Thoughts about The Riddle of Steel

[Bladesinger]

Jake,or anyone else for that matter,I'm running a RoS set in Moorcocks Melnibone. Do you have any suggestions how I can portray sorcerors as conjorers. If you are familiar with the stories,noone cast spells per se, they sommon or conjour demons and or elementals to do majical effects or tasks. Also if anyone remembers the old Stormbringer( also an often deadly and realistic system),maybe a suggestion on how to incorporate Elan into Riddle?

[Thirsty Viking]

Do you have any suggestions how I can portray sorcerors as conjorers.
...
they sommon or conjour demons and or elementals to do majical effects or tasks. Also if anyone remembers the old

I think you have answered your own question here....   Use of the summoning Vagary is required for all spella..   No Vagary may be known at a higher level than summoning.  As written the book says that Spirits require services.  "Demons"  Cost Spiritual Attribute Points to summon.. This is a Very expensive way to cast a spell....  But I seem to remember that elric used to call on debts owed to his family by these powers....  perhaps you (and your Heirs) get three services for the point expenditure...  

This could make all spells spells of three or many because summoning was reguired....  alternately you could consider the summoning to replace the prime Vagary in a spell(which must still be known).  Spells of one could thus be cast with summoned magic....  Spells of 3 with summoned spirits,  spells of many requiring summoned DEMONS..   Just as StormBringer is a Demon imprisoned in a Sword... (or the shape of a sword) your Hounds of Law (if i am remembering the right series) would be good demons  under RoS).  

how to incorporate Elan into Riddle?

Ok help us out....  describe  who/what  Elan is please?  

It has been a long time since I read the Elric series.  Decades...   I hope I helped you find a way to flavor the magic a little for your purposes.

[Jake Norwood]

Temporal and Mental's go to 10.
SA's go to 5.

There are racial and cultural exceptions, many of which make the progression chart's 10-to-11 part fuctional.

Jake

[Thirsty Viking]

ok,  there you have it...  profiecency maximum of 26  ..  though some cultural adjustments and  almost all wise and balanced playing will prevent this  :-)

[Jake Norwood]

That then would mean that the max combat pool is about 36. Scary!

Jake

[Thirsty Viking]

If I have had the Same # of SA's to spend as the munchkin with a 36 CP  he doesn't have a chance   lol

It'll NEVER reach combat.  ok  there will be like a 1% chance he could get it to combat.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

about the SA cap, I found it was more fun to actually ignore it. I had a player who once had 17 points in one SA that made it a lot of fun to watch when hegot in a fight. it just takes carefull storytelling and quick thinking on the seneschals part to make unlimited sa's work.

[Lyrax]

I like the SA cap.  It makes spending SA's worth it.  Of course, one can always mess around with it and make it higher or lower...

[Thirsty Viking]

I too agree with the cap idea...  if not on the individual SA's  then i think the 25 total SA cap should be maintained.   >5  SA's should only be allowed on a NARROW SA.   +20 SA for drive be the best swordsman, is too strong.  By narrow, i mean so narrow people call the player a fool for building it up.   Now +20 SA for Refusing to die till i kill the 6 fingered man who killed my father.....  That i can live with (notice they don't help attack)....  they will be a lot of fun to watch.   And should be difficult to get to the final battle...  Campaign metaplot conclusion difficult.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

hmmm... a 25 total cap could work, I just think that sometimes a characters drive SA "drives" him in a campaign and if you max out with 5 in drive halfway through the session or campaign but are waiting to turn that 7 into an 8 then its sucks to force the player to suddenly turn some other SA into the "main" sa just to get that point. If a characters main SA is pivotal to the plot, capping it hurts the storytelling. plus, as jake said, "its fun to roll huge hands full of dice" and not capping the SA's can lead to that.
Having played without caps I can testify that it is a lot of fun and I recommend at least trying it.

[Jake Norwood]

I see where you're going with the cap pros and cons. My thinking is that if there was no cap, then players could get away with catering to only one SA and "to hell with the other 4." That kills so many great options. Additionally, what does the cap represent? Not much, really. You can spend those points off at any time and keep racking them up.

Jake

[Janne Halmetoja]

I have now read most of the text. Combat rules and most of the other rules are very good, as I said earlier. There is a lot of things which are like taken directly from GURPS (That's just fine thing). Weapon damage is based on strenght not on weapon, which is usually biggest problem with RPGs. Different damage types (cutting, crushing and point), which are usually ignored in many RPGs. Defaults, they're usually ignored too in RPGs. Weapon damage modifiers are also almost same as in GURPS. A lot of nice things, which I get used to in GURPS are taken to tRoS and that's very good thing.

I have been a one problem with high toughnes. It is like armor in RQ and when I played RQ it was very big problem when monster or even animal had a 10 point armor and your above average didn't get any hits through. I played with Combat Simulator a battle where was giant against guy with spear. It was really frustrating, even guy had 15 dice in combat pool. This leads to problem that why giant should even try to parry because its toughness blocks almost always all damage? It is really hard to get even little wound to giant. Better one would be that you can make wounds to giant much easier but giant would take lot of punishment before it falls (think cave troll in LOTR movie).

I haven't read too much about Weyrth, but I can say it's okay. Though there is a lot better worlds in markets (ie. Harn, Glorantha). The biggest problem is that there's too little information about Weyrth. Maybe someday I will begin campaign in Weyrth, now I use tRoS in HarnWorld.

I think this was enough for now, more next time :).

Janne

[Brian Leybourne]

I played with Combat Simulator a battle where was giant against guy with spear. It was really frustrating, even guy had 15 dice in combat pool. This leads to problem that why giant should even try to parry because its toughness blocks almost always all damage? It is really hard to get even little wound to giant. Better one would be that you can make wounds to giant much easier but giant would take lot of punishment before it falls (think cave troll in LOTR movie).

Technically, if you hit the giant but don't get through it's toughness then you ARE wounding the giant, just not doing enough to really hurt it (exactly what you're talking about). The only difference is that in TROS all those undamaging wounds don't actually add up to make one damaging one. There are a couple of ways around this. Firstly, there's endurance - I don't remember giants having very high EN scores and it seems to me that moving a massive body like that around quickly in combat would be tiring, thus fatigue would take its toll. Secondly, as Seneschal if you kept hitting the giant in the same place with undamaging wounds, I would after a while decide that they added up enough to help you along. Maybe every undamaging wound to the same area would add +1 to the damage level of the next attack to that area, so you would eventually "break through the tough skin" (or whatever). That's just totally off the top of my head, but something like that seems reasonable.

BTW - always good to see someone using the combat sim :-)

I haven't read too much about Weyrth, but I can say it's okay. Though there is a lot better worlds in markets (ie. Harn, Glorantha). The biggest problem is that there's too little information about Weyrth. Maybe someday I will begin campaign in Weyrth, now I use tRoS in HarnWorld.

I must admit to not knowing a lot about Harn or Glorantha (alright, I know nothing about them) but (IMO, at least) the beauty of Weyrth is that it's "different" enough from Earth to give you a fantasy world feeling, but familiar enough that a) players can "get" the area without having to read the entire sourcebook themselves, and b) as long as YOU know a bit about medieval Germany, stargate Egypt, or whatever, you can easily flesh out whatever you need in the setting even off the top of your head, something that's not easy to do with specific fantasy worlds. I LIKE the fact that every stream, village and tree are not mapped out in Weyrth.

Having said that, Jake et al have to think of something to bring out after "Of Beasts and Men", "Sorcery and the Fey" and "The Flower of Battle". Maybe the next book after that will be a guide to Weyrth (or even just Mainlund, or whatever). Who knows...

Brian.

[Lyrax]

Don't forget that it's a giant, for crying out loud!  Of course it's hard to kill!

Does the giant's toughness lead to very aggressive strategies?  Yes.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't think so.

Incidentally, the easiest way to kill a giant (that I've seen) is a Heavy Lance + Charger/Destrier.  All you really need to do is hit.

[Ace]

Don't forget that it's a giant, for crying out loud!  Of course it's hard to kill!

Does the giant's toughness lead to very aggressive strategies?  Yes.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't think so.

Incidentally, the easiest way to kill a giant (that I've seen) is a Heavy Lance + Charger/Destrier.  All you really need to do is hit.

A little off topic but I used the combat sim to do some giant slaying a while back and found that a "Jack" is a good way to go

I used an unarmored guy with a real high combat pool and a spear. Leave a few points just in case you need to steal initiative and hit em with the rest of that big pool. Viola no more giant

BTW Armor is useless vs Ginats, with a 20  ST and that big club they splatter you even in full plate with toughness 7. No point in using the stuff.