Preview 3 is out

[wartorn]

And having personality characteristics as skills, that gives me a bad feeling about the whole system.

You mean like Charisma?

Wulf

Charisma is a skill???!

I was refering to Persistence, being stubborn, not giving up.
It is just plain weird to have such a characteristic as a skill.

It's possible that the skill Persistence is all about making your spells Persist past their default Duration and not about your willingness to soldier on in the face of hardship.

 

[andakitty]

I think you are correct, Wartorn, and I think it is a promising sign that they are thinking 'beyond the box', that we might have a system with flexibility and power. Something that can handle multiple settings. The more I think about 'Persistence' as a magic skill the better I like it. To some extent I suppose (speculation warning!) it might be like willpower in other games, but improvable.

 

[Archer]

Wartorn: I guess you are right. That sounds more reasonable.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

This is done simply by spending one hour with the rune in relative peace and solitude, and then succeeding at a Persistence test.

Rune Touched gains +5% to Influence, Perception, Persistence and Stealth.

Looks a lot like a skill to me. Maybe a skill category, like Manipulation??? (Stealth and Perception were categories in RQ3) This would be a Good Thing, as there was always more scope in these categories beyond being a mere classification system. I could see generic "Manipulation tests", "Agility tests", "Knowledge tests" and so on being useful in situations that aren't covered by skills but where a roll of DEX x 5 or INT x 5 isn't sufficient to cover the situation properly.

Or maybe skills are being done away with and it's gone to top-level categories only as a simplification mechanic? With maybe the ability to specialise in a subclass of the category giving a +5/+10/+15/etc bonus?

Or maybe Compound Characteristics, anyone?

 

[SteveMND]

Or maybe skills are being done away with and it's gone to top-level categories only as a simplification mechanic?

Looking at the previews, I really don't see that as likely, but if it were, it'd surely be a deal-breaker for me. If they got rid of the skill-based system in this version of RQ, I'd cancel my pre-order from Amazon and just walk away... :shock:

 

[andakitty]

Relax, guys. Matt strongly hinted in a thread over at rpg.net that the game still uses a skill system and that they had integrated it somewhat a la' Lone Wolf. That is, there is a Stealth skill instead of Hide and Move Quietly, Athletics instead of Climb, Jump, and Swim, and so on. Still the same sort of skill list, but greatly shortened. Something like that. We REALLY need to see the character sheet to get a good idea of what they have actually done with it. But I believe it will be recognizable and playable.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Relax, guys. Matt strongly hinted in a thread over at rpg.net that the game still uses a skill system and that they had integrated it somewhat a la' Lone Wolf. That is, there is a Stealth skill instead of Hide and Move Quietly, Athletics instead of Climb, Jump, and Swim, and so on. Still the same sort of skill list, but greatly shortened. Something like that. We REALLY need to see the character sheet to get a good idea of what they have actually done with it. But I believe it will be recognizable and playable.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Still a skill system, but using something comparable to Agility/Communication/Knowledge/Manipulation/Perception/Stealth (and a few others so that it's not too sparse) instead of the 40 to 50 odd skills of old.

Maybe a fuller break down of these top-level headings will come in the RQ companion?

 

[andakitty]

If you can find a copy take a look at Lone Wolf's skill list, compare it to the regular D&D skill list. I think that is similar to what Matt has done with RQ.

Yes, I think alternate ways of setting up skills may appear in the Companion. I remember reading somewhere that they were trying to put more choice/options in the players' hands. A short skill set with the option to specialize, perhaps?

Now where is that next preview?

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Yeah, that looks very good. About half the length of the old list, I'd say.

Plus we still have weapon skills, going by the chart in Preview 2.

Nice.

 

[Adept]

* anybody else noticed that they seem to be 'ratcheting up' the power scale for this version? Full MP back in 10 hours instead of 24 hours, and all back with a good night's sleep? It also looks like it's more likely to get multiple attacks per round than in previous editions, etc. The power scale's change is not a good thing or a bad thing necessarily; just something I noticed.

That's a very good thing, but doesn't quite go far enough in my opinion. The slow and steady "regenerate your MP in 24 hours" was really bizarre when I run my games (and played) in RQ3.

Think about normal mental fatigue. Some intense studying or solving equations can make you feel pretty woozy and cranky, but it doesn't take hours to recover. What RQ3 did was make every character possess (or want) magic point matrixes (storage), crystals (storage) and possibly an allied spirit (a servant whose MP you can use). That was so lame

It's no fun being a magic user when you have to hoard your own power all the time, and rely on storage devices to get anything done.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

It's no fun being a magic user when you have to hoard your own power all the time, and rely on storage devices to get anything done.

That was more a flaw of the Sorcery system than any other though, where you absolutely needed a small army of matrices and bound spirits to be any way uncrippled by it. For a beginning Battle Magic character, an average of 10 or 11 MP per day might have even erred on the excessive side. A standard beginning warrior character with a good selection of Battle Magic would easily make mincemeat of any beginning sorceror in a magic-only duel. Just hit him with a few Disruptions - bang, dead.

 

[SteveMND]

It's no fun being a magic user when you have to hoard your own power all the time, and rely on storage devices to get anything done.

Actually, the ability to create that sort of stuff and all was one of the things I really liked about the game system.

I am seeing more of a ramp-up in power, tho, and while you may see it as a good thing, I'm getting more leery. Many newer RPGs that are being released now are admitting to being written for a 'new generation' of tabletop gamers, who have been weaned on video games and MMORPGs. This makes them have different expectations, and I'm not sure that is the right angle to go at.

We'll of course have to see where the game is when it's finally released, but there does seem to be an almost mandatory (and significant) step up in the relative 'power' of a PC going into this new edition. After all, things that happened back in the 2nd Age were very much talked about and described as far more potent, magical and 'earth-shattering' than the stuff that was going on in the 3rd age (the Red Moon notwithstanding ).

The second age was still very much a time of Myths and Legends, moreso than the 3rd Age, and if PCs are expected to be able to have an impact on the game, they must likewise be so scaled. I'm not sure that's what I, personally, am looking for in my Glorantha...