average character down to minues negatives in that location. If the Heal spell had a duration then every fifteen minutes (or what have you) you'd have to apply the spell to prevent them from dying. Most beginning groups won't have the magic points to do this! First aid could help, but a beginning group might only have fourty or fifty percent in first aid at best (unless, unlike me, you play that you can keep trying to first aid until you make a successful skill roll). Even then the PC would be effectively incapacitated for the rest of the session (it'd take a while to heal that kind of damage). Whilst this rule would certainly discourage combat, I think you'd have to be playing a very combat-lite game (which I could imagine, where there are very few fights and all fights are, literally, a matter of life and death). Even then you're going to routinely get shish-kebabed PC every now and again - so adevntures would have to be plotted rather differently than I would plot one. You'd have to have fights that the players could avoid, all of the time, or quite quickly you'll end up with your beautifully crafted adventure ruined as the group drag around a half-corpse with them. Especially if you meant for the incapacitated PC to have a main role in the game! So, I like the idea in principle, but you'd have to run a quite different type of game than normal RQ. I'd suggest. Oh, and I've updated my webpage http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~phl0nje/runequest/ Cheers, Nikk From soltakss at yahoo.com Fri Jan 6 22:31:24 2006 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 11:31:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060105141702.81AB92E6043@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> Wow, and I thought _I_ was a harsh GM. Personally, I allow Healing to heal people. I know, weak and wishy-washy - Healing should hurt them, make them older, make their hair fall out and make them impotent, but I'm kinda old-fashioned, I sometimes like the PCs to survive encounters and be able to do things afterwards. As for keeping tracks on the hit points healed, how many points were healed, how old do I look etc - I've got better things to do than that kind of thing. Now, I did once have an NPC with a chaotic feature of "reverse damage" which meant that any damage he did was reversed, so any attempts to heal the damage did more damage and the only way to heal it was to further damage the wound, by hitting it with a sword, for instance. Healing by time didn't work, either, it just caused more damage. If the critter hit a vital location, the PC could kill themselves with Healing. It made me laugh for a couple of hours, so it was worth the effort. See Ya Simon From ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 6 23:01:34 2006 From: ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net (Guy Hoyle) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 06:01:34 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <43BE5C1E.5090601@sbcglobal.net> It might be interesting (and not too hard to implement) if people and animals healed by magic built up a resistance to healing magic. Perhaps (for example) for every x points of magical healing in a 24-hour period, they built up 1 point of healing resistance. One point of healing resistance wears off after 24 hours without magical healing, but it blocks 1 point of healing. That's just off the top of my head. From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Sat Jan 7 00:18:06 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 13:18:06 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <43BE5C1E.5090601@sbcglobal.net> References: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> <43BE5C1E.5090601@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <1136553486.3a80274352aa3@webmail6.leeds.ac.uk> > It might be interesting (and not too hard to implement) if people and > animals healed by magic built up a resistance to healing magic. Perhaps > (for example) for every x points of magical healing in a 24-hour period, > they built up 1 point of healing resistance. One point of healing > resistance wears off after 24 hours without magical healing, but it > blocks 1 point of healing. That's just off the top of my head. Now, that sounds like an implementable rule. If you really want to stop the PCs from healing, that'll work. However, again, I question the need - if you've made a game with lots of fights then this rule would effectively comdemn the PCs to death, and if you haven't made a game with lots of fights, then why use this rule? But, certainly, that sounds like a workable option. Simon Phipps: >Now, I did once have an NPC with a chaotic feature of "reverse damage" which >meant that any damage he did was reversed, so any attempts to heal the damage >did more damage and the only way to heal it was to further damage the wound, >by hitting it with a sword, for instance. Healing by time didn't work, >either, it just caused more damage. If the critter hit a vital location, the >PC could kill themselves with Healing. It made me laugh for a couple of >hours, so it was worth the effort. Genius. That's one for the next game, that'll also make me laugh - laugh more than poison (always great to watch thme kill the beastie and then get floored by the poison that's worked it's way into their body). On that note, do you guys let the Heal spell heal poison damage? Nikk From pmj at comhem.se Sat Jan 7 02:25:54 2006 From: pmj at comhem.se (Peter Johansson) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:25:54 +0100 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <1136553486.3a80274352aa3@webmail6.leeds.ac.uk> References: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> <43BE5C1E.5090601@sbcglobal.net> <1136553486.3a80274352aa3@webmail6.leeds.ac.uk> Message-ID: <43BE8C02.1060309@comhem.se> Hi! Nikk Effingham wrote: > I question the need - if you've made a game with lots of fights then > this rule would effectively comdemn the PCs to death, and if you > haven't made a game with lots of fights, then why use this rule? I agree with Nikk. I let my group use the Healing spell freely. However, I play a pretty low magic type (and money) game where the PC:s have a quite limited amount of Magic Points (and money) available. After rushing in to a fight they usually don't have that much MP:s left to heal themselves with anyway, and I use the RQ2 rules of needing a Heal 6 (expensive to buy) to attache severed limbs. Most PC:s don't have the Heal 6 spell. Never even thought about limiting Healing because of that. I did however play in another campaign that were sort of classic RQ Hack and Slash style with RQ rules but in a world almost without magical healing spells. Immensly frustrating for all involved after a while. Almost destroyed the campaign. The GM learned after a while though, but I still prefer a liberal use and avaliability of healing magic spells in those kind of games. >On that note, do you guys let the Heal spell heal poison damage? > > No. That's were I draw the line for the Heal spell. However it is used for healing both fire and acid burns. No real logic behind it I guess. But hey, it's magic... and besides, it makes poison much more fun to use. :-) /Peter J From pmj at comhem.se Sat Jan 7 02:40:30 2006 From: pmj at comhem.se (Peter Johansson) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:40:30 +0100 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <43BE8F6E.5040402@comhem.se> Simon's example below got me thinking of an amusing critter I used extensively against the PC:s in a campaign where they spent many weeks in swamp; The Exploading Toad. Pretty weak when it comes to giving damage (Bite 1D6) and in HP, but annoying nevertheless because they are extremely aggressive and after biting for a while they will get that inevitable critical or impale, so you can't really ignore them. Their main chaotic feature is "Explodes when Dies" doing 3D6 of damage to everything around them. However, the swamp was also full of Skeletons so the toads could also be used as a kind of remote bombs that could be "triggered" with an arrow. /Peter J Simon Phipp wrote: >Now, I did once have an NPC with a chaotic feature of "reverse damage" which meant that any damage he did was reversed, so any attempts to heal the damage did more damage and the only way to heal it was to further damage the wound, by hitting it with a sword, for instance. Healing by time didn't work, either, it just caused more damage. If the critter hit a vital location, the PC could kill themselves with Healing. It made me laugh for a couple of hours, so it was worth the effort. > From nphillis at shaw.ca Sat Jan 7 02:48:22 2006 From: nphillis at shaw.ca (Newton Philis) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:48:22 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal Message-ID: <1326eb9132de2b.132de2b1326eb9@shaw.ca> Peter Johansson wrote: "...After rushing in to a fight they usually don't have that much MP:s left to heal themselves with anyway...a world almost without magical healing spells...Immensly frustrating for all involved after a while..." This brings up a good point. How is game-play affected when you add a rule that restricts healing (i.e., aging, reduced healing, limited species, etc)? In my experience, it causes allot of 'down-time' between combats. Either the group must 'camp' or retreat from the adventure to heal in a town/church/hospital. While this seems realistic, it slows down game-play immensly, and soon frustrates players. Unless you have a very time-sensitive campaign, stopping players between every fight really serves no purpose. My $0.02 N. From jurrubin at earthlink.net Sat Jan 7 04:12:33 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 11:12:33 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters Message-ID: <1492464.1136567553938.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> I used to game with a group of guys who would have _loved_ these. They'd use the toads as the equivalent of homing Limpit mines. David -----Original Message----- >From: Peter Johansson >Sent: Jan 6, 2006 9:40 AM >To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters > >Simon's example below got me thinking of an amusing critter I used >extensively against the PC:s in a campaign where they spent many weeks >in swamp; The Exploading Toad. Pretty weak when it comes to giving >damage (Bite 1D6) and in HP, but annoying nevertheless because they are >extremely aggressive and after biting for a while they will get that >inevitable critical or impale, so you can't really ignore them. Their >main chaotic feature is "Explodes when Dies" doing 3D6 of damage to >everything around them. However, the swamp was also full of Skeletons so >the toads could also be used as a kind of remote bombs that could be >"triggered" with an arrow. > > /Peter J From vikingjarl at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 06:39:42 2006 From: vikingjarl at gmail.com (Sven Lugar) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 11:39:42 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal In-Reply-To: <43BE8C02.1060309@comhem.se> References: <20060106113124.44208.qmail@web51015.mail.yahoo.com> <43BE5C1E.5090601@sbcglobal.net> <1136553486.3a80274352aa3@webmail6.leeds.ac.uk> <43BE8C02.1060309@comhem.se> Message-ID: <43BEC77E.7070406@gmail.com> The way I limit spells is by having a critical ingredient associated with each one. For example to cast any kind of heal spell you consumed a packet of Mugwort (common), & Mandragora (rare &/or expensive). Thus you had a limited supply on a campaign (do I carry that spare shortsword in case my main one breaks or do I carry 10 packets of herbs), a historical flavor, & more reasons for a quest. A simple mechanism with many rewards. I based my ingredient list on some medieval writings. A simple ticklist kept track of consumption. Instead of just herbs, it sometimes was things like special runes inscribed by a priestess of Eir under a full-moon on the heart skin of a dragon. The ingredients became rarer with more powerful spells. So where healings all had mugwort in common, the more powerful versions had rarer elements to distinguish them. Add this to consumption of magic points during the day & it became very self limiting & tactical. --Sven Peter Johansson wrote: > Hi! > > Nikk Effingham wrote: > >> I question the need - if you've made a game with lots of fights then >> this rule would effectively comdemn the PCs to death, and if you >> haven't made a game with lots of fights, then why use this rule? > > > I agree with Nikk. I let my group use the Healing spell freely. > However, I play a pretty low magic type (and money) game where the > PC:s have a quite limited amount of Magic Points (and money) > available. After rushing in to a fight they usually don't have that > much MP:s left to heal themselves with anyway, and I use the RQ2 rules > of needing a Heal 6 (expensive to buy) to attache severed limbs. Most > PC:s don't have the Heal 6 spell. Never even thought about limiting > Healing because of that. > > I did however play in another campaign that were sort of classic RQ > Hack and Slash style with RQ rules but in a world almost without > magical healing spells. Immensly frustrating for all involved after a > while. Almost destroyed the campaign. The GM learned after a while > though, but I still prefer a liberal use and avaliability of healing > magic spells in those kind of games. > >> On that note, do you guys let the Heal spell heal poison damage? >> >> > No. That's were I draw the line for the Heal spell. However it is used > for healing both fire and acid burns. No real logic behind it I guess. > But hey, it's magic... and besides, it makes poison much more fun to > use. :-) > > /Peter J > > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > From steve at perrinworlds.com Sat Jan 7 18:19:09 2006 From: steve at perrinworlds.com (Stephen Perrin) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:19:09 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters References: <1492464.1136567553938.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <003f01c6135a$b70a7ca0$68417442@wizard> The local (in Southern California - I was still in Northern Califironia so this is hearsay) RQ campaign many years ago had a cult that could induce a chaotic feature under the complete control of the caster. It became a standard operation procedure for the bad guys to infect a horde of Rubble Runners with the exploding feature, then send them after the PCs. It got so that no one ever wanted to see a Rubble Runner again. Steve Perrin ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Smart" To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 9:12 AM Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters >I used to game with a group of guys who would have _loved_ these. They'd >use the toads as the equivalent of homing Limpit mines. > > David > > -----Original Message----- >>From: Peter Johansson >>Sent: Jan 6, 2006 9:40 AM >>To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >>Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters >> >>Simon's example below got me thinking of an amusing critter I used >>extensively against the PC:s in a campaign where they spent many weeks >>in swamp; The Exploading Toad. Pretty weak when it comes to giving >>damage (Bite 1D6) and in HP, but annoying nevertheless because they are >>extremely aggressive and after biting for a while they will get that >>inevitable critical or impale, so you can't really ignore them. Their >>main chaotic feature is "Explodes when Dies" doing 3D6 of damage to >>everything around them. However, the swamp was also full of Skeletons so >>the toads could also be used as a kind of remote bombs that could be >>"triggered" with an arrow. >> >> /Peter J > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > From jurrubin at earthlink.net Sun Jan 8 01:26:05 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 08:26:05 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters Message-ID: <6494475.1136643965883.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Yeesh! That is just plain _evil_. I like that in a gamer! *grin* David -----Original Message----- >From: Stephen Perrin >Sent: Jan 7, 2006 1:19 AM >To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters > >The local (in Southern California - I was still in Northern Califironia so >this is hearsay) RQ campaign many years ago had a cult that could induce a >chaotic feature under the complete control of the caster. It became a >standard operation procedure for the bad guys to infect a horde of Rubble >Runners with the exploding feature, then send them after the PCs. > >It got so that no one ever wanted to see a Rubble Runner again. > >Steve Perrin From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Mon Jan 9 18:38:51 2006 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 09:38:51 +0200 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters Message-ID: Peter Johansson wrote: Simon's example below got me thinking of an amusing critter I used extensively against the PC:s in a campaign where they spent many weeks in swamp; The Exploading Toad. Pretty weak when it comes to giving damage (Bite 1D6) and in HP, but annoying nevertheless because they are extremely aggressive and after biting for a while they will get that inevitable critical or impale, so you can't really ignore them. Their main chaotic feature is "Explodes when Dies" doing 3D6 of damage to everything around them. However, the swamp was also full of Skeletons so the toads could also be used as a kind of remote bombs that could be "triggered" with an arrow. /Peter J My group played a few sessions where some sort of lizard man type creatures did weird stuff when they died. (The GM at the time may have got this out of Dorastor, Land of Doom....) anyway, some turned to stone, some just became normal corpses, some turned to dust, some exploded, violently, some putrified to acid like substance, can't remember what else.... Made for some interesting play, try remove impaled sword from a sudden statue, or realise that the foe yo have just killed is going critical. Tony __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Mon Jan 9 21:43:36 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 10:43:36 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1136803416.8b298dae0671e@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> I like that idea! Let's compile a list of 'Things to Do In Dorastor When You're Dead'. From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Mon Jan 9 22:11:24 2006 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 13:11:24 +0200 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters Message-ID: Peter Maranci's page had an extensive list of chaotic features submitted by various punters, that (it may be in PDF form) may be a good place to start Tony. -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com] On Behalf Of Nikk Effingham Sent: 09 January 2006 12:44 To: rq-rules at crashbox.com Subject: RE: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters I like that idea! Let's compile a list of 'Things to Do In Dorastor When You're Dead'. _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules at crashbox.com http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From soltakss at yahoo.com Mon Jan 9 22:34:17 2006 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 11:34:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Poison/Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: <20060107142617.169E32F6EDF@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20060109113417.16202.qmail@web51011.mail.yahoo.com> Nikk Effingham: > Genius. That's one for the next game, that'll also make me laugh - laugh > more > than poison (always great to watch thme kill the beastie and then get > floored > by the poison that's worked it's way into their body). > > On that note, do you guys let the Heal spell heal poison damage? No, definitely not. I play that poison does general hit point damage (as RQ3), so you need specific magic to heal it. Heal Body works, as do poison antiodotes, Treat Poison and whatever poison-specific spells you want to invent. I don't even use Blade Venom, as I think it is far too powerful (and this is from someone who doesn't even blink at Crush 20 being used). You can put Blade Venom 10 on an arrow, Speedart it, fire it at someone's head and pretty much ensure that the person will be incapacitated, as long as it gets through. Peter Johansson uses exploding toads in his campaign, but PCs would become wary of them after several exploded, then they'd pump them full of arrows and they wouldn't be any fun at all. One of my favourite tactics, when the PCs were attacking a Thed Great Temple or something, would be to put two or three exploders together in a squad. Then, if one dies he explodes, having a good chance of killing another one and he explodes, probably setting off the third. So, you get three explosions in the same round, probably affecting the PCs and only losing a few NPCs in the process. If one of them is Highly Inflammable, it is even better as you can cast Ignite at them or set them off with a Firearrow. Of course, this relies on the Thed Priests knowing what Chaotic Features their congregation has and on them being willing to sacrifice their fellow cultists. Since I played that Thed could tell what a broo's chaos features were via Divination, the first was true, and the second was very probably true in all cases. David Smart: > I used to game with a group of guys who would have _loved_ these. They'd > use the toads as the equivalent of homing Limpit mines. During the Seige of Stalingrad, the Germans trained dogs to walk under tanks, with mines strapped to their backs, then set them off by jumping up beneath the tank. All well and good, until they were actually used and went and sat beneath the Panzers they had been trained in. Homing Limpit mines don't always work as planned. Stephen Perrin: > The local (in Southern California - I was still in Northern Califironia so > this is hearsay) RQ campaign many years ago had a cult that could induce a > chaotic feature under the complete control of the caster. It became a > standard operation procedure for the bad guys to infect a horde of Rubble > Runners with the exploding feature, then send them after the PCs. > > It got so that no one ever wanted to see a Rubble Runner again. That's quite a nice idea. One thing I always liked was to put something with Hypnotic Skin (INTx5% or stand drooling like an idiot staring at the pretty patterns) into some alcove that is hard to Spot (-50% Spot Hidden, or whatever), then make the PCs try a Spot Hidden roll at -50%, some of them would be really pleased they made it, then would have to make an INTx5% roll or be hypnotised. But, my all-time favourite has to be Acid - the burning type, not the pretty patterns type. It doesn't matter what form it takes, this has the potential to hurt, really annoy and perhaps kill the PCs. It hurts low level characters and destroys expensive equipment. It hurts high level characters a bit, but destroys their nice enchanted iron armour. It can be used in many ways: 1. Spit acid chaos feature (let them spit in a bucket over a few days and throw the bucket at PCs) 2. Hydras with acidic blood and poison - these are nice because even if the PCs are brave enough to attacke the hydra, every blow that does damage also burns their weapons away. Two for the price of one. And their heads grow back. And they get multiple attacks. And they have poison. And they get more attacks the longer the combat goes on. They are even better with Healing or Regeneration abilities. 3. Gorps, who are always funny, but especially against Yelmalians who can't cast Fireblade to damage them (one of the abiding memories of a ancient campaign was someone running from Bigclub in Snakepipe Hollow and deciding to jump into a pile of ashes to hide, only to jump out again minus ALL his armour and a nice all-over burn) 4. Krarsht assassin-hookers are good for a one-off attack on a PC - they come along, all smiles and hormones, get swept off their feet by the dashing young male PC, retire to a comfortable nook, remove all their clothes, start embracing and then cast a meaty Sweat Acid. You get the triple joy of a cunning plan working, a PC getting burnt all over by acid and a coitus interruptus of epic proprtions. 5. Cacodemon grants the spell Vomit Acid, which must be my all-time favourite spell. I play that Fiends get this as an automatic ability and when they cast it they get their full POW in acid. And, boy, do they use it. 6. My Dorastor Campaign had Acid Rain, from Urain or Ragnaglar. No, this wasn't the ecologically-sensitive polluted rain that turns leaves brown in summer, this was the POT 1D6 acid that fell on the PCs from a great height, stripping their armour from them. Even better if they have the "Never Shelter >From Storm" geas. Of course, they soon realised that Protection or Shield countered the acid effect, so they cast those spells whenever it started raining. It used their spells up quicker, though. 7. I had a hydra that spat her acid/poison with double potency, she was called Heidi. That was funny. The players didn't think so, though, I can't imagine why. Anyway, I've got to go and at least try to do some work. See Ya Simon From talmeta at talmeta.net Tue Jan 10 01:43:48 2006 From: talmeta at talmeta.net (Tal Meta) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 09:43:48 -0500 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43C276A4.1080808@talmeta.net> Den, Tony T wrote: > My group played a few sessions where some sort of lizard man type > creatures did weird stuff when they died. (The GM at the time may have > got this out of Dorastor, Land of Doom....) anyway, some turned to > stone, some just became normal corpses, some turned to dust, some > exploded, violently, some putrified to acid like substance, can't > remember what else.... Made for some interesting play, try remove > impaled sword from a sudden statue, or realise that the foe yo have just > killed is going critical. Sounds like Draconians, from TSR's Dragonlance setting, to me. -- talmeta at talmeta.net - Heretic, Dilettante, & God-Machine AIM - talmeta ICQ - 12594453 Homepage - It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.15/223 - Release Date: 1/6/2006 From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Tue Jan 10 01:53:06 2006 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:53:06 +0200 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters Message-ID: You know what, you are right! Come to think of it I think he even said drakonian. Never played Krynn setting and read them chronicles way back before the runderpest so I never made the connection, untill now. Cheers Tony -----Original Message----- Tal Meta Sounds like Draconians, from TSR's Dragonlance setting, to me. -- __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From tom at zunder.org.uk Tue Jan 10 02:07:42 2006 From: tom at zunder.org.uk (tom at zunder.org.uk) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 07:07:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: <43C276A4.1080808@talmeta.net> References: <43C276A4.1080808@talmeta.net> Message-ID: <51312.128.240.229.66.1136819262.squirrel@webmail.zunder.org.uk> > Den, Tony T wrote: > >> My group played a few sessions where some sort of lizard man type >> creatures did weird stuff when they died. (The GM at the time may have >> got this out of Dorastor, Land of Doom....) anyway, some turned to Yup they're Draconians. Did you ever realise that with some luck a chain reaction could be triggered where they started to blow each other up in a mad nuclear reaction..? From ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net Tue Jan 10 10:30:38 2006 From: ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net (Guy Hoyle) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 17:30:38 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: <51312.128.240.229.66.1136819262.squirrel@webmail.zunder.org.uk> References: <43C276A4.1080808@talmeta.net> <51312.128.240.229.66.1136819262.squirrel@webmail.zunder.org.uk> Message-ID: <43C2F21E.3060906@sbcglobal.net> Fingerballs. They're like a bunch of severed fingers joined at the knuckle into a little ball. Guy From tcantine at incentre.net Tue Jan 10 11:56:20 2006 From: tcantine at incentre.net (Tom Cantine) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 17:56:20 -0700 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Poison/Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: <20060109113417.16202.qmail@web51011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060109113417.16202.qmail@web51011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In a related gimmick, I once played in a game where the GM got a bit tired of the powergamers in the group sacrificing for Armouring enchantments to their skin to a rather ridiculous degree. His solutions was to create a sort of Form/Set Gorp spell for one of the baddies we fought, and use it to make a few sets of strong but light magical armour. When the spell wore off, the first thing to get digested was the runes for the Armouring enchantments... > 3. Gorps, who are always funny, but especially against Yelmalians who > can't > cast Fireblade to damage them (one of the abiding memories of a ancient > campaign was someone running from Bigclub in Snakepipe Hollow and > deciding to > jump into a pile of ashes to hide, only to jump out again minus ALL his > armour and a nice all-over burn) From stolenbjorn at hotmail.com Wed Jan 11 22:05:34 2006 From: stolenbjorn at hotmail.com (Bjorn Stolen) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 11:05:34 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Poison/Funny chaotic critters In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I usually let the badies overwhelm people that make powerful armouringenchantments of their skin, then skinning them to make "Edgar-suits" for the baddies. That makes the players think twise before enchanting their body with 10 aps... >From: Tom Cantine >Reply-To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Poison/Funny chaotic critters >Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 17:56:20 -0700 > >In a related gimmick, I once played in a game where the GM got a bit tired >of the powergamers in the group sacrificing for Armouring enchantments to >their skin to a rather ridiculous degree. His solutions was to create a >sort of Form/Set Gorp spell for one of the baddies we fought, and use it to >make a few sets of strong but light magical armour. When the spell wore >off, the first thing to get digested was the runes for the Armouring >enchantments... > > >>3. Gorps, who are always funny, but especially against Yelmalians who >>can't >>cast Fireblade to damage them (one of the abiding memories of a ancient >>campaign was someone running from Bigclub in Snakepipe Hollow and deciding >>to >>jump into a pile of ashes to hide, only to jump out again minus ALL his >>armour and a nice all-over burn) > >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From darthvogel at hotmail.com Thu Jan 12 10:57:05 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:57:05 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: Hello All, I am new to the list but ready to be active. I am participating in a RQIII campaign that has been going on for 3 years now. I have experience with several RPGs, but I fell in love with RQ when we started it. OK...intro over...on to the subject. I came across a scenario that got me thinking about stuff and I came up with a question in an RQIII sorcery magic context. Without elaborating on the scenario or the reason one would want to do this I would like to concentrate on the game mechanics and modeling philosophy involved in this. I'm going to multi-spell 5 Sight Projections, each to go to a different destination to act as a sentry. Normally, I say easy enough if you have the juice and the Free INT to pull it off. The trick is that this is an active spell. Can a character accomplish multi-spelling active spells? Is this multi-spell one thing he is concentrating to keep up allowing him to monitor each simultaneously? Alternately, is he concentrating on keeping the single multicast spell up and able to only monitor one of the active sight projection spells at a time; basically having to strobe through them? Or is he somehow trying to juggle 5 active spells that he has to make concentration rolls to maintain and use? I am curious to know what thoughts you guys have concerning this scenario. I have an opinion but don't want to taint any answers so I will withhold it for now. Also, I am open to answers that suggest that all 3 of my possible outcomes may be off base. Fred From jurrubin at earthlink.net Thu Jan 12 23:54:38 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 06:54:38 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <24114962.1137070478706.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Welcome to the list, Fred! Fred is one of the players in my non-Gloranthan campaign and has done wonders with his sorcerer. Questions like his have really helped me improve my GMing. When he brought up this question, I suggested it would be a great question for this list. I also have my own views but would prefer to hear those of the list, if you all wouldn't mind sharing your thoughts. David -----Original Message----- >From: Fred Vogel >Sent: Jan 11, 2006 5:57 PM >To: rq-rules at crashbox.com >Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast > >Hello All, > >I am new to the list but ready to be active. I am participating in a RQIII >campaign that has been going on for 3 years now. I have experience with >several RPGs, but I fell in love with RQ when we started it. OK...intro >over...on to the subject. > >I came across a scenario that got me thinking about stuff and I came up with >a question in an RQIII sorcery magic context. Without elaborating on the >scenario or the reason one would want to do this I would like to concentrate >on the game mechanics and modeling philosophy involved in this. I'm going >to multi-spell 5 Sight Projections, each to go to a different destination to >act as a sentry. > >Normally, I say easy enough if you have the juice and the Free INT to pull >it off. The trick is that this is an active spell. Can a character >accomplish multi-spelling active spells? Is this multi-spell one thing he >is concentrating to keep up allowing him to monitor each simultaneously? >Alternately, is he concentrating on keeping the single multicast spell up >and able to only monitor one of the active sight projection spells at a >time; basically having to strobe through them? Or is he somehow trying to >juggle 5 active spells that he has to make concentration rolls to maintain >and use? > >I am curious to know what thoughts you guys have concerning this scenario. I >have an opinion but don't want to taint any answers so I will withhold it >for now. Also, I am open to answers that suggest that all 3 of my possible >outcomes may be off base. > >Fred > > >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Fri Jan 13 00:41:09 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:41:09 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <24114962.1137070478706.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <24114962.1137070478706.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <1137073269.e4a735db8e648@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> Tricky. It sounds innocuous enough to use Project Sight to work as a mega-sentry. However, the 'active' component of a spell is an excellent in-game limitation on a sorceror, preventing them from flying around casting spells from afar, from casting spells willy nilly through Project Sight, and so forth. I allow characters to cast active spells (in a multispell or otherwise) and let it lapse. So they can only use one active spell at a time, but they can use different ones without the active spells expiring. But if you allow a PC to use multiple active spells just because they're in a multispell then this is such a minor inconvenience for a sorceror that you may as well ditch the active/passive rule anyhow. Since ditching the active/passive rule sounds to me to be a game breaking suggestion, it follows that you shouldn't be allowed to multispell multiple active spells and use them all at once. Whilst it might not break the game with the mega-sentry, it will break the game elsewhere as you run around Tapping people through your Projected Touch, or Flying around knocking off Palsy and Venom. Nikk From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Fri Jan 13 00:42:11 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:42:11 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <24114962.1137070478706.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <24114962.1137070478706.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <1137073331.b18c1f9d846e8@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> Actually, one additional thought. You could multispell it, and then use one at a time. So don't use all five at once, but keep all five 'going' and look through one sight at a time. That'd be generally good for sentry purposes. Nikk From leonbk at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 01:46:44 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 06:46:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <20060112144644.60500.qmail@web35602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> This what I was going to suggest, but it seems you beat me to it. Leon --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com wrote: > Actually, one additional thought. You could multispell it, and then use one at a > time. So don't use all five at once, but keep all five 'going' and look through > one sight at a time. That'd be generally good for sentry purposes. > > Nikk > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jurrubin at earthlink.net Fri Jan 13 02:19:06 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 09:19:06 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <10865270.1137079146833.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> But then how would this count as actively concentrating on each spell? I guess it comes down to whether or not Multispell effectively acts to make all spells being cast a single uber spell or Multispell performs as an "energy bucket" that holds some spells in abeyance until all are ready to be cast and each spell affected by the Multispell roll is still considered a separate, unique spell. Thoughts? David -----Original Message----- >From: Leon Kirshtein >Sent: Jan 12, 2006 8:46 AM >To: rq-rules at crashbox.com >Subject: Re: Re: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast > >This what I was going to suggest, but it seems you >beat me to it. > >Leon >--- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com > wrote: >> Actually, one additional thought. You could >multispell it, and then use one at a >> time. So don't use all five at once, but keep all >five 'going' and look through >> one sight at a time. That'd be generally good for >sentry purposes. >> >> Nikk >> >> _______________________________________________ >> RQ-Rules mailing list >> RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >> http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >http://mail.yahoo.com >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Fri Jan 13 02:46:06 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:46:06 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <10865270.1137079146833.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <10865270.1137079146833.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <1137080766.708fc27864388@webmail8.leeds.ac.uk> > But then how would this count as actively concentrating on each spell? I'm a wee bit confused. Standardly, you can only use an active spell if you concentrate on it, and can only concentrate on one spell at a time. However, you can cast an active spell and it will remain when you're not concentrating on it (so if you use Sandy rules it will remain ready to be activated as long as Presence is devoted, and if you are still stuck in the 20th century and use RQ III rules it remains up as long as the duration), otherwise sorcerors would be royally buggered as they'd have to recast an active spell every time they wanted to use it! Which would be unduly harsh, to say the least. So, given that you cast either five project sights, and send each project sight to five different locations OR you multispell them together. Then you activate each one in turn, and when you're done with one you move on to the next one, in quick succession. Probably not as good as receiving information simultaneously from five different source, but definitely better than nothing. One catch; you may or may not rule that when you stop keeping a projected sight activated it 'returns' to the caster. So I cast project sight, and send it hurtling across the countryside. If I then stop concentrating on it, it the projected sight returns to the caster. If you ruled this then going from each one in turn would be pointless, for obvious reasons, as the locus would return to the caster as soon as he stopped concentrating. And it wouldn't be unduly harsh to rule this; indeed I think it's quite important. Imagine you DON'T rule this, so the Projected Sense remains knocking around where you left it. So imagine you're in adungeon and send your projected sight fifty metres down a corridor. Suddenly you're attacked! You run away, but your projected sight remains where it is. For starters, it'll take a while to bring it back, but more likely you'll run out of range, and the spell - I would rule, is cancelled. Does that make sense? So, I'd call for a ruling on that, indeed I'm interested in what the list thinks. Also, when you cast Project, do you rule that the Projected Sense appears anywhere within the casting range, or does it have to start off at the caster and then move out at the rate of 1m/intensity? Nikk From leonbk at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 03:04:57 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:04:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <20060112160457.7392.qmail@web35607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In a same way as you can look at a split screen monitor. Leon --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com wrote: > But then how would this count as actively concentrating on each spell? > > I guess it comes down to whether or not Multispell effectively acts to make all spells being cast a single uber spell or Multispell performs as an "energy bucket" that holds some spells in abeyance until all are ready to be cast and each spell affected by the Multispell roll is still considered a separate, unique spell. > > Thoughts? > > David > > -----Original Message----- > >From: Leon Kirshtein > >Sent: Jan 12, 2006 8:46 AM > >To: rq-rules at crashbox.com > >Subject: Re: Re: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast > > > >This what I was going to suggest, but it seems you > >beat me to it. > > > >Leon > >--- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com > > wrote: > >> Actually, one additional thought. You could > >multispell it, and then use one at a > >> time. So don't use all five at once, but keep all > >five 'going' and look through > >> one sight at a time. That'd be generally good for > >sentry purposes. > >> > >> Nikk > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> RQ-Rules mailing list > >> RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > >> http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > > > > >__________________________________________________ > >Do You Yahoo!? > >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > >http://mail.yahoo.com > >_______________________________________________ > >RQ-Rules mailing list > >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From darthvogel at hotmail.com Fri Jan 13 04:07:11 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:07:11 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: I'll throw my 2 cents in now that I've seen some answers. Let me know what you think. Here is how i see multispell. Using this art combines the spells into a single compound spell. It is a type of manipulation just like duration, range, and intensity. Concentration is about maintaining the spell and not about using the spell. There is a distinction here. Since a spell in this game is about channeling energy using mental power (hence using free Int to make manipulations) the concentration is about maintaining control of the energy that runs the spell to keep the spell up. Since you used the multicast art you are concentrating to maintain this large manipulation you cast. In terms of sense projection, i think it is reasonable to say that since you as an individual have only one sight sense that you could only monitor one at a time. To do more would be unnatural and require you to concentrate in order to do more. But you are already concentrating on maintaining your spell...so if you need to do this, you would have to make a roll to pull it off or risk dropping the spell. Each additional one you would want to monitor would increase the penalty. However, if similarly you cast a sight project, smell project, hear project, i would expect that you could monitor them all at the same time since it is natural for you to receive all these inputs. I have seen a comment that confused me. My understanding of an active spell is that you must concentrate on it to maintain the spell. You cant run away, or fight, or do much else, including a normal conversation. You are limited to low movement, phrases and words to communicate, stuff like that. Likewise, if i cast this for a year i'm effectively pinned down for that whole duration. As far as me having 5 sight projections up I can independently move then and then monitor them one at a time or even not pay attention to them for a while. I don't see why they would come back. At least not under the premise i'm pitching. By maintaining the spell effetely, they should remain where i put them. Interested to see what you guys think. Fred >From: Nikk Effingham > >Actually, one additional thought. You could multispell it, and then use one >at a >time. So don't use all five at once, but keep all five 'going' and look >through >one sight at a time. That'd be generally good for sentry purposes. > From leonbk at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 05:59:16 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:59:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <20060112185916.86779.qmail@web35611.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >otherwise sorcerors would be royally buggered as theyd have to recast an active spell every time they wanted to use it! Which would be unduly harsh, to say the least. Actually, this is exactly how I see it. If the sorcerer stop concentrating, the spell goes poof. I have also made most Divination type spells Active (like Mystic Vision). Its really annoying for a GM to have players walk around all the time being able to see everything. Leon --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com wrote: > > But then how would this count as actively concentrating on each spell? > > I'm a wee bit confused. Standardly, you can only use an active spell if you > concentrate on it, and can only concentrate on one spell at a time. However, > you can cast an active spell and it will remain when you're not concentrating > on it (so if you use Sandy rules it will remain ready to be activated as long > as Presence is devoted, and if you are still stuck in the 20th century and use > RQ III rules it remains up as long as the duration), otherwise sorcerors would > be royally buggered as they'd have to recast an active spell every time they > wanted to use it! Which would be unduly harsh, to say the least. > > So, given that you cast either five project sights, and send each project sight > to five different locations OR you multispell them together. Then you activate > each one in turn, and when you're done with one you move on to the next one, in > quick succession. Probably not as good as receiving information simultaneously > from five different source, but definitely better than nothing. > > One catch; you may or may not rule that when you stop keeping a projected sight > activated it 'returns' to the caster. So I cast project sight, and send it > hurtling across the countryside. If I then stop concentrating on it, it the > projected sight returns to the caster. If you ruled this then going from each > one in turn would be pointless, for obvious reasons, as the locus would return > to the caster as soon as he stopped concentrating. > > And it wouldn't be unduly harsh to rule this; indeed I think it's quite > important. Imagine you DON'T rule this, so the Projected Sense remains knocking > around where you left it. So imagine you're in adungeon and send your projected > sight fifty metres down a corridor. Suddenly you're attacked! You run away, but > your projected sight remains where it is. For starters, it'll take a while to > bring it back, but more likely you'll run out of range, and the spell - I would > rule, is cancelled. > > Does that make sense? > > So, I'd call for a ruling on that, indeed I'm interested in what the list > thinks. Also, when you cast Project, do you rule that the Projected Sense > appears anywhere within the casting range, or does it have to start off at the > caster and then move out at the rate of 1m/intensity? > > Nikk > > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From darthvogel at hotmail.com Fri Jan 13 06:03:57 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:03:57 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060112185916.86779.qmail@web35611.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >I have also made most Divination type spells Active >(like Mystic Vision). Its really annoying for a GM to >have players walk around all the time being able to >see everything. Clearly if you are using an active spell you have to concentrate on it. But let's say for the sake of arguement, if Mystic Vision were a passive spell rather than active; why is that a pain for the GM? Fred From leonbk at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 06:57:12 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:57:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <20060112195712.12099.qmail@web35611.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Mystic Vision would negate most attempts at hidding as well as show invisible things and likely point out most magical items (ones with POW in any case). While I do not mind players having the ability to do all that, having them be able to do that all the time is annoying. Yes, there are a many different ways to punish them for it, and ways a GM can play around it, but I find that making these spells Active, solves this whole thing rather nicely. Leon --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com wrote: > > >I have also made most Divination type spells Active > >(like Mystic Vision). Its really annoying for a GM to > >have players walk around all the time being able to > >see everything. > > Clearly if you are using an active spell you have to concentrate on it. But > let's say for the sake of arguement, if Mystic Vision were a passive spell > rather than active; why is that a pain for the GM? > > Fred > > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Fri Jan 13 06:59:30 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:59:30 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1137095970.b26a3d24538be@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> > >I have also made most Divination type spells Active > >(like Mystic Vision). Its really annoying for a GM to > >have players walk around all the time being able to > >see everything. > > Clearly if you are using an active spell you have to concentrate on it. But > let's say for the sake of arguement, if Mystic Vision were a passive spell > rather than active; why is that a pain for the GM? Actually he has a point, and I'm now reconsidering my position. Thinking about it I am ticked off by Fly spells kicking in every five minutes and players sitting there and just causally asking if spells are cast around them and the POW of the various NPCs etc... It'd be quite a curb for the Dominate spell, however. Any thoughts on the Project Sense questions? Nikk From darthvogel at hotmail.com Fri Jan 13 08:03:36 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:03:36 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: >Mystic Vision would negate most attempts at hidding as >well as show invisible things and likely point out >most magical items (ones with POW in any case). While >I do not mind players having the ability to do all >that, having them be able to do that all the time is >annoying. I don't understand why this is annoying. I guess my way of looking at it is, if they can so what? >Yes, there are a many different ways to punish them >for it, and ways a GM can play around it, but I find >that making these spells Active, solves this whole >thing rather nicely. > >Leon What do you mean punish them? I never thought that RPG's were the GM vs. the players. As a GM i simply don't care what the players do. I'm never concerned if they are "too powerful" or want to do something i never thought of. I rather like players that are creative and find innovative ways to do things. For me whether a play can or can't do something lies purely along the lines of does it fit within the modeling construct that we are using. Sometimes as a GM these things are less convenient than others; but that is fine with me. I also do not put barriers in front of them just to impede them from doing things. If they want to raid a keep, the keep will have the defenses I saw fit to put to defend/secure it....not from the players; but rather what the guard is there to do in general unless the guard is award of the raid and has taken special precautions. If the PC's are clever enough to completely circumvent all that, I congratulate them, not scorn them or punish them. Please keep in mind I am only talking of my personal approach and philosophy about this. Since I am saying these things questioning your comments I want you to know that I'm only saying this to share and discuss my views and my intention is not to attack your approach, every group is different. Fred From darthvogel at hotmail.com Fri Jan 13 08:25:34 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:25:34 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: > >RQ->Actually he has a point, and I'm now reconsidering my position. >Thinking about >it I am ticked off by Fly spells kicking in every five minutes and players >sitting there and just causally asking if spells are cast around them and >the >POW of the various NPCs etc... It'd be quite a curb for the Dominate spell, >however. > >Any thoughts on the Project Sense questions? > >Nikk Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does not have anything to do with the mechanics of the game. It really doesn't matter if the GM likes an approach or not...either the game concepts support it or they don't. Saying that you don't like that players want to do something and the game should be changed because of it isn't the point. I don't understand what there is for a GM to get ticked off when a player does something anyway. I can understand that sometimes players want to work the rules to do things that are outside the spirit of the game. The "rules" are there to model something; however it is impossible for them to blanket every situation. As a result there is, like in law, the letter and the spirit of the "rules". I have read about this "golf bag of weapons" thing where players work the experience system to get an xp tick in an additional weapon on their final blow. As a GM i would not award this because it violates the spirit of the xp system and I would simply rule that this was not a reasonable amount of use to gain the experience. If on the other hand, they switched in mid fight because they figured another weapon would be better in the fight, I would consider awarding both if I thought both had been used enough to merit the xp check. In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If they caster wants to cast additional spells while he is using fly he has to make his concentration roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND failing to maintain his fly spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life in this case. If he has high enough stats to make the risk low enough for him to tolerate and get away with it...good for him...otherwise he might hurt himself. So from my point of view, it seems like the game takes of these things automatically. Like in my previous post, I want to make it clear these are my views. I want to discuss these things even where there is dissent. My goal is not to ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. If I have challenged any of the things you say, please, understand the intent is not an attack. I am new to the group, I do not want people thinking I'm an ass or a flamer because I might challenge a few things people say. Fred From leonbk at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 08:50:05 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:50:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <20060112215005.22511.qmail@web35605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does not have anything to do with the mechanics of the game. It really doesnt matter if the GM likes an approach or not...either the game concepts support it or they dont. Saying that you dont like that players want to do something and the game should be changed because of it isnt the point. This is not a GM vs. players thing. It is more of a game balance thing. As a GM, then I see something abused, I consider the ramifications of a similar action by NPCs on the PC. So for example, Mystic Vison is an unbalancing spells (IMO), since it will remove any possibility of a player to sneak up on an enemy sorcerer, even a Counter Magic will not work, since technically the Mystic Vision will detect the Counter Magic itself. Game balance is restored by making the sorcerers cast the spell when they feel they need to and in effect limiting the amount of time this spell is being maintained. >I dont understand what there is for a GM to get ticked off when a player does something anyway. I can understand that sometimes players want to work the rules to do things that are outside the spirit of the game. The rules are there to model something; however it is impossible for them to blanket every situation. As a result there is, like in law, the letter and the spirit of the rules. Players have different motivations and are on a different level of maturity. What works with some, does not work with others. I found that removing temptation, to abuse teh rules, and maintaining consistency increases game play and enjoyment >In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If they caster wants to cast additional spells while he is using fly he has to make his concentration roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND failing to maintain his fly spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life in this case. If he has high enough stats to make the risk low enough for him to tolerate and get away with it...good for him...otherwise he might hurt himself. So from my point of view, it seems like the game takes of these things automatically. Depending on the rules you are playing with. I am not worried really about a sorcerer casting another spell while flying, but rather always having the Fly spell up. Therefore, IMW, if you do not concentrate on an Active spell it goes down. >I want to make it clear these are my views. I want to discuss these things even where there is dissent. My goal is not to ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. If I have challenged any of the things you say, please, understand the intent is not an attack. I am new to the group, I do not want people thinking Im an ass or a flamer because I might challenge a few things people say. Dont worry about it. I am sure everyone here had been shot down in flames at least once. As a group I would say wea thick skinned bunch. Leon --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com wrote: > > > >RQ->Actually he has a point, and I'm now reconsidering my position. > >Thinking about > >it I am ticked off by Fly spells kicking in every five minutes and players > >sitting there and just causally asking if spells are cast around them and > >the > >POW of the various NPCs etc... It'd be quite a curb for the Dominate spell, > >however. > > > >Any thoughts on the Project Sense questions? > > > >Nikk > > > Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does not have anything to do with > the mechanics of the game. It really doesn't matter if the GM likes an > approach or not...either the game concepts support it or they don't. Saying > that you don't like that players want to do something and the game should be > changed because of it isn't the point. > > I don't understand what there is for a GM to get ticked off when a player > does something anyway. I can understand that sometimes players want to work > the rules to do things that are outside the spirit of the game. The "rules" > are there to model something; however it is impossible for them to blanket > every situation. As a result there is, like in law, the letter and the > spirit of the "rules". > > I have read about this "golf bag of weapons" thing where players work the > experience system to get an xp tick in an additional weapon on their final > blow. As a GM i would not award this because it violates the spirit of the > xp system and I would simply rule that this was not a reasonable amount of > use to gain the experience. If on the other hand, they switched in mid > fight because they figured another weapon would be better in the fight, I > would consider awarding both if I thought both had been used enough to merit > the xp check. > > In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If they caster wants to cast > additional spells while he is using fly he has to make his concentration > roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND failing to maintain his fly > spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life in this case. If he has > high enough stats to make the risk low enough for him to tolerate and get > away with it...good for him...otherwise he might hurt himself. So from my > point of view, it seems like the game takes of these things automatically. > > Like in my previous post, I want to make it clear these are my views. I > want to discuss these things even where there is dissent. My goal is not to > ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. If I have challenged any > of the things you say, please, understand the intent is not an attack. I am > new to the group, I do not want people thinking I'm an ass or a flamer > because I might challenge a few things people say. > > Fred > > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From aescleal at btinternet.com Fri Jan 13 09:09:51 2006 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 22:09:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060112215005.22511.qmail@web35605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060112220951.48815.qmail@web86107.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I'm always very wary when people wheel out the whole "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as game balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their players being able to do a damned thing about it. What's more at tension here is the way the rules simulate the world and your conception of the world. You obviously like the idea of someone being to sneak up on a sorcerer without the sorcerer being able to see their POW and do something about it within the limits you mentioned. It's not that the players are "abusing" anything, it's that they don't share your conception of the world. House ruling to get the game world working the way you want isn't a bad thing. However it's not abuse and you should never think of "punishing" your players for doing something that falls outside your perception of the world. Cheers, Ash PS: You could even say the designers knew about the "problem" of sneaking up on people using POW detecting magic when they invented Detection Blank. I imagine most sneaky cults can find Detection Blank spell spirits if they put their mind to it. --- Leon Kirshtein wrote: > >Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does not > have anything to do with > the mechanics of the game. It really doesnt matter > if > the GM likes an > approach or not...either the game concepts support > it > or they dont. Saying > that you dont like that players want to do something > and the game should be > changed because of it isnt the point. > > This is not a GM vs. players thing. It is more of a > game balance thing. As a GM, then I see something > abused, I consider the ramifications of a similar > action by NPCs on the PC. So for example, Mystic > Vison > is an unbalancing spells (IMO), since it will remove > any possibility of a player to sneak up on an enemy > sorcerer, even a Counter Magic will not work, since > technically the Mystic Vision will detect the > Counter > Magic itself. Game balance is restored by making the > sorcerers cast the spell when they feel they need to > and in effect limiting the amount of time this spell > is being maintained. > > >I dont understand what there is for a GM to get > ticked off when a player > does something anyway. I can understand that > sometimes > players want to work > the rules to do things that are outside the spirit > of > the game. The rules > are there to model something; however it is > impossible > for them to blanket > every situation. As a result there is, like in law, > the letter and the > spirit of the rules. > > Players have different motivations and are on a > different level of maturity. What works with some, > does not work with others. I found that removing > temptation, to abuse teh rules, and maintaining > consistency increases game play and enjoyment > > >In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If > they caster wants to cast > additional spells while he is using fly he has to > make > his concentration > roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND > failing > to maintain his fly > spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life in > this case. If he has > high enough stats to make the risk low enough for > him > to tolerate and get > away with it...good for him...otherwise he might > hurt > himself. So from my > point of view, it seems like the game takes of these > things automatically. > > Depending on the rules you are playing with. I am > not > worried really about a sorcerer casting another > spell > while flying, but rather always having the Fly spell > up. Therefore, IMW, if you do not concentrate on an > Active spell it goes down. > > >I want to make it clear these are my views. I > want to discuss these things even where there is > dissent. My goal is not to > ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. If > I > have challenged any > of the things you say, please, understand the intent > is not an attack. I am > new to the group, I do not want people thinking Im > an > ass or a flamer > because I might challenge a few things people say. > > Dont worry about it. I am sure everyone here had > been > shot down in flames at least once. As a group I > would > say wea thick skinned bunch. > > Leon > --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com > wrote: > > > > > >RQ->Actually he has a point, and I'm now > reconsidering my position. > > >Thinking about > > >it I am ticked off by Fly spells kicking in every > five minutes and players > > >sitting there and just causally asking if spells > are cast around them and > > >the > > >POW of the various NPCs etc... It'd be quite a > curb > for the Dominate spell, > > >however. > > > > > >Any thoughts on the Project Sense questions? > > > > > >Nikk > > > > > > Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does > not > have anything to do with > > the mechanics of the game. It really doesn't > matter > if the GM likes an > > approach or not...either the game concepts support > it or they don't. Saying > > that you don't like that players want to do > something and the game should be > > changed because of it isn't the point. > > > > I don't understand what there is for a GM to get > ticked off when a player > > does something anyway. I can understand that > sometimes players want to work > > the rules to do things that are outside the spirit > of the game. The "rules" > > are there to model something; however it is > impossible for them to blanket > > every situation. As a result there is, like in > law, > the letter and the > > spirit of the "rules". > > > > I have read about this "golf bag of weapons" thing > where players work the > > experience system to get an xp tick in an > additional > weapon on their final > > blow. As a GM i would not award this because it > violates the spirit of the > > xp system and I would simply rule that this was > not > a reasonable amount of > > use to gain the experience. If on the other hand, > they switched in mid > > fight because they figured another weapon would be > better in the fight, I > > would consider awarding both if I thought both had > been used enough to merit > > the xp check. > > > > In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If > they caster wants to cast > > additional spells while he is using fly he has to > make his concentration > > roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND > failing to maintain his fly > > spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life > in this case. If he has > > high enough stats to make the risk low enough for > him to tolerate and get > > away with it...good for him...otherwise he might > hurt himself. So from my > > point of view, it seems like the game takes of > these > things automatically. > > > > Like in my previous post, I want to make it clear > these are my views. I > > want to discuss these things even where there is > dissent. My goal is not to > > ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. > If > I have challenged any > > of the things you say, please, understand the > intent > is not an attack. I am > > new to the group, I do not want people thinking > I'm > an ass or a flamer > > because I might challenge a few things people say. > > > > Fred > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > RQ-Rules mailing list > > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > === message truncated === From lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au Fri Jan 13 09:43:47 2006 From: lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au (Lev Lafayette) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 14:43:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060112220951.48815.qmail@web86107.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060112224347.55115.qmail@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Game balance is just about the challenge that a GM puts the PCs up against. Game balance is about the players being of relatively equal power among each other. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on the stye of player you are; rather uniquely however RPGs do assume that a party is made up of characters of roughly equal (if different) abilities. I think however you are fundamentally correct with the 'Detection Blank' point tho'. If players discover a loop-hole in a rules sure as London to a brick NPCs would exploit it as much as PCs. Let them get away with it *once* and congratulate them for doing so. --- Ashley Munday wrote: > I'm always very wary when people wheel out the whole > "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as > game > balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can > liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their > players being able to do a damned thing about it. > > What's more at tension here is the way the rules > simulate the world and your conception of the world. > You obviously like the idea of someone being to > sneak > up on a sorcerer without the sorcerer being able to > see their POW and do something about it within the > limits you mentioned. > > It's not that the players are "abusing" anything, > it's > that they don't share your conception of the world. > House ruling to get the game world working the way > you > want isn't a bad thing. However it's not abuse and > you > should never think of "punishing" your players for > doing something that falls outside your perception > of > the world. > > Cheers, > > Ash > > PS: You could even say the designers knew about the > "problem" of sneaking up on people using POW > detecting > magic when they invented Detection Blank. I imagine > most sneaky cults can find Detection Blank spell > spirits if they put their mind to it. > > --- Leon Kirshtein wrote: > > > >Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does > not > > have anything to do with > > the mechanics of the game. It really doesnt matter > > if > > the GM likes an > > approach or not...either the game concepts support > > it > > or they dont. Saying > > that you dont like that players want to do > something > > and the game should be > > changed because of it isnt the point. > > > > This is not a GM vs. players thing. It is more of > a > > game balance thing. As a GM, then I see something > > abused, I consider the ramifications of a similar > > action by NPCs on the PC. So for example, Mystic 3> > Vison > > is an unbalancing spells (IMO), since it will > remove > > any possibility of a player to sneak up on an > enemy > > sorcerer, even a Counter Magic will not work, > since > > technically the Mystic Vision will detect the > > Counter > > Magic itself. Game balance is restored by making > the > > sorcerers cast the spell when they feel they need > to > > and in effect limiting the amount of time this > spell > > is being maintained. > > > > >I dont understand what there is for a GM to get > > ticked off when a player > > does something anyway. I can understand that > > sometimes > > players want to work > > the rules to do things that are outside the spirit > > of > > the game. The rules > > are there to model something; however it is > > impossible > > for them to blanket > > every situation. As a result there is, like in > law, > > the letter and the > > spirit of the rules. > > > > Players have different motivations and are on a > > different level of maturity. What works with some, > > does not work with others. I found that removing > > temptation, to abuse teh rules, and maintaining > > consistency increases game play and enjoyment > > > > >In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If > > they caster wants to cast > > additional spells while he is using fly he has to > > make > > his concentration > > roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND > > failing > > to maintain his fly > > spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life > in > > this case. If he has > > high enough stats to make the risk low enough for > > him > > to tolerate and get > > away with it...good for him...otherwise he might > > hurt > > himself. So from my > > point of view, it seems like the game takes of > these > > things automatically. > > > > Depending on the rules you are playing with. I am > > not > > worried really about a sorcerer casting another > > spell > > while flying, but rather always having the Fly > spell > > up. Therefore, IMW, if you do not concentrate on > an > > Active spell it goes down. > > > > >I want to make it clear these are my views. I > > want to discuss these things even where there is > > dissent. My goal is not to > > ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. > If > > I > > have challenged any > > of the things you say, please, understand the > intent > > is not an attack. I am > > new to the group, I do not want people thinking Im > > an > > ass or a flamer > > because I might challenge a few things people say. > > > > > Dont worry about it. I am sure everyone here had > > been > > shot down in flames at least once. As a group I > > would > > say wea thick skinned bunch. > > > > Leon > > --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com > > wrote: > > > > > > > >RQ->Actually he has a point, and I'm now > > reconsidering my position. > > > >Thinking about > > > >it I am ticked off by Fly spells kicking in > every > > five minutes and players > > > >sitting there and just causally asking if > spells > > are cast around them and > > > >the > > > >POW of the various NPCs etc... It'd be quite a > > curb > > for the Dominate spell, > > > >however. > > > > > > > >Any thoughts on the Project Sense questions? > > > > > > > >Nikk > > > > > > > > > Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does > > not > > have anything to do with > > > the mechanics of the game. It really doesn't > > matter > > if the GM likes an > > > approach or not...either the game concepts > support > > it or they don't. Saying > > > that you don't like that players want to do > > something and the game should be > > > changed because of it isn't the point. > > > > > > I don't understand what there is for a GM to get > > ticked off when a player > > > does something anyway. I can understand that > > sometimes players want to work > > > the rules to do things that are outside the > spirit > > of the game. The "rules" > > > are there to model something; however it is > > impossible for them to blanket > > > every situation. As a result there is, like in > > law, > > the letter and the > > > spirit of the "rules". > > > > > > I have read about this "golf bag of weapons" > thing > > where players work the > > > experience system to get an xp tick in an > > additional > > weapon on their final > > > blow. As a GM i would not award this because it > > violates the spirit of the > > > xp system and I would simply rule that this was > > not > > a reasonable amount of > > > use to gain the experience. If on the other > hand, > > they switched in mid > > > fight because they figured another weapon would > be > > better in the fight, I > > > would consider awarding both if I thought both > had > > been used enough to merit > > > the xp check. > > > > > > In this specific case, fly is an active spell. > If > > they caster wants to cast > > > additional spells while he is using fly he has > to > > make his concentration > > > roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND > > failing to maintain his fly > > > spell. He is taking an awful chance with his > life > > in this case. If he has > > > high enough stats to make the risk low enough > for > > him to tolerate and get > > > away with it...good for him...otherwise he might > > hurt himself. So from my > > > point of view, it seems like the game takes of > > these > > things automatically. > > > > > > Like in my previous post, I want to make it > clear > > these are my views. I > > > want to discuss these things even where there is > > dissent. My goal is not to > > > ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. > > > If > > I have challenged any > > > of the things you say, please, understand the > > intent > > is not an attack. I am > > > new to the group, I do not want people thinking > > I'm > > an ass or a flamer > > > because I might challenge a few things people > say. > > > > > > Fred > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > RQ-Rules mailing list > > > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > > > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > > === message truncated === > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From darthvogel at hotmail.com Fri Jan 13 09:59:39 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:59:39 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: >From: Lev Lafayette >I think however you are fundamentally correct with the >'Detection Blank' point tho'. If players discover a >loop-hole in a rules sure as London to a brick NPCs >would exploit it as much as PCs. Let them get away >with it *once* and congratulate them for doing so. This i completely agree with. And in terms of "balance" this is what makes the system self balancing. Whatever the PC can do, the NPC can do as well. If I as a PC come up with a cleaver idea, it is possible that the idea is not unique in the world. I also do not see that a cleaver PC figuring out a new way to do something means it is a loop hole. They are just clever. At the same time I do understand that there are munchkins out there...this is where i'm a jerk...I don't like munchkins and think they take all the fun out of the game and don't play with them...at least not for long. But that being said, a good GM can keep a munchkin under control. Back to the point. If it is a unique idea that works, there are a few things that will screw it up for them. Sooner or later they are gonna talk, or show, or be seen and the technique will get out. Likewise, for someone very advanced, they may have already figured it out. GM's can be equally creative, should a master at an art have figured that technique out on his own, it is possible that they may have found an extension to it that makes it even better. The PC may come up against something more advanced than his conception, now he has to figure out how to counter it. I actually think this makes things fun and exciting! Fred From soltakss at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 20:46:38 2006 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:46:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060112210340.25883320605@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20060113094638.24679.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> I've just checked my email to find 4 RQ-Rules Digests in one day. As to the Multicast question, I always played Multispell as creating one entirely new spell containing the spells multicast within it. So, the example given creates one spell that allows the user to see 5 different places at once. How this works in practice is up to individual GMs, but the example about the screen of TVs rings true for me. I normally like to use objects with Project Sight, so the sorcerer would be looking in a mirror/through eyeglasses at five different places. As for keeping it up, it is an Active spell, so if the sorcerer wanted to cast another spell or do something difficult, then he'd have to roll an INTx3% to keep the spell. I also tend to play that if the Projected Vision goes through walls or through earth/stone then he neds a concentration roll as well. Similarly, if something shocking happens in the area viewed, such as a dragon appearing, he would need to make a concentration roll. I also play that someone with Mystic Vision or Detect Magic would be able to see the Projected Vision spell effect, perhaps as a little eye, and could target spells at it, which would then affect the sorcerer. So, he could be Feared, Madnessed or Disrupted by the people he is looking at. He would then have to make a concentration roll to keep the spell going. For long duration active spells, I normally require a concentration roll every hour. Anyway, they give the caster a headache if they last a long time. Also, anyone with mystic sense spells, such as Project Sense or Mystic Vision would get a headache from using it alongside his normal senses. The effects of the headache are not important, but it might cause fatigue loss or skill reductions. Nikk: > And it wouldn't be unduly harsh to rule this; indeed I think it's quite > important. Imagine you DON'T rule this, so the Projected Sense remains > knocking > around where you left it. So imagine you're in adungeon and send your > projected > sight fifty metres down a corridor. Suddenly you're attacked! You run away, > but > your projected sight remains where it is. For starters, it'll take a while > to > bring it back, but more likely you'll run out of range, and the spell - I > would > rule, is cancelled. That's exactly how I play it. In fact, he would need a concentration roll to keep it up while he is attacked and another while he is running away. He can't move it when he is doing something else, so he could easily go out of range. > So, I'd call for a ruling on that, indeed I'm interested in what the list > thinks. Also, when you cast Project, do you rule that the Projected Sense > appears anywhere within the casting range, or does it have to start off at > the > caster and then move out at the rate of 1m/intensity? It can appear anywhere within the range, in my opinion. Then it has to be moved normally. Treat it as a scrying glass - in movies, wizards who look through scrying glasses don't switch to different places all the time, they keep it in one place and move it around a bit. If they have more than one spell going then they have more than one scrying glass. Fred Vogel: > As far as me having 5 sight projections up I can independently move then > and > then monitor them one at a time or even not pay attention to them for a > while. I don't see why they would come back. At least not under the > premise i'm pitching. By maintaining the spell effetely, they should > remain > where i put them. Yes, that's what I'd say. Nikk: > Actually he has a point, and I'm now reconsidering my position. Thinking > about > it I am ticked off by Fly spells kicking in every five minutes and players > sitting there and just causally asking if spells are cast around them and > the > POW of the various NPCs etc... It'd be quite a curb for the Dominate spell, > however. I would certainly make Fly and Dominate active spells, if they are not already. Having to make a roll every hour and have the spells potentially go down during combat and when casting other spells makes them more reasonable. Fred Vogel: > What do you mean punish them? I never thought that RPG's were the GM vs. > the players. As a GM i simply don't care what the players do. How naive, how quaint :-) Everyone knows that a roleplaying game is a battle between the GM and those nasty players who need taking down a peg or two. When the poor GM has had a bad day at work, or his wife is nagging at him, or his life is crap, what better way to have fun than to persecute the players at his weekly roleplaying game. I thought that's what they were for. > I'm never > concerned if they are "too powerful" or want to do something i never > thought > of. I rather like players that are creative and find innovative ways to do > things. For me whether a play can or can't do something lies purely along > the lines of does it fit within the modeling construct that we are using. > Sometimes as a GM these things are less convenient than others; but that is > fine with me. I also do not put barriers in front of them just to impede > them from doing things. If they want to raid a keep, the keep will have > the > defenses I saw fit to put to defend/secure it....not from the players; but > rather what the guard is there to do in general unless the guard is award > of > the raid and has taken special precautions. If the PC's are clever enough > to completely circumvent all that, I congratulate them, not scorn them or > punish them. But, there are times when player tactics can totally ruin a game's enjoyment. In the RQ campaign we played in years ago, they banned the Vision (RQ2) spell. When we used RQ3, I allowed them to use Visin, Project Vision etc, so one session they cast a long-extension Project Vision and scouted out a castle, room by room. After 4 hours of mapping out the castle, I asked them if they were enjoying the session. To a man, they said "No" and they never again used Project Vision in that way, but it was their choice. If you have PCs with long-duration Fly spells to stop them falling down pits, for example, then it can affect how the game is played. There are ways around it, though, I would play that someone with a Fly spell could only move at the speed of the Fly spell, so that should make them think twice about using it. People with other long-duration spells would detect as magical or show up on Mystic Vision/Second Sight as being powerful sorceres, so would be the likely recipient of the multimissiled Arbalest barrage. > Please keep in mind I am only talking of my personal approach and > philosophy > about this. Since I am saying these things questioning your comments I want > you to know that I'm only saying this to share and discuss my views and my > intention is not to attack your approach, every group is different. It doesn't really matter. Everyone has their own opinions and should share them without worrying about trampling on other people's feelings. I've been told in the past that someone would _never_ play in one of my games, and that by someone who has never met me. If people go too far, then the moderator should give them a slapping, or at least a quiet talking to, or the person affected should explain that his feelings have been hurt and, please, don't do it again. > Again...this is a GM vs. players thing and does not have anything to do > with > the mechanics of the game. It really doesn't matter if the GM likes an > approach or not...either the game concepts support it or they don't. > Saying > that you don't like that players want to do something and the game should > be > changed because of it isn't the point. Well, it can be. I've played in games where they have banned Vision/Project Vision, another where they banned Invisibility. I tend not to ban spells, but sometimes I make it clear that I don't want them used, or I make the spells hard to get hold of. > I don't understand what there is for a GM to get ticked off when a player > does something anyway. I can understand that sometimes players want to > work > the rules to do things that are outside the spirit of the game. The > "rules" > are there to model something; however it is impossible for them to blanket > every situation. As a result there is, like in law, the letter and the > spirit of the "rules". Yes, but not everyone plays according to the spirit of the rules. One thing I have found particularly useful is the maxim "Let others do unto you what you do unto others". So, if the PCs use Project Vision to spy on enemies, then they will be the target of Project Visions. If they use Blade Venom on arbalest bolts at every opportunity, then so will NPCs. If they go around with high-intensity Mystic Vision spells then so will the NPCs. And, don't forget, there are a lot more NPCs than PCs, and they have more resources, more time and can expend more effort against the PCs. Just make this clear and game balance will be restored, until the next time. > I have read about this "golf bag of weapons" thing where players work the > experience system to get an xp tick in an additional weapon on their final > blow. As a GM i would not award this because it violates the spirit of the > xp system and I would simply rule that this was not a reasonable amount of > use to gain the experience. If on the other hand, they switched in mid > fight because they figured another weapon would be better in the fight, I > would consider awarding both if I thought both had been used enough to > merit > the xp check. One of our players had a minotaur who did this, but it was allowed as he had INT 7, or something, and had virtually no chance of increasing through experience. Nobody esle was allowed it, though. One of our PCs, Derak the Dark Troll, had trollkin who would follow him around and carry his weapons in golf bags, he called them his caddies and used to ask for weapons before combat. He never qquite asked for a "number 2 maul" but I could see it happening. > In this specific case, fly is an active spell. If they caster wants to > cast > additional spells while he is using fly he has to make his concentration > roll or risk failing to cast the new spell AND failing to maintain his fly > spell. He is taking an awful chance with his life in this case. If he has > high enough stats to make the risk low enough for him to tolerate and get > away with it...good for him...otherwise he might hurt himself. So from my > point of view, it seems like the game takes of these things automatically. Exactly. > My goal is not to > ruffle feathers by taking an opposing viewpoint. If I have challenged any > of the things you say, please, understand the intent is not an attack. Ruffle away, by all means. > I am new to the group, I do not want people thinking I'm an ass > or a flamer because I might challenge a few things people say. They might think that anyway :-) Nobody should be afraid to voice an opinion because it will be shouted down or cause offence. This isn't the Gloranthan Digest, after all. Leon: > This is not a GM vs. players thing. It is more of a > game balance thing. As a GM, then I see something > abused, I consider the ramifications of a similar > action by NPCs on the PC. So for example, Mystic Vison > is an unbalancing spells (IMO), since it will remove > any possibility of a player to sneak up on an enemy > sorcerer, even a Counter Magic will not work, since > technically the Mystic Vision will detect the Counter > Magic itself. Game balance is restored by making the > sorcerers cast the spell when they feel they need to > and in effect limiting the amount of time this spell > is being maintained. In RQ2 there was a spell called Detection Blank, which was available to everyone, in RQ3 I think it is a cult specific spell. It blocked detect spells up to its own pointage, so someone with Detection Blank 4 would block Detect spells backed to 4 MPs/POW. Would this show up using Mystic Vision? Would you need Mystic Vision 5 to get through it? Also, does Countermagic stop Detect spells? After all, they are magical. SOmeone I played with used to play that they were blocked but the caster knew they had been stopped. Ashley Munday: > I'm always very wary when people wheel out the whole > "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as game > balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can > liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their > players being able to do a damned thing about it. Can we? Thanks. I find it pisses the players off, though, and they are normally _real_ whingers and whiners. "You killed off me Freddy and I hate you!". > It's not that the players are "abusing" anything, it's > that they don't share your conception of the world. > House ruling to get the game world working the way you > want isn't a bad thing. However it's not abuse and you > should never think of "punishing" your players for > doing something that falls outside your perception of > the world. Oh, you spoil all my fun. > PS: You could even say the designers knew about the > "problem" of sneaking up on people using POW detecting > magic when they invented Detection Blank. I imagine > most sneaky cults can find Detection Blank spell > spirits if they put their mind to it. Probably. I hope so. In fact, I'm the GM - of course they can. Lev Lafayette: > Game balance is just about the challenge that a GM > puts the PCs up against. Game balance is about the > players being of relatively equal power among each > other. Perhaps. I've had many a game where one PC has dominated because he was better in combat/stronger/tougher than the rest, so it unbalances the game a bit. When you design opponents, you have to pitch them against everyone, not just one person, so if someone is very powerful then it puts everything else out of whack. That is why it is useful to have specialities in the party, so someone is not good in combat but is very good at sneaking around, another is good at magic and so on. But then you end up with something very D&Dish, rather than something RQish. > Whether or not this is a good thing depends on the > stye of player you are; rather uniquely however RPGs > do assume that a party is made up of characters of > roughly equal (if different) abilities. > > I think however you are fundamentally correct with the > 'Detection Blank' point tho'. If players discover a > loop-hole in a rules sure as London to a brick NPCs > would exploit it as much as PCs. Let them get away > with it *once* and congratulate them for doing so. Let them do it once and congratulate them, let them do it again and say nothing, the third time, point out that NPCs could do it, the fourth time let NPCs do it better, then perhaps there won;t be a fifth time. Cor, only 4 indents to delete in that reply .... See Ya Simon From jhellbek at chromebob.com Sat Jan 14 02:09:56 2006 From: jhellbek at chromebob.com (Gerall Kahla) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:09:56 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43C7C2C4.5030709@chromebob.com> Fred Vogel wrote: [snip-o-logy] > Clearly if you are using an active spell you have to concentrate on it. > But let's say for the sake of arguement, if Mystic Vision were a passive > spell rather than active; why is that a pain for the GM? IMG, Mystic Vision supplants the caster's mundane vision; if you've got MV up and running, you can't make Scan or Search rolls. IE, you're *only* allowed to see mystical/magical/incorporeal things. i guess making vision a serialized resource isn't what most players expect, but it keeps people from abusing this too often. i have had a player enchant a strip of cloth with Mystic Vision such that she could blindfold herself with it and gain it's effects. then, she could (for DEX strike ranks) pull it off and see normally again. magic changes things; this is my house rule to help control Mystic Vision. -- Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler remember: all waves collapse. From jurrubin at earthlink.net Sat Jan 14 02:17:56 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:17:56 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Question about multicast Message-ID: <15133927.1137165476513.JavaMail.root@elwamui-karabash.atl.sa.earthlink.net> >From: Simon Phipp >Sent: Jan 13, 2006 3:46 AM >To: rq-rules at crashbox.com >Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Question about multicast > >I've just checked my email to find 4 RQ-Rules Digests in one day. Yeah! Ain't it great? >Fred Vogel: > >> What do you mean punish them? I never thought that RPG's were the GM vs. >> the players. As a GM i simply don't care what the players do. > >How naive, how quaint :-) LOL! My problem is I occasionally feel a little bad when my players end up in very deep kimchi. Of course, if it's by their own actions, c'est la guerre. I just build the kimchi bucket and hand it to them. >Everyone knows that a roleplaying game is a battle between the GM and those >nasty players who need taking down a peg or two. When the poor GM has had a >bad day at work, or his wife is nagging at him, or his life is crap, what >better way to have fun than to persecute the players at his weekly >roleplaying game. > >I thought that's what they were for. Hehheh. And, at the end of the day, they're for beating the crap out of a GM who behaves in such a fashion. We had only one person in our group who did such things as a player and he was moved out out of the group rather quickly. >But, there are times when player tactics can totally ruin a game's enjoyment. >In the RQ campaign we played in years ago, they banned the Vision (RQ2) >spell. When we used RQ3, I allowed them to use Visin, Project Vision etc, so >one session they cast a long-extension Project Vision and scouted out a >castle, room by room. After 4 hours of mapping out the castle, I asked them >if they were enjoying the session. To a man, they said "No" and they never >again used Project Vision in that way, but it was their choice. Exactly. One of the reasons I'm a member of this list is to read posts to help me find such "holes" in the rules. That's also why I told Fred about this list. He's really helped me improve both my GMing skills and my house rules, as has the rest of my player group. Because of their feedback and willingness to play thoughtfully (including pushing the envelope on some rules), I've found that I'm forced to put more effort ahead of time into adventure and world background. The side effect of this is I do less spur-of-the-moment adventure generation but learn more about medieval societies, mapping software (CC2 Pro rules!), and my campaign has taken on a life of its own for me. I can actually play my long-term NPCs as if they're _my_ characters, increasing my enjoyment of the game. Amazing what an old dog can learn. ...I've played in games where they have banned Vision/Project >Vision, another where they banned Invisibility. I tend not to ban spells, but >sometimes I make it clear that I don't want them used, or I make the spells >hard to get hold of. And that's why I really enjoy hearing the different opinions on this list of how spells work, regardless of whether we're talking RQIII or Sandy Petersen's (sp?) rules. I've drafted my own spells lists, including a list of "lost" spells, and have made them available to my friends. I prefer to discuss spell effects with the group and, with that feedback in mind, then modify the spell descriptions to what I hope will provide the best balance for both PCs and NPCs as well as providing enough concise detail to minimize GM judgement calls. Less for me to remember and mroe playing time for all of us. By the way, I also am a member of DUPATDUO school of thought (i.e. "Do Unto PCs As They Do Undo Others"). It does tend to turn my campaigns into a bit of an arms race but out-thinking hostile NPCs is one of the joys of roleplaying (IMO). >In RQ2 there was a spell called Detection Blank, which was available to >everyone, in RQ3 I think it is a cult specific spell. It blocked detect >spells up to its own pointage, so someone with Detection Blank 4 would block >Detect spells backed to 4 MPs/POW. > >Would this show up using Mystic Vision? Would you need Mystic Vision 5 to get >through it? I have two sorcery spells similar to this in my campaign. One is blocks detection spells but not the various magical vision spells, which can detect the blocking spell's magical energy. The second spell _does_ hide its aura from magical visions spells that are affected. >Also, does Countermagic stop Detect spells? After all, they are magical. >SOmeone I played with used to play that they were blocked but the caster knew >they had been stopped. On this one, I hold to "no". Countermagic, in my mind, is a defensive spell tailored to engage incoming hostile spells. By "hostile", I mean the incoming spell is intended to cause harm in some way. >Ashley Munday: > >> I'm always very wary when people wheel out the whole >> "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as game >> balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can >> liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their >> players being able to do a damned thing about it. > >Can we? Thanks. Yep. It's called shutting down a campaign and never seeing the players again. Let them do it once and congratulate them, let them do it again and say >nothing, the third time, point out that NPCs could do it, the fourth time let >NPCs do it better, then perhaps there won;t be a fifth time. What?!? You actually warn your players the third time? Awfully decent of you, Simon. My players are starting to learn that the worst outcome of any combat is not the wounds or spent magic points or broken weapons/armor. It's finding evidence afterwards that someone unknown was watching the whole time. David From jurrubin at earthlink.net Sat Jan 14 02:44:07 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:44:07 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <31848675.1137167047833.JavaMail.root@elwamui-karabash.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Gerall Kahla posted: > >IMG, Mystic Vision supplants the caster's mundane vision; if you've >got MV up and running, you can't make Scan or Search rolls. IE, you're >*only* allowed to see mystical/magical/incorporeal things. > >i guess making vision a serialized resource isn't what most players >expect, but it keeps people from abusing this too often. Oh, now that's a thought! In the past, I've ruled that Mystic Vision's effect is similar to that of a HUD overlay. But I can see the logic behind this. It gives me something to mull over. David From darthvogel at hotmail.com Sat Jan 14 11:56:47 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:56:47 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <31848675.1137167047833.JavaMail.root@elwamui-karabash.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I totally disagree with this. The first line of the spell description states, "This spell augments the target's visual ability." This is another case of the GM not likeing the players doing something for reasons I can't understand. Clearly the intent is for this spell to add to visual ability rather than supplant it. So you are changing the game to limit what your players are doing. This I just don't understand. So what if the players can see this sutff, so can NPC's. There is nothing keeping the world from being equal. There are also spells like mystic cloak to counter this. We have a spell called mystic block, which blocks everything. Which is great, except only the dumbest of wizards wouldn't know you were cloaked, because once they cast an intensity 1 mystic vision spell and can't even see your life aura, they know you are trying to hide something. It all balances. >From: David Smart >Gerall Kahla posted: > > > >IMG, Mystic Vision supplants the caster's mundane vision; if you've > >got MV up and running, you can't make Scan or Search rolls. IE, you're > >*only* allowed to see mystical/magical/incorporeal things. > > > >i guess making vision a serialized resource isn't what most players > >expect, but it keeps people from abusing this too often. > >Oh, now that's a thought! In the past, I've ruled that Mystic Vision's >effect is similar to that of a HUD overlay. But I can see the logic behind >this. It gives me something to mull over. > >David From darthvogel at hotmail.com Sat Jan 14 12:49:25 2006 From: darthvogel at hotmail.com (Fred Vogel) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:49:25 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060113094638.24679.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Replies inline below. I apologize in advance for the length! Fred ---------------------------------------- >From: Simon Phipp >As to the Multicast question, I always played Multispell as creating one >entirely new spell containing the spells multicast within it. Yes I agree. This discussion has made me focus real hard on what multicast really is. It is a manipulation skill just like intensity, range, and, duration. I am not completly convinced that when you cast this you are casting one spell. In the case of active spells you are concentrating on maintaining the spell and not on using it. >As for keeping it up, it is an Active spell, so if the sorcerer wanted to >cast another spell or do >something difficult, then he'd have to roll an >INTx3% to keep the spell. Yes, again agreed. This is my understanding of how active spells work. I have seen several references by people mentioning people using active spells and then taking other activites such as running, which cannot be done with active spells up without concentration rolls. >... if the Projected Vision goes through walls or through earth/stone then >he neds a concentration >rolll. If something shocking happens in the area >viewed, such as a dragon appearing, he would >need to make a concentration >roll. I'm not sure I agree with this. I think in travelling in a wall he risks getting lost but don't understand why this would make him have to concentrace more. I see it this way because I am of the opinion that concentration is maintaining the spell and not so much using it. I likewise don't think seeing a dragon or something would cause him to risk dropping the spell. I do agree that if something happened that caused the caster to be "suprised" either on the far or near end; that he would definatly have to make a concentration roll. >...someone with Mystic Vision would be able to see the Projected Vision >spell effect, as a little eye, and could target spells at it and affect the >sorcerer. He would then >have to make a concentration roll to keep the spell going. Again completly agree here. This is also embodied in the spell descriiption and is a built in limitation of the spell. I have been on the recieving end of this and it isn't fun. When i use the spell I have to try to hide the eye, but mystic vision by the enemy does tend to find me and put me in danger. >For long duration active spells, I normally require a concentration roll >every hour. Anyway, they give the caster a headache if they last a long >time. I had not thought of this; but given my view of maintaining a spell, this seems like something that would be reasonable to consider. Clearly, a person can only activly concentrate on something for so long and once they have reached their threshold it gets progressively more difficult. Try concentrating in a meeting that last 4 hours with no breaks. Nearly impossible. >Nikk: >>Suddenly you're attacked! You run away, but your projected sight remains >>where it is. For >> starters, it'll take a while to bring it back, but >>more likely you'll run out of range, and the spell - I >>would rule, is cancelled. > >That's exactly how I play it. In fact, he would need a concentration roll >to >keep it up while he is attacked and another while he is running away. Exactly, a concentration, perhaps more than one or at increased dificulty, would be required to maintain the spell. If they succeed then the spell does stay up, if not it drops. An when the sorcerer runs away from the location of his projected sight he could cause it to drop by exceeding it's range unless he was trying to actively move it back with him. That could cause further penalties in concentration. Futhermore, the eye moves so slow he would likely be outrunning it. >>... when you cast Project, do you rule that the Projected Sense appears >>anywhere within the >> casting range, or start at the caster and then move >>out? > >It can appear anywhere within the range, in my opinion. Actually, despite an explict mention in the description, my concept was that the sense being projected would originate at the caster and then have to be moved to the location intended; but limited by its range. It is clearly a more powerful spell to make it appear anywhere within the range, but then how do you deal with LOS issues? We have been using it where it originates at the caster and has to be moved out. It limits the spell a bit, but not beyond value in my opinion. >But, there are times when player tactics can totally ruin a game's >enjoyment. >... one session they cast a long-extension Project Vision and scouted out a >castle, room by room. After 4 hours , I asked them if they were enjoying >the session. ...they >said "No" and they never again used Project Vision in that way, but it was >their choice. Exactly. When players get "too powerful" or whatever they do real boring safe stuff for a short time and then move on to more challenging things on their own. As a GM you don't have to send tougher stuff after them, they will seek it out all on thier own. From what I can tell, at the heart of every player is a profiteer, and they realize that you can profit more by moving up on the food chain than picking on all the petty easy stuff. If they insist on doing the easy thing and making the game boring, it can realistically stay that way for so long. Sooner or later word will get out that a band of thugs are harrasing people and someone will come to take them out...isn't that was every western is about? >If you have PCs with long-duration Fly spells to stop them falling down >pits, >for example, then it can affect how the game is played. This fixes itself because fly is an active spell and they are limited in what they can do while they are using it. But even so, if it were passive and they figured out they could use it to not fall down pits, more power to them. God didn't make us not able to have an M1A1 tank because being able to target and kill the enemy at 45mph made things to easy or annoying. Once again, if PCs are doing this stuff, they are not going to be the only ones to come up with this idea. Defenses should be layered. If a castle only uses pits as a defense they deserve to be easily cirmumvented. If they had proper defenses, there would be other traps to counter these things, particularly if this was a common circumvention tactic. >There are ways around it, though, I would play that someone with a Fly >spell could only move at the speed of the Fly spell, so that should make >them think twice about using it. Again, this is changing the description of the spell to stop the players from doing something that it allows. The purpose of the "rules" is so that everyone has a common expection to the outcome of actions. When you start changing that you are changing how the game works on the fly and then expectations of outcomes can no longer be trusted. This makes PC's no trust thier GM, makes them find the GM to be an adversary, and makes them like the game less. >People with other long-duration spells would detect as magical or show up >on >Mystic Vision/Second Sight as being powerful sorceres, so would be the >likely >recipient of the multimissiled Arbalest barrage. Perfectly reasonable response from an enemy. >Yes, but not everyone plays according to the spirit of the rules. The GM is the rules of the game. Players are restricted to the parameters that you let them, not the other way around. If a tactic works it works, it not, it doesn't, so what? >One thing I have found particularly useful is the maxim "Let others do unto >you what you do unto others". So, if the PCs use Project Vision to spy on >enemies, then they will be the target of Project Visions. While i wouldn't do this to PC's just because they do it; they certainly are not immune to tactics that they use. I think it is definatly fair game for the rest of the world to be able to do what the PCs do. That is the way the real world is. If you like to spy using sight project you are a real idiot if you are shocked and upset that someone is using it to spy on you! Fred From jurrubin at earthlink.net Sat Jan 14 13:28:25 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:28:25 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast Message-ID: <1728474.1137205705714.JavaMail.root@elwamui-muscovy.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Fred Vogel posted: > >I totally disagree with this. The first line of the spell description >states, "This spell augments the target's visual ability." Heh. I figured this would trip a trigger. Fear not, I won't change rules in mid-stream. I'd finished my mulling before your email and remembered the "augments" clause in the original description. David From tcantine at incentre.net Sun Jan 15 05:15:38 2006 From: tcantine at incentre.net (Tom Cantine) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:15:38 -0700 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Question about multicast In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Fred, my take on Multicast is that it DOES create a single complex spell, rather than simple casting several independent spells at the same time. In the case of multicasted versions of the same spell, as with sight project, this may not be obvious, but consider other common uses of multicast. For example, combining Form/Set with Animate essentially allows one to make and control stone golems in a way that would be impossible with just Animate or Form/Set alone. The interpretation that they remain two distinct spells, each requiring concentration, would defeat the purpose of Multispell, or at least severely limit it. Or even more importantly, consider multispelled Phantom to create a lifelike illusion affecting multiple senses. Using Multispell ought to include some advantage over simply casting Phantom , then casting Phantom , then casting Phantom and juggling the concentration on all three of them. The ultimate effect of the multispell is a new complex spell which expands and enhances the flexibility of the limited number of basic spells. Without that, it's just the ability to make several spells all take effect on the same strike rank, which is really no big deal. I would suggest that to deal with the problem you have with multiple Sight Projections, you might consider saying that Multispell only works on DIFFERENT spells, not multiple castings of the SAME spell. But even then, I'm not convinced that's desirable. Yes, for a novice mage, having five Projected sights in different places would be outrageously difficult, and would certainly give one a headache at the very least, but Multispell is an advanced manipulation that must be studied in some detail before it becomes useful, ON TOP of all the study that must go into its subject spells. So while a novice mage might be able, with difficulty, to put up a couple of extra Project spells, and even maintain them for a while, the magus who has mastered his Multispell will have found a better way to accomplish the same effect with but one spell. On 13-Jan-06, at 6:49 PM, Fred Vogel wrote: > > > Replies inline below. I apologize in advance for the length! > Fred > ---------------------------------------- > >> From: Simon Phipp > >> As to the Multicast question, I always played Multispell as creating >> one >> entirely new spell containing the spells multicast within it. > > Yes I agree. This discussion has made me focus real hard on what > multicast really is. It is a manipulation skill just like intensity, > range, and, duration. I am not completly convinced that when you cast > this you are casting one spell. In the case of active spells you are > concentrating on maintaining the spell and not on using it. From leonbk at yahoo.com Mon Jan 16 12:19:40 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:19:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060112220951.48815.qmail@web86107.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060116011940.10006.qmail@web35604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Ashley Munday wrote: > I'm always very wary when people wheel out the whole > "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as > game > balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can > liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their > players being able to do a damned thing about it. Actually to me game balance implies the relative strength of player character to each other. > It's not that the players are "abusing" anything, > it's that they don't share your conception of the world. You are right and wrong. The players are not "abusing", but it is a game mechanic flaw as far as I am concerned. > PS: You could even say the designers knew about the > "problem" of sneaking up on people using POW > detecting magic when they invented Detection Blank. I imagine > most sneaky cults can find Detection Blank spell > spirits if they put their mind to it. Sorry that would not work, since Mystic Vision is not a "Detection" spell. Detection Blank was published before sorcery was created and really does not cover it. In addtion, not all of my campaigns have cults. Leon __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au Tue Jan 17 09:45:02 2006 From: lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au (Lev Lafayette) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 14:45:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Question about multicast In-Reply-To: <20060116011940.10006.qmail@web35604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060116224502.9059.qmail@web33510.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Leon Kirshtein wrote: > --- Ashley Munday wrote: > > > I'm always very wary when people wheel out the > whole > > "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as > > game > > balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can > > liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their > > players being able to do a damned thing about it. > > Actually to me game balance implies the relative > strength of player character to each other. > Very true; that is a very gamist concept (yes, I have been infected by The Forge); having players of fairly equal abilities to each other is a means of ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to Step On Up (yes, mor Forge talk) and participate to the best of their ability. A thoroughly simulationist game would have a distribution of character strengths according to their distribution in the game world, accounting for the fact that people of similar abilities do tend to associate with each other. A narrative game could have significant divergence; one to three main characters who are invariably powerful and some lesser sidekicks. Actually Ars Magica was well suited for that, thinking about it. And I'd better stop right there. ;-) Lev Lev Lafayette lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au http://au.geocities.com/lev_lafayette __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From soltakss at yahoo.com Wed Jan 18 02:17:21 2006 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:17:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Question about multicast / Game Balance In-Reply-To: <20060116224521.4BC9433EE9F@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20060117151721.8556.qmail@web51008.mail.yahoo.com> Fred Vogel: > Replies inline below. I apologize in advance for the length! Pah! I've never bothered about the length - I can witter on for pages and pages without a problem. > >... if the Projected Vision goes through walls or through earth/stone then > >he neds a concentration >rolll. If something shocking happens in the area > >viewed, such as a dragon appearing, he would >need to make a concentration > >roll. > > I'm not sure I agree with this. I think in travelling in a wall he risks > getting lost but don't understand why this would make him have to > concentrace more. I see it this way because I am of the opinion that > concentration is maintaining the spell and not so much using it. I Because it is not natural or normal. If you are normally capable of moving through earth, then fine it shoudln't affect you. If you are not that way inclined, then it would be difficult to know where you are going, what's coming up ahead and so on. > likewise > don't think seeing a dragon or something would cause him to risk dropping > the spell. If you are watching a horror movie and suddenly the killer pops up when he is least expecting it, do you jump? Did you ever see Jaws, when the head popped up inside the hols in the boat? Did you jump? Would you jump if a dragon popped up just in front of your eyes? Anything that gives you a start, or surprises you, is enough to force a concentration roll, in my opinion. > I do agree that if something happened that caused the caster to be > "suprised" either on the far or near end; that he would definatly have to > make a concentration roll. So, a Dragon appearing just in front of you would not surprise you? You must have nerves of steel. Presumably when it covers your Projected Vision with fire, that wouldn't faze you either? > Actually, despite an explict mention in the description, my concept was > that > the sense being projected would originate at the caster and then have to be > moved to the location intended; but limited by its range. It is clearly a > more powerful spell to make it appear anywhere within the range, but then > how do you deal with LOS issues? We have been using it where it originates > at the caster and has to be moved out. It limits the spell a bit, but not > beyond value in my opinion. But, if you think of it as a scrying glass, you don't get wicked witches looking into their mirror and moving the eye for 20 miles to see Snow White. You look into the mirror/cast project vision and you are where you want to be. Otheriwse, the spell could run out before you get there. As for LOS, I don't worry about them with Project Vision. I would use Farsee, or a sorcerous equivalent, if I wanted LOS. > >There are ways around it, though, I would play that someone with a Fly > >spell could only move at the speed of the Fly spell, so that should make > >them think twice about using it. > > Again, this is changing the description of the spell to stop the players > from doing something that it allows. The purpose of the "rules" is so that > everyone has a common expection to the outcome of actions. Not really. Does it say that the recipient of the Fly spell can move under his own steam, or does it say that the recipient moves at a certain movement rate? I can't remember. > When you start > changing that you are changing how the game works on the fly and then > expectations of outcomes can no longer be trusted. This makes PC's no > trust > thier GM, makes them find the GM to be an adversary, and makes them like > the > game less. But, every game has house rules, certainly every game I've played in has. The house rules need to be agreed between the players and the current GM. Then eveyone knows where they stand, Not everyone is happy, but that's tough. I used to play in a gaming group where different players took turns GMing, and each one had their own house rules, so we had different rules in the same campaign. One GM played that birds and animals were dumb, dumb, dumb, so anyone using Speak to Birds or Speak to Beasts got answers like "I'm hungry, got any food", "Who are you, got any food, arrk", "What's a Lunar? Have I seen them? I might have, got any food and I might tell you. Thanks, arrk" and so on. Very frustrating if you've spent POW on the spell, but that's life. Another GM played that Teleport kept any momentum, so if you fell off a cliff and plummeted to the ground and tried to use Teleport to move to the top of the cliff, you hit the ground at the top at the same speed as you would have hit the ground at the bottom. So, we couldn't use Teleport to stop falling damage in his games. > >Yes, but not everyone plays according to the spirit of the rules. > > The GM is the rules of the game. Players are restricted to the parameters > that you let them, not the other way around. If a tactic works it works, it > not, it doesn't, so what? So, if the GM says "I don't like that" then he has made a ruling that the players have to obey. Fair enough. Leon Kirshtein: > > I'm always very wary when people wheel out the whole > > "game balance" argument. There's no such thing as > > game > > balance in an RPG - let's face it, the GM can > > liquidate the adventurers REAL easy without their > > players being able to do a damned thing about it. > > Actually to me game balance implies the relative > strength of player character to each other. Not really, one person could have, say, 100% in Singing, Play Instrument, Dancing and Seduce and still not have the same effect on play as a 50% sorcerer. Game Balance, to me, is ensuring that one tactic or one player does not completely dominate the game. > > It's not that the players are "abusing" anything, > > it's that they don't share your conception of the > world. > > You are right and wrong. The players are not > "abusing", but it is a game mechanic flaw as far as I > am concerned. If there is a flaw that allows players to manipulate the rules to their own devious advantage then they will use it and use it again until you remove the flaw or stop them doing it. Sneaky buggers, players. > Sorry that would not work, since Mystic Vision is not > a "Detection" spell. Detection Blank was published > before sorcery was created and really does not cover > it. In addtion, not all of my campaigns have cults. I would play that it does, but I don't have many sorcerers in may campaigns. Lev Lafayette: > > Actually to me game balance implies the relative > > strength of player character to each other. > Very true; that is a very gamist concept (yes, I have > been infected by The Forge); having players of fairly > equal abilities to each other is a means of ensuring > that everyone has an opportunity to Step On Up (yes, > mor Forge talk) and participate to the best of their > ability. And is easier to play. > A thoroughly simulationist game would have a > distribution of character strengths according to their > distribution in the game world, accounting for the > fact that people of similar abilities do tend to > associate with each other. Which is completely boring - everyone would be farmers or peasants and where's the joy in that? > A narrative game could have significant divergence; > one to three main characters who are invariably > powerful and some lesser sidekicks. Actually Ars > Magica was well suited for that, thinking about it. Which only works properly if every player has a role to play. Otherwise, the game gets completely dominated by one or two players and the rest are just making up the numbers. Also, it is important for a GM to be able to judge NPCs so that they are not too easy to overcome that there is no contest and not too difficult that one PC survives and the rest have no chance. This is more difficult when you have a couple of powerful characters and other weaker characters. > And I'd better stop right there. ;-) Too right. You'll be playing The Pool next, and then there's no hope for you. See Ya Simon (Who must get at least some work done today) From andrew at crashbox.com Fri Jan 20 05:40:34 2006 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Carmen Haley) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:40:34 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] RE: Andrew -We approved yours loan Message-ID: Dear Homeowner, http://bigsaveinc.com/?ra=ciel You have been approved for a $698,000 house loan at a 3.45% Fixed R.ate. This offer is being presented to you right now!. Your credit history is in no way a factor. 99% applications is approved. To take advantage of this Limited Time Opportunity, please take a minute and confirm your curiosity or intention to accept this loan, at the following web-site: http://bigsaveinc.com/?ra=ciel Best Regards Margaret DeMargaret http://bigsaveinc.com/lit.html absorption academia acapulco acanthus accept abutted ac absolve accelerate accede accentuate abusive accidental academic From ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net Sat Jan 21 20:14:48 2006 From: ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net (Guy Hoyle) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 03:14:48 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] New Beginnings, New Challenges In-Reply-To: <20060121050019.18447.qmail@diablo.albionsoft.com> References: <20060121050019.18447.qmail@diablo.albionsoft.com> Message-ID: <43D1FB88.4000309@sbcglobal.net> I have the great good fortune to be involved in Sandy Petersen's RuneQuest campaign (which, I hope, does not sound like bragging... aw, hell, who am I kidding?) We have just ended the game we've been running for the last 12 years, and are starting a new one, in Pent. Some of our characters are using Sandy's Mysticism rules, which we haven't ever used as PCs. Has anybody here tried them before? Do you have any observations or comments on the system? Looks like we might be revising them to some extent. Thanks, Guy (Hoyle) From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Mon Jan 23 01:16:58 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 14:16:58 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <43D1FB88.4000309@sbcglobal.net> References: <20060121050019.18447.qmail@diablo.albionsoft.com> <43D1FB88.4000309@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <1137939418.c2f74db7774fb@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go on a Death Charge, and has no intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him increasing a non-raisable characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or INT by, say, 2000 point via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back 2000 POW a year, but you'll be dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be pretty useful (or, hell, APP - whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). Suggestions? Nikk From pmj at comhem.se Mon Jan 23 02:21:53 2006 From: pmj at comhem.se (Peter Johansson) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:21:53 +0100 Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <1137939418.c2f74db7774fb@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> References: <20060121050019.18447.qmail@diablo.albionsoft.com> <43D1FB88.4000309@sbcglobal.net> <1137939418.c2f74db7774fb@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> Message-ID: <43D3A311.4070408@comhem.se> Hi Nikk! Suggestion 1: Limit the number of gifts that you're allowed to take at anyone time. Gods of Glorantha states that a Sword are allowed to take as many gifts as he chooses, but as a GM you are free to limit it the way you want. I play it that you are only allowed to take a limited number of gifts at certain rituals (inititation, High Holy Days etc) and after performing heroic deeds. Suggestion 2: Make the gifts random. However if a Sword is really going for the 2000+ POW, he can "roll on the table" until he gets it... Suggestion 3: Let the moment for the sacrifice of 1 POW per year start at the moment the gift is taken. "So you want POW 2000, no worries here you go, btw it costs you 2000 in POW sacrifice. Welcome back to sacrifice another 2000 POW in a year." :-) Suggestion 4: Have Humakt tell the Sword to get a move on and stop wasting his time. Especially since the gift taking is done with the intent of not "paying" something back to Humakt... Not a very honourable intention I would say... Suggestion 5: Make the ritual to take a gift take time, for instance a week per gift, which would make the prayers for the gifts take 2000 weeks and after 42 weeks (in a Glorathan context) the 1 POW per year and gift starts with the sacrifice of 42 POW. At least it would limit the raise to 41 and one week left to act. Suggestion 6: Use a combination, or all, of the above. Cheers, /Peter J Nikk Effingham wrote: >Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go on a Death Charge, and has no intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him increasing a non-raisable characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or INT by, say, 2000 point via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back 2000 POW a year, but you'll be dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be pretty useful (or, hell, APP - whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). > >Suggestions? > >Nikk > >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > > From aelarsen at mac.com Mon Jan 23 04:19:30 2006 From: aelarsen at mac.com (Andrew Larsen) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 11:19:30 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <43D3A311.4070408@comhem.se> Message-ID: I would think a more important limit would be the requirement that the Humakti honestly intend to live up to his geas. Taking a geas that you have no intention of surviving to fulfill seems dishonest and a particularly big no-no for a Humakti. Andrew E. Larsen On 1/22/06 9:21 AM, "Peter Johansson" wrote: > Hi Nikk! > > Suggestion 1: Limit the number of gifts that you're allowed to take at > anyone time. Gods of Glorantha states that a Sword are allowed to take > as many gifts as he chooses, but as a GM you are free to limit it the > way you want. I play it that you are only allowed to take a limited > number of gifts at certain rituals (inititation, High Holy Days etc) and > after performing heroic deeds. > > Suggestion 2: Make the gifts random. However if a Sword is really going > for the 2000+ POW, he can "roll on the table" until he gets it... > > Suggestion 3: Let the moment for the sacrifice of 1 POW per year start > at the moment the gift is taken. "So you want POW 2000, no worries here > you go, btw it costs you 2000 in POW sacrifice. Welcome back to > sacrifice another 2000 POW in a year." :-) > > Suggestion 4: Have Humakt tell the Sword to get a move on and stop > wasting his time. Especially since the gift taking is done with the > intent of not "paying" something back to Humakt... Not a very honourable > intention I would say... > > Suggestion 5: Make the ritual to take a gift take time, for instance a > week per gift, which would make the prayers for the gifts take 2000 > weeks and after 42 weeks (in a Glorathan context) the 1 POW per year and > gift starts with the sacrifice of 42 POW. At least it would limit the > raise to 41 and one week left to act. > > Suggestion 6: Use a combination, or all, of the above. > > Cheers, > > /Peter J > > > > Nikk Effingham wrote: > >> Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go on a Death Charge, and has >> no intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him increasing a >> non-raisable characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or INT by, >> say, 2000 point via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back 2000 POW a >> year, but you'll be dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be pretty >> useful (or, hell, APP - whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). >> >> Suggestions? >> >> Nikk >> >> _______________________________________________ >> RQ-Rules mailing list >> RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >> http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From leonbk at yahoo.com Mon Jan 23 04:21:01 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 09:21:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <1137939418.c2f74db7774fb@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20060122172102.70320.qmail@web35602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> We allow a Humakti Sword to get as many Gift/Geas as he wants when he becomes a Sword, but afterwards we limit it to one a year, on the High Holy Day. If you do not have a similar limitation, then I would suggest the following. It takes time to perform a ceremony like this. At a minimum 1 hour, plus I would make him roll his Ceremony and Humakti Cult Lore in order to do this right. But consider this, since the character in effect has no intention of forefilling the conditions of the Geas he would not be granted the benefit of the Gift. Humakt is a TRUTH cult after all. It is much more likely that Humakt will send a Spirit of Reprisal to a Sword who attempts to do such a thing. --- Nikk Effingham wrote: > Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go > on a Death Charge, and has no > intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him > increasing a non-raisable > characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or > INT by, say, 2000 point > via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back > 2000 POW a year, but you'll be > dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be > pretty useful (or, hell, APP - > whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). > > Suggestions? > > Nikk __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jurrubin at earthlink.net Mon Jan 23 05:30:29 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:30:29 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive Message-ID: <21725728.1137954629843.JavaMail.root@elwamui-cypress.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Nikk Effingham posted: > >Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go on a Death Charge, and has no >intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him increasing a non-raisable >characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or INT by, say, 2000 point >via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back 2000 POW a year, but you'll be >dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be pretty useful (or, hell, APP - >whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). > >Suggestions? After reading the other replies to this, it looks like we're all in agreement. The one thing to stop the Sword is Humakt himself. In fact, if a Sword actually tried to do this, I'm of the mind he wouldn't be a Sword afterwards since he's obviously strayed quite far from the Path of Humakt. Trying to put on over Humakt himself? Sounds more like a Trickster to me. David From stolenbjorn at hotmail.com Mon Jan 23 20:27:56 2006 From: stolenbjorn at hotmail.com (Bjorn Stolen) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:27:56 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <1137939418.c2f74db7774fb@webmail5.leeds.ac.uk> Message-ID: I agree with all the previous repliers, this is a trixter-mentality, and the priest could have a thruth-spell baked into the gift-gease ceremony at a temple, to ransac the true intentions of the Humakti. In my games, a player (if he's young; 15 + 2d6 years), is only allowed one gift and one gease at the start of the game (both Yelmalans and Humakti). I like the Lord of the rings-approach where the characters start of as ordinary characters. If you play Hero Quest, the setting is a little more...heroic, and you might suggest to this munchkin-player of yours that he either make a trixter-character or save this "consept" to another day. >From: Nikk Effingham >Reply-To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >To: rq-rules at crashbox.com >Subject: [Rq-rules] Humakti Death Drive >Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 14:16:58 +0000 > >Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go on a Death Charge, and >has no >intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him increasing a >non-raisable >characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or INT by, say, 2000 >point >via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back 2000 POW a year, but >you'll be >dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be pretty useful (or, hell, APP >- >whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). > >Suggestions? > >Nikk > >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From soltakss at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 03:30:03 2006 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:30:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <20060122172114.A41F436F982@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20060123163004.65346.qmail@web51002.mail.yahoo.com> Carmen Haley: > Subject: [Rq-rules] RE: Andrew -We approved yours loan That's handy, I was wondering where my loan application went .... > Margaret DeMargaret Has she been blocked, yet? Nikk Effingham: > Question: Imagine a Sword of Humakt is about to go on a Death Charge, and > has no > intention of coming back alive. What's to stop him increasing a > non-raisable > characteristic such as POW (past the species max) or INT by, say, 2000 > point > via gifts and geases? Sure, you have to pay back 2000 POW a year, but > you'll be > dead! And having 2000+ POW and/or INT would be pretty useful (or, hell, APP > - > whod' attack a character with 2000 APP!). > > Suggestions? Tell him "No". A Gift is exactly that, a gift. Humakt can say "No". In fact, I would make people earn gifts, myself. Sure, take one for becoming an initiate/dagger/sword and then have the rest as non-automatic. No matter what the rules say, the GM can always say "No" and then not have to justify it. Alternatively, restrict Gifts and Geases to Holy Days/High Holy Days/HeroQuest gains/Cult Progression. But, if it is a PC who wants the gift, tell the player to stop being silly. If it is an NPC, tell the GM to stop being silly. Peter Johansson: > Suggestion 2: Make the gifts random. However if a Sword is really going > for the 2000+ POW, he can "roll on the table" until he gets it... I don't like random geases, as I've had several PCs ruined through random geases. Well, not ruined, but made more interesting to play, whoch is the same thing :-) > Suggestion 3: Let the moment for the sacrifice of 1 POW per year start > at the moment the gift is taken. "So you want POW 2000, no worries here > you go, btw it costs you 2000 in POW sacrifice. Welcome back to > sacrifice another 2000 POW in a year." :-) That might work. > Suggestion 4: Have Humakt tell the Sword to get a move on and stop > wasting his time. Especially since the gift taking is done with the > intent of not "paying" something back to Humakt... Not a very honourable > intention I would say... Yep, just say "No". Andrew Larsen: > I would think a more important limit would be the requirement that the > Humakti honestly intend to live up to his geas. Taking a geas that you have > no intention of surviving to fulfill seems dishonest and a particularly big > no-no for a Humakti. Well, with 2000 POW, he might just survive, at least long enough to repay the POW once. If he fails to repay it, though, he would be damned to Hell and his sword would break. But, with 2000 POW, would he care? No, the problem isn't with the intent to obey the geas, the problem is with the incredibly disproportionate gift requested. Say, the character was an Illuminate, he could take the gift and never have to repay it. Why don't they all do it? Because they can't - Humakt wouldn't let them. Because it's silly. Simon From phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk Tue Jan 24 23:05:30 2006 From: phl0nje at leeds.ac.uk (Nikk Effingham) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 12:05:30 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <20060123163004.65346.qmail@web51002.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060123163004.65346.qmail@web51002.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1138104330.7194e7811da69@webmail7.leeds.ac.uk> I'm going to side with Pete's Suggestion 3, that you have to make payment on the gift immediately. I was thinking along those lines initially. Two other suggestions are still enticing; that the character shouldn't get the gift as he clearly has no intention of paying it back, and that the character can only take gifts/geases upon becoming a Sword and then at the rate of one per year, but I'm not convinced that this is going to get around the problem all the time. I could imagine a character making a good case for being honourable and not trying to screw Humakt (he is, after all, only taking what's on offer) and the second case just means that a character can become a mega-killing machine only upon becoming a Sword (and during a prolonged war there'll be lots of people ready to take the place of their dead Sword and become the mega-killing machine). Whilst this prevents PCs from doing it, this isn't quite what I was worried about (my PCs have analysed the rules and found many loopholes; however we all just agree not to take advantage of them), I was more worried about explaining to my PCs why mega-killing machines don't pop up every now and again, and I'd like to rule them out. So I'm going to go with the third option, it eliminates the problem utterly. I like the 'Just Say No' scheme, but then I'd have to make judgement calls about when Humakt just says no, is it when you add 50 points to a stat? Or ten? Or five? I'd feel like there was a bank manager decision to be made (what's your max POW? Do you have other POW commitments? Do you agree to cut down on your spending on Rune magic?). There'd be a whole Humakt the Mangerial Sword subcult (a part of me actually thinks that's a serious idea and I'm going to think about that as a more MGF option). Simon: >Say, the character was an Illuminate, he could take the gift and never have >to repay it. Why don't they all do it? Because they can't - Humakt wouldn't >let them. Because it's silly. This was my follow-up question. What to do with Illuminates? Can they take the gift at all? If so, how many times? Do they get two free points? Five free points? Fifty? For a Dorastor campaign, with all those lovely Humakti Illuminate Broo, this is quite important! I was thinking that that particular gift cannot be ignored (I play that Illuminates cannot ignore HeroQuest geases, and that some geases - such as this one and the additional gift/geas pairs from Sandy P.'s Humakt write-up - are actually HeroQuest gift/geases and can't be ignored). But has anyone got a better suggestion? One that's less arbitrary? Cheers for all the suggestions! Nikk From styopa1 at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 01:53:58 2006 From: styopa1 at gmail.com (Steve Lieb) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:53:58 -0600 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <1138104330.7194e7811da69@webmail7.leeds.ac.uk> References: <20060123163004.65346.qmail@web51002.mail.yahoo.com> <1138104330.7194e7811da69@webmail7.leeds.ac.uk> Message-ID: <56e64e7a0601240653o12b87df7le58834f4687b750b@mail.gmail.com> On 1/24/06, Nikk Effingham wrote: > > > I like the 'Just Say No' scheme, but then I'd have to make judgement calls > about > when Humakt just says no, is it when you add 50 points to a stat? Or ten? > Or > five? I'd feel like there was a bank manager decision to be made (what's > your > max POW? Do you have other POW commitments? Do you agree to cut down on > your > spending on Rune magic?). There'd be a whole Humakt the Mangerial Sword > subcult > (a part of me actually thinks that's a serious idea and I'm going to think > about that as a more MGF option). > > IMG I'd simply say no. We're not talking about a loan (despite the MGF value of the Managerial Sword subcult), we're talking about a boon from a GOD. This isn't asking to borrow the car keys, this is communing with a diety that can (presumeably) see at least some ways into your motivations and thoughts. As a DM, my gut would say no, so Humakt would say no. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, so extraordinary requests require extraordinary justification. A PC comes up and asks for an atypical number of gifts/geases (IMO anything >1). Wouldn't the priest look a little askance and say "aren't you asking a little too much of yourself my son/daughter?". Then depending on the credibility of the character, how much they've done for that temple or area, their personal reputation, etc, maybe the priest would go ahead with 2, 3 or even 4 at once. For request of more than maybe 4 at a time, I think even the most wise priest would balk, and say that he wanted to commune with Humakt over a night or two about laying such a heavy burden on anyone. If the PC has provably sacrificed 10 POW over the last year (or better still, for a couple years in a row), it's not impossible that he'd grant it. But simply saying "buff me so I can be the l33t ki11ar d00d" just wouldn't be enough. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://localhost.localdomain/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20060124/82404fda/attachment.html From jurrubin at earthlink.net Wed Jan 25 04:13:42 2006 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 11:13:42 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive Message-ID: <24179699.1138122822817.JavaMail.root@elwamui-cypress.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Nikk Effingham posted: > >I'm going to side with Pete's Suggestion 3, that you have to make payment on the >gift immediately. Same here. I don't mind if my players become uber as long as they earn it. IMO, if a player comes up with an innovative way to get around the game mechanic loopholes, that just helped me as a GM find and plug it. And there are many different ways to "plug" a loophole, as has already been posted to this list. >>Say, the character was an Illuminate, he could take the gift and never have >>to repay it. Why don't they all do it? Because they can't - Humakt wouldn't >>let them. Because it's silly. > >This was my follow-up question. What to do with Illuminates? Can they take the >gift at all? On this one, I'd say "no". Again, it gets back to what the god wants. Just because an Illuminate can ignore the geases of received gifts and won't be tagged by retribution spirits doesn't mean the god who gave the gift(s) is ignoring what the Illuminate does. I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. But then I view Illumination as a limited form of ascension on one of the paths to Hero status. David From leonbk at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 08:04:54 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:04:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive Message-ID: <20060124210454.92986.qmail@web35605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. No, I do not see it that way. There is no way Humakt would allow a vampire Humakti for example to exist if he knew about it. If the character is illuminated the god does not know exactly what the character is doing. Leon --- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com wrote: > Nikk Effingham posted: > > > >I'm going to side with Pete's Suggestion 3, that you have to make payment on the > >gift immediately. > > Same here. I don't mind if my players become uber as long as they earn it. IMO, if a player comes up with an innovative way to get around the game mechanic loopholes, that just helped me as a GM find and plug it. > > And there are many different ways to "plug" a loophole, as has already been posted to this list. > > >>Say, the character was an Illuminate, he could take the gift and never have > >>to repay it. Why don't they all do it? Because they can't - Humakt wouldn't > >>let them. Because it's silly. > > > >This was my follow-up question. What to do with Illuminates? Can they take the > >gift at all? > > On this one, I'd say "no". Again, it gets back to what the god wants. Just because an Illuminate can ignore the geases of received gifts and won't be tagged by retribution spirits doesn't mean the god who gave the gift(s) is ignoring what the Illuminate does. I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. > > But then I view Illumination as a limited form of ascension on one of the paths to Hero status. > > David > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From andrew at crashbox.com Thu Jan 26 15:47:58 2006 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Lois Dotson) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:47:58 -0800 Subject: [Rq-rules] *** JUNK MAIL ***RE:RE: Your loan is approved Message-ID: Dear Homeowner, http://yourforless.com/?ra=ciel You have been approved for a $698,000 house loan at a 3.45% Fixed R.ate. This offer is being presented to you right now!. Your credit history is in no way a factor. We have 99% approval rate. To take advantage of this Limited Time Opportunity, please take a minute and confirm your curiosity or intention to accept this loan, at the following web-site: http://yourforless.com/?ra=ciel Best Regards Melba DeMelba http://super223.com//lit.html accessory From stolenbjorn at hotmail.com Wed Jan 25 21:11:40 2006 From: stolenbjorn at hotmail.com (Bjorn Stolen) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 10:11:40 +0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Illumination In-Reply-To: <20060124210454.92986.qmail@web35605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The way I've interpreted Illumination, it is a loophole in the Great Compromise; a backdoor that the God Learners invented\discovered. So I rule that an illuminated work like a tick or like those beetles that disguise themselves as ants, crawling happily into the breeding-chamber of the ants hive, chumping away at the ant-larvae, then crawling out again unscratched. I let illuminated ones not beeing chaotic, but they're treated like the worst sort of chaos by the phanteons, as the gods know exactly how dangerous they are. The challenge with letting players achieve illumination, is that if they're munchkin-players, you're in for it as a GM. The fun part is to play on the players temtpations; the possebility to flirt with several opposing phanteons (including chaos) without risking getting their fingers burned. >From: Leon Kirshtein >Reply-To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." >To: rq-rules at crashbox.com >Subject: Re: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive >Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:04:54 -0800 (PST) > > >I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and >chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and >retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. > >No, I do not see it that way. There is no way Humakt >would allow a vampire Humakti for example to exist if >he knew about it. If the character is illuminated the >god does not know exactly what the character is doing. > >Leon >--- rq-rules-bounces at crashbox.com > wrote: > > Nikk Effingham posted: > > > > > >I'm going to side with Pete's Suggestion 3, that >you have to make payment on the > > >gift immediately. > > > > Same here. I don't mind if my players become uber as >long as they earn it. IMO, if a player comes up with >an innovative way to get around the game mechanic >loopholes, that just helped me as a GM find and plug >it. > > > > And there are many different ways to "plug" a >loophole, as has already been posted to this list. > > > > >>Say, the character was an Illuminate, he could >take the gift and never have > > >>to repay it. Why don't they all do it? Because >they can't - Humakt wouldn't > > >>let them. Because it's silly. > > > > > >This was my follow-up question. What to do with >Illuminates? Can they take the > > >gift at all? > > > > On this one, I'd say "no". Again, it gets back to >what the god wants. Just because an Illuminate can >ignore the geases of received gifts and won't be >tagged by retribution spirits doesn't mean the god who >gave the gift(s) is ignoring what the Illuminate does. >I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and >chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and >retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. > > > > But then I view Illumination as a limited form of >ascension on one of the paths to Hero status. > > > > David > > _______________________________________________ > > RQ-Rules mailing list > > RQ-Rules at crashbox.com > > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >http://mail.yahoo.com >_______________________________________________ >RQ-Rules mailing list >RQ-Rules at crashbox.com >http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Wed Jan 25 21:49:06 2006 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 10:49:06 -0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive References: <20060124210454.92986.qmail@web35605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <029501c6219c$f6d5f670$352c9251@2373993GCH7> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leon Kirshtein" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:04 PM Subject: Re: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive > >I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and > chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and > retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. > > No, I do not see it that way. There is no way Humakt > would allow a vampire Humakti for example to exist if > he knew about it. If the character is illuminated the > god does not know exactly what the character is doing. But then - wouldn't Humakt consider the person dead and stop the gifts and geases? > > Leon David From soltakss at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 23:08:31 2006 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:08:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <20060124210518.89084380590@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20060125120831.4079.qmail@web51006.mail.yahoo.com> Apologies if this is getting a bit too Gloranthany for those non-Gloranthan Heretics out there, but .... David Smart: > After reading the other replies to this, it looks like we're all in > agreement. The one thing to stop the Sword is Humakt himself. In fact, if a > Sword actually tried to do this, I'm of the mind he wouldn't be a Sword > afterwards since he's obviously strayed quite far from the Path of Humakt. > > Trying to put on over Humakt himself? Sounds more like a Trickster to me. In King of Sartar, the Household of Death took horrendous geases to get mighty gifts which meant that they pretty much died if they broke the geases. They were slaughtered to a man by the Lunars, so it didn't help them much. However, if they were allowed to take mighty gifts, such as increasing a stat to 2000, then I doubt if they would have been killed that easily. So, there is some more iffy evidence that it wouldn't be allowed. Nikk Effingham: > I'm going to side with Pete's Suggestion 3, that you have to make payment > on the > gift immediately. I was thinking along those lines initially. You have to be careful, though. If you say that then the other geases should be repayable immediately as well. Now, I don't have the rules to hand so I can't point to any problematic geases, but it doesn't feel right to me. > I like the 'Just Say No' scheme, but then I'd have to make judgement calls But, being a GM is all about making judgement calls. > about > when Humakt just says no, is it when you add 50 points to a stat? Or ten? > Or > five? I would say, as a rule of thumb, that increasing to Species Maximum is fine (I still use the max rollable + min rollable as a Species Max) but anything over that is difficult and must be done one gift at a time. > >Say, the character was an Illuminate, he could take the gift and never > have > >to repay it. Why don't they all do it? Because they can't - Humakt > wouldn't > >let them. Because it's silly. > > This was my follow-up question. What to do with Illuminates? Can they take > the > gift at all? If so, how many times? Do they get two free points? Five free > points? Fifty? For a Dorastor campaign, with all those lovely Humakti > Illuminate Broo, this is quite important! I was thinking that that > particular > gift cannot be ignored (I play that Illuminates cannot ignore HeroQuest > geases, > and that some geases - such as this one and the additional gift/geas pairs > from > Sandy P.'s Humakt write-up - are actually HeroQuest gift/geases and can't > be > ignored). But has anyone got a better suggestion? One that's less > arbitrary? I'm a little less harsh. I play that Illuminates are not affected by Spirits of Retribution AT ALL. That means they can ignore geases at will. However, this does not mean they can always get away scot free. If their fellow cultists discover they are ignorring geases or consorting with the enemy or whatever, then they could bring the Illuminate to trial. Now, a trial may or may not have any effect, as the god definitely does not know what an Illuminate is doing, so might declare him innocent, or not proven. However, if he is caught again, I would expect him to be the recipient of an avenging warband. In the case of Humakti, it is quite simple. If the person is seen breaking a known geas and his sword does not shatter, then string him up, burn him at the stake or run him through with a nice shiny sword. Steve Lieb: > As a DM, my gut would say no, so Humakt would say no. > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, so extraordinary requests > require extraordinary justification. > A PC comes up and asks for an atypical number of gifts/geases (IMO anything > >1). Wouldn't the priest look a little askance and say "aren't you asking > a > little too much of yourself my son/daughter?". Then depending on the > credibility of the character, how much they've done for that temple or > area, > their personal reputation, etc, maybe the priest would go ahead with 2, 3 > or > even 4 at once. The problem with this is that a Sword of Humakt is a priest himself, and could presumably go to a Temple and take a Gift/Geas. Whether he has his own Confessor/Priest is a matter than could be debated. You could say that his High Priest would be the one, but what happens when a High Priest asks for Gifts? David Smart: > Same here. I don't mind if my players become uber as long as they earn it. > IMO, if a player comes up with an innovative way to get around the game > mechanic loopholes, that just helped me as a GM find and plug it. In my games, I have a very free and relaxed view on powerful PCs - I like powerful PCs and have always run high-powerd games. However, I would not allow a player to come up with some clever tactic simply because there was a loophole. In this example, I would ask why it hasn't happened loads of times in the past, as clearly it hasn't. I would use that as a justification of why it shouldn't be allowed. > >This was my follow-up question. What to do with Illuminates? Can they take > the > >gift at all? > > On this one, I'd say "no". Again, it gets back to what the god wants. Just > because an Illuminate can ignore the geases of received gifts and won't be > tagged by retribution spirits doesn't mean the god who gave the gift(s) is > ignoring what the Illuminate does. I rule the god knows exactly what the PC > is doing and chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and retribution > spirits for his/her own reasons. Unfortunately, I am 100% against this idea. Imagine an Ogre Illuminate Wind Lord (Ogres have been known in the Orlanth cult, in various writeups). He can ignore cult restrictions, such as hating chaos. He can also consort with his ogre friends. I can't believe that Orlanth could be aware of this but doesn't do anything about it - at the very least he would send other Orlanthi to stop him or make him inactive or get him Excommunicated. But he doesn't. Also, stopping all Illuminates from taking gifts/geases is extremely restrictive. Not all Illuminates break their geases, in fact Arkati Humakti tend to keep their geases. In Yelmalio, Illumination is sometimes seen as a blessing, especially in the Lunar Empire. Carmanian Humakti can be Illuminated without a problem. Are they stopped from taking gifts/geases? > But then I view Illumination as a limited form of ascension on one of the > paths to Hero status. Which it is. But, it also stops Spirits of Retribution. Leon Kirshtein: > >I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing and > chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and > retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. > > No, I do not see it that way. There is no way Humakt > would allow a vampire Humakti for example to exist if > he knew about it. If the character is illuminated the > god does not know exactly what the character is doing. Exactly. If he couldn't stop the vampire's sword from breaking, he would send a squad of Vampire Slayers against him as an Abomination. See Ya Simon From leonbk at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 00:15:55 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 05:15:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Illumination Message-ID: <20060125131555.26811.qmail@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >The way I've interpreted Illumination, it is a loophole in the Great Compromise; a backdoor that the God Learners invented\discovered. True, but not invented\discovered by God Learners. GL discovered something else. If you are interested I will tell you their Trick (from my Home Brew) Leon __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From leonbk at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 00:17:26 2006 From: leonbk at yahoo.com (Leon Kirshtein) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 05:17:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: Humakti Death Drive In-Reply-To: <029501c6219c$f6d5f670$352c9251@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <20060125131726.10623.qmail@web35606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- David Gordon wrote: > > >I rule the god knows exactly what the PC is doing > and > > chooses to allow the reigning in of geases and > > retribution spirits for his/her own reasons. > > > > No, I do not see it that way. There is no way > Humakt > > would allow a vampire Humakti for example to exist > if > > he knew about it. If the character is illuminated > the > > god does not know exactly what the character is > doing. > > But then - wouldn't Humakt consider the person dead > and stop the gifts and geases? I would say no, Humakt would not know. Leon __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From phil.hibbs at capgemini.com Tue Jan 31 23:50:52 2006 From: phil.hibbs at capgemini.com (Hibbs, Phil) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:50:52 -0000 Subject: [Rq-rules] Godlearner site Message-ID: <28FEE77FA0D069428DBB715915864EE603AD0F51@MISSBHXVS02.uki.capgemini.com> > www.godlearner.d2g.com/main.asp Is this site broken again or what? __________________________________________________ Phil Hibbs | Capgemini | Rotherham Technical Consultant __________________________________________________ This message contains information that may be privileged or confidential and is the property of the Capgemini Group. It is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy, disseminate, distribute, or use this message or any part thereof. 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