From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #14 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, 14 November 1994 Volume 01 : Number 014 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. RQR: will be prepended to it. 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 Re: RQR: Formats and stuff Re: RQR: RQ4 Shamen RQR: Re: Spirit Combat Re: RQR: Re: Spirit Combat RQR: Rules according to Jonas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 16:37:56 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Formats and stuff >The fourth issue, good rules, is not as hard as you might think. RQIII had >rough spots, as do all games. My answer when I left AH was to scrap >RQ:AiG/RQ4 and do RQ3.1 instead. Which if Greg is planning to pull the rug out from under RQs feet with a new Glorantha game (which to his credit, may well be a very good game) may be the only really viable commercial idea. Pull out the character generation system, >the shamanism, the fatigue, and the sorcery from RQIV and put it into RQIII. But here, strangely enough, 3 out of your 4 areas are my least favourite bits of RQ:AIG. Sorcery is at least a big improvement over RQ3, but it is definately a bit of a dogs breakfast - a bit of this, a bit of that, what ends up in the final rules being a process of compromise that tries to please everybody, rather than a well designed system. Shamanism is a very bad execution of a reasonable idea. A rewrite of it could result in a good system, though. Or just going back to RQ4, and extensions to RQ3, and you could have a system that was completely compatible with RQ3, but with a bit more flavour and a bit more playability. Fatigue in RQ4 I personally really dislike, and the list (when it was discussed, a long time ago) seemed divided on wether the practice of adding directly to a roll, rather than subtracting from the chance, was clever or disastrous. I fall in the latter camp - but I can always change it for myself. I do agree that any large scale change from RQ3 (like the weapon and armour changes that I have been harping on about forever) are a bad thing at this stage in the game - we should be aiming to modularly replace bad rules, rather than make changes to the guts of the game. We may not do even that in any commercial form. It speaks very poorly for both Chaosium and Avalon Hill that they have allowed so much work to end up a stage were it looks most likely that it will be wasted, seemingly mostly through just a bad case of 'Not Invented Here' syndrome and communication breakdown. Cheers Dave > >Joe Scott ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 16:38:29 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: RQ4 Shamen >> However, I really disliked everyone having Spirit Combat (as in RQ4 >>2.0), and I find that the whole spirit combat system is even more broken >>than before. One notable problem is that the 'parry and spirit combat' >>routine used if being attacked by a spirit in melee does not work adequatly >>in RQ:AIG, so spirit attacks in melee are real killers (even more than >>being ganged up on by two physical opponents). > >At that point, would prefer to go back to the RQ3 MP vs. MP combat? It is still rather boring. Perhaps I would rather have RQ3 mp vs mp be the default, and the Spirit Combat skill and other innovations be the standards for shamans? >At >that point everyone would still have the capability to combat spirits >(they all have MP), but would not have to actually strive to develop their >Spirit Combat skill to survive. > Definately. This is pretty much what is done by RQ:AIG, isn't it? it is very important to remove the idea of separate 'attack' and 'parry' actions necessary for spirit combat, though. In RQ2, fighting in spirit combat cost you one of your two actions, so you could spirit combat fight and defend. If you didn't, you still got to defend. In otherwords, everyone got to 'spirit combat defend' for free, and to 'spirit combat attack' cost an action. I would like to return to this. The RQAIG system makes being ganged up on, either by more than one spirit or by a spirit and a human, quite devastating. It is more devastating than being ganged up on by two physical opponents - apart from no passive defenses (other than spells which not everyone has - and which take another action to cast, when you already have a desperate action shortage), the chance to hit is dependent on actively defending - if you do not defend they are almost guranteed to hit. If you do defend, but do not attack, you will steadily go down anyway. And you can't simply defend for a little while, and then return to the spirit opponent - because if you ignore it for a few rounds, and then return to it, the damage it will have got in will make your chances of success vastly lower. In contrast to physical attacks, where defensive actions can actually stop you from being harmed quite well, in RQAIG spirit combat defense just stops you from getting creamed. I would simply make spirit combat attack an action, and remove the idea of an explicit spirit defense. >> The Spirit Travel skill is a good idea, probably. Same with Spirit >>Scan. They do fulfill a useful purpose in the game, though they I can see >>people not wanting to bother with them. Spirit dance (from RQAIG) is not as >>useful, and seems to be mostly there to follow the general trend of making >>spirit combat work the same as physical combat, which I dislike even more >>than boring old RQ3 spirit combat. > >I suspect that "boring" was one of the reasons it was changed, figuring that >since much of the dangerous spirit combat would occur during melee actions >(although not all), they might just as well extend it up into the spirit >plane as well... > And I suspect they didn't playtest it to find out how dangerous it could be! I did and was quite surprised at how bad it was (it looked OK on paper...). It was both even more dull than RQ3, and far more lethal if attacked during melee. >A solution might be (depending on what bothers you about the RQ4 spirit >combat) is to have spirit combat only apply if both entities are on the >spirit plane. If the activity is cross-planar, perhaps the subtle nuances >of spirit combat are useless, and its back to the old headbashing school of >spirit combat: mana a mana, as it were. (:)) > :-) ... but the problem is that, apart from shamans, the rest of spirit combat is still deadly dull. Oh well, maybe there is not much that can be done about it. >At that point, I'd reduce the number of skills that a shamen has to develop >to survive in the spirit plane, (incorporating Spirit Dance into Spirit >Combat, etc.) > Perhaps. I would basically cut down on the number of spirit combat based skills, but I wouldn't mind a few more non-combat based magic skills for shamans. > >The Divine Mage had Rune Spells and D.I. > And pretty good spirit magic, and generally good support. >The Sorceror had his versatility, especially when you got into the >(noncanonical, I guess) skills of Quicken, Ease, etc. > I find that sorcerers are far more versatile in the collective than in the individual. Individual sorcerers often have a very limited number of things that they can do, though they do them very well. >THe Shaman had the best Spirit magic around (no big surprise), as well as >captured spirits, etc. > The captured spirits I have found to be the most important ability, rather than the spirit magic. I also find that the power of the fetch is reduced by simply making PC shamans members of shamanic divine cults, and then the lust for Rune Magic tends to overcome the long term desire to get the fetches POW up, or at least slow it down. >> I would like any future shaman write up to mention things like >>ancestor worship, spirit cults, and other common shaman uses of divine >>magic. > >I assume that a Shaman has to join one of the spirit cults to get the divine >magic, correct? > Yes. It seems that most Gloranthan shamans are part of a larger religion (Waha, Telmori or other Hsunchen, Ancestor Worship, Flamal or Aldrya, Kygor Litor, Pamalt, are all well known and fairly large examples), which is a major source of responsibility, and grants a moderate selection of Rune spells, and that a shaman remains in for his entire career. Then in addition there are many spirit cults (Troll gods has an excellent list for trolls, and the Digest/Daily has featured writeups for some Praxian ones), and I suspect that most shamans will have been in a few at various times. So most shamans have at least some rune magic, and many have quite wide access to rune magic. There are shamans who use no or very little rune magic, but I think that they are the exception rather than the rule (the Telmori Ituvanu, for example). Cheers Dave > >\Rollin. ------------------------------ From: henkl@Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 10:17:31 --100 Subject: RQR: Re: Spirit Combat > From: Daniel Tartaglia > Date: Sat, 12 Nov 1994 17:35:11 -0500 > Subject: RQR: Re: Spirit Combat > > Hears my idea on how one can do spirit combat. This idea would also work as > a replacement for the resistance table. > > Use the following formula: yourMP / (yourMP + opponentsMP) * 100 > > This would give you a % chance of success that you must roll under. [example...] > > Of course these chances would change as the combatants lost points. Have you been following the discussions on the desire to reduce the amount of artihmetic needed during a game session? This would only increase that... ------------------------------ From: Jon Green Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 04:32:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Spirit Combat > Hears my idea on how one can do spirit combat. This idea would also work as > a replacement for the resistance table. > > Use the following formula: yourMP / (yourMP + opponentsMP) * 100 I've two problems with this formuala: 1) I don't like _any_ rule which needs a calculator (or huge lookup-chart) in order to operate - the existing resistance table can at least be calcualted mentally by most people - and; 2) it would imply that the spirit combatant is resisting themself as much as their opponent. Why is the Resistance roll a problem? Jon - -- jonsg@hyphen.com jon@sundome.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ From: jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se (Jonas Schiott) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 19:42:46 +0000 Subject: RQR: Rules according to Jonas This is a summary of (portions of) what my house rules look like right now. They could change any minute. My primary motivation for working on these rules is that I want to write something that's generic, applicable to any game world, in Swedish, and that suits my style of play. So there's nothing specifically Gloranthan here, but since it's mostly based on systems familiar to you all I thought I'd post it anyway. Most of what's here has to do with combat - I might post other kinds of rules later if there's any interest. Much of my original inspiration came from the articles on PenDragon Pass and RuneDragon. In fact, I originally had exactly the same damage/weapon charts as the later. However, the very first playtest showed them to be badly broken (sorry, Walter...), so I've revised them considerably. Some of the ideas (from both RD and PDP) can still be found here more or less intact, though. THE BASICS I use Pendragon resolution (D20, opposed/unopposed rolls). By David Dunham's definition, this disqualifies the following as a RQ version, but much of it (the tables, frex) should be usable even with a RQn system. Oh, and I round _all_ fractions _up_ (keeps things slightly simpler). THE STATS The usual ones, barring INT (adventurers have no intelligence...) and APP/CHA (I'm fed up with it). Movement: Pendragon. I donUt agree with AiG's replacement of STR with SIZ. Characters can run at x2 (getting a -5 in combat or other skill use) for CON minutes or sprint at x3 (-10) for CON rounds. Hit Points, Magic Points: RQ. I use AiG's damage results (0HP=unconsciousness, -(original HP)=death), and have extended this logic to MP (i.e. you can die from losing/using too many MP). You can voluntarily reduce your MP below 0, BTW. Hit Points Per Location work out to exactly the same values as in AiG. Which is strange, considering that _they_ claim to use a different method of rounding fractions... ;-) When it comes to the results of hit location damage, I'm undecided between RQ3 and AiG. At the moment I'm trying the later, but the jury is still out. SIZ+STR Base Damage Minimum 1D2 2 - 8 1D4 9 - 16 1D6 17 - 24 1D8 25 - 32 1D10 33 - 40 2D6 41 - 48 1D8+1D6 49 - 56 2D8 57 - 64 1D10+1D8 65 - 72 2D10 73 - 80 2D8+1D6 81 - 88 3D8 89 - 96 1D10+2D8 97 - 104 2D10+1D8 105 - 112 3D10 113 - 120 4D8 121 - 128 1D10+3D8 129 - 136 2D10+2D8 137 - 144 3D10+1D8 145 - 152 4D10 153 - 160 1D10+4D8 161 - 168 2D10+3D8 169 - 176 3D10+2D8 177 - 184 4D10+1D8 185 - 192 5D10 193 - 200 2D10+4D8 and so forth... This table might raise a few eyebrows, but it's really very simple, with a straightforward logic behind it. As you might guess, I'm no fan of straight adds. :-) With my system, even giants can strike glancing blows. There isn't much mention of magic in this summary, as I haven't gotten around to playtesting in Glorantha yet, but weapon-enhancing spells should increase damage by one step on the table per MP (again, no straight adds). Direct damage-causing spells should also be related to the table (the point of a table like this one is that it applies to _everything_), perhaps at the rate of 1MP=1 step, 1POW=2 steps (I would probably make Disruption variable, or maybe just turn it into a 2pt spell)? SKILLS Pretty much the usual set, with a few additions and subtractions. Most notably, I've scrapped all the skills for social interaction (Fast Talk, Bargain etc); I've always felt that they just get in the way. Who wants to interrupt role-playing for a lot of meaningless dice-rolling? And if you want hints on _how_ to role-play (as the suggested rule in AiG goes), roll Human Lore or something like that... I use a skill which is part Maneuver, part Dodge and a little Battle; the Swedish name for it doesn't translate easily, so in the next section I'll just call it "Maneuver" since that's its main function anyway. COMBAT Combat Rounds are somewhere between 1 and 10 seconds long, depending on the type of combat (firefights are quicker paced than melees), but the average value of 5-6 seconds is usually applicable when in doubt. Each person gets one action (at full skill) per round. Movement up to your Move in meters is the only 'free' action, all other attempts to do several things at once (Run and fight, draw weapon and fight etc.) give a -5 modifier to both actions. Melee is opposed resolution, as in Pendragon, abstracting attacks, parries, ripostes and dodges into one roll. The big difference in my system is that if the loser gets a partial success, rolled damage is halved before armor, _plus_ if he/she has a shield it's worth 3 AP. Criticals double rolled damage (instead of doubling the number of dice - mostly to provide symmetry with the previous rule, but also to make criticals slightly more extreme). Missile attacks are normally unopposed, but the target can attempt to dodge (which is an action) by opposing it with DEX or Manuever, whichever is _lower_ (no modifier for thrown weapons, -5 for projectiles). Roll Hit Location as in RQ3, but with AiG rules for higher/lower ground (weapons with Length=>2 are considered long). Knockback is RQ3 for the moment - I'm not entirely happy with it, but AiG is definitely no improvement. There's a bunch of situational modifiers, but apart from the ones I mention below they're pretty standard. Melee Weapon Damage Type Length Unarmed Base-3! Crushing 0 Onehanded: Dagger Base-1! Piercing 0 Gladius Base-1* Piercing 1 Rapier Base-1 Piercing 1 Sword Base Slashing 1 Wood Axe Base Slashing 1 Battle Axe Base+1 Slashing 1 Cestus Base-2! Crushing 0 Club Base-1 Crushing 1 Mace Base Crushing 1 Flail Base Crushing 1 Pick Base Piercing 1 Spear Base-1* Piercing 2 Shield Base-1 Crushing 0 Twohanded: Long Spear Base* Piercing 3 Greatsword Base+1 Slashing 2 Great Axe Base+2 Slashing 2 Staff Base Crushing 2 Maul Base+1 Crushing 2 ! Max 1D10 * Min 1D6 Longer weapon gets +2/-2 until opponent closes; then the tables are turned until the one with the longer weapon manages to increase distance again. Sword (including greatsword and rapier, but _not_ gladius) gives +1/-1 vs all other weapons, except staffs. Missile Weapon Damage Type ROF Range Rock Base-2! Crush 3 STR Knife Base-1! Pierce 2 STR Axe Base Slash 1 STR Spear Base-1* Pierce 1 STR Sling 1D8 Crush 1 50 Staff Sling 1D10 Crush 1 60 Self Bow, L 1D4 Pierce 1 60 Self Bow, M 1D6 Pierce 1 60 Self Bow, H 1D8 Pierce 1 60 Composite Bow, L 1D6 Pierce 1 60 Composite Bow, M 1D8 Pierce 1 60 Composite Bow, H 1D10 Pierce 1 60 Long Bow, L 1D6 Pierce 1 80 Long Bow, M 1D8 Pierce 1 80 Long Bow, H 1D10 Pierce 1 80 Crossbow, L 1D8 Pierce 1/2 40 Crossbow, M 1D10 Pierce 1/3 60 Crossbow, H 2D6 Pierce 1/4 80 Range is base range (in meters); every multiple of range after the first gives -5 to hit and -1 damage class (cumulative). The light, medium and heavy bows require STR 5, 9 and 13 respectively. X-heavy bows (STR 17) could be made by a skilled bowyer on request. For those interested in giant-size (or pixie-size) bows, damage is found by using STRx2 (instead of SIZ+STR) on the base damage chart, -1 for self bows. Armor AP: C P S Cloth 0 0 1 Heavy Cloth 1 1 2 Quilted 2 1 2 Padding 3 1 2 Soft Leather 1 1 1 Hard Leather 1 2 2 Cuir-bouilli 1 3 3 Studded Leather 2 1 2 Ringmail 2 2 3 Bezainted 2 3 3 Scale 2 4 4 Brigandine 3 4 5 Chainmail 1 2 4 Reinforced Chainmail 2 3 5 Lamellar 1 4 5 Laminated 2 5 5 Plate 3 6 6 Helm AP: C P S Leather Hood 1 1 1 Leather Cap 1 2 2 Studded Leather Hood 2 1 2 Composite Helm 2 2 3 Chainmail Coif 1 2 4 Open Helm 2 3 4 Closed Helm 2 4 5 Full Helm 3 6 6 Special Tactics (only one of these can be used at a time): Aim - Specify high (hit location roll 1D10+10) or low (1D10), a critical hits exact location aimed for but only does normal damage. All-out Defense - Gives +5, but even on a win you do no damage. All-out Offense - Gives a +5 bonus at the cost of forfeiting any partial success, so if you should lose despite this tactic you have no defense other than your armor. Close or Increase Distance - The fighter with the disadvantage of weapon length can gain an advantage instead by first winning the normal resolution, and then instead of doing damage making a second opposed resolution of Maneuver skills. A win on this second roll means the modifiers are switched next round. Disarm - Requires a special skill. First resolve the combat (with a modifier for the small target); if the disarmer wins make a new opposed resolution between Disarm skill and the opponent's STR (STRx1.5 if weapon is held with both hands); winning means the weapon is knocked away. Disengage - Oppose Maneuver skills, the one with the highest Move getting a positive modifier equal to the difference. The one trying to disengage can on a win move away his Move (or more, if the normal negative modifier is accepted on the Maneuver roll) in meters while the opponent has to stay put, on a tie both stand still and nothing happens, a loss means you can move away if you like but the enemy can stay right behind you (if he so chooses) and gets an unopposed attack at your back (a partial success on the original Manuever resolution halves damage but you can't use a shield). Feint - Requires a special skill. Oppose Feint vs Manuever before the normal combat. If the feinter wins, his opponent's armor (including shield) is considered to have half its normal AP this round (on a critical Feint, all armor is completely ignored); if he loses he can't do any damage this round, even if he wins the normal resolution. Flurry - Requires a special skill. Roll Flurry vs Manuever; on a win, the one using this tactic can roll his weapon skill twice, the second roll being unopposed. But neither of them can gain extra damage from any criticals rolled unless the Flurry roll was a critical. On a loss the 'flurrier' does no damage (as on a lost Feint). Snap Shots - Doubles ROF at the cost of -10 to all attacks. Split Skill - Allocate a portion of your skill to defense (no damage possible) and roll against your opponent with this portion; then use the rest of your skill for an unopposed attack. Really cocky fighters _can_ put 0 points into defense, the opposite is theoretically possible but sort of pointless (an all-out defense is much more effective). Two Weapons - Fighting with a weapon in each hand allows a roll for each skill (which still counts as just one action, BTW); all wins hit, but no partial success is possible and if the opponent beats _either_ (or both, of course) of the rolls, he hits too - alternately, if he would be hit by one of the rolls, he can choose to ignore (no damage) the one he beat and take a partial success against the one that beat him. COMMENTS It might look as if I've reduced damage so much that fights will become interminable, but actually I've just put them on a par with normal RQ combats - PDP/RD fights are excessively bloody and short because a succesful roll is meaningless if you don't win, and most fantasy characters don't wear as much armor or carry shields as often as Pendragon knights, so even skilled combatants die quickly just from bad luck. With my rules, fights between skilled and unskilled fighters are still over quickly, while evenly matched opponents can slug it out a bit longer while mostly getting scrapes and bruises - if one or the other gets impatient, he can always take his chances with some special tactic. Since the system is supposed to be generic, I've worked up some weapons and rules for modern and futuristic games, but these haven't been tested at all so I won't reveal them just yet. There's been some discussion of spirit combat on this list, so how would that work with my rules? I guess an opposed resolution (of either MP or POW, not sure yet), with 1D6 'damage', halved by a partial success. An option is basing damage on POW (per the base damage table - this will still give most characters 1D6), but I feel that would stack things too much in favor of high-POW beings. I guess it (basing damage on POW, or maybe even MP) _could_ work if chance of success is completely separated from POW, giving everyone a Spirit Combat skill instead. ( Jonas Schiott ) ( Institutionen for Ide- och lardomshistoria ) ( Goteborgs Universitet ) ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #14 ****************************** This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. 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