Some rules questions from Runequest Classic Edition

[CitizenK2]

Hi all,

I'm reading through the Runequest Classic Edition rules with plans to run it at our new RPG club this fall. Overall, the rules are written quite clearly. However, I do have some questions about the first few chapters, mostly to do with parrying.

1) If the defender parries successfully and the attacker fails the attack roll, is the damage suffered by the attacker's weapon based on the attacker's damage roll? Or does the defender roll damage as if they struck?

2) The Two Weapon Use section says an adventurer using two weapons can make 2 attacks, 2 parries, or 1 attack and 1 parry. However, in the rules examples of combat, Rurik is only wielding one weapon, and is making an attack and a parry with it. So I'm not certain how that last use for two-weapon fighting could be seen as an improvement...

3) Does a non-parried critical hit bypass armour AND do double damage? The screen seems to suggest so, but the definition of critical damage in the book only mentions doubled damage for parrying.

4) Can a piece of armour absorb it's full rating of damage from multiple hits to the same location?

I'll be reading the Magic chapter next.

Thanks!

[Mankcam]

I have always presumed that armour absorbs its full rating against each multiple strike to a single location.

I'm more familiar with RQ3/BGB to discuss the other finer points of RQ2, sorry. However there are many RQ2 diehards among us here who will know these answers off the tops of their heads, so I expect you'll get a better response soon 

Edited August 27, 2016 by Mankcam

[soltakss]

16 hours ago, CitizenK2 said:

1) If the defender parries successfully and the attacker fails the attack roll, is the damage suffered by the attacker's weapon based on the attacker's damage roll? Or does the defender roll damage as if they struck?

 

We have always played the Defender's Damage Bonus is used, as he is striking the attacker's weapon. The only place we use Attacker's Damage Bonus is when setting a spear.

 

2) The Two Weapon Use section says an adventurer using two weapons can make 2 attacks, 2 parries, or 1 attack and 1 parry. However, in the rules examples of combat, Rurik is only wielding one weapon, and is making an attack and a parry with it. So I'm not certain how that last use for two-weapon fighting could be seen as an improvement...

 

From memory, two-handed weapons can be used to both attack and parry, so if Rurik had a 2-handed long spear then that would make sense.

It is not an improvement, just something you can do. It does, however, allow flexibility, as a 2-handed weapon can only be used to attack and parry, but 2 weapons can have 2 attacks one round, 2 parries another round and an attack and a parry a third round.

 

3) Does a non-parried critical hit bypass armour AND do double damage? The screen seems to suggest so, but the definition of critical damage in the book only mentions doubled damage for parrying.

 

Are you talking RuneQuest Classic Edition (RQ2) or RQ3?

I remember that a Critical Hit in RQ2 ignores armour, or does double damage if the opponent wears no armour. I cannot remember double damage against parrying weapons, but that might be because we never used that rule.

 

4) Can a piece of armour absorb it's full rating of damage from multiple hits to the same location?

 

Yes, absolutely.

If the armour is damaged on one Strike Rank and loses some armour points then later hits use the reduced armour points, but the armour protects against all blows.

[Zit]

1- the defender is in this case supppsed to hit the attacking weappn, so he can use his bonus

2- this is unclear in CRQ. But in the original 16-page BRP which was sold together with RQ2 boxed esition and could be seen at that time as the basic RQ rules, RQ being an extension of  it, it was clearly stated that you can only either attack once OR parry once in the same round, not both. 2H spear was an exception. This contradicts indeed Rurik's example. I made at some time my own rule where having one single weapon allows one attack and one parry, but having 2 (including shield) allows one single action per weapon : the combat technics (stance etc.) are different.

You can in any case attack or parry twice with 2 weapons, which not possible with a single weapon whichever rule you chose (Basic RP or Rurik's exemple).

 

3- either bypass armour or double damage when parried, not both. It is clearly written in the book.

 

4- yes it can. armours don't lose points in RQ2. It works at full efficiency against every single blow.

[CitizenK2]

Picked this up after a long absence. Magic questions!

1) When making a resistance roll to cast a spell, does the attacker deduct the cost of the spell before determining their effective POW for the resistance roll? That is how it worked in later editions of CoC as I recall, but nothing in the RQ2 rules indicate this.

2) The description for "Temporal" says that these spells have a finite duration. It then indicates that Bladesharp and a few other spells have a duration of 10 rounds, which I can't find anywhere in the spell descriptions. Is the intent for all Temporal spells to default to a 10-round duration?

Thanks!

[Yelm's Light]

1)  YGMV, but I run that the spell cost is deducted before figuring the resistance roll.  The book says the resistance check is made 'at the time of casting,' which to me implies that the spell has been powered.  This is where POW storage/yielding crystals come in handy.  They allow spell casting without the chance of overcoming resistance being reduced.

2)  Yes, temporal battle magic spells last ten melee rounds unless dispelled.  Rune magic 'temporal' spells state the duration, generally (but not always) 15 minutes.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Regarding parrying and attacking with a single handed weapon in a round, everyone I knew played one attack and one parry per round with RQ2. The examples of rurik demonstrated this consistently.

There are still advantages to 2 weapon fighting. For instance if an attack is made on the same SR as the opponents attack SR, then the opponent must chose to give up either his/her attack or parry, as you can't both parry and attack on the same SR with the same weapon. 2 weapon fighting gets around this problem (whether 2 weapons, or 1 weapon and 1 shield). 2 weapon fighting also gives the flexibility to do either 2 attacks, or 2 parries, in place of the standard 1 attack and 1 parry.

However when I bought the RQ3 rules, it confusingly contradicted the RQ2 rule, and made me question my understanding of RQ2. I later bought an updated version of RQ3 with an errata, which deleted the offending paragraph and brought the ruling back to, 1 attack and 1 parry per round with a single handed weapon.  Although different editions, the later correction to RQ3 rules, in my mind allays any lingering confusion about the intention in the RQ2 rules. It is as per the Rurik examples - 1 attack and 1 parry per round with a 1 handed weapon.

Interestingly the contradictoray rules in the "original 16-page BRP" mentioned by Zit , and the RQ3 ruling (before the official errata correction), suggests this was an area where the game designers were in two minds as to which ruling to use. I'd love to hear an official Chaosium response on this, as ive seen this same question many times on this forum. Perhaps even a sticky could be used for Runequest Classic FAQ's? After all its a living published game, once again  

Edited February 9, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[CitizenK2]

WRT the resistance roll, it was the paragraph which stated that power costs would be paid even if the resistance roll failed that made me think resistance was rolled before paying. But that could also just mean "no refunds!"

[soltakss]

14 hours ago, CitizenK2 said:

1) When making a resistance roll to cast a spell, does the attacker deduct the cost of the spell before determining their effective POW for the resistance roll? That is how it worked in later editions of CoC as I recall, but nothing in the RQ2 rules indicate this.

We always played that you rolled when the spell was cast, so roll to overcome, lose the Power Points. So, if I have 15 POW and cast Befuddle (2 points) against a broo with 13 POW then I have a 60% chance of overcoming POW (15 vs 13) and then lose 2 Power Points.

[CitizenK2]

When the rules state that a Rune Priest cannot voluntarily reduce their "basic POW" below 18, is that referring only to permanent POW reductions? Or is that temporary POW expenditures for Battle Magic too?

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, CitizenK2 said:

When the rules state that a Rune Priest cannot voluntarily reduce their "basic POW" below 18, is that referring only to permanent POW reductions? Or is that temporary POW expenditures for Battle Magic too?

Permanent POW.

We played that the Priest could cast Rune Magic but could not repray it until POW increased to 18 again. Our Rune Lord Priests quite often were in this state after a Divine Intervention. 

[Darius West]

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

Permanent POW.

We played that the Priest could cast Rune Magic but could not repray it until POW increased to 18 again. Our Rune Lord Priests quite often were in this state after a Divine Intervention. 

That's a really nice house rule Soltakss.  So nice I plan to adopt it.  May I ask what situation brought it about ( the best rules always have an interesting back story) ?

[soltakss]

It just seemed natural. Once you become a Rune Lord Priest, or Rune Priest Lord, you get access to Rune Lord Divine Intervention, which means it is almost automatic but can trash POW. As Priests need 18 POW to remain priests, if the DI and lose a bunch of POW then they go below that. It seemed unfair that they permanently lost all their Runemagic, so we treated them as being temporarily inconvenienced.

Our campaign was quite intense, with a lot of Divine Intervention, so most of us had POW reduced to below 18. I know that you can sacrifice for the Divine Intervention spell and Priests could use that instead, but we didn't really like that idea. We also played that RLPs could substitute points of Divine Intervention for POW lost through RL DI.

[g33k]

On 2/8/2017 at 8:27 PM, CitizenK2 said:

1) When making a resistance roll to cast a spell, does the attacker deduct the cost of the spell before determining their effective POW for the resistance roll? That is how it worked in later editions of CoC as I recall, but nothing in the RQ2 rules indicate this.

I always played that you counted the spell as "part of" the casting POW, so the defender has to resist the POW of the caster before they deduct the points for casting.  Others GMV (and obviously do) .

[Pentallion]

RQ 3 cleared the casting rule up.  It clearly states that if you have X magic points when you cast a spell, then that is what you use in the power struggle.  After that, however, your magic points are reduced.  This meant if the spell bounced back at you, then you had less mp than when you cast it.  That is explicitly explained in the description of Castback.  Therefore, that is the official way it is done. 

[g33k]

5 hours ago, Pentallion said:

RQ 3 cleared the casting rule up.  It clearly states that if you have X magic points when you cast a spell, then that is what you use in the power struggle.  After that, however, your magic points are reduced.  This meant if the spell bounced back at you, then you had less mp than when you cast it.  That is explicitly explained in the description of Castback.  Therefore, that is the official way it is done. 

... well, that is the RQ3 way it is done.

But there may be some (as yet unpresented) RQ2 clarifying rule, that shows you (and I:  this is also how our table played RQ2) are mistaken.   

 

[styopa]

29 minutes ago, g33k said:

... well, that is the RQ3 way it is done.

But there may be some (as yet unpresented) RQ2 clarifying rule, that shows you (and I:  this is also how our table played RQ2) are mistaken.   

 

I think this thread, and the number of well-informed Rq2 players that have read it and failed to respond with a clear clarification is already your answer to THAT.  

Simply: earlier rules sets were more about conveying concepts generally than being sure to clarify every edge-case mechanic.

[g33k]

7 hours ago, styopa said:

I think this thread, and the number of well-informed Rq2 players that have read it and failed to respond with a clear clarification is already your answer to THAT.  

I am largely convinced that you are correct about this.  

 

Hopefully the RQ:Next rules will clarify this point -- every resisted spell-casting is hardly an "edge-cese" mechanic, after all! -- as well as several others in the rules (e.g. "attack OR parry, or attack AND parry, with a single 1h weapon? (aka does Rurik's example break the rules?)")

Edited February 15, 2017 by g33k

[CitizenK2]

I suppose there really isn't a strong motivator for the modern Chaosium to resolve lingering questions like these in the 2nd Edition rules ... people have been getting by for 40 years with them, and any official ruling is sure to annoy part of the audience.

[CitizenK2]

Regarding the guilds that are willing to loan money to starting adventurers: do you generally play that a new PC can have debt to multiple guilds so long as the combined debt doesn't break the maximum for any of the guilds?

[g33k]

11 hours ago, CitizenK2 said:

Regarding the guilds that are willing to loan money to starting adventurers: do you generally play that a new PC can have debt to multiple guilds so long as the combined debt doesn't break the maximum for any of the guilds?

I have always done so -- a certain amount of "shopping-around" and "try it out" is expected among the youth -- but it can be risky proposal:  when you come back with treasure, who do you pay first?  Each guild wants to be at the top of the stack...

And when you work that closely with different Guilds, it's all-too-easy to afoul of partisan/political rivalries, and/or get embroiled in a Cult-in-hiding (not a mere "Guild"), etc.

Which, IMHO, is all to the good:  it embroils the PC into all sorts of stories!   

 

[CitizenK2]

g33k: Yeah, story hooks are key. :-)

<removed question about militia previous experience. I read the section again and figured it out> :-)

Edited February 18, 2017 by CitizenK2

[soltakss]

On 2/15/2017 at 0:37 PM, g33k said:

... well, that is the RQ3 way it is done.

But there may be some (as yet unpresented) RQ2 clarifying rule, that shows you (and I:  this is also how our table played RQ2) are mistaken.   

 

For the answer, I'd take it to the extreme.

You have 2 Temporary POW left and cast a two-point spell as a last ever action, as you know that you are going to die by casting it (0 Temporary POW in RQ2= Death). Do you match 2 vs POW on the Resistance Table or 0 vs POW? Since 0 doesn't have an option, you should use 2. As the rules need to be consistent, if you use 2 in this extreme example, then you should use the starting Temporary POW Points in all examples.

[styopa]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

For the answer, I'd take it to the extreme.

You have 2 Temporary POW left and cast a two-point spell as a last ever action, as you know that you are going to die by casting it (0 Temporary POW in RQ2= Death). Do you match 2 vs POW on the Resistance Table or 0 vs POW? Since 0 doesn't have an option, you should use 2. As the rules need to be consistent, if you use 2 in this extreme example, then you should use the starting Temporary POW Points in all examples.

I think it makes a real world logical sense as well that the consequence of your casting (the loss of mp) follows the casting.

To use a weak RW analogy: If you're throwing a ball, you throw it with your full strength.  It hits with the force you imparted; if throwing it makes you a little weaker, that's nothing that matters in the force of the original throw.