From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #25 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Tuesday, 22 November 1994 Volume 01 : Number 025 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 Dave Pearton RQR: Horse campaigns Kevin Rose RQR: Nomads & Enchantments V1 #24 Bryan J. Maloney RQR: Mounted rulings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Pearton Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 22:00:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: RQR: Horse campaigns Greetings, Just my bit about horses and combat. The scythians, mongols, pechenegs, huns, etc all appear to have bows that we already strung when on horseback - if you examine the art about and by these peoples they all have saddle bow-cases capable of holding a strung composite bow. As to the scythian lance I always had the impression that they used the lance in an overhand style, thus more as a stabbing spear than a couched lance. So I would rule that the animal's str bonus would not count (or at least not to any huge extent), however that would also mean that the rides would not generally be thrown head-over-tip from the impact despite not being able to brace for the impact. A lance is just one of the weapons uasable from a horse, however - a typical mongol cavalryman carried an axe, mace, lariat, bow, multiple quivers of arrows, sword and sometimes javelin or lance. Not someone I would care to piss-off. Cheers, Yak - -- *********************************************************************** Dave Pearton * ....As I was saying before I Biochemistry Dept. * was so rudely interrupted University of Washington * by one of my multiple Seattle * personalities.... pearton@u.washington.edu * pearton@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za * Naked Lunch (W.S. Burroughs) ************************************************************************ ------------------------------ From: Kevin Rose Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 01:33:47 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: Re: Nomads & Enchantments V1 #24 Mounted Combat: You've certainlly done more research than I have, but what the hell. . . My model is based on the Mongols, so it may not be comparable to your model. Lances without stirups: I've always used the assumption that stirrups existed, just makes life easier for me. (same thing with pockets and buttons. Obvious inventions that took forever to be developed.) Anyway, without stirups all you can do with a lance is spear people. You shouldn't get the horses damage bonus, but you can still do a lot of damage. As to how hard it is to be knocked off a horse, the question apears to be whether you can knock yourself off the horse. I wouldn't think so, as the lance would be stabbed into the opponent, with the attacker releasing it if it sticks. If your hit, then it's another matter. If you don't have stirrups I would expect that anyone reciving a disabling wound would be in real trouble. Considering the way that the majority of the Mongols were armoured, a blow that delivered enough force to have a good chance of knocking them out of the saddle would seem likely to cause them a very serious wound. Bows on horse: IMO Nomads who always fight mounted shouldn't have a modifier to their bow skills for using them in the way they always use them. There need to be some modifyers for speed and target aspect added, as firing at a gallop at a target crossing behind you seems a bit more difficult then shooting a target ahead of you while stationary. Assuming that the average nomad had practiced with a bow from six or seven, they will be damn good, but not gods. I would be tempted to do something multiply skill by .25 (or less) for shots fired at a gallop at targets that are not running directly at or away from the archer. This still allows ~20% hits, which seems resonable to me at ~50m range. (assuming that the primary weapon of the nomads is the bow and you are dealing with people in the 75%+ bow skill range and 100% ride skill.) As a Mongol warrior carried between 60-200 arrows (depending on the source) they can still do a lot of damage even at a low chance to hit. I've been told that composite bows can be strung for long periods of time (years) without a problem. The string needs to be replaced fairly regularly, however. Somone once described the glue that was used for composite bows by the mongols as "Knox Gelatine" in it's tolerance for water. Tolerance for rain is about the only way that self bows had any advantage over comp bows. (And ease of construction, but that doesn't show up on the battlefield.) Unfortunatly I think the only place that they still do organized horse archery is in Japan, and it is not exacly a wildly popular pastime there. So practical experiance is somewhat lacking. I'd be intersted in hearing if anyone has tried it, and has some idea as to what someone who is good can do. Enchantment conditions: Once upon a time I had a discusion with Sandy and Charlie Krank (at Gencon in the mid 80's) about enchantment conditions and trigers and such. The way they actually used them wasn't exactly how they had written them up in the rules. They used them much more fleaxibly, in terms of trigger conditions and such, then the rules would appear to allow. They also provided really significant casting time bonuses for casting the spell out of an enchantment. I wrote up what I remembered/interpreted of what they had said and still have it around here somewhere. I'll post it when I find it. I had expected Chaosium to publish a revised set of magic rules/tricks in a book that Sandy was writing, but a hard disk crash killed that project about the time it was almost completed. Kevin ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 94 13:52:49 -0500 Subject: RQR: Mounted rulings So there are little matters which crop up, mechanically. Rules situations -> for example, Scythians (of course there not called that in my world) don't have the stirrup. Can they use the horse's Damage Bonus in a charge. Historically, no. And how about getting knocked off your horse in a charge? It seems pretty easy to do if you aren't bracing, and do you get to use the horse's STR to brace if you are skillful, or have the right kind of saddle? How about shooting from a moving horse ... (-10%, sure ... but). Okay, modern riders seem to be of the opinion that, since they are helpless without stirrups, nobody could do anything without them. First, it is very possible to charge on horseback without using stirrups, you just don't do a couched lance charge. Anyway, all the stirrups in the world wouldn't let you do a couched lance charge--that is what the high back of the classic "knightly" shield was for. You NEVER stood in the stirrups to give a lance charge, you put your but DOWN and let the saddle do the stabilizing. Stirrups were for balance and steering. The light lance or "lance ague" was not a couched weapon. One expert I talked to told me that it was used TWO-HANDED from horseback, even by cultures like the stirrup-less Scythians. They would use it for a two-handed thrust from a charge and then let go of the thing, thus, it was a cheap spear rather than a specialized weapon. Alternatively, they would melee with the lance-ague. I would say that they might be able to use the animal's DB or half the animal's DB (more reasonable), but they risk either losing their weapon, or being unseated AND losing their weapon if they try a full-blown charge. In any case lances were secondary weapons for most light cavalry cultures if you look at army lists. It was the bow that was paramount. As for shooting from a moving horse, the rules already handle that: All your weapon skills are limited to your riding skill and no better. Apply a penalty to ride or make it a harder skill without stirrups. Scythians kept their bows in holsters for their bows on their left hips. Can you keep a strung bow in it (I don't think so, but pictures from ancient greek vases seem to suggest this was so.) And can yo string a bow while riding (right now, only on a stopped horse Yes, you can keep a strung bow in a holster. You'd just need to change the string a little more often. I could probably string a light bow while riding at a walk--my technique does not require that you stick the bow in the ground or brace it against anything, but it is limited by your thigh muscle strength. I'm a wimp and I can string a 30lb pull bow by wrapping my leg around it and bending it against my leg while stringing it (this is a recurve, not a straight staff bow, by the way, and horsemen prefer recurves). The limit for a really atheletic person would probably be the length more than the pull. I can use my leg-wrap method on a 70-lb wood recurve while sitting, but it is a strain--I'm a fat, out of shape, formerly somewhat atheletic person. Can you grab the bridle of a horse (with a rider, without a rider) if say, you are mounted, not mounted ... ? I have little c.c. rules (complete crap) for these situations. I can grab anything within my reach. If it's in reach and I'm fast enough, I can grab it. So should your characters. If mounted, I would require a ride roll and a DEX-based roll. I had a non-moving mounted fight (one guy was trapped against a stream) and combatant A) got his horse speared, but critted his jump - there was an empty horse next to him so I rule he jumped to the back of other horse. Complete crap ... ? All critical results are complete crap--so long as they're fun crap, they're okay. By the way, it is hard to get close to anyone except when it is dark, for obvious reasons (there isn't much cover). So how about riding at night. I use to ride bit, and riding at night at high speed seems suicidal. Yes, it is suicidal. That's why horse-nomad attacks weren't at night. They'd sneak up at night and charge at dawn or they'd charge in the day. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #25 ****************************** 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.