From: Peter Wake (peterw@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 10 Mar 1993 - 18:11:10 EET
With regard to spells over four points:
>> Even as things stand a good Humakti might have one spell: bladesharp.
>> If he decides that bladesharp 14 is better than a mix of smaller point
snip snip
> Well, under the current rules the Humakti will have a very hard time
>defeating the spell spirit (average POW 28).
This seems like a mistake: Spell Spirits have a 3d6 POW roll and a limitation that POW must equal or exceed the points in the spell. There are no POW 28 spell spirits in the current rules (or is there something in the errata?) As a consequence 18 is the biggest spell that anyone can have, but it seems to be the only limit (apart from the INT to fit it in).
On another tack:
>> But how does this represent a problem? The answer isn't "low level
>> character's get creamed" by any chance is it? Correct me if I'm
>> wrong.
>The point is that whatever the level of the combatants, anything that trickles
>damage through when parrying is a one-hit stopper should the parry fail. The
>problem is the same whether we're talking low vs low OR high vs high. My
>concern was the effect of mixing the styles of the armour worn (or trading off
>dodge vs. armour&parry), not the combatant skill. The 2D8+2D6 could have been
>done by a beginner dark troll character.
But why should there be combats where damage trickles through. The nature of real combat is that you spend a lot of time not being hit, evading and parrying and then you make a slip and you get hit, and it hurst and if you were fighting for real it would all be over. I think it's a bit D&Dish to have combats where people take a few scratches every round and finally get worn down by attrition.
>At low level (30-40%) you can expect expect parries to fail so can pitch the
>damage at the static (worn+magic) armour. At mid levels (60-70%) doing so
>means two times in three a hit dings; or if you pitch at the shield parry, one
>time in three you have sudden death. Unfortunately, as the starting dark
>troll alluded to above goes to show, sudden death can lurk just around the
>corner.
What's this about pitching damage. Are you saying that damage should be fiddled so that players get injured a little bit in every combat? Is there a point to this. If anything it trivialises combat. The point of RQ combat was always that death lurked round any corner and that a single trollkin could get lucky. This was more realistic than certain other games and made wise PCs more likely to consider non violent solutions to problems. Perhaps RQ is not really the game for people who want attrition combat. The only attrition in RQ is of magic points. Of course you can fiddle the rules how you like to make RQ more like D&D but I don't think that there is a *PROBLEM* inherent in the combat system in that respect. (-: It's a feature not a bug :-)
>One of the few things I liked about RQ3 was the restriction of the spell lists
>- players actually have to think a little when they can't all just pull out
>the obvious spell and blast away. Restricting Befuddle and removing Harmonise
>(RQ's answer respectively to Sleep & Charm Person) reduced the prevalence of
>the one-hit takedowns that also gave POW ticks.
This is a good point. I like the restricted spells for lots of campaigns, but if I want the RQ2 *feel* I ignore it. There is also a precednece in published material to selectively ignore it. Check out Troll Realms where the PCs can learn Issaries magic as a reward.
>> The GM doesn't have to give them away. A priest, sorceror, or shaman can
>> make them, and a non-adventuring priest who just keeps his pow at 11 or
>> thereabouts can make 2-3 Pow spirit binders or an Int spirit binder every
>> year. And if you adventure and get POW checks...
This is what I was on about when I said that POW has become too important in RQ3. Character 'power' is now to tightly tied to making POW gain rolls to enchant magic items. It turns the experience system into a crap shoot dependant on one roll per adventure.
Adventuring PCs can make a new item every few adventures with reasonable chances of success. This means that huge quantities of magic points can flood into your campaign. I impose a variation on the old RQ2 bound spirits limit (CHA/3) but I use POW/5 (after all POW=CHA now). This stops PCs dropping their POW down low to get easy gain rolls too. I assume others have different solutions. Another point is that bound spirits are vulnerable to control by others. If the item is visible the spirit can be controlled by anyone with the right spell. Exploitation of this produces an environment where PCs put lots of conditions on their items which soaks up POW and limits the numbers that they make.
(IMHO) manufacture of items is not God Learner behaviour in the spirit of Greg Stafford's writings - look at the Lunar sorcery batallions. The mass produced swords of the clanking city were just that: made by some sort of machine in big numbers. What we're looking at here is an individual crafter - two or three a year would hardly be mass production, Chippendale made more items a year in his workshops and they were hardly mass production (and he had many employees). Still you can call almost anything you want a God Learner thing, if you want to stop it in your campaign, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's always wise to keep a tight rein of POW gain rolls though.
Re: RQ4 (do we want it?)
The changes of RQ3 almost killed RQ. Now we have a RQ4 on the
horizon. Will the game muatate wildly again? Why can't we have a
smooth continuum of small changes like CoC. Why does AH (and Ken
I think that a few small fixes and hole fillers are required, that clarification of some rules would be useful but I don't want any big changes, especially to combat! Combat is mostly fixed now, RQ2 combat was badly bug ridden. I'd like some clarification on how magic effects Special/Critical/Fumble chances and that's about it. In the magic section I'd like to see a few changes to the Shaman rules, preferably in the direction of RQ2. The RQ3 Shaman rules are terrible. Shamans outgross sorcerors anyday. Anyone want me to explain why? Don't tempt me. I don't want to see sorcery dissappear, I like it much as it is. Some improved rules on magical scrying would be nice (very important to sorcerors) and one or two sorcery spells need examination but apart from that magic seems OK to me. Even Axe Trance isn't the danger that it seems (all it does in practice is raise critical and impale chances like Ki skills). Still I wouldn't allow it in my campaign. It and the other Babeester Gor special divine magic spells are all gross and probably ought to be changed. Great Parry and Axe Trance make you almost invincible. I don't think that the sort of changes I want to see justify the title RQ4.
Other people have voiced complaints about varrious things but largely
they seem to want fixes not new rules. Do I have the right idea about
this? The TotRM questionaire should shed some light on this.
--
Peter Wake
You should have heard the groans and sighs or misery and disbelief when Ken Rolston suggested RQ4 at Convulsion '92 in Leicester.
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