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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>I once ran a campaign where the characters were the sons of an exiled Dara Happan nobleman, sent to Prax and given the domain that Duke Raus is given in the Borderlands campaign. The characters wound up playing through much of the Borderlands material, but in between they had to help their father make decisions for building up an estate, which meant making political connections in Pavis and with the Praxian tribes. It went reasonably well.<BR>
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Andrew E. Larsen<BR>
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On 2/27/06 4:55 AM, "Simon Phipp" <soltakss@yahoo.com> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Hiya All<BR>
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I've been looking at the newest of the Gloranthan Classics - Borderlands. At the moment I am running a Pavis RQ campaign, so it is very relevant and useful to have the Borderlands/Runemasters/Plunder combo.<BR>
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What does anyone think about it?<BR>
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For me, Borderlands was the weakest of the Campaign Packs (Griffin Mountain, Pavis, Big Rubble, TrollPak) and Runemasters and Plunder were among the weakest RQ supplements, but together they gel quite well.<BR>
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I'd forgotten how few scenarios are in the Borderlands pack, there are only 7 and they are quite linear. They will spawn some extra scenarios in play and you can use the Shadows on the Borderlands book and the P&BRC series to add extra ones, but you are struggling to get 20 scenarios out of that arc. Still, the scenarios are quite enjoyable and they have a bucketload of NPC stats that can be used and reused.<BR>
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The Plunder items are as good as they ever were, but most of them are one-off items and quite powerful, so maybe wouldn't see the light of day in a normal campaign. There are a few more items, but I would have liked to see more.<BR>
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Runemasters was always a flawed product in many ways, but a good one in others. The tactics section is a must-read for anyone playing RQ, whether they play rune levels or not. The "How to create a RuneLevel" section is interesting and gives some insights into how to build a powerful PC or NPC. If you followed the guidelines when developing a PC in normal play, rather than rolling one up, then you'd end up with a powerful and useful combatant. The Runemaster stats themselves are good in many ways. Each cult has a Rune Priest, a Rune Lord and a Rune Lord-Priest, so it is definitely RQ2, but that doesn't matter much. They have descriptions of the NPCs together with HeroQuest abili ties not mentioned in the stats. These are very definitely playable and would be an excellent resource. However, there are some problems with them. There are 2 Mistress Race Trolls, albeit very young ones, which is a bit unbalancing, as I am not sure if the Big Rubble should have Mistress Race Trolls. It gives stats for Pavic Rune Lords and Priests, which flies in the face of the standard campaign that has no Rune Lords and encourages the PCs to become the first Champion of Pavis and also contradicts the list of Daughters of Pavis. Not to worry, they could be from a later time or could be Priests rather than Chief Priests (which I think the Daughters of Pavis should be).<BR>
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Anyway, if you haven't got it and don't have the originals, then go out and buy it. It's almost as good as the others and better than a lot of the more recent Gloranthan stuff.<BR>
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We'll have to see how compatible it will be with the new Mongoose RQ. It is certainly playable with RQ3, if you ignore SR differences, different HPs and ENC. In fact, I've been using stats straight out of P&BR, without converting SRs, spells, HPs or ENC and things have worked reasonably well.<BR>
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See Ya<BR>
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Simon<BR>
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