More rules questions – modifiers

[Paul]

Pg 103 – Specific Ability Bonuses. “When you contest against an opponent whose ability is less specific to the situation at hand than your own, you gain either a +3 or a +6 modifier”
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But in HQ2/HG opponents don’t have abilities generally. They have a keyword with a specific resistance/target ability that is determined by either the pass/fail cycle or the session modifier. Referring to opponent abilities harks back to HW and HQ1 really. Effectively every opponent is a keyword with a target value. Lunar Soldier 12w, Chaos monstrosity 5w3 etc (ok. Chaos monster probably a bad example here. You may need to make a few specific abilities for one).
Does that mean every time I use a more breakout ability that is more specific than my profession keyword – eg Iron Longsword of Tanos, I get a bonus?
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Related to that. Same section. “If another member of the group has a more specific ability than the one you’re using, you take a -3 or -6 penalty to your attempt”. Again related to keywords. Does this mean that if I take Iron Longsword of Tanos as a breakout from Heortling Warrior, that all other players in my team now get a -3 or -6 penalty to their general combat keyword if you’re not using a breakout ability?
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Pg 104 – Augments. Paraphrasing: It needs to be “as a result of a prior contest”, eliciting an emotional response, illuminate a character or define Glorantha. In other words it has to be meaningful. But in the examples on pages 85-98 (great example btw) it seems that each person automatically had one attempt to get an augment. No particular strong meaning behind them. Just “OK. you can use one skill to augment your main ability – pick one, narrate it and roll”. That felt a little like the original HW where you picked whatever gave you the best augment (nowhere near as bad I grant).
I may be off off base here but that was the feeling I got. Personally I think I’d allow one augment each time as long as it wasn’t repetitive and boringly mechanical. It would need to be at least mildly interesting and relevant to the current scene.
This is at odds with using runes to augment abilities when the target ability of the rune isn’t high enough to warrant overt effects (lay members?) where runes can only be used for augmentation but have no overt effects. I may be getting this mixed up with previous HQ versions though.
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Any comments?
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BTW. How do I insert blank lines into my posts to make reading easier. I put in blank lines as spacers as I type but when I submit it, they disappear and everything is jammed up and hard to read. EDIT: Trying the period method of inserting a cr/lf as suggested by Harald. Looks good.

[Steve Hammatt]

The lack of blank lines thing bugs me too. But I’m a noob to HQ,so I’m looking forward to reading the answers to your rules questions.

[Harald Smith]

Specific Ability Bonuses. “When you contest against an opponent whose ability is less specific to the situation at hand than your own, you gain either a +3 or a +6 modifier”
I interpret a general resistance level the same as a keyword – it is less specific than a relevant named ability. If a character is using a specific ability, I give them the relevant bonus.
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Broader abilities are penalized not to maintain a balance against the Game Master’s world, but within the group, so that colorful choices are rewarded.
I can say that I’ve never used this yet. Most likely I would apply it in a Group Simple Contest if I chose to do so, but likely will continue to ignore it.
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I think I’d allow one augment each time as long as it wasn’t repetitive and boringly mechanical
I allow one augment. Player must describe how they are using it (e.g. using Flaming Spear to augment Spear Attack). I do not worry about having some emotional response – I want it to make sense in the situation. And if it does, then they get it (and in an Extended Contest, they can continue using that if they wish).
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How do I insert blank lines into my posts to make reading easier.
Haven’t found a natural way, so just use a period instead of a space.

[Paul]

first off don’t adhere to the P/F cycle too rigidly – this will only generate predictable games. Many times the choices PC’s make will also dictate the difficulty – for example two characters one is a thief the other is a cat burglar, both have these keywords at the same level. If however they were in a competition with each other to climb a wall I’d give the cat burglar a specific ability bonus.
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With regard the Iron sword, I’d only impose the penalty when other characters tried to wield that weapon to reflect their inexperience (also to limit the ‘pass the parcel’ approach some groups may have with powerful items)
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In general for all my important NPC’s I like to stat them out like PC’s – this helps me role-play them. I believe that their are some events in the game world that outside the influence of the PC’s. This means that some actions will always be easy or always near impossible regardless of the P/F cycle. If I decided last week that a particular Broo warrior had axe 15w2 he’ll still have axe 15w2 the next time the party encounter him. This is very important for me as is create a world that is stable in the eyes of the players, some consistency is important to juxtapose the extraordinary.
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Edit: I see that I share a user name with the OP so just to clarify I’m not the OP

[Roko Joko]

“But in HQ2/HG opponents don’t have abilities generally. They have a keyword with a specific resistance/target ability that is determined by either the pass/fail cycle or the session modifier.”
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The wording of the HQG specific ability bonus rule only makes sense when taken together with this statement from HQ2 p. 22 that NPCs do have abilities: “if the PCs are opposed by characters or creatures… the PCs will be resisted by an ability; the Narrator decides what this will be.”
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“Does that mean every time I use a more breakout ability that is more specific than my profession keyword – eg Iron Longsword of Tanos, I get a bonus?”
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It follows that the answer is no, not every time.
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The other places in the book that mention the specific ability bonus show a loose interpretation of it. Taken as a whole, HQG doesn’t tell you exactly when to apply it.
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“if I take Iron Longsword of Tanos as a breakout from Heortling Warrior, do all other players in my team now get a -3 or -6 penalty to their general combat keyword if you’re not using a breakout ability?
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RAW it only happens when “heroes contest against abstract forces” and it happens any time “another member of the group has a somewhat more applicable ability”, whether breakouts are involved in that or not.
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“Augments need to be “as a result of a prior contest”, eliciting an emotional response, illuminate a character or define Glorantha, but the examples don’t show it.”
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You’re right. It’s not tightly written.

[David Scott]

to put blank lines into a post try the code for a non-breaking space followed by a semi-colon:
 
 
 
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can
 
do
 
this

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