Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 1357954" data-attributes="member: 3649">You still have the same disparity in power - it's just a different kind of power -- and still have the same 'problem' aluded to in the original post. You have a group of Chaos creatures running around in the Great Rubble. Why does the temple of Yelmalio hire your character to do this thing instead of sending in their Rune Lord and a couple Rune Priests? They have approximately the same level of disparity to the beginning Lay Members as a 9th level cleric does to a 1st level one.  The Lay Members will have some weapons and some fair armor, and they'll have maybe at best a 45-50% with their best weapon, given good stats and some luck at training. Mr. Rune Lord of Yelmalio will have, yes, roughly the same hit points and such as the Lay Members. However, he'll have a vastly better hit and parry percentage, and he'll have vastly better armor and weapons than they will: in effect, given the difference between RQ and D&D, he will have more hit points, and in fact if you run the numbers as far as time he's hit in combat vs. times he hits the opponent, there is in fact a greater disparity in power.  The Rune Priest will not have the amazing flexability of a D&D cleric, but he'll he's casting spells a lot more often and many times he'll be effectively casting more than one spell a round. Sometimes, he'll be casting three or four a round depending on what Rune magic he's taken, his number of allied spirits (who are the ones casting the extra battle magic every round, or providing hte priest points of POW to cast his own magic), his familiar, any summoned elementals, Truestone and whatever magic items he'll have or will have made himself.  In other words, the nest of Broo that gives your starting characters a tough fight will be wiped out and pasted by the temple elders in a round or two, just like in D&D. Again, the question will get asked: why don't they go and do it? This is where we get to talk about a generic setting versus a specific setting. Most people seem to simply breeze over the parts in the PH and DMG where it talks about providing flavor and background to your world. RuneQuest does that for you. D&D expects you to do it your damn self. If you don't roll up your sleeves and answer questions like the one posed in the original post, then don't come crying that 'the system doesn't provide it for you'.  The system isn't suppossed to. That's your job, as DM, as world-builder, as setting designer and writer and director. Your job.  Let's go back to the RQ/D&D comparison. In RQ, each temple has some very specific expectations for the people who reach Rune level. They have to provide certain services, and perform certain duties. In some cases, becoming a Rune level character means effectively giving up that PC. In some cults, it's no big deal; your time is your own.  D&D doesn't do this, for the very reason that's it's a more generic, building-block system than RQ is. You, the DM, are expected to come up with those things.  Now, back to the original question: our 9th level patons and their useless first level meat-sheilds.  Leveled people in D&D are meant to be heroes. If there is a ninth-level priest in residence in the small village where the PC's are just starting out, there's a reason for that. There is a reason he's not out in the mountains with a group of his own, bringing fire to the local orc tribes. Find that reason, and you start world-building.</blockquote>

Verification