Moes1980

So, 7th edition is my first experince with Coc in any form, though I am a long term role-player (mostly dnd, though I did play some 3rd edition WFRPG which seems to be based on this same basic percentile system). So, my perspective is that this is not an action game in any sense of the word. Mor often than not, guns just don't do any appreciable damage to what you are fighting. Instead, you need to have collected enough clues to be able to come up with some kind of game plan by the end or else everything goes south for the players pretty fast. For what it is worth from someone who is new to the game, I really love this system. I did take a look at the older systems for comparison and to me, they seem to be almost identical, though I would probably update to 7th just to avoid the extra step of making power rolls. For what it is worth, here are my comments on pushed rolls and luck pools: Pushed Roles: One of my favorite mechanics in the game. I was worried that this type of game would suffer from dead ends due to failed rolls, but the use of luck, idea, and pushed rolls helps keeps things going. My players rarely push their rolls. The most memorable moment of a pushed roll was when a mortally wounded character was trying to light dynamite to kill a monster that was wrecking havoc on the party. He needed to make a luck roll because the dynamite was wet. His luck was something like 18, though, due to spending lots of luck throughout the session. So even though he could push his roll, his odds were still not good. Not only did he fail the push roll (which was going to result in the lighter running out of fluid or breaking), but he critically failed, rolling a 98. So instead, he blew the dynamite up in his hands and killed the whole party. The monster died too, though, so they at least got brownie points for that! The other important thing about pushed rolls is that they are not "do-overs." The book explains that they represent trying an action again for the second time, or otherwise spending more time trying to complete the action. This is why you can't push combat rolls. So, there is still a narative, that is supposed to include foreshadowing by the keeper of what might happen if the pushed roll is failed, that keeps everything story focused. Luck Pool: Spending luck is something I allow my players to do just to give them a little bit of an extra edge, though it's also a double-edged sword. For example, in my HoTOE game, there is one player who has actually burnt his luck down to 1% (he is also indefinitely insane). So, his character is just miserable. Restaurants never have what he wants to order, cards drive through puddles and splash water on him, his clothes rip on objects, he is the one singled out by pickpockets in busy shopping bazzars, and of course, he is always attacked first by monsters! Anyway, I love this game! My experience has been that luck pools and pushed rolls don't make my players into action stars. Instead, it just drags out their slow descent into madness and death a little bit longer!

I am almost done with the second scenario book, and pacing, for the most part, has not been too bad. There is one key handout the players get at the start, which is Mr. Beddow's notes. I would say that, at the very least, print off a few copies of that to hand out to players so that they have an idea on what they are doing with each location. The little blue traveler's guide book is also a big help. I have one player who loves reading the section on the current city they are in and visiting mentioned locations, which usually tie into the story. Also, if players get stuck, you can always fall back on the idea roll or just throw them a clue or event to get them back on track. It turns out that it is pretty linear as the players just follow Bedeow's notes, traveling from one town to the next, and doing mostly the same pattern of actions in each town (get a hotel, research at local library/museum, meet with people, get clues, encounter danger at the moment of completing task, then ride train to next destination). I think the pacing is really flexible. I have seen youtube videos with very slow pacing, with lots of detailed descriptions and in-character role-playing. My group, however, runs much quicker. For example, we don't spend a lot of time during the research parts. A player might say "I want to research at the library for the day" and then I just have them roll their skill checks without bothering too much with finding translators or describing what the library looks like. In my game, we can have a whole day go by in 4 seconds by narrating that "you spend the day searching dusty tomes in the library in Pairs and (rolls dice) you don't find anything of interest." The danger level has also been very low in my game. It didn't necessarily have to be that way, but the choices my players made mostly kept them safe, along with a few lucky rolls (that, and being nice with one particularly deadly encounter where I had the antagonist opt for non-deadly attacks). One character, however, just went indefinitely insane, and his luck has been reduced to one percent, so things should start getting interesting. Again, this is something that is flexible, and for a large group, you might want to increase the danger levels. Having a lot of players I think would be tough. I have three players and I wouldn't mind having one more, but four would be my cap. There just isn't quite enough stuff for everyone to do, it seems. With your number of players, if possible, it might be worth getting a second keeper to help manage things. That way, one group of players can go off to research at the library, while maybe another group goes off to meet contacts. Then they can all join back up for the final act of the chapter. Finally, I find that it sometimes help to give a little bit of prodding. I find myself having to ask things like "So, is there anything else you want to do today, or do you just want to head back to the hotel and sleep for your meeting tomorrow morning?" (this is where the blue book comes in handy) And, a lot of the time I can just sit quietly and let them talk about what they want to do or try to figure out what is going on. It has been a lot of fun, but I am looking forward to wrapping it up and maybe starting the two-headed serpent campaign if I can convert it into standard CoC.

Hi, I just started running this for my local store as well. For one, I think it looks like a good adventure for. I decided to run the Blood Red Fez adventure in book 2 as a prologue to the main adventure. The main reason for this was I really wanted to cement the trust in Prof. Smith, and I figured a prologue with pregens that sets up Smith and a band of investigators that he leads as a good way to do it. Now they know that when they make new characters they should have a background tied to Smith or the Oriental club, or both. It is also a good adventure that gives the players an idea what the larger campaign might look like, and what kind of characters they may want to build. We have only played one session, so I don't have much else to add at this point. I ordered the screen, when it comes in I will let you know what I think of it.

Mine should arrive any day now I hate using PDFs, but it was nice to get it to thumb through before my physical copy arrives.

My PDF lists it as 5....Maybe it is because I am using the new re-release pdf version.

Ok, I think the wording for weapon damage confused me, I didn't realize it was giving an example with the "4 points of damage carries over to the next round." But now I get it, so yes, once my mace takes 20 points, it is ruined, as simple as that. Thank you!

Thank you so much, this helps a lot! First, the base 5 percent chance to parry is under the table "Shields Statistics Table" on pg31. It is 5 10 and 20 percent for small, medium, and large shield respectively. So I could not wield a mace in my offhand anyway as I don't have the dex! But, for the sake of working this out, if I try to parry with mace in off-hand, it would only be 5 percent, just like my small shield (my character has no parry bonus from abilities). Ok, that makes a little bit more sense. If I have two maces, and assuming that I did have the dex, I can: 1) make two attacks, no parry, at 30 and 5 percent. 2) attack with primary for 30 percent and parry at 5 percent 3). Attack at 5 percent and parry at 30 If I have a mace and shield, then I can attack at 30 percent and parry at five, and that's it. So basically, it will be the same parry chance but, the mace might break. The shield won't break, but it only offers damage reduction rather than granting a full miss.. Also, I take it that if I succeed on a parry while the attacker misses, I won't do damage the attacker's weapon like I would do when parrying with my mace. But, I don't have the ability to wield two maces so, my real options then are: 1) Wield a mace and shield, with 30 percent attack and 5 percent parry 2) Give up my attack in order to parry at 30 percent with my main hand mace- a much better defense option but, I basically miss a turn and risk breaking my weapon. Is this correct? This would make more sense, because then if I used a medium shield I would get a 10 percent chance to parry rather than 5, and so then I would have a better chance of parrying with the shield rather than my offhand mace (my character doesn't have the strength to use a medium or large shield, poor Fredrick!). Of course, this only works if I am right in interpreting the rules to mean that you can only attack or parry with a single weapon in a turn, and not both (unless you have 100 percent skill in either action, as explained under splitting attacks). This really seems to make the most sense to me based on the wording for how to handle wielding two weapons, unless that wording is meant to capture the split attack action for characters with 100 percent skill in a weapon/split parry when you have 100 percent in parry, but I don't think so.

According to the rules, as far as I can tale, my mace needs to take 20 points of damage to break. The mace needs to take at least 4 points of damage from a single hit to carry over to the next round. And, as far as I can tell, the rules seem to suggest that if the weapon does not break, all damage against it goes away after the combat is over. it is almost like instead of HP the weapon should be described as having stress points. Or, maybe outside of combat you are able to repair the weapon, or something. I don't know. The rules, as I seem to understand them, just makes no sense. I should have a better chance to parry with a shield, not worse, and shields should certainly have a chance of breaking, especially wooden shields.

Hi, I am playing RQ2, as I just bought it. What you explain here makes sense (and reminds me of the WFRPG), but then it doesn't appear to be that way in the rules. Although, on pg.28-29, where it talks about how having two weapons means you can attack twice, parry twice, or defend and parry, which seems to suggest that you can only do one of these otherwise. But even so, why not just defend with a second mace in the off hand? Sure, it might break, but I would still have my primary mace. It just seems worth the money for the extra protection. It also doesn't make sense that I would have such a harder time to parry with a shield than a light mace. Sure, a weapon might break, but it sounds like the rules are saying that you have to either 1: do all the damage equal to its hit points in a single blow or 2..) do at least 4 points of damage for that damage to carry over to subsequent rounds, but will still go away after the fight if the weapon didn't actually sustain enough damage to break. The mace has 20 hps so I am not too worried about it breaking. To me, it seems like what would make sense is if the base bonus of 5 percent for the small shield was added to my parry skill with the mace. So then I have a choice, either parry with a mace at my normal 25 percent, risking a weapon break, but avoiding all damage on a success, or parry with a shield at a +5, with a success meaning that I get to apply the shield's damage reduction. I am kind of surprised that there is no errata in the new edition to better explain how this works. Seems like everyone has their own system or mishmash with later versions and/or BRP to solve it. I was kind of hoping that this reprint would of had errata for this kind of stuff...

Well, I didn't think I could parry with a missile weapon with a shield anyway...But even if were just talking about melee fighting, why would I ever bother with a shield when I have a better chance to parry with my mace, and a successful parry with the mace means no damage, whereas I still might take damage even when parrying successfully with the shield. As far as training go, it seems like it would just be better to train up with my mace rather than with the shield, since it starts out better and, again, a successful parry will mean no damage. So I don't know why I would bother training with the shield when I get better defense and better offense at the same time by training up with the mace.

Hello. I am new to RuneQuest, and I just rolled up my first character and did a practice battle with a troll-kin and an elf with a bow. The thing is, I am not sure how a shield is supposed to work. For example, it appears that I have a 25 percent chance to parry with my light mace, but with my small shield I only have a 5 percent chance to parry (I have no modifier to parry skill based on ability scores, so I only get the weapon/shield's base chance). So the question is, why would I ever try to parry with the shield when I have a 20 percent better chance to parry with my mace? Also, does the shield's armor reduction only take effect if I successfully parry with the shield? From the rules, this seems to be the case. So, I can either parry to avoid a blow with a 25 percent chance of success or, take a 5 percent chance to add damage reduction. This seems to make shields sound like a bad idea, so I think I must be missing something here. Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks!

Will do! He got his hands on his first mythos tome the last session, but he could not read it as he did not know the language it was written in. I am sure when he makes his own character before kicking off the main campaign, he will take several languages. Oh, the poor soul lol

We just did our first session, and we started with this scenario. They were really glad I did, as now they have a good idea what kind of skills and backgrounds to focus on for the main campaign. So far, one character managed to sneak into the Myer's cabin and steal the Whispering Fez tome, but no one can read Persian, so they are having to rely on Baron Von Hofler's expertise. They don't fully trust him, so one character is going to stay up all night with him while he tries to decipher the tome. Just as they pull into the next stop he will try to mesmerize him to sleep so he can still the book and the red fez (the players actually bought multiple hats to use as decoys to confuse the cultists, but of course, they showed the baron the real hat!). I plan to have the spell wear off with just enough time for the player to jump off the train if he wants to chase the baron down alone, or he can stay on the train with his friends. He won't have to put up too much of a fight, however, as his daughter will be there with her allies, and will be all too happy to rid herself of those things as she tries to get her father psychiatric help, but of course, he will miss the train and have to make the overland journey to the next stop in order to board the train.This would be a blessing in disguise, however, as the shadows will attack the investigators for the first time tonight (the one player who might get left off the train is the only one to have seen them so far, and the one time there was almost a combat (when he was trying to steal the whispering fez tome) he ran away, and the shadow could not follow as there was too much sunlight. Yes, it is longer than I thought! I thought we could do it in maybe two sessions, but now I think it will be tough to do it in less than three. The players pretty much skipped the initial investigations in London, which saved a lot of time. Though, they did learn about the murder of the Fez collector when they went out shopping for multiple decoy fez hats!

Thank you guys! Based on your feedback I think I am going to go with the train. I think it will be better to run a scenario that does not have as much player death, as I want my players to experience a sense of advancement (and one player is interested in learning to cast spells, though he has no idea the dangers that actually entails). Also, I think I can run this adventure in about 8-12 months. We seem to clip along at a pretty good pace, and I am considering skipping the dream lands scenarios, along with some others (like the doom train), but we will see. I think I can complete most scenarios in a session, with a few taking 2-3 sessions to finish. I might try to fit in an occasional weekend marathon session as well, where we play for 6 hours or more to try to knock parts of it out. If it ends up taking much longer than I thought, so be it, that just means more mileage out of my investment (I am pretty new running this game, with only two sessions under my belt, so I could easily be underestimating the time it will take to finish this). I am going to see if I can get a fez hat before I run the blood red fez scenario as a prologue. That optional adventure has really hooked me in. I might see if I can get other people at the store to walk in randomly wearing a fez just to get under my player's skin! (I am hoping that I can find some cheap ones from a Halloween store).

Hello everyone, I was just wondering if I could get some advice. I have both the Time to Harvest material and the new Horror on the Orient Express. I also ran a one shot game at my local store, and everyone had a blast and is looking forward to starting a regular game. So I have a group of players too! The only problem is, I can't decide which to run, Harvest or train? I am really tempted to start Orient Express with the gaslight era scenario as a prologue, but I also love the crazy story in Harvest, which will really freak out my players. The train adventure looks like it will take a long time, which makes me lean towards Harvest, but then again, I did pay an arm and a leg for that box set. For those experienced with both campaigns, which would you recommend?