From: gharris@jade.tufts.edu (George W. Harris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: Rune Masters and Metals
Date: 8 Sep 92 14:24:31 GMT
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA
Originator: gharris@jade.tufts.edu

In article <9225211.1999@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> tsl@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Tim Leask) writes:
>Rune Metals and in particular iron are not as awesome as I feel they
>should be in RQ3. Back in the old days of RQ2 Iron Wielding Rune Masters
>were a quantum step above ordinary mortals. In RQ3 the power of Rune Masters
>has waned cosiderably, partly because of the watered down rules for iron
>and partly because of the disapperance of the list of Rune Master
>benefits.
>Iron in RQ3 is pathetic, a mere shadow of it's former self in RQ2. 
>Iron in RQ2 was extremely durable and light and was clearly superior
>to the other Rune Metals. This is clearly not the case in RQ3.
>The problem is further exacerbated by the introduction of armouring and
>strengthing enchantments in RQ3. I certainly wouldn't pay 700L per ENC
>for raw iron for a weapon or armour. I rather spend the POW and money on
>enchantments on a bronze weapon.

	Really?  Let's see...

	Take an Iron Normal Shield, ordinarily 12 AP, but since it's Iron it
is 18.  That's +6 armor points.  Suppose instead you applied armoring enchant-
ments to a bronze shield of the same type.  According to the errata, an armoring
enchantment adds d3 armor points, so you'd need an average of 3 to get the 
equivalent benefit of iron, which would cost you around 5000L.  That's enough
to get you a fair bit of iron, even if you include the cost of enchanting it,
and since you can enchant up to 20Enc at a time, going with iron is much more
effective.

>To restore iron to it's proper place with regard to the other Rune Metals
>and it's 700L price tag I suggest the following changes.
>
>Unnechanted Iron (Raw Iron) is simply as described in Elder Secrets.
>
>Enchanted Iron has twice the Armour Points of it's equivalent ENC in bronze.
>e.g. Iron Chainmail gives 14 pt protection for an ENC of 20.
>And more importantly Enchanted Iron weapons cannot be damaged by 
>non-iron weapons.
>(Excepting Adamantite which is extremely rare).

	That's not much of a problem, but I think double armor points is a bit
extreme- for iron chainmail that's the equivalent of nearly *24* armoring en-
chantments (which only affect one hit location, remember), so I think half 
again is fine,

>
>The Enchant Metal spell should be altered as follows. 
>Divine Spell 
>Enchant <Rune Metal> - 1pt reuseable ritual 
>This spell will Enchant 20 ENC of the appropriate Rune Metal.
>One point of POW must be expended at the conclusion of the ritual
>to complete the enchantment of the metal. Usually the POW is provided
>by the recipient of the metal though it need not be.
>Part of the enchantment is a user condition.
>Usually the condition is that only Rune Masters of the enchanter's cult can 
>use the metal.
>If the item is used by someone who does not satisfy the user
>condition then the item behaves in all ways as it's unechanted form.
>e.g. iron dampens magic and becomes twice as heavy, gold stops glowing
>and becomes soft etc.
>A broken Rune Metal object does NOT require re-enchantment (this is
>one reason Rune Metals are better than normal enchantments) it can
>simply be repaired in the normal fashion (or via a repair spell).
>Melting down will, however,destroy the enchantment. 

	Again, these are all fairly minor adjustments.  However, there are
also going to be spirit and sorcery equivalents of these enchantments, so
that these won't have the same restrictions built in.

>I like to think that Enchanted Iron looks like steel - i.e. it takes on 
>a silvery sheen, if used by someone in violation of a user condition then
>it turns a dull gray (i.e. it looks like raw iron).
>
>Enchanted iron armour can be made into metal armour of more varied weights
>the the traditional bronze.
>e.g 
>	very light chain	7pts of protection	10 pts of Enc
>	light chain		9pts of protection	13 pts of Enc
>	chain			11pts of protection	16 pts of Enc
>	medium chain		14pts of protection	20 pts of Enc
>	heavy chain		17pts			24 pts of Enc
>
>formula is 1pt of ENC = 0.7 pts of protection in this example.
>
>Iron Ring Mail of various types could be 
>
>The same applies to predominantly metal weapons.
>
>e.g 	2h Great Sword (Heavy)	ENC 3	Armour Pts	24
>e.g	2h Great Sword (Medium)	ENC 2.5	Amour  Pts	20
>e.g 	2h Great Sword (Light)	ENC 2   Armour Pts	16
>
>Though with weapons the ENC value shouldn't be allowed to drop below
>say half that of the original bronze equivalent. To do so you should
>create a new weapon type entirely.   
>
>Now that fixes the problem of Iron.

	Not really.  You should take a believability check here.  Although 
iron is much stronger than bronze (or any other rune metal), it is also
much more difficult to work.  So, you have to take into consideration that,
although once created these items would be stable, it is much more difficult
to make even normal armor from iron, much less extraordinarily fine armor.
I would only allow, say, a Diamond Dwarf craftsman to create such items.

	Moreover, you must remember that a fair bit of the damage from a
weapon comes from the mass of that weapon.  If you make a heavy mace that
has only half the mass, it's certainly not going to do the same damage.
>
>The other mods I use to beef up Rune Lords are taken directly from
>RQ2.
>Rune Lords have their POW supported by their God. Thus Rune Lords
>always defend against spirits and spells at their full POW regardless
>of their magic point total.
>If a Rune Lord has an unmodified attack skill over 100% then the portion
>over 100% subtracts from the defense skill of his opponent.
>This does not apply to non Rune-Lords with skills in excess of 100%
>nor should magical bonuses be included. If the skill drops below 100%
>for any reason this subtraction no longer applies.
>This is because the Rune-Lord is an avatar for his God and he is partially
>guided by his Deity.
>e.g. Rurik the Rune Lord has 117% with 2h-Spear, he has bladesharp 4 on
>and fanaticism running( this gives him a modified attack of 176% ).his spear giving him. Yurg the Trollkin has a 47 % parry but because Rurik is a rune lord
>with a skill over 100% this is reduced to 30 % parry (117-100 = 17% subtraction)
>
>Priests (Not Acolytes) recieve the following benefit.
>As long as their POW remains at 18 or more they make all POW gain rolls
>as if their species maximum were 4 pts higher (e.g. 25 POW for Humans).
>If their POW drops below 18 for ANY reason then they become an acolyte
>(and thus only recieve a normal POW gain roll)
>until their POW once again reaches 18.
>
>
>I'm using this system in my campaign. What do others think ?

	Well, if you just prefer RQ2, why not say so?

	Although it's true that Rune Lords are not automatically given great
benefits, every example of a Rune Lord in GoG gets an allied spirit and a 
d10 Divine Intervention (or do you still have people sacrifice for DI?).
Additionally, I like the idea for skills over 100% subtracting from the
opponent's chances, but because it should be more difficult to parry a 
very skilled attacker, not because of some business of being a god's avatar.
I've never liked the 18 POW requirement for priests either, since it is
such a humanocentric mechanic, making it much easier for elves to become
priests, and impossible for, say, rogue dragonewts.

>Tim
>e-mail: tsl@cs.mu.oz.au
--
gharris@jade.tufts.edu          "She had ever chance for happiness, ever 
George W. Harris                chance in the world, and stomped ever one 
Dept. of Mathematics            of them chances down in the dirt like a 
Tufts University                bug."   _The Devil's Dream_
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc