From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #179 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Wednesday, 7 February 1996 Volume 02 : Number 179 TABLE OF CONTENTS Stian A. Fagereng 2h as 1h Stian A. Fagereng 2h as 1h wisemanr wisemanr@dcs.gla.ac Attack % vs. Parry % Chris Johnson 1H vs. 2H weapons... Shawn Arthur Brueckner RQ Rules Digest: V2 #179 William C. Corbett More on STR-based damage Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG RQ Rules Digest: V2 #179 Brian Tickler Attacks & Parries ANDOVER@delphi.com Attacks & Parries David Cake Attacks & Parries Steve Lieb familiars Steve Lieb Thrown Weapons (fwd) RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Stian A. Fagereng" Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 09:33:06 MEZ-1MDZ Subject: RE: 2h as 1h *How the heck does he carry the damn thing?:-> * i imagine the sight. a man that is between 55-58 kg, and about 5 feet+. walking around with a sword that is longer than himself. pretty kewl .-) *************************************** * e-mail sko@cyber.hibo.no * *************************************** ------------------------------ From: "Stian A. Fagereng" Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 09:35:15 MEZ-1MDZ Subject: Re: 2h as 1h *I am 6'4" and weigh 320 pounds. Some consider me strong... (not me) You are big, even bigger than me .-) *************************************** * e-mail sko@cyber.hibo.no * *************************************** ------------------------------ From: wisemanr Date: Wed, 7 Feb 96 12:30:38 GMT Subject: Re: Attack % vs. Parry % Mark Please send me a copy of your RQ3 Attack/Parry tables. Cheers, Roy Wiseman. ------------------------------ From: "Chris Johnson [RQ]" Date: Wed, 7 Feb 96 09:42:34 -0800 Subject: 1H vs. 2H weapons... Using 2h weapons 1h seems to be a common request with large characters that aquire great strengh. My take on this is that most Players have the 'a sword is a sword is a sword' concept and don't realize that the damage done is as much a function of style/use as it is the actual weapon. ie. a 2h sword is *designed* to be used in a way that you can't simulate when used 1h. So when using a 2h weapon 1h: o Increase the STR/DEX requirements o Increase the SR of the Weapon o Decrease the DAM done by the weapon o ?Don't allow any/full DAM bonus? These would hopefully make the character think twice about why they are using the weapon 1h vs 2h. Chris Johnson rq@flamal.ssd.loral.com ------------------------------ From: Shawn Arthur Brueckner Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 10:18:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #179 What, there is an issue with the Agimori race wielding 2 handed tooth picks with one hand? Indeed we are men-and-a-half. I guess it may also infuriate some GM's that my character fared damn well in a horse race too. (yes damnit he was on foot). Personally i think such incidences add color to the scheme of the story. With respect, the players ARE meant to be the protagonists. Should we get bothered that Conan has forgotten his sandles before he mounts a horse and rides at full gallop in stirrups? These elements are essential, indeed define 'heroic fantasy'. Let the NPC's be the tossers. Hell, if we can't have fantastic lives in our fantasies we are bound for a nasty shake. PC's should be considered as the elite of the population albeit undeveloped. They are meant to be of high potenetial. -"what character do you play Shawn?", -"oh, i play a Praxian potatoe farmer. We recently discovered some farm lore that permited us to bless the governor with crisps!". My doesn't that sound like a great campaign! Admittedly I am being a bit crass but i have always had issue with stingy GM's. What's wrong with actually having a little fun in your campaigns? A slice of advice, don't take it personally when your pc's succeed in a campaign. The whole point of these things is recreation, not satiating some Deification of a GM's id. - -Back ground info.. I play Bomfasza, an agimori in Mr. Laurie's campaigns. ------------------------------ From: "William C. Corbett" <101524.442@compuserve.com> Date: 07 Feb 96 13:29:10 EST Subject: More on STR-based damage I've been thinking about some recent discussions, and putting them together. If you combine GURPS-type damage system (STR or STR+SIZ average based damage, lower for cutting and, especially, impaling weapons than RQ rules, but multiply cutting by 1.5 and impaling by 2 after armour). with RQ3 rules erratta giving 'soft' armour only half AP vs. crushing weapons. (I prefer to use 'rigid' and 'flexible' rather than 'hard' and 'soft', as chainmail is most definately 'flexible', but hardly 'soft'!) you can find this possibility: if a cutting or impaling weapon fails to penetrate flexible armour, it may still have effect. Although the cutting edge or piercing point has been stopped, the force of the blow continues: the damage is treated as blunt weapon damage, meaning flexible armour has only half normal AP (round up) against it. NO multiple due to weapon type is applied to this, and the weapon is not treated as having penetrated armour for purposes of applying poison, etc. Also the following 'Special' occurred to me; Cutting Specil roll; The attacker may make another attack roll at half his initial %age (after all modifications), as the swing continues. The following rules apply: Subsequent rolls can result in further specials. These will be at half the %age of the previous attack. The GM may limit the location of subsequent hits to logical areas, or may simply declare illogical hits invalid, halting the sequence. All passive defences (armour, magic, etc.) apply equally against all extra blows. The defender may repeat his active defence (parry or Dodge) used against the initial attack. This is a deliberate exception to the usual rule, made since the special extra hits are really an extention to the initial swing the defences were used against. If the defender used no such defence against the initial blow, he may not make one against the extra attacks. I don't think this too severe, as with GURPS-type damage cutting and impaling weapons will do far less damage before armour, and so will be far less able to penetrate armour (unless you're prepared to completely re-write the armour rules, including for all natural armours - almost all of which should count as flexible armour). The cutting special does no extra damage, and was inspired by a real recent case where a man was murdered by a single overhead axe blow which smashed his skull, severed his jugular vein and pierced a lung. Three fatal wounds from one attack! I'd also use the GURPS rule that chainmail has only half AP against impaling weapons. Arrow and spear points, rather than being deflected as they would be from plate armour, are caught by the links, actually increasing the impact. Fine points, such as war arrows, can also fit quite well between the links, injuring the wearer without even breaking through the armour (honest, I've tried it - on a straw target!). Admitedly, spear points are considerably wider, but I should imagine the effect is still there (our re-enactment spears and swords have safe, round, blunt points, so I can't test this). Do NOT half the AP again to calculate blunt damage using the above rule. I think that makes the reduction in damage for a STR-based damage system quite attractive, with a minimum of re-writing. Basic damage should be slightly lower than the GURPS system, since that system gives more hits per location before disablement (50% of hits for an arm, for example). Overall, though RQ characters have more Hit Points, better armour and higher STR for damage calculation (especially if average STR/SIZ is used). Animal attacks would need some work: GURPS ignores its own damage system and just assigns fixed damage rolls to these, as strengths are usually too high. ------------------------------ From: bernuetz.oliver@ic.gc.ca (Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 14:31:38 -0500 Subject: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #179 >What, there is an issue with the Agimori race wielding 2 handed tooth >picks with one hand? Indeed we are men-and-a-half. Actually I don't have any problem with Agrimori wielding 2handed spears one-handed. In fact I like the colour it gives the world. I did hate the old RQ2 business where they were pikemen. Now that bugged me.:-> Oliver D. Bernuetz bernuetz.oliver@ic.gc.ca ------------------------------ From: tickler@netcom.com (Brian Tickler) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 14:28:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Attacks & Parries Sorry it took so long to respond, but I'm pretty busy these days... somebody wrote: > >>I'm just curious as to how characters get to Rune Lord or skills over > 100% ? Most of the people I play with have been playing for years and > once you get to 75% in a skill you really slow down in advancement. > Experience rolls really take a lot of time to give you increases.<< > something have an easier time mastering the subject. If you play RQ2, use the 2d6+6 for INT rolls in the errata, "play for years and years", and are in a campaign that doesn't have CoC-level death rates and doesn't give 1-2 checks/adventure, is inevitable that skills will go over 100%. RQ3 is another story. Not having 5% increases slows things down, and modifiers can bring things to a screeching halt. > From: ANDOVER@delphi.com > Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 10:16:23 -0500 (EST) > Subject: Re: Attacks & Parries > > Chuckle. Andrew, I raised this point a while back. In more than 15 years > of fairly continuous RQ play, our group had exactly ONE Rune character, a > player who STARTED with an 18 POW under the RQ II Rules. Obviously, most > RQ players/GMs, in between the standard complaining about AD&D "Monty > Haul" games, play their own version. That's why they spend so much time > worrying about their RL/RP illuminated characters with their 250% axe > attacks fighting the Thanatari characters with 200% attacks! It also > developed that many players believed that campaigns in which their > characters never died should be called "heroic," though for the life of > me I couldn't see what was heroic about not being really in danger. But > we followed this line for a while some time back! Jim Chapin Your interpretation of events is quite inspired... I had no idea that so many of my previous posts had had such a profound effect on your life, Jim, but let me address these thinly-veiled attacks: 1. The AD&D "Monty Haul" post I made "some time back" was a humorous one, not a "complaining" one. 2. As I noted above, eclipsing 100% is inevitable in a long-running mainstream RQ2 campaign. Ask around. I play few variants on the rules, none of which have anything to do with skill increases. As for why your campaign is so far off-kilter, I could only speculate. I've seen campaigns that kill off characters at a prodigious rate, or campaigns that give out checks at a snail's pace (sometimes going several game sessions without a single check), or campaigns with players who prefer to retire their PCs often and start new ones. 3. Just for the record, the character whose stats you were mocking is 200% with his primary weapon. He is not Illuminated. None of his other skills are above 160%. Having played for 16 years real time and about 20-25 years game time, I fail to see how these skill levels are unreasonable. I've played this particular PC somewhere around 300-400 times, with a 14 INT, in a campaign where a Stormbull can reasonably be expected to be in combat is at least 75% of the game sessions. Do some math. Your attempt to portray me as the poster-boy for out-of-control RQ campaigns is uncalled for. 4. Your comment about how "it developed" that some people believe that their campaigns are "heroic" is pure fiction. As far as I know, not a single post from myself or anyone else made such a claim. This apparently "developed" in your own mind. Sorry to everyone for posting such a vehement reply, but I just don't take kindly to these type of back-handed shots being taken under the guise of "informing" a third party... - -- Brian T. Tickler E-Mail: tickler@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 20:38:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Attacks & Parries Err, Brian, if anything is developing in any one's mind, it is yours. I was in fact referring to an impassioned discussion a while back. Jim Chapin ------------------------------ From: David Cake Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 09:51:46 +0800 Subject: Re: Attacks & Parries Just to stamp out the minor brushfire over wether the amount of high skills/ Rune levels in your party reflects your GMing - - I have had an initially created character, rolled strictly according to the rules, who qualified for Rune Lord AT CHARACTER CREATION under RQ3. A green elf, who rolled 15 years of previous experience (elves roll on 2d8), and was a warrior, so several skills (notably bow, hide, and sneak, which are sufficient to qualify for Wood Lord) where at 15 x 5 = base chance + bonus + 75%. and as has been repeatedly pointed out - with fanaticism, it doesn't take much before high skill levels are being thrown around, even with no weaponmasters in the party. And begining Rune levels, with skills around 100%, are still going to throw up situations of skills over 150% fairly often (fanaticism, berserk, etc.). The high powered campaigns just feel the problems more urgently, thats all. David Computing Officer |"Our machines are disturbingly lively, Arts Faculty UWA |and we ourselves frighteningly inert." davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au | -Donna Haraway >Microsoft, meanwhile, denies that the problem exists. ------------------------------ From: liebx004@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Steve Lieb) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 21:48:55 -0600 Subject: Re: familiars > >> >My preference for familiars has always been nymphs. A niad is stonger, >> >smarter, faster and has much higher POW than the sorcerer (or any other >> >possibility) and it requires only SIZ to create. >> >> Sure, that's what you SAY your reasons are. Yah, sure. Any other >> advantages you may have left out? >> Steve Lieb > >As I said, the trick is convincing the critter that it would like to be a >familiar, then keeping them reasonably happy > >The techique is obvious, the trick is in the execution. . . > Not to beat this subject into a too-dead horse, but did anyone else's political-correctness gland twinge when reading in the RQ3 Magic book about the sorcerer's summoning of a nymph "...aside from the obvious uses of such a creature..."? And to think, I've owned that book since the first month it came out and never really noticed. I must certainly be that sexist oppressor i keep hearing about. ;) Steve Lieb (liebx004@maroon.tc.umn.edu) (Who continues to suffer from .sig bloat - and therefore has clipped the whole thing. Wait . . .) ------------------------------ From: liebx004@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Steve Lieb) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 22:29:08 -0600 Subject: Re: Thrown Weapons (fwd) >From: Marcus Lindberg > > > Thrown weapons sucks in the RQIII campaign I plays. In order to correct this ahistorical aspect of RQ (it was the case long ago in our campaign, too) we came up with an easy fix: Thrown weapons are the ONLY weapons useable while charging. Also, if the character is charging, normally they only get one action in the round. If the character OPENS the charge by using a throwing weapon, they can do that without costing SR or an action, i.e. can charge, & still attack (if they have the SR for it!). Now, it's almost de rigeur for a hail of missiles just before impact of the melee types. Feels right for us. Usually they have a penalty of -15% per MoveRate to hit. (i.e. a human at full move is -45% to hit) Of course, we also give a +25% at point blank range, so it works out. Steve Lieb (liebx004@maroon.tc.umn.edu) (Who continues to suffer from .sig bloat - and therefore has clipped the whole thing. Wait . . .) ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #179 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists. WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html