From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V3 #60 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Friday, 6 September 1996 Volume 03 : Number 060 TABLE OF CONTENTS Malcolm Cohen Feints Glenn Glazer (Fwd) POW & Enchantment ian i. gorlick mindlink and extension 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: malcolm@nag.co.uk (Malcolm Cohen) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 17:02:11 +0000 (BST) Subject: Re: Feints Well, this is a bit old (I have been away), but here is my 2p worth anyway. Alain RAMEAU said: > > In relation to the on-going discussion relating to the feints, I > propose my additional combat options : > > * waiting for an opportunity : the attacker add 1D10 to his Strike > Rank. If the result is above 10, he loses his attack. If the result is > 10 or less, he attacks at that SR and the defense of the adversary > (parry or dodge) is halved. Two criticisms: (1) adds yet another die roll (on top of the optional decision-making) (2) too lethal. A reasonably big and fast attacker with a long weapon (SR 5) effectively gets to halve his opponents defence for a halving of his own attack chance; making a smaller/slower/shorter-weaponed opponent into mincemeat in relatively short order, even if said opponent is a weapons master! This really does not make much sense to me, basically because SR do not work well as "how long it takes" measures [after having swung with the big weapon, one must wind it back up - which does not matter in normal melee but a lot in this option]. > * full attack : the attacker add 1SR, get one additionnal bonus level > (+0 becomes +1D4, +1D4 becomes +1D6, ...), but the defense of the > adversary (parry or dodge) is multiplied by 1.5. [Hmm, what comes after +1d6? I assume something like +1d6+2,+2d6,+2d6+2,+3d6] The trouble here is that a non-parrying non-dodging opponent gets creamed. There are many situations where an opponent cannot parry/dodge - just after a fumble, when fighting two attackers, when berserk, etc. This option just wipes them out - consider a fighter with 10-point armour who for some reason cannot parry one round, being attacked by a wimp with a SR7 broadsword and no damage bonus; under normal rules, he is ok unless someone specials, under this option he will probably take 1d8+1+2d6+2 i.e. 6-23 points for a NORMAL hit! Certainly makes the D&D "thieves' backstab" into a good RQ feature: the thieves start using long spears (to get their SR down to 5!) and get +20% attack with 1d10+1+3d6+2 damage (assuming no damage bonus) on a normal hit. Anyway, the "full attack" name sounds like one is going for an all-out attack, obviously the cost of this ought to be that one gets no parry/dodge. > * counter-attack : if the attacker has a lower SR than the adversary, > he may suspend his attack until the next SR after the adversary's > attack. If the adversary fails his attacks, the counter-attacker > attack skill is multiplied by 1.5. What about the 2-onto-1 situation? This looks unworkable unless the adversary is specified at the beginning of the melee round (which is not necessary under the normal rules). Since the SR really only affects who goes first (because after the very first blow in a combat, each hits alternately), this looks like an almost-free lunch for the fighter with the lower SR - by giving up the initial blow of the combat he gets all his remaining blows to land at 1.5 times the usual skill! This is MUCH better than the Fanaticism spell! > * lethal hit : the attacker may increase the damage done by 1 point > for each 10% of decrease of his attack skill. For exemple, a 60% > attacker can add +3 damages if he hits with only 30% attack. If the > roll is above such reduced percentage (even if under the original > attack skill), the attack is missed. I assume that the 10% decrease is applied as per usual penalties, i.e. the crit/spec chances go down with it. Hmm, there is no glancing blow possible for this? Also, there is already a combat option ("full attack") for increasing damage, why have two doing such similar things. Actually, I do not mind this one so much (it is much better than "full attack") but it does make high skill levels much more deadly against low-level opps (because since they do not need the crit/spec chance so much, they just lower their attack chance to c. 95% and take the damage increase). It seems odd when one considers a 50% fighter vs a 100% fighter who is using this option. They both hit half the time, but the 100% fighter does +5 damage! I find this difficult to imagine. ALTERNATIVE alternative suggestions: - ------------------------------------ > * waiting for an opportunity : ... halve opponents defence Feint: A special parry halves that opponent's defence (parry/dodge) to a return blow in the same round; requires [obviously] that the attack was delayed to allow this to happen. [one could remove this requirement, but then it requires remembering this stuff across melee rounds - as a GM, I do not like that]. > * full attack : ... extra damage, maybe mitigated by extra defence Two attacks (or +20% to one attack) and no parry/dodge. [in the old draft RQ4 terms, take two actions to attack] > * counter-attack : ... extra hit prob by delaying blow Riposte: critical dodge/parry gets free hit on attacker. > * lethal hit : ... +1 damage for each voluntary -10% attack penalty Although I did not object to this one, it does not seem to add anything much. The rationale seems unconvincing, and the special/critical rules (not to mention Bladesharp et al) we have seem to give us enough opportunities to do large amounts of damage. Cheers, - -- ...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K. (malcolm@nag.co.uk) ------------------------------ From: Glenn Glazer Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:11:20 -0700 Subject: Re: (Fwd) POW & Enchantment At 01:02 09/05/96 +0000, Steven wrote: >I think I sent this to the wrong address the first time. Sorry if >anyone gets more than one copy of it. > >Here's my thoughts on POW and enchantments. > And some excellent thoughts they were. I have printed them out and put them in with my RQ stuff. These are exactly the ideas I was throwing around earlier AND you quantified them. KUTGW, Glenn \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly,' meaning 'many,' and from the word 'ticks,' meaning 'blood sucking parasites. - anon /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ From: "ian (i.) gorlick" Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 17:07:00 -0400 Subject: mindlink and extension Hal: The scenario you suggest with 100 initiates all mindlinked to a priest will work as you describe. If each initiate has 1 extension and 1 shield, then the priest can cast a Shield 100 with 100 points of extension. However, note that the initiates would also have to provide about 100 points of mindlink, for a total cost of 3 one-use spells per initiate. (The priest is unlikely to have more than 3 or 4 points of mindlink or extension himself.) It may seem really gross, but the opportunity to use such a spell will be very rare. (And it probably causes so much disturbance of the magical planes that it attracts unwanted attention and interference from your enemies.) Remember that a typical initiate is assumed to gain only 1 POW per 5 years, so the preceding scenario takes 15 years of spiritual development from 100 people. You won't be able to do it very often. To make things even more gross, I actually rule that Extension gives 4 times duration rather than just double duration. I reason that, since each point of Duration by a sorceror give double duration to a spell, and since divine spells are supposed to be about twice as powerful per point as sorcery or spirit spells, then it follows that a point of divine Extension should extend the duration of a spell by 4 times. Pts of Extension Duration of spell 0 15 min 1 1 hr 2 4 hr 3 16 hr 4 32 hr 5 Who cares! No one ever has 5 points or more Extension. This strikes me as a fair value for a spell like Extension. A good priest might have up to 3 points of Extension which means he can set up one spell to last for a full working day. This will cost him at least 4 days worth of prayer and meditation to recover. I figure that most priests can't afford to have more than about 3 points of any one divine spell. There are just too many other spells they need and not enough POW to get them all. (This won't be true if you use a Runepower system, so just ignore all this if you do.) ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V3 #60 ****************************** 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. 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