Heroic Skills

Heroes are capable of many heroic feats, not all blatantly magical like striking someone dead with a Sever Spirit, but skills of superhuman, heroic prowess. In a world as magical as Glorantha there are many secrets that warriors (amongst others) have learnt that allow a range of amazing abilities to be exhibited.

The skills here are, generally, of a combative or physical nature. They are modelled on the tales of real world legend of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic origin, such as Beowulf holding his breath for many days to face Grendel in the mere. While these skills are not actual spells or other such magical dweomers, they are not accessible to the normal mortal population of the world. They certainly should not be selected during character generation, unless you are rolling up higher powered heroes. They are only taught by cults, and sometimes are ancestral skills passed down through the family. They are only taught by the greatest of warriors, demigods, learnt on HeroQuests, gifts from a god and other such super mundane sources. The skills here are the province of the Orlanthi of Ralios, mainly Otkorion, Lankst and the East Wilds, with the exception of Three Blow Strike.

They act as normal skills with powerful results. All start at a base of 00% with category modifiers in a lot of cases. Virtually all are agility or manipulation skills. They can only be taught by going on a specific HeroQuest Path to learn how to teach them, which requires the character to have at least mastered the skill. A lot of my material has been drawn from TSR's Celtic Sourcebook.

Using this skill allows the user to hurl their shield into an opponent like an enormous shuriken. It takes no actions to use, goes on DEX SR after deciding it's use, can be used as a desperate action if you use my house rules and maximum range is STR in metres, minus the shields ENC.

The shield inflicts 1d10 dmg plus the normal half damage bonus for thrown weapons. If the shield is specially sharpened, it inflicts an extra 2 damage. Such shields can Slash on a special or better.

This skill requires 10SR preparation. It allows almost superhuman ability to breath. A normal roll allows the character to go CONx5 in minutes before having to make drowning checks, a special is CON in hours and a critical or better is CON in days.

This skill must be used in conjunction with an actual attempt to Disarm the foe. If the disarm is successful, this skill can then be attempted. If a successful roll is made, the disarmed weapon is caught by the user in a free hand. If a special or better is made, the attacker gets a free riposte attack as a free action.

As per RuneQuest II.

This skill allows a character to throw their sword up to STR-2xENC in metres. If the attack roll is made under Sword Throwing skill then the sword hits successfully as if it was a normal throwing weapon.

Riastarthae allows the character to enter a form of beserk fury. This skill cannot be used if they are already underneath the effects of a Beserk spell. It allows the character to ignore the effects of incapacitation due to the loss of general hit points and locational hit points. At the start of the round a successful Riastarthae must be made to remain conscious. If a character falls unconscious then no more rolls may be made, if they are b

Breaking Dodge (agility skill)

Breaking Dodge can never be higher than Dodge skill. Like Dodge, it is affected by ENC. If this skill is successful, then the skill user dodge sin such a wqay that their opponents weapon strikes the ground or a nearby object in such a way that the weapon can break in half.

The damage inflicted to the weapon is based upon how agile and skillful the dodger is - it inflicts 1d(DEX) damage. All damage over the weapon's armour points is inflicted as damage to the weapon's ap's, and can be repaired as normal. Obviously, enchanted weaponary is unaffected by this.

Weapon Throwing (agility skill)

This skill can be used in conjunction with either throwing knives or throwing axes. It allows the character to throwe multiple weapons at once. A successful Weapon Throwing roll must be made before the weapons are thrown, at a penalty of minus 5% for every weapon thrown using this skill. So a Hero with Weapon Throwing 63% attempting to throw four daggers must roll 43% to suceed. Each weapon has a a separate "to hit" roll and hits a seperately rolled missile location.

Mighty Blow (manipulation skill)

Using this skill causes a blow to focus great strength, inflicting far more damage than normal. It can be used but once a day, and it's use must be declared as part of the Statement of Intent. The ability is used up for the day even if the blow does not connect. If the blow does hit and the Mighty Blow suceeds, then the blow inflicts the user's STR as additional damage. It can be used with thrown weaponary and inflicts 1/2 STR as extra damage.

Tree Chopping Strike (manipulation skill)

Using this skill allows a Hero to cleave objects in two and have them fall on foes.

This can be used instead of an action. The attack roll must be underneath both weapon attack and Tree Chopping Strike - only slashing weapons can be effective. If the roll suceeds then damage is inflicted to the object's armour points equal to the damage rolled by the character - if all armour points are depleted, the object falls onto a foe. The foe can only dodge this attack, and only if they have selected a Dodge as one of their actions for that round. The attack inflicts damage equal to 1d6 per 10 ENC of the object, plus 1/armour point it had. The object always hits, if the user hit the object with a Special result then a special dodge is required to dodge it, if the object was hit with a critical result, a critical dodge is required etc...

Suitable objects are tress, columns, pillars etc...

Water Running (agility skill)

This skill is affected by ENC. Running on water is certainly an Heroic Skill. This skill, if successful, allows a character to run (run, not walk, crawl, hop or otherwise) on the surface of a liquid. The maximum number of rounds the PC can run for is equal to 20-SIZ to a minimum of one round.

The Bow Trick (manipulation skill)

This skill allows a Hero to fire not one, but three, arrows at once. The attack roll is made seperately for each arrow, which may be fired at one person, or three people (but not two arrows on one person, and one arrow on another target). The roll must be beneath both bow attack and The Bow Trick skill. The maximum skill percentage this skill can reach is 40% of highest bow attack i.e. someone with a bow attack of 213% has a maximum Bow Trick skill of 86%.

Combine (secondary attack) with (primary attack) (manipulation skill)

This skill allows a trained warrior to learn how to copmbine two attack methods with one another. For instance, warriors of the Dunfali house may have "Combine LH Broadsword Attack w/RH Rapier attack" or a martial artist may have "Combine Fist attack w/grapple attack".

When an attack is made with the primary weapon (so in the above examples, either a rapier or a grapple) and the roll is underneath the Combine skill, the character can have an attack with their secondary weapon, on that SR at full attack percentage and no action cost. This represents the warriors amazing ability to position themselves for that additional attack.

Three Blow Strike (manipulation skill)

This is a skil learnt by Yanafal Tarnils and is associated with the Lunar Empire. In occupied lands, it is considered of great weorth to slay someone who knows this skill and carry their head on your belt. This skill can only be used by those who use swords.

The skill works thus, when a special result or higher is made on the attack roll the player can roll an additional 1d100. If it is above the Three Blow Strike skill then the attack is resolved as normal. If it is under then the attacker can elect, instead of having the attack roll, to have three attacks instead as the attacker rapidly hits their opponent with their blade. Each of these attacks is resolved seperately and by another roll. The defender may Dodge all of them if that was their option this round, or parry the first blow. Even if they took more than one parry this round, they can only parry one blow from the attacker using this skill. All attacks take place on the same SR, at the same time.