Combat System Comparison: Runequest 6, Magic World, and the Basic Rule Book

[Robsbot]

I've never run a full Runequest 6 combat system, or even most of the optional rules of the Basic Rule Book. As such, I'm looking for a comparison of how some of the optional rules of the BRB and how RQ6 as a whole system runs in comparison to the base BRB combat and Magic World. Some key points I'm looking for:

Deadliness: I really like the fatality of combat in the Elric / BRB / MW system. When someone rolls a hit, I like seeing everyone at the table hold their breath. I like to run campaigns that try to avoid combat, using it only as a last resort, so the deadliness of combat helps me to remind the players to exhaust all their options before reaching for their swords, bows, and spells. How do the differences in mechanics affect the deadliness of combat? Does RQ6 and BRB optional rules add anything to this type of atmosphere? I'm not necessarily looking to increase the deadliness of combat per se, but possibly enhance and the tension in combat that the possibility of fatality creates or at least maintain the current tension.

Fluidity: The main thing keeping me from running RQ6 as a complete system is that although the additional rules for combat seem to add some flavor, they also seem to bog the system down, especially the special effects section. Does familiarity with the system help keep the system smooth? How do all the systems run at the table compared to one another? Are there any rules (optional ones in the BRB or RQ6) that specifically hamper fluidity? 33 RQ6 pages compared to 24 BRB pages seems like a lot of heft to add on.

Flavor: BRB combat has a tendency to get a bit bland if you don't use magic and powers to spice it up. While I generally run magic heavy campaigns, I've run into a few players in my current group who tend to favor RQ6 folk magic like effects over more flashy and impactful forms of magic and tend to favor martial combat. I've been forced to plug them into more interesting combat situations than allowing them to use their characters to create the interesting combat situations. Do the extra rules in RQ6 and the optional rules in BRB help spice up combat or does it just add more bland options to combat?

[deleriad]

Interesting questions.

Deadliness. I would say that BGB tends to be more deadly than RQ6 when played straight but if you use "heroic" options things slip. What makes RQ6 relatively less deadly are Luck Points. Luck Points can keep you alive or give you a second chance. The way RQ6 works is that you are more likely to be 'defeated' than killed outright. Two other things though. RQ6 *feels* more deadly because you have hit locations so it takes relatively little damage to reduce a hit location to zero. Thus almost every successful hit is threatening. In BGB, two-handed weapons aside, you can usually survive one or two hits before you have a problem. So I tend to fend combat in RQ6 feels more stressful. Especially as a failed parry leaves you open to both damage and a special effect.

Fluidity. Can be a problem in RQ6 if you have indecisive players because they can agonise over which Special effect to choose. For experienced players in both systems, RQ6 tends to be more fluid because there are a *lot* fewer pre-roll modifiers and players make fewer choices until a special effect turns up. BGB is probably easier to learn.

Flavour. I suspect that you may be conflating two things here. There's nothing "flavourful" about making a skill roll. It's what you do with the skill that defines the flavour. So if combat is "bland" it's probably because the situation in the game is bland. So one element is making the situation interesting. The second element is mechanical combos. E.g. systems like D&D 4 are all about chaining various combinations of attacks, spells and so on to create a synergy through mechanics. E.g. attack A has a side-effect of moving a goblin 3 squares. The Goblin is suffering a condition that makes it take damage when it moves. Furthermore, the attack it happens to move right next to character C who gets a free attack when attacking a creature that has just moved next to him. Player C high-fives player A and the goblin dies in an efficient way. No form of BRP does that kind of stuff. If your players are looking for those kind of game mechanical combos then they're in the wrong system. BRP is all about getting the mechanics out of the way so you can focus on the in-world effects. I would say that pretty much all the mechanics in BRP of any type are "bland" because they are meant to be.

To give you an idea of how I run it, here's some notes about a parallel combat I ran. Everything here was done using RQII/RQ6 special effects and came naturally out of the system. RQII/6 players will recognise various fumbles and special effects.

Meanwhile Job goes running down the alley to save the victim. He barrels into the attacker, grabbing him around the stomach and pinning him to the floor. The victim of the mugging scuttles sideways. Job however is surprised to discover a third person grabbing him from behind, trying to lift him off the ground and break his hold on thug #1. Job squirms and breaks free but is surprised again when the victim turns out to be SheThug. She picks up a piece of wood and tells him to surrender. Job however is having none of it. She attempts to smash him over the head with the lump of wood but slips and the wood breaks against a wall as Job ducks. Thug the first comes back but Job knocks him down again, ducking underneath another wild swing. Then Thug #2 lunges at Job who grabs him by the arm and swings him around, giving him a dead arm in the process. Seeing that this is not going well, SheThug draws a knife. There's a brief pause and Job calculates that this is his one chance. Suddenly he becomes the goddam Batman. He kicks the knife out of her hand then spins and elbows her in the stomach, winding her. As the guy with the dead arm complains bitterly, Job continues his spin and breaks Thug number two's knee with another kick. He goes down again. Thug #1 loses interest in the fight and scarpers. She thug also decides to leg it. For a second Job considers trying to stop her but decides against it and moves over to the grounded thug menacingly.

Down in the sewer, Jotisan and Cormalin have found the giant rat or, to be more precise, it has found then. With a terrifying cry it lunges at Jotisan and grabs him with a claw. Fortunately for them (and cat who had fluffed up to twice normal size) it may have been a scaberous, nauseating rat the size of a cow but it was also relatively incompetent. As Cormalin tried to push it off Jotisan and cat tried to rake it with its claws, Jotisan was able to struggle free, albeit with a serious wound to the arm. Cormalin meanwhile focused on bashing at its head. Jotisan was able to heal himself and waded back into the fight with a torch. Cormalin took the chance to cast Ironhand and then Jotisan tried Demoralising it. There was an odd magical effect and the rat started to look like it wanted to back off. As it turned, Cormalin slammed into its hind end, staggering it with the force of his attack while Jotisan managed to stick a torch in its snout, leading to the rank smell of burning rat nostril hair. Seeing his chance Jotisan pressed the attack, slamming the rat's head into the wall repeatedly until it stopped moving.

Hope that helps

[RosenMcStern]

BGB with Hit Locations is by far the most deadly combination possible, much more than RQ6. Apart from the relative values of armour and hit points, there is the matter of Luck Points, as Deleriad reminded you. Technically, while you have even one single Luck Point left, you cannot be killed in RQ6.

As for the length of combat, RQ6 battles may be slightly longer than their BRP equivalent, but not much, and in any case the additional detail is worth having: it is not a dull sequence of "miss"-"miss"-"hit", things happen as a consequence of special effects and they are fun. However, if your goal is to make combat the last resort, you might end up trying to avoid runnong the funniest part of the game for entire game sessions. If this is the case, the BGB may still be the best option for you.

[Robsbot]

Thank you guys for the help, I really appreciate it.

Interesting questions.

Flavour. I suspect that you may be conflating two things here. There's nothing "flavourful" about making a skill roll. It's what you do with the skill that defines the flavour. So if combat is "bland" it's probably because the situation in the game is bland. So one element is making the situation interesting. The second element is mechanical combos. E.g. systems like D&D 4 are all about chaining various combinations of attacks, spells and so on to create a synergy through mechanics. E.g. attack A has a side-effect of moving a goblin 3 squares. The Goblin is suffering a condition that makes it take damage when it moves. Furthermore, the attack it happens to move right next to character C who gets a free attack when attacking a creature that has just moved next to him. Player C high-fives player A and the goblin dies in an efficient way. No form of BRP does that kind of stuff. If your players are looking for those kind of game mechanical combos then they're in the wrong system. BRP is all about getting the mechanics out of the way so you can focus on the in-world effects. I would say that pretty much all the mechanics in BRP of any type are "bland" because they are meant to be.

I probably didn't word this section as well as I could have. In BRP it's obviously up to the GM to make the situations interesting. However, in scenarios that lack casters I feel like it can boil down to choose a weapon, swing, see if they block or dodge, and wait for someone to take a massive hit. Magic spices this up by adding the ability to affect combat in different ways and add more options without adding too much undue complexity. Even simple things like buffs, disabling effects, and debuffs, while not mechanically interesting add interesting options to break up the monotony of just rolling for damage. I feel magic allows even the occasional duel like face to face fight between aware opponents seem much more interesting. I was mostly trying to ask if RQ6's special effects system, while it seems to add the extra little spice to combat, really adds the ability to affect combat in interesting and meaningful ways, or does it boil down to pretty much using 1 or 2 effects most often and leave combat in the same situation it was without the undue burden of extra rules?

Regardless I think you answered my question. I'm not going to see amazing mechanics or effects just different ways to handle dealing damage and winning the fight.

[nclarke]

You could always get the one dollar pdf of MRQII from RPGNow and try the combat out. It's pretty similar to RQ6 combat and one dollar shouldn't break the bank.

[deleriad]

Regardless I think you answered my question. I'm not going to see amazing mechanics or effects just different ways to handle dealing damage and winning the fight.

Again I'm not sure what an "amazing" mechanic would be. BGB/RQ has at least the following mechanics for combat (off the top of my head)

Aimed/called shots

Pulling blows

disarming, knocking back, tripping, damaging a weapon, damaging armour, using weapon length to hold off or step inside, charging, grappling, weapon special abilities (e.g. bolas, whips)

Plus modifiers for fighting in all sorts of circumstances (e.g. hanging upside down while blinded and being ticked by a marmot)

RQ6 also has (again this is not exhaustive)

compelling surrender, forcing a failure, temporary blinding (e.g. kicking sand into someone's eyes), warding a location, manoeuvering to make yourself hard to attack, swallowing, poisoning, temporarily incapacitating a location, rolling up to your feet in combat and more

Regardless of the flavour of BRP, that's all a whole lot more than swing and repeat. I would be hard to pressed to think of any mechanics that are missing or anything else that you might actually want to be able to do in combat that's not already covered.

[Baragei]

The way RQ6 works is that you are more likely to be 'defeated' than killed outright.

I feel that this is the one, major difference between RQ and BRP.

With BRP the decicion is whether to fight or not to fight. RQ also presents this dilemma, but adds two additional ones: how to fight and what to do with your surrendered/hamstrung/comatose opponent to a much higher degree than core BRP.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Baragei
clarifying

[silent_bob]

I've never run a full Runequest 6 combat system, or even most of the optional rules of the Basic Rule Book. As such, I'm looking for a comparison of how some of the optional rules of the BRB and how RQ6 as a whole system runs in comparison to the base BRB combat and Magic World. Some key points I'm looking for:

Deadliness: I really like the fatality of combat in the Elric / BRB / MW system. When someone rolls a hit, I like seeing everyone at the table hold their breath. I like to run campaigns that try to avoid combat, using it only as a last resort, so the deadliness of combat helps me to remind the players to exhaust all their options before reaching for their swords, bows, and spells. How do the differences in mechanics affect the deadliness of combat? Does RQ6 and BRB optional rules add anything to this type of atmosphere? I'm not necessarily looking to increase the deadliness of combat per se, but possibly enhance and the tension in combat that the possibility of fatality creates or at least maintain the current tension.

Fluidity: The main thing keeping me from running RQ6 as a complete system is that although the additional rules for combat seem to add some flavor, they also seem to bog the system down, especially the special effects section. Does familiarity with the system help keep the system smooth? How do all the systems run at the table compared to one another? Are there any rules (optional ones in the BRB or RQ6) that specifically hamper fluidity? 33 RQ6 pages compared to 24 BRB pages seems like a lot of heft to add on.

Flavor: BRB combat has a tendency to get a bit bland if you don't use magic and powers to spice it up. While I generally run magic heavy campaigns, I've run into a few players in my current group who tend to favor RQ6 folk magic like effects over more flashy and impactful forms of magic and tend to favor martial combat. I've been forced to plug them into more interesting combat situations than allowing them to use their characters to create the interesting combat situations. Do the extra rules in RQ6 and the optional rules in BRB help spice up combat or does it just add more bland options to combat?

What is BRB?

[silent_bob]

I don't like RQ6's initiative system where you go around the table and cycle through everyone's actions one at a time rather than just having the characters take all of their actions on their initiative as in BRP.

[threedeesix]

I don't like RQ6's initiative system where you go around the table and cycle through everyone's actions one at a time rather than just having the characters take all of their actions on their initiative as in BRP.

Actually, its been a while since I read it, but from what I remember in BRP you go around the table counting off DEX ranks and every 5 you can take another non-attack action. Plus many monsters and animals get an attack "plus another 5 DEX ranks later". When counting DEX ranks, its the same as taking one action and going around the table again to take another.

The only reason I remember this is I changed it in Classic Fantasy so that every 5 DEX ranks was an action, but made it so you take them all at once for simplicity and speed.

Rod

[silent_bob]

Actually, its been a while since I read it, but from what I remember in BRP you go around the table counting off DEX ranks and every 5 you can take another non-attack action. Plus many monsters and animals get an attack "plus another 5 DEX ranks later". When counting DEX ranks, its the same as taking one action and going around the table again to take another.

The only reason I remember this is I changed it in Classic Fantasy so that every 5 DEX ranks was an action, but made it so you take them all at once for simplicity and speed.

Rod

Rod,

You are correct. It is Classic Fantasy's initiative system that I was thinking of.

[JasonPacker]

Having run a few combats in RQ6 recently, I can say that player fluency with the system does help keep things from bogging down. Over a very few sessions, your players will learn what special effects they can use, which ones feel effective to them, and will develop signature styles that they return to with some regularity. Some never get past the called shot to the face, while others become enamored of trips or disarms. My biggest gripe with RQ6/Legend combat as compared to BRP is the lack of a non-sacrificial Dodge. One can always choose to Evade an attack, but one winds up prone in the process. This feels wrong to me, and all of the assertions by others that it is more realistic don't help with my qualms. It really is one of the only things keeping me from embracing RQ6 wholeheartedly.

You'll also find that combat actions (typically 2 or 3 per turn) have a good deal of weight, and that's another area where familiarity with the system will pay off. Otherwise there could be long pauses while a player decides whether or not to parry a missed attack, hoping for an interesting special effect, or if it makes more sense to hold onto that CA for an attack instead.

To my mind, the DEX Rank/Strike Rank rules in BRP are more finely grained, and allow for a greater impact from managing one's time resources well. I'm guessing that more often than not it's detail that isn't necessary, but it most assuredly does change the calculus on who acts when, and in what ways.

RQ6 also uses HP/location as a threshold for wound severity, so depending on the system you choose in BRP, you might find that working better or worse for you in terms of dialing up or down the deadliness of the system.