From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #82 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, 27 September 1995 Volume 02 : Number 082 TABLE OF CONTENTS "Aden Steinke" Date: 27 Sep 1995 15:24:30 +1000 Subject: RE: Piercing vs Slashing Hi All "Stian A. Fagereng" asked >When we played we this big discussion about a pc >samurai with kantana piercing to get crit pierc >b'cause it gives more dam with crit pierc than crit >slashing. > >any1 been into the same problem ? This isn't a problem in one sense as the katana IS designed to pierce, what Japanese swordsmanship lacked was the one handed extended lunge/thrust, but both Japanese sword and short staff fighting have a two handed thrust to the face/chest/neck of the opponent. It is however a rules problem in that the likelihood of being killed by a single blow with a katana is by a well performed cut/slash, and the damage should be correspondingly higher for a slash IMHO, as a good slash can cut through 7 or more human torsos, and a good thrust would be lucky to get through more than one or two :). aden ------------------------------ From: Thomas Michael Cantine Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 07:02:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Slashing, bashing and stabbing I've always used the impaling rule for specials, but I've been somewhat dissatisfied with the corresponding effects for slashing and bashing on special successes. Moreover, in the group I used to play with, the rule about impaling weapons getting stuck was often forgotten, and so there was a disproportionate amount of thrusting going on in most fights. I've therefore come up with a couple of house rules for attack modes that may or may not work for you. I like 'em, but then, I invented them, and besides, I haven't had a chance to playtest them properly. Additional drawback for thrusting: A successful parry against a thrust isn't so much a matter of blocking the attack but of deflecting it. So, one might rule that a successful parry against a thrusting attack will stop ALL damage, regardless of the armour points of the parrying weapon. Of course, you might want to let this apply to shield parries only on a special success or better; thrusting points should get stuck in shields more often than not. Special slash: I had a number of possibilities for this which I posted to the Usenet group some time ago, but the one I think I like best is simply to say that any special success with a slash does damage normally, BUT if it penetrates armour (does at least 1 hp damage after parries and armour are taken into account) it slices open a big blood vessel, and the wounded character bleeds at 1 hp/melee round to total hit points. Treat it just like the bleeding that comes from being reduced to 0 in the chest, head or abdomen, with CON rolls and first aid and all that. This may not appeal to GM's who hate bookkeeping, but I figure that since the bleeding rules are already in place, this doesn't add too much complexity. Moreover, I kind of like the idea of someone spraying blood from the arm WITHOUT necessarily having it severed, maimed, or even incapacitated. An otherwise minor wound can be something to be worried about. And it sort of makes First Aid useful in more situations. Special bash: Automatic knockback is currently the rule in place, but in practice that never seems to make much difference unless the combatants are at the edge of a cliff. Everyone always seems to make their DEX roll, so a special bash just imposes a movement penalty of a few strike ranks on the victim. (This could be more if the additional movement were deemed a Change of Statement, thus incurring an extra 3 SR.) So anyway, I figure that it might make sense to say that special successes with blunt weapons do normally rolled damage in both hit points AND fatigue points. Moreover, while the actual hp damage done with a mace might be reduced fully by any worn armour, the FP damage would only be reduced by hard armour, and even then at only half effectiveness. So, a guy in chain mail might not suffer more than one or two hit points after getting batted around with someone's heavy mace, but he'd be dazed and exhausted and sprawled on the ground anyway, gasping for breath and easy prey to a well-placed dagger thrust (let's see, +25% for target helpless, +20% for target knocked down, +10% for unshielded side or behind, +10% for prepared attack, +10% for attacking from above... the chance of a special or critical becomes accessible, even if you don't bother to take off the guy's armour...) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thomas M. Cantine "My theory, which is mine, is mine. g9326443@mcmaster.ca And I own it, too." ============================================================================== ------------------------------ From: "Frederic J Moulin" Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 10:03:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Piercing vs Slashing > single blow with a katana is by a well performed cut/slash, and the damage > should be correspondingly higher for a slash IMHO, as a good slash can cut > through 7 or more human torsos, and a good thrust would be lucky to get > through more than one or two :). I would like to see the data of a slash cutting through 7 human torso, because my personnal experience doing surgery screems that this is b... Now I know that there is those kind of legends circulating among the japanese samourai fans, and I would like to now for real if these affirmations are facts, or stories. I know this is not the right place to ask, but what are the other peoples of the list thinking? Just for the fun of it, imagine that the katana's damages should be 7*12, an average of 84 HP to do so in RuneQuest!!! Frederic ------------------------------ From: "Frederic J Moulin" Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 10:09:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Slashing, bashing and stabbing > Moreover, while the actual hp damage done with a mace might be reduced > fully by any worn armour, the FP damage would only be reduced by hard > armour, and even then at only half effectiveness. In the RuneQuest 3 errata, the soft armor does only protect 1/2 of its AP against blunt weapons. So a guy in chainmail does not like troll mauls. Frederic ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 17:09:19 +0000 Subject: Re: Slashing vs. piercing Fredric: >Blunt Weapon: Any AP defending (except shields and magic) are halved. >Defender is thrown backward 1m per 5 points of damage (regardless of what >gets through AP or magic, and SIZ) and must make a DEX x 5 roll for each >meter he is knocked back or fall on the floor. What penalties do you apply (beyond the ones in the rules) to someone on the ground, and how do you play the 'getting up' afterwards? SR penalties, resistance roll on STR vs. Enc, Jump skill, or something else. I never have been satisfied with simulating the problems of being knocked down in combat... Nigel ------------------------------ From: Steve Bonnot Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 09:28:45 -0700 Subject: Re: Piercing vs Slashing >I would like to see the data of a slash cutting through 7 human torso, because >my personnal experience doing surgery screems that this is b... I don't know about 7 torsos, but I do know that a "tested" Samurai sword go the name by cutting a victim from neck to hip in a single slice. However, seven seems to be a little far fetched. I guess you could place the victims in a circle around the tester so a single sweeping cut could be made. Steve ------------------------------ From: pws@ctsmicro.com Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 13:40:57 -0500 Subject: RQ4 What is the word on RQ 4? Is there a way to get my troll fangs on a copy? Paul Stolar ------------------------------ From: Frederic Moulin Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 18:03:00 -0400 Subject: Re: Slashing vs. piercing >What penalties do you apply (beyond the ones in the rules) to someone on >the ground, and how do you play the 'getting up' afterwards? SR penalties, >resistance roll on STR vs. Enc, Jump skill, or something else. >I never have been satisfied with simulating the problems of being knocked >down in combat... First of all, during one melee round, my players are allowed two actions out of the four followings: an attack, a parry, a dodge or a maneuver. By maneuver I define any type of action that as GM I belive to require the roll of a dice to suceed during a fight. This does not have to be a special skill tested: DEX rolls are a maneuver, because the PC concentrate on doing that action. So when one of my player is on the floor, he needs to roll under DEXx3 to stand up, and this is one of his action of the round. Of course, since this is an agility test, ENC is substracted as for a jump or a climb. He gets the - -20% to parry or dodge, and his opponent has +20% to attack: this 40% difference is huge, even for PC over 90% attack/parry. We also consider that two-handed weapons cannot be used in a proper manner from the floor, so whoever has a two-handed weapon his reduced to two possibilities:either dodging, or taking another weapon. Some players still use their spear to parry from the ground, but we treat it as quarterstaff (which skill level is usually way down). We also apply the normal rule of localisation on 1D10 for the PC on the floor, and finally my NPCs often take their chance attacking a prone PC with weapon and a kick: the base chance of the kick being 25%, even the lamest NPC has 45% of doing 1D6+ Damage Mod., and unparried: Works great more often than you would belive it, keeping the PC trying to heal himself, disrupting spell casting.... So without any specific penalty, I have personnally experienced that a PC on the floor is a lot closer to death than it look, specially because intelligent opponents will immediatly gang up on him, trying to dispatch him as fast as possible before turning against the others (so will the PCs ). No beside that, we don't use any unusual penalty, and I still have a high rate of DI. Bye, and good gaming Frederic ------------------------------ From: Frederic Moulin Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 18:25:12 -0400 Subject: Re: Piercing vs Slashing >I don't know about 7 torsos, but I do know that a "tested" Samurai sword >go the name by cutting a victim from neck to hip in a single slice. However, >seven seems to be a little far fetched. I guess you could place the victims >in a circle around the tester so a single sweeping cut could be made. Now what do you call cutting? If it is cutting the skin, I can do it with a simple scalpel: I do not doubt that modern samurai swords (Cold steel for exemple) are extremely sharp and will cut through soft tissus quite easily. But my veterinary experience in slaughter houses has allowed me to witness the cutting of pig thorax (Yee, I know you will all envie those enlightening memories ;-) with chainsaws manipulated by professional butchers: and it is darn hard to cut because it is at the same time resistant and soft, and if you reach a rib, you are not going to cut it. So I have a real hard time believing that anyone could pass through the rib cage, section the spinal column and separate the opponent in two. Beside, reports of executions performed by the japanese army during the second world war talk of two, three and sometime more blows required to decapitate a prisonner on his knees: So cutting through seven armed opponent surrounding you sound more like the good old D&D than real life. And I don't think I am going to implemente it in my games. Frederic ------------------------------ From: Bryan John Maloney Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 18:40:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Slashing vs. piercing And I, having just read several works on _duello_, a few being original primary sources from the 16th century, have concluded that the RQ "impale" is 100% the WRONG way to reflect the deadliness of narrow impaling weapons. Sorry, but death from impaling is not fast and immediate--it's death on the installment plan. It was appallingly common for both participants in a _duello_ to die, not right on the spot, but within a few hours, of the effects of internal injury and hemorrhaging. These guys still fought on, despite their fatal wounds, because the fatal EFFECT of those wounds had not yet occurred. We can presume that they had access to medical care at the very least as good as the "First Aid" skill of RuneQuest in many cases, since the _duello_ with rapier was primarily a gentleman's vice in Elizabethan England. Therefore, a FAR more realistic portrayal of the effects of a narrow impaling weapon would NOT be to increase the immediate damage. I would, from the first-hand evidence I've read, instead make the effect be one of "bleeding", bleeding that takes place every minute or every ten minutes and cannot be staunched by mere "First Aid" nor by means of minor healing magic. Doubt me? Doubt the veracity of what I say? Refer to the following: Silver, G. 1599. Paradoxes of Defence. Introduction by Wilson, J.D. 1933. Oxford University Press. Turner, C., Soper, T. 1990. Methods and Practices of Elizabethan Swordplay. Southern Illinois University Press. Carbondale, Illinois. These make the situation I've outlined above quite clear. ------------------------------ From: Bryan John Maloney Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 18:49:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Weapons that slash & impale This issue raises a deeper issue--why is it that specific weapons were used in specific ways historically? If the rules of RuneQuest don't reflect this, then they are deficient to that degree. For example, there is no penalty to hit nor bonus to parry a thrust impaling attack. Every authority I've consulted, from Burton to Oakeshott to Saviola, agrees that the thrust is both more difficult to execute than the swing, but it is far easier to disrupt. This is why the Italianate masters of 'fence, especially Saviola, concentrated so very heavily upon teaching how to get the correct positioning so that a thrust could be delivered without even permitting a chance of parry. If thrusting with a weapon is just as easy as swinging it, and it delivers just as much damage as with swingin it, and it is no easier to parry such an attack than a swung attack, which is what the RuneQuest rules tell us, why wasn't thrusting the 100% modus operandi of all sword combatants throughout history? Remember, RQ rules say that the thrust is 100% as easy, force-effective, and difficult to parry as a swing. However, RQ rules (except for the draft) make it MORE effective in overall damage, from the "impale". Therefore, swords should never have had edges, should they? If RQ is right, why do swords have edges in the first place? ------------------------------ From: Steve Bonnot Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 16:04:30 -0700 Subject: Re: Piercing vs Slashing >reports of executions >performed by the japanese army during the second world war talk of two, >three and sometime more blows required to decapitate a prisonner on his >knees: So cutting through seven armed opponent surrounding you sound more >like the good old D&D than real life. And I don't think I am going to >implemente it in my games. In general ,I agree with you. The legendary samurai swords were tested by chaining up a prisoner or peasant to be rigid from arms to hips. It didn't say, but I suspect the tester could get what ever leverage he needed to make the cut necessary to slice from shoulder to hip. As to being able to cut a moving target in half, I agree that it is highly unlikely that a cut would sever the body in half. Steve ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #82 ****************************** 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