[Glorantha] Power Levels

Actually I don't see a big issue with applying the DEtRPG ~n mechanic to Harrek or Kallyr.

Harrek should always be the toughest warrior in Glorantha with only Jar-Eel being able to face him on anything like equal terms.

If a PC eventually gets to take him down it shouldn't be because they have put every HP into building a sword and shield fighting skill of 10W5 because they know Harrek's is only 10W4.

Similarly Kallyr's leadership abilities should logically be higher than 'typical' PCs - as otherwise why is Kallyr leading the resistance rather than the PCs?.

If you want a PC to beat her at the leadership game and become an Argrath, then the fact that PC's have hero points to spend and NPC's generally don't still makes this feasible game mechanically.

In the end HQ NPC design is really about setting a challenge level to actual players.

The OiD stats immediately raised the issue that any group that started playing when HW first came out could easily have reached power levels surpassing the most famous Heortling resistance leaders by the time those stats were published - so you either had to scrap your existing campaign or put in quite a lot of work giving every NPC (and there are a lot of NPC's in that book) extra masteries.

Admittedly its too late to port the DEtRPG ~n mechanic into HQ wholesale now, but I still think it could be useful in some scenarios where what you really want to express is that the NPC is significantly tougher than the PC's at x but weaker in y, but the writer has no way of knowing how tough the PC's are going to be. Received on Fri 24 Nov 2006 - 10:05:16 EET