From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #188 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Monday, 10 April 1995 Volume 01 : Number 188 RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to say "Yeah, I agree." Those who do will be lynched. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Do not engage in a point-by-point analysis or rebuttal of another person's message. It is too confusing for others to follow, qualifies as nit-picking, and it usually leads to flame wars. 4. There is no number 4. TABLE OF CONTENTS David Dunham via RadioMail Impaling hit locations; martial arts Aden Steinke CON Training Nils Weinander RQ Rules Digest: V1 #187 jmh1@basil.acs.bolton.ac.uk More armour/combat stuff Antoon Pardon Damage escalation; Conan vs Sorcery Liam_McCauley@qsp.co.uk SIZ isn't everything yfcw29@castle.ed.ac.uk Skills over 100, and stat training. Mystic Musk Ox stat training Nigel Smith Damage escalation; Conan vs Sorcery mdouglas_at_AIGWHQ@mailhost. Re[2]: Criticals Nigel Smith SIZ isn't everything Colin Watson Combat Skills Over 100% NDROBINS@NDROBINS.FIN.GOV.BC Stat Training ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 22:15:40 -0700 Subject: Re: Impaling hit locations; martial arts Steve Barnes answered me >>Sounds like another of those artificial martial arts -- why couldn't you >>whack him in the arm? > >I don't want to get into a martial arts pissing contest here, but... Steve, if my message sounded like a slam on your martial art of choice, I apologize. My point was (as you make below) that martial arts tend to disallow certain types of attacks. For example, a saber fencer has no reason to parry leg hits since they're not allowed. This is why martial arts can only partially simulate combat. Your comment sounded relevant to the point I had been making, so I brought it up. >Yes, every form of martial arts sparring is artificial to a certain >degree. There are many effective attacks that are disallowed for >safety reasons. Arm attacks aren't one of them, although it would >probably be considered rude. Like many arts, we use sparring for >both training and sport competition. It is not representative of >the art as a whole. > >Actually, my instructor does advocate attacking the arms in some >situations. However, my intention was to illustrate that height >gives a significant advantage in combat. Point taken -- people always complained about my height. (Tho supposedly height is NOT an advantage in saber fencing.) Note that we all take armor effectiveness on faith. It seems reasonable that metal is better than leather, and more metal is better than less metal, but none of us practice with weapons that can pierce armor. ------------------------------ From: "Aden Steinke" Date: 10 Apr 1995 15:48:05 +1000 Subject: CON Training Hi All; Kevin Rose in 'Size, etc' commented >I've always wondered how you train CON though: Take ever larger doses of >poisons? Stand under glacier waterfalls? Allow yourself to be used as the >recipient in unarmed combat training? To which I must add, by doing serious running etc and exposing oneself to non fatal versions of diseases :), since con checks are used for everything from 'is he awake' to 'does he succumb to disease' to 'how many fatigues does he have' a very versatile stat it is indeed. Aden ------------------------------ From: niwe@ppvku.ericsson.se (Nils Weinander) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 95 08:41:11 +0200 Subject: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #187 George Harris again presents his 100%+ combat options and writes: > Comments? Excellent suggestions which I will use. /Nils W ------------------------------ From: jmh1@basil.acs.bolton.ac.uk Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 09:11:31 +0100 Subject: More armour/combat stuff Hello, again. Just a line to resolve a couple of points. First off, on the armour thing, of course soldiers might remove/discard armour if circumstance dictates but that doesn't mean it wouldn't protect them if they kept it on !!! I was not trying to say that all soldiers wear or should wear armour, merely that it is probably more useful in a battle than in a duel. Secondly, Steve Perrin asked what sort of re-enactment I am involved in. I must confess a certain ignorance as to the SCA's methods but the bulk of the UK re-enactment scene is based on steel weapons not rattan so it's a kind of balance, heavier weapon - lighter blow. In any case my point was ambiguous, what I was driving at was really to do with danger from a blow rather than actual force. Perhaps it would have been better put as: .. do not get a 100% accurate feel for combat as they are not actually trying to kill opponents, nor are they anticipating being killed To forestall further irrelevant re-enactment stuff: Yes, steel no, not sharp :-) I'll try and keep on RQ stuff from now on. But a good re-enactment discussion group would be a boon, does anyone know of one outside AOL/Compuserve. Thank you for the considered nature of your responses. Jim ------------------------------ From: apardon@vub.ac.be (Antoon Pardon) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 12:48:51 +0200 (DST) Subject: Re: Damage escalation; Conan vs Sorcery Simon Hibbs says > > Jim Chapin says : > > >Aside from the critical issue, there does seem to be a drift towards > >the idea that "only magic beats magic." OK, defenders of Conan, where > >are you to be found? Conan was ALWAYS popping wizards! > > Well yes, but Conan lived in Hyborea. Glorantha is a very different > world. Everybody (prety much) uses magic because magic is inherent > in the way everything works. A Gloranthan Conan would probably know > a few fighting songs or cries to keep up his spirit (fanaticism), > perhaps a secret charm for his sword (bladesharp) and a sign to ward > away evil magic (countermagic) that might give him an edge against his > sorcerous foes. These aren't realy magic you know, just honest prayer > and determination. > But Runequest isn't Gloranta. The rules should make it possible to play a Conan figure and pop wizards if that is the kind of campaign you want. - -- All opinions expressed herein are currently under revision ========================================================== Antoon Pardon Brussels Free University Computing Centre ========================================================== ------------------------------ From: Liam_McCauley@qsp.co.uk Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 14:10:53 +0100 Subject: Re: SIZ isn't everything Steve Lieb postulates: I think it is patently unrealistic that Stats are unrelated. In the REAL world: STR is directly related to SIZ. STR is related to CON (maybe?) STR and DEX are inversely related\ SIZ and DEX are inversely related/ these two kindof depend on what you think DEX is... Right? (he said, flinching.....) Hmm, not really sure if I agree with any of these. Maybe some of these relationships are statistically accurate, but I've seen too many counter examples of each statement, even just amongst the people I train with. Kevin Rose asks: I've always wondered how you train CON though: Take ever larger doses of poisons? Stand under glacier waterfalls? Allow yourself to be used as the recipient in unarmed combat training? I always saw CON training as one of the easy ones to explain - any aerobic exercise to increase stamina ("OK all you Storm Bullies, feel that burn..."). Actually, your last example is exactly what you do in aikido training, half the time. How do people explain DEX training? Reactions can be increased through combat training, and flexibility (does this come under DEX, btw?) through stretching, but are these exercises ever done without training something else at the same time? ------------------------------ From: yfcw29@castle.ed.ac.uk Date: Mon, 10 Apr 95 13:59:59 BST Subject: Skills over 100, and stat training. George W Harris says : > An issue that I feel still hasn't been addressed adequately is how >to make the degree by which a skill is over 100% meaningful; that is, to >make the difference between 105% and 155% significant. > Some say that increased skill over 100% gets you greater special and >critical chances. This is true, but you still get much less bang for the >point over 100%, even judging skills proportionally. For instance, the >difference between an 80% skill and a 60% skill will come up 26% of the time, >while the difference between 160% and 120% only shows up 10% of the time. Your forgetting a biggie. If your skill is over 100%, you can Split Attacks. Thus a character with 120% can get two attacks at 60% each while a character with 160% gets two attacks at 80% each. On stat training : I am introducing "Winter Phase" training a la Pendragon. This has the advantage of giving the players training without lots of bookkeeping and unrealistic minimaxing of spare time, while also encoraging the players to take a longer view of the campaign. One of the options available to the players is to make a few stat increase rolls. I'll post the final set of options I will use when I have agreed it with the players. Simon Hibbs yfcw29@castle.ed.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: mab@sdc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk (Mystic Musk Ox) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 15:21:37 GMT Subject: stat training For training stats, I always found that my players didn't usually bother, because it is pretty expensive, took a long time and wasn't guaranteed. However, if they are in a job where they can claim some reasonable cause, then I have allowed them to claim the hours as stat training. e.g. a PC in my game arrived in a new city, where he needed to get a job due to lack of funds, but all he could find, being pretty unskilled, was loading/unloading of wagons at a warehouse. After some weeks of this, his STR and CON went up...the job paid a pittance, most of which immediately went on lodging, food and drink, but at least he got some benefits, and contacts. Mark Buckley PS: A few weeks ago, someone posted a table that they had calculated for skill training, current percentage vs desired percentage, with the table entry giving the time needed in weeks/months. Unfortunately I can't remember who it was, but I liked the idea to use it for PC generation, but also would have liked the table to cover skills up to 75%/100% and to give training times. Does whoever it was still have the table? Could it be extended? ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 14:53:12 +0000 Subject: Re: Damage escalation; Conan vs Sorcery Antoon Pardon said: >But Runequest isn't Gloranta. The rules should make it >possible to play a Conan figure and pop wizards if that >is the kind of campaign you want. But the rules *do* make it possible, and so we return to the crits thread... No, I'll stop before I get there and point out that Conan is big and strong with a big sword, averaging (guestimate) 15pts a hit. 1 in 4 blows will overcome that _nasty_ wizard's Damage Resistance, and a 15pt hit should discomode him somewhat. Not every warrior could achieve this, but don't forget that Conan could always roll an 01 when he (or the author) needed to. On the subject of someone's (sorry, brain like a sieve) suggestion that Damage Resistance be more useful against big blows than small (ie inverse to the present situation). I feel that this would just cause all the players to think about their optimum damage/success chances and pull blows accordingly. And the lack of bad guy wizards being cut in half by that truly mighty blow (Luck? How dare you suggest such a thing! You and me, outside, now!) would leave a large gap in some of my 'dramatic' scenario endings. Nigel ------------------------------ From: mdouglas_at_AIGWHQ@mailhost.aig.com Date: Mon, 10 Apr 95 09:44:23 cst Subject: Re[2]: Criticals >As in: "I always consider the great disadvantage of being a troll to be... > ...they're too big > ...they're too strong > ...they do too much damage > ...they have too many hit points > ...they have 1pt skin > ...they can see in the dark" Off hand that was my opinion of trolls...however the one described earlier is more like the troll I have GMed over in my campaign. Yes he's a big fella...but not quite big enough to get that 2d6 damage mod, he's got a d6 just like any big human, and as for too strong...that whoppin couple a points don't really count for much in most instances..an occassional STR check here a small skill bonus there. Too much damage? Not! Toomany hit points? not enough to make up for the extra damage they take because he can't afford expensive armor to cover his smelly ass. The one point skin does help to counter this. As for seeing in the dark... this hasnt come into play but for a few times and then it wasnt all that critical. Oh yeah, the social stigma of being a troll in a mostly human society is enough to make any experienced player shy away. >IF you get into combat regularly then heavy armour is a waste of time >because, sooner than you think, someone will critical you. The best defence >is offence. Given the choice, it is a better strategy to be able to inflict >mucho damage (without having to roll a crit) to get the fight over quickly, >rather than have lots of armour which just prolongs the battle. It's also >cheaper. (If you only ever fight one battle (like monsters in badly-GMed games) >then heavy armour is great. Especially as you don't have to pay for it.) Heavy armor a waste of time? yeah it gets circumvented from time to time by crits but isnt that better than feelin every little nick from every little thing (the guy in the room full of cats would go down muuuuch faster)? Yes inflicting damage is nice for ending a battle quickly but on the side of the guy wearing the armor...isn't prolonging the battle (and his life) the whole reason for wearing armor? Cheaper? well yeah...but so is not having a weapon, lets all learn martial arts and get away from those capatilistic weapon dealers. ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 14:53:15 +0000 Subject: Re: SIZ isn't everything Liam McCauley: > How do people explain DEX training? Reactions can be increased > through combat training, and flexibility (does this come under DEX, > btw?) through stretching, but are these exercises ever done without > training something else at the same time? I always see true DEX training as 1) Very difficult to come by 2) Unrelated to other skills Reactions can be trained in combat training, but this is probably represented in the increased skill chances. Real DEX training could include things like the speed bag, punching/kicking/jumping with weights strapped to various parts of the anatomy, balancing acts plus a bit of table-tennis to round of the hand/eye coordination. What was the name of the telly show with Lee van Cleef as the occidental ninja? The Master? That had loads of non-combat training ideas. Nigel ------------------------------ From: Colin Watson Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 16:23:00 +0100 Subject: Re: Combat Skills Over 100% _______________ George W Harris: > In fact, Fanatacism is an ideal spell to cast on your opponent if you are > both highly skilled: suddenly they can't parry. Too right. And they can't heal themselves. This is the only sane way to use the spell. I can't remember anyone ever casting Fanticism on themselves. It's suicidal. > A suggestion I've made in the past is to allow a character to lower > their effective skill in 20% increments in return for various other benefits. > The ones I've considered are as follows: [...followed by several reasonable suggestions, deleted] _______________ Steven E Barnes replied: > I still don't like it. I'll post the reasons again, if anyone cares... I thought most of George's ideas were good. Certainly, doing more damage, improving SR or modifying hit locations seem like good uses of 100%+ skills. I'm not sure about subtracting from the other guy's parry/dodge tho... The main alteration I'd make would be to make the increments more significant. -20% is a bit too fiddly. A bit too prone to optimisation. A bit too likely to slow down combat. -50% feels like a better level to work with. For -50% you get, say: +3 on damage (maybe +5? +3 is pretty small beer) or +/-2 on hit location or 1 SR quicker Another option would be to allow a second attack. Not by splitting the skill down the middle as the current rule, but by allowing one attack at 100% and a second using the remainder of the skill. This would sort of simulate a feint. I suppose it would have to be clear to the defender which of the attacks was the full-strength (100%) one and which was the remainder - otherwise it's too huge an advantage for 100%+ fighters. ___ CW. ------------------------------ From: NDROBINS@NDROBINS.FIN.GOV.BC.CA Date: Mon, 10 Apr 95 08:43:55 PST Subject: Stat Training Neil Robinson Here: We have found a few problems with the current stat training system. However, a lot of it depends on how you look at the definitions of them. For example, does the SIZ mean your maximum potention size, or current size? Some people at the gym I just joined have definately gained size since working out, going from being skinney to very muscular (I'm not talking about the 'false' size concept). We play that size is based on current size, and can be increased. However, characters that are already in excellent physical shape (high strength/con) are assumed to be built up already. This allows my sage, who is detailed as tall and thin, to actually gain size along with strength if he lowered himself to such training. Someone asked about CON training. A three month 'boot-camp' would definately improve someone's endurance, if they weren't in shape already. Like skill training, stat training must be designed to become more difficult as the people gets better, or stronger, until becoming virtually impossible. Similarly, a low strength person should be about to get a big increase much faster. When you start to 'work out', the biggest changes and gains happen in the first six months. Neil (Who believes that INT should be trainable, but difficult to do). _______________________________________________________________ Neil Robinson NDROBINS@NDROBINS.FIN.GOV.BC.CA ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #188 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. 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