Conserning old Hawkmoon Legendary Abilities in RQII

[Chade]

Good day!

I'm new on the forums here but a veteran with RQ. We are now playing Hawkmoon in our group using RQII rules and almost everything is going well. However there are a couple Legendary Abilities that were not translated to the new RQII rulebook and I haven't found them from other supplements or from the Internet either. The problem is two folded. First in RQII Legendary Abilities consume magic points when used when in Hawkmoon they were always on and also the used to be bought with improvement rolls while in RQII it's Hero Points. So I'm asking the community how would you deal with the following Legendary Abilities:

1) Armoured Titan: This used to counter penalties for skills from wearing armour (ignore all penalties over -20%) but now there is no skill penalty anymore, just penalty to movement and SR. What would be a good solution to make it functional again? (This is a problem because one of our characters has it from the time we were still playing with the old rules.)

2) Skin of the Bear: This used to give one point of natural armour all the time. Maybe one point for some time period or something completely different?

3) Chosen by Fate: Buying this gives you half of your POW in Fate Points (Hero Points in all sense). It's cool but as these abilities are generally now bought with Hero Points and as it seems that you should double the Hawkmoon price to get the RQII price (for example Battle Fury 6 in HM -> 12 in RQII, Chosen by Fate used to cost 2, so 4 would be the new price)) you don't get that many Hero Points out of the deal. (Granted you still net some and also raise your Hero Point total, but still.) Any neat ideas for this problem?

So I let you speak. Oh and if there is a RQII compatible official solution then by all means, please tell me! If not then please give your best inputs on this. Thanks in advance!

 

[RangerDan]

Disclaimer: I am not really familiar with Hawkmoon, so these answers are purely my best "common sense" go at them.

First in RQII Legendary Abilities consume magic points when used when in Hawkmoon they were always on

If I am not mistaken some heroic abilities are already always-on/passive. Nothing stopping you from keeping them this way.

and also the used to be bought with improvement rolls while in RQII it's Hero Points.

I believe many RQ players actually convert heroic abilities to be bought with Improvement Rolls instead, leaving heroic points exclusively for heroic actions (or scrapping them together). Other smarter folks would have to chime in as to appropriate costs in IRs if you decide to do this.

1) Armoured Titan: This used to counter penalties for skills from wearing armour (ignore all penalties over -20%) but now there is no skill penalty anymore, just penalty to movement and SR. What would be a good solution to make it functional again?

It sounds like this ability allows heavily armoured PCs to function as if they were only lightly- or medium-armoured. You could do something similar for MRQ2:
An Armoured Titan never counts as wearing more than 4 Armour Points [or whatever is appropriate] per location for the purposes of calculating Strike Rank penalty.

2) Skin of the Bear: This used to give one point of natural armour all the time. Maybe one point for some time period or something completely different?

If the original gave a passive 1 AP, I would do the same in MRQ2. I don't think it's game-breaking in any particular way.

3) Chosen by Fate: Buying this gives you half of your POW in Fate Points (Hero Points in all sense). It's cool but as these abilities are generally now bought with Hero Points and as it seems that you should double the Hawkmoon price to get the RQII price (for example Battle Fury 6 in HM -> 12 in RQII, Chosen by Fate used to cost 2, so 4 would be the new price)) you don't get that many Hero Points out of the deal. (Granted you still net some and also raise your Hero Point total, but still.) Any neat ideas for this problem?

It's admittedly a little weird to spend Hero Points to get Hero Points.
I think you'd have to dream up some other mechanic for this. Some random ideas might be:
* Any time you use a Hero Point to force a re-roll, you may apply your POW score as a "Hand of Fate" bonus/penalty to the roll.
* Any time you use a Hero Point, make a d100 roll. If you roll under your POW, Fate smiles on you and the Hero Point is not spent.

No idea if these ideas are "balanced" in any particular way to what you could do with Fate Points in the old Hawkmoon!

 

[tarkhan bey]

Hi Chade. I have played quite a bit of Hawkmoon myself and I prefer the Fate points system to the Hero points system so much that I decided to use it in Elric games as well for both 1st and 2nd Ed MRQ.
Ranger Dan has a good idea there for Armoured Titan. Just halve all penalties to movement and strike rank. I would apply the new rules that it is no longer passive and that magic points are required, but you could just dispense with that if it suited your gameplay better.

In MRQ Vikings a bear skin provides 3ap of protection. I would use this. Each magic point entitles an extra three armour points to all locations for that round. The 3ap helps to offset the fact that the protection is no longer a passive constant.

I would port in the Fate rules and leave Chosen by Fate as it is.

 

[Chade]

Thanks for you valuable input!

For Armoured Titan I find myself going to the same way as you are although I still have to think whether it would be better to allow it as an always on ability with smaller effect (like take only half penalty) or pay magic point to get better effect for some limited time (like negate all penalty for one combat).

For Skin of the Bear I find that MRQ Vikings version quite powerful when used in right circumstances. Could you stack many magic points in one round to gain huge amount of armour and when is it declared how much if any you wish to use for it?

For the Fate I think the consensus into which our group is going is to keep it as it is Hawkmoon and make it a special case bought with Improvement Rolls instead of Fate (Hero Points).

Thanks for your input and I'd appreciate more conversation still!