[Rq-rules] Re: RQ and Middle Earth

[alan richards]

My first impulse when thinking about running a different world with RQ rules
is usually to re-write everything and thus never get around to actually
playing. However a while ago a friend wanted to run a (quite short) campaign
based on Tolkien's writings. He (and later his girlfriend who took over the
game) asked me to cobble together some changes to RQIII to make it more
suitable and so I had to reign by impulses in.

In summary, and I'm at work so I may be forgetting key bits:


*Magic*
A character must have a Pow of 21 to use magic. *(This is an extrapolation
of the Elric! rules of requiring a Pow of 16 and takes magic into the realm
of powerful spirits and a handful of mortals).*

*Religion*
Most of the Archangels (are they 'Maia' or 'Valar'? I forget) in Tolkien's
work map very easily to the generic Gods in RQIII. (*But as noted above your
character needs a Pow of 21 or above to actually get a magical benefit from
such workship*.)

*Istari *
(Gandalf et al) belong to the cults of all of the Archangels and so get
access to lots of  Divine Magic. *(That made a lot more sense to me than
going down the RQIII Sorcery route)*
**
*Mythril*
Same game rules as RQIII Iron. Except that the Poison metal effect applies
to 'Darkness creatures'

*Elven Gear*
All Elven made equipment is a 1 point enchantment (typically with at least
one permanent 4 point Spirit Magic spell on it so Blades have Bladesharp 4
at all times and Light when within 10m of Orcs; Ropes add +80% to Climb,
Cloaks add +80% Hide and so on which come from the Elric! Cran Liret spells
which map really easily to Spirit/Battle magic)

Elven Great Bows use Dragonewt Bone Bow rules

*Races*
Men
normal human rules

Dunadan, Numenoreans, etc
normal humans but roll 2d+6 for all characteristics

Dwarves
normal Dwarf rules but no Earthsense

Half Elves
normal humans but roll 2d+6 for all characteristics except STR
double result of age roll

Elves
use Ogre rules but swap rolls for Dex and Str
treble result of age roll
and lose Disguise skill

Hobbits
use Duck rules (these seemed a better fit than the RQIII Halfling ones!)

Moria Orcs
use Trollkin, but no Darksense

Orcs
use Dark Troll, but no Darksense

Uruk-Hai
use Great Troll, but no Darksense

Trolls
use Cave Trolls

WereBears
use Werewolf rules

Great Eagles
use Wyvern, but no stinging tail attack


*Weapons*
No Crossbows (not mentioned in the books)
No Rapiers (books seem ancient, pre-roman and so late medievel weapons make
no sense)


I never thought of rules for Palintirs (sp) but it seems in keeping with
Tolkien that using any kind of magic brings a price. So I'd suggest that
using a Palintir is like creating an enchantment (although you might not
realise it) so for each d10 MP drawn from such you lose 1 Pow...........


Hope that helps


Al
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.thinbits.net/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20070112/6665e406/attachment-0001.html