Quest Digest 14/2/95

From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk>

Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:08:19 +0000

____________________________________________________________________
|                                                                    |
|                          THE QUEST DIGEST                          |
|             The forum for the E-mailing Quest-players              |
|       Compiled by Josh Gallagher: J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk       |
|                        Date: 14 March 1995                         |
|____________________________________________________________________|

o This is not an automatically generated compilation, so if all
  contributions could be sent to me in a seperate e-mail with paragraphs
  initialled, I would appreciate it a lot.
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JPG> Here again is the digest...  I am leaving Durham for holidays for 5
weeks from tomorrow.  I am uncertain yet as to whether I will be able to
get adequate net.access during the break to carry on the digest, but if I
can't I am going to ring Chris Dickson and he will take over from me for
the period.  If this is the case, then posts for inclusion may have to be
resent to Chris.  Please bear this in mind when sending material... sorry
for the inconvenience..

JPG> Our mini-pub meet yesterday went down pretty well... we bounced a
lot of ideas around.  I now have the monstrous job of copying them all to
a digest!  As I compile this thing, I am going to go first! :-)

JPG> Firstly, items that we would like to see implemented:
Mage Prisms, Shining Helms, Mage Robes, Crystal Balls (Glass orbs,
whatever), Religious Book, Magic Book.  Even just some of these as
magical would be nice.

JPG> Along the same lines, Mirrors should be usable against petrification
spells cast by monsters or mages.  They always are in the best fantasy
books. :-)  It should either stand a chance of negating the spell or even
reflecting it back.

JPG> A new item that would be useful in encouraging unarmed combat
(suggested by your friendly geordie, Paul Noble)... Knuckle Dusters!

JPG> New classes... I bring this up now because of the unarmed combat
business... A ninja would be a nice idea, or some kind of unarmed combat
specialist.  The four classes we have at the moment can be a little
restrictive.  I realize this would also require a not insubstantial
amount of programming, but it would be nice to see.  Another possible
class would be an Assassin.  If anyone else has ideas, please let us know.

JPG> New races might include Ogres and Trolls.  It would cost a *lot* to
enlist a troll into your group, but it would be worth the money for the
incredible physical attributes.

JPG> Some new mage spells discussed now.  Firstly, and simply, we felt
Healing IV was not really a powerful enough place to stop, so Healing V
should be available with decent power.
JPG> Stoneskin would be another good spell, working much the same as the
D&D equivallent, and protecting character(s) from a random number of hits
from anything physical (missile, melee, not magicin general).  If
implemented, it shouldn't be cummulative IMO.
JPG> Mirror-self:- create an illusion of a character of the entire party
(different level spells?).  The effects of this spell would be to make
beserk fail immeadiately and and spell casting / melee combat would only
have a half chance of hitting first time around, until the enemy find
which version of you is real.  Target Illusion would nullify the spell.

JPG> New Priest Spells.  Yes, we felt that priests do not have anywhere
to go after a certain amount of turns and P 0's...  They need new
spells.  Priests have a lot of power though, so these spells would need
to be difficult to get to.  For this reason, we propose that the
following spells be 70 (yes, 70!) point powers, and only accessible to
those parties who have an allignment inside the box of the god they are
using the spell of.

Phyloqure - Protective Aura:
   Protects groups from all non-magical melee weapons, destroying weapons
that come into contact.  (Remember folks, you have to be ultra peaceful
to be able to get this!)

Garthrana - Holy Avenger:
   This spell can be cast on one character, and will turn them into a
paladin style character, giving their melee weapon a +5 bonus, and
causing the character to attain a glowing aura around them. (Just for effect)

Molwanh - Deform
   This spell will physically deform the flesh of some living creature in
a way determined partially by the priest and paritally by luck.  When
cast on others it would deform the limbs and bodily parts into useless
hulks of flesh, twisted and gortesque.  It would mean the recipient could
not fight or cast spells, and it would heal over time, like a disease.
Baldors touch would cure it.
   When cast on someone in the casters own group, it would greatly
enhance the body's power by strengthening muscles and increasing
stature.  It would effectively produce a person with the power of an
avenger (see Garthrana), but just without the magic weapon.

Fleyshur - Blood Boil
   This spell will raise the temperature of the blood going through a
creatures veins to above boiling point.  Irreversible damage may be
inflicted, and this will genereally just cause lots of damage.  We just
reckoned it was a cool idea for a spell.

Netural - Convert
   This spell would be a 50 point power, but would still have to have the
party over into one of the corners of the allignment box.  It would move
the target 5 points closer to the casters allignment.

JPG> Miscellaneous stuff:
And Investigate All order for dungeon rooms where you don't want to have
to waste an order on every chair being pulled out from under a table.
The way to stop dungeons getting cleared out much faster would be to make
it cost about 6 movement points or something.

JPG> Fighters with rock hard weapon skills should be able to knock holes
in locked cupboards even if the thief can't open them!

JPG> Okay, that is the end of the notes I got down on the back of my
Quest envelope.. :-)  Comments will be very welcome!  Now on with the
rest of the posts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: The Hamster <godfrey2@coventry.ac.uk>

Quest Helpline service.
This helpline is chaired a by a panel of experienced Quest players, who
will be available to answer any queries or solve any problems to do with
Quest. Send e-mail to <godfrey2@cov.ac.uk> and give "Quest help" as the
subject line. Contact me if you want to join the panel.
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Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 11:17:13 GMT
To: J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk

RoJ>	Along the lines of what Paul said (?) about living up to your
groups name ie Lords of Death, but running away at any oppotunity.  Well
I`ve finally decided to send in a party profile card for my G14 group since
it can virtually live up to it`s description now.  My groups 1571 if any1
is interested and Chris......HAPPY NOW ?!?!!?!?  Just a note to prove I am
still alive :)
RoJ>	Silly party names....Is Jolly Green Dragons a silly name?  How can
parties have 20 characters in their name and alliance only 16?  Looks like
we`re going Yorkshire lads.....T` New Beginning!  RoJ :)

JPG> Know the feeling RoJ... T' Confederation... doesn't have the same
ring though...
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Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 13:07:12 +0000 (GMT)
From: Rogerio Fung <l41186@alfa.ist.utl.pt>

RF> MP, I disagree with you with some points. 1) wilderness travel is
boring enough as it is, creating this system with higher values for
movement cost only makes it even more boring, imagine calculating with
those numbers... 2) Although it is unrealistical that diagonal movement
costs as much as any other movement, one thing you have to take into
account is that , sometimes, ppl dont want to move diagonally, but if
they do, I dont mind if it isnt more expensive for that...
3) movement as it is, allows you to go up to a max  of 6 squares in
wilderness, I havent calculated the new maximuns with your numbers, but
if diagonal cost is higher, movement will be even more limited..
4) there are so many things to impro=ove, why bother with this..?:)

RF>If metal armours are 'an obstacle to the flow of mana', then, as said
before in here, powerfull mages should still be able to cast spells, only
that it would be more difficult. So, what I say is that armour above
leather should have its defense value multiplied by five, seven, or any
other number, and this would be subtracted from the skill of the mage,
therefore, high skilled mages would still be able to cast spells, even
with big armours..afterall, arent they hevy hitting , mana moving
persons?besides, 99skill for a mage alows for almost nothing, except for
the mana they get have to cast spells, this would be a way to make use of
this extra skill..and, I think this method would create a balance of
wether you put armour to better protect your mage, or dont put it, and
have more skill to use..as it is, there isnt much diversity in the
decisions you make, and , taking away some fanatic fantasy players, who
wont put metal on their mages, I guess everyone , provided they have
the money to do it, will use the biggest armour they cant fit in..it is this
type of decisions that make the game have more diversity.
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Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 12:49:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: "C.H.E.B." <ctc@coventry.ac.uk>

CC> Paul Noble asked the G7 turn around. It's 10 days.
JPG> I ought to just have told him that on Monday and not wasted 7 lines
on it here. :-)
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Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 13:07:50 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Bill the Hamster, The Internet's resident rodent." <godfrey2@coventry.ac.uk>

An article... (for one edition only)
BTH> A quick appeal for people to get on the Quest Help panel. There
currently stands only four people on this panel. If you feel that you are
good at the game of Quest and you have plenty of experience in any
matter, please mail me and get put on the list. Panelists are not obliged
to answer every question that comes in, so please don't feel put off
applying if you don't know absolutely everything about the game.
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Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 03:15:11 +0100
From: magnuz.aemp@medstroms.se (Magnus Cassersj\v)

> PN>...it makes me sick, the amount of people that rabidly follow
Tokien and never let anything bad said about the 'master of
fantasy' and name there groups, there char...

MC> Could agree that it's sad if they rip right off but still, master of
fantasy or not, Tolikien was a master of language and to some extent the
creator of fantasy as we know it today. But why extremely aggressive over
the Tolkienfans? Hrmph... I know a lot of so called authors of fantasy that
would really deserve to be dragged in the mud, rather than Tolkien. And no -
I don't call my groups after names from the trilogy. (But I have done a
namegenerator once, of Tolkien-elve-names that can generate over 7M names! :)

>NB> I thought this would be really funny, I called my group "Unknown Party"...
MC> Well, I think it was an amusing idea...
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Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 10:03:38 +0000 (GMT)
From: Allan Hooper <A.O.Hooper@herts.ac.uk>

> SA> I can only agree. I have offered 1000-2600 gold for recruits and noticed
> no difference in the recruits showing up, I have almost had greater luck

AH> Ok ok ok I agree , in fact my latest turn more than proves I'm wrong.

AH> <Warning. Whinge mode on!>
	My biggest gripe is with the current combat system and  multiple E's
or S's - why a group would fight against someone they had already lost to
*in the same day!* while they still have the wounds to remember it by is
totally beyond me .It would also reduce the number of crippled parties
drastically by stopping these.
I think cutting down *ALL* damage would be sooooooooooooooo much better -
like you might actually get into melee and it might last longer than 1-4
rounds. Also Call Monster is so bloody good that anyone with even slightly
decent priests can do the magic and missile tactics - in fact with good
priests it hard not be doing this as the CM's they cast are so powerfull,
unless you want to die horribly by casting strength and the like. I
mean CM is only a 30 point miracle, Ythcals Touch is so pathetic its untrue
, when I tried using it nothing tougher than a melon was effected by it,
indirectly CM is probably responsible for more deaths than anything else
and when my group gets attacked by something like 5 elves as a result of
a CM it does a fair bit of damage - I mean pardon my characters if they
dont wet their undergarments in horror but elves of the monster variety
die in one or two blows these days without touching one of my characters.
<Whinge mode off>

>     IGO> To AH. Phyloqure would allow their priests to cast evil miracles in
>     behalf of knowledge! Like in a dungeon exploration is knowledge. Ok!
>     Phyloqure objects fighting that is why he only lets his followers use
>     fighting miracles to a certain limit therefore call monster is a week
>     spell cast by a phyloqurean.

AH> Call may be weak for Phyloqureans to begin with but once you have
70+sk priests alignment starts to make less and less difference.
Ask yourself why does Phyloqure have slumber? because it gets them out of
combat without bloodshed - remember to Phyloqure combat of any kind is
the worst kind of folly. I also think that TQ's should only be given to
devoted followers of the god whos temple it is an no-one else.
Does anyone else have any feelings on this or am I the only totally rabid
religious nut here?<BEG>

>     IGO> Wouldn't you all like to see an order to set the ASL of all
>     characters in your party: A 99 (ASL level) for that occasions when you
>     don't want to tottaly trash a novice party with spells, but can't be
>     bothered to spend 10 orders rising your ASLs ?

AH> I would like to see an order to get a character to hand *all* his
equipment to another character - for use when kicking someone out.
	Also how about a Quest from a society of assasins to go kill an
NPC? It could be sort of 'go to another town where he was last seen ,
chat in a few taverns with his name on your chatlist, find where he
is/lives and rip his lungs out.' These would be especially good if they
were used with (Stefans?) NPC ideas.

AH> Last another of my questions:- How goods gambling ? What are the
profits/losses like? Is it worth it or is ripping off the local jewler
for 1500+ more profitable?

> MC> I'd say that it's not the physical hinderence of the weight that would
> stop a mage from wearing metal-armour, rather some metaphysic disturbance in
> the universal powerflow that would stop the mage from using metal. Far out,
> eh? However - different wievs of fantasy states different ways of looking at
> it... I don't really expect that anyone wouldn't put a chainmail on their
> weak but still powerful mage in game that permits such actions.

AH> What I was trying to (but didnt) say was that although I was restricted
 I could still move but not as acurately as I would otherwise. It goes
against realism to say mage cant wear armour but a chance of mis-casting
whilest wearing bulky armour is not unfair.

> I think these are correct but am unsure of G7 and G4,
> G1,3,6,8-10, 13-17 are 100% correct (I think ;)

AH> Looks like it could be G14 then - is that the Kharne with the Black
Knights ? Call me a product of a failed society if you like <G> but I
always have to play the bad guys. Also to keep up with NB in the
roleplaying stakes they may well be 100% halfblooded (once I start TQing
anyway) , called Skulking Vermin and with an image that matches.

> PN>Yep thats unfair for a large amount of alliances, have more
> than 2 or 3 words and you have to abbreviate your name!

AH> And on the official forms as well! All the new groups wont know who
they are and go "SoG? what a name for an alliance! They sound crap!".

> PN> I like names that are a> snappy and catchy b> totally
> original, none of these film lisence groups c> actually portray
> some quality with in the group, so if you're called Lords Of
> Death then you should fight like one, rather than run away all
> the time.

AH> Black Death is a rather cliched name but I play them as evil but
with a pestilence incarnate image which goes with the name. The leader of
the Sword of Garthrana had groups called Lords of Chaos and Assasins of
Death , how truly garthranian , but then again he might not have chosen
an allignment when he started and just chose hard sounding names.

> From: Bensey <9365040@mull.sms.ed.ac.uk>
> NB>  Good point, and to be quite honest, I'm not sure.  But I'ld like
> to think that if they are role-playing an evil group that they can
> ROLEPLAY.  So I'm sure something could be worked out - i.e. a battle
> arranged or something.

AH> Challenge them for all to see in the newsletter and asking for a
public reponse agreeing to some rules (if you want to set any). If you
play with a 100% flee then challenge them to a Battle Lusted fight to the
death - that would make it a winner takes all fight if ever there was
one. Of course if they are role-playing an evil/chaotic group then they
may agree to but decide not to abide by the rules (one of the advantages
of being evil I'm afraid).

Whilest on cities and role-playing can I just say the rulebook
SUCKS as a scene setter. What do you get? a bit at the front which
vaguely floats over the past , mentions some Sigmaund or somebody and a
city called Garienburg - the only city with some built in background and
its not even in the game! For history your much better off asking an old
player for some back issues of the newsletter.

> From: kryten@menageri.demon.co.uk (Kryten)
>
>  When buying thief skill I find the following table very handy :-
>
>            100 Experience => +2 Skill
>            200 Experience => +3 Skill, +1 Awareness
>            300 Experience => +4 Skill, +2 Awareness
>            400 Experience => +5 Skill, +3 Awareness
>

AH> I know Chris has a FAQ but does anyone keep a list of all these
general usefull bits of information that keep apearing?
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From: Bensey <9365040@mull.sms.ed.ac.uk>
To: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@dur.ac.uk>

Quest Maps in ascii
==============
NB> Does anybody keep quest maps in ascii?  If so, what symbols do
you use?  I've got my own little system but can't think of anything
sensible to use for barren or desert.  Anyone think of any suitable
keystrokes?  I use "f" for forest and "F" for dense forest, and so
on, so I'd like to use a letter and it's capital for barren and
desert.  Any clues?
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JPG> That's the lot for the moment.  I can't say whether I will be back
or not before the Wednesday after Easter, but if not, as I say, Chris
Dickson has offered to continue the list over the holidays.

JPG> I will get Chris to resend out the voting forms and subjects, so
that replies can be made to him.  We have over 70 people on the list
(last time I counted) and we have had just over 20 votes back so far.
Please send your votes in... 20/70 is not such a wonderful response so
far!  But thank you very much to those who have responded!

JPG> Farewell for now!  Happy Questing! :-)

>>-Josh->
"Dreamer...  Nothing but a dreamer..."