Nightshade

I suspect folks who are too knowledgeable about a given subject and where inaccuracies bug them have problems with simulationist representation in almost any system; anything that is liable to really satisfy someone fussy in those style systems tends to almost always be too detailed and finicky for everyone else.

You haven't spent much time around academics, have you?

Sure; I'm mostly explaining why that line I referred to could be significant or not; it could be a leftover from an earlier version of the rules, or it could be a reference to something like we assumed. Its probable that by now no one really knows any more.

Note that discussion actually still doesn't say we're wrong; after all, if you've got a 12 point shield, it'll stop 12 points of critical damage either way; the only question is what happens to the parrying weapon in the process. And as I noted, the last line under parrying (the critical parry note) implies that something is different there. Edit: Of course, to make it clear, you could be right, and some parts of that entry under critical damage and parries imply you are, but I still maintain its not crystal clear. This probably isn't a surprise, since from what I hear form Steve, the RQ3 design process was a bit more disconnected than earlier versions of the game (as in, different people worked on different sections and the final was just put together in the edit).

Note that this doesn't really tell you what happens with a normal parry against a critical attack, however; at best the last line implies that at least something unusual happens, but it doesn't entirely say whether it bypasses the shield completely, does full damage to it (our interpetation), or does nothing special if its less than the shield points (RosenMcStern's interpetation if I'm understanding him correctly).

There was a fairly common "divine bladesharp" we used to see that added 10% and 1D4 per point. And of course various spells that simply boosted the damage bonus of attackers. At the level we saw anyone with enchanted shields, it wasn't at all unlikely to see one or both on them. And I have to disagree about Truesword; that was commonly enough filched for other people's war god cults and the like it wasn't particularly uncommon to see, either. It seemed to be the common interpetation where I played, including when I played with Steve Perrin, so... I'm just noting how it seemed to play out in practice in my experience. I'm an agnostic on the realism or lack thereof of the process.

Yeah, but an attacker could just continually miss, too. One doesn't strike me as so much more likely than the other that I'm going to worry about it. Aberrations are aberrations.

Variance in a big linear die roll like a D100 suggests this is unlikely to happen for long unless the character is also relatively heavily armored (i.e. where those gusts getting by the defense are also fairly likely to bounce). Also, note my comment was specifically about highly skilled characters; frankly, it doesn't matter that both characters are highly skilled, I really didn't think it was a virtue that fights at that level were usually resolved either by magical intrusion or by someone being multiteamed.

Construction is, I'm afraid, like much of BRP pretty ad-hoc. Paying for them can have two basic approaches: 1. Chunk: They're treated like learning some spells and learned as one unit that takes X amount of time. Buying them at the start of play would probably be done by assigning a cost in skill points. 2. Pseudo-skill: Like Martial Arts they're learned as a second skill that has to be used with a combat skill at the lower of the two values. This has a problem that it can be hard to keep the skill at a value that makes actually taking the hit worth it, particularly if (like Martial Arts) its treated as a mental skill not improvable except by training.

That was me, and I have to note two things: 1. I was talking about non-Gloranthan RQ3, since that was I ran most. Gloranthan rune metals added a whole 'nother layer of problems to all kinds of things here, but that wasn't directly a consequence of the system. 2. When we did see enchanted shields in RQ3, the likelyhood was that the enchantment on the attack at high levels equaled or exceeded it, through Bladesharp, its divine equivelent, or a combination of the two. So I have to claim that my statement about RQ per se is correct, but for subsets of the game when using Glorantha I'll cheerfully acknowledge it may have even been worse. Edit: I also have to note an interpetational thing: since shields AP was both its hit points and armor points, our reading of the rule always was that a crit would still be stopped by the shield but would bypass the armor portion and damage it fully. So a longsword critting for 1d8+1+1D6 (or an average of 9 points) wouldn't finish the fight by itself but it'd knock the shield or parrying weapon's hits down low enough that successive hits would soon finish it.

I won't speak for him, but it could pretty much lead to an almost indefinite stalemate; for example, if you're using a medium shield (usually was around 12 AP in RQ) and a broadsword (1D8+1) with a D4 damage bonus (total average about 8, maximum only 13), unless your magical augmentation pushed it up considerably, you could spend a long time not doing anything to each other. It could turn, essentially, into the wait for the crit, and if the dice weren't cooperative... The probabilities of getting at least one step lower on the comparative success system is much greater, even at very high levels. It doesn't as strongly favor the person with the better magic enhancement on their weapon or shield, to boot.

Of course ki abilities are just magic under another name.

Yeah, I'd forgotten Fate points in my discussion; they should at least help a little (though with the numbers as-is, I'm not sure they'll entirely cover the problem).

I agree; BRP style games have always been pretty self-regulating here, though the nature of the semi-random advancement can produce occasional odd artifacts (we had a player in the old RQ2 days who managed to accumulate 150% Defense in the days when this required rolling INT as a percentage and it was a subtractor that usually started in the 5-15% range; and this was in a group with multiple GMs, and where we had early on decided to have the GMs roll advancement rolls. Consulting with my fellow GMs, no one could recall this character every having failed a Defense advancement check...)

I still think you're going to have to manage things carefully not to get a high lethality rate; even with Total Hit Points, sooner or later a critical impale can finish you off in one. Depending on the kinds of armor available, it can be even easier. The lack of healing seems like it could make this considerably worse, not only tactically, but strategically if you don't have very widely scattered combats.

I'm not going to deny your experiences, but I can't say I've ever seen it be frequent enough to be a problem for the minor bits of bookeeping we're talking about (and frankly, I haven't seen enough magic swords, barring the old RQ matrices, for there to be any likelyhood someone would have two both worth carrying). The three reasons I've ever seen someone to switch between weapons (barring a ranged and melee weapon, which won't normally be the same skill anyway) are threefold; one has lost or had one's prefered one destroyed and can't immediately replace it, one has increased Strength and/or Dex and is moving up to a prefered one, or the occasional case of a two-handed weapon user getting an arm disabled. Other than transitory forms of the first and third (broken weapons or a disabled arm), none of the three happen frequently, and two-handed only weapon users haven't in the past been so common that the third was common at all (I acknowldege that with the difference in how RQ and the modern BRP handle shields, it may be more attractive now). You probably could have just used the last half of this last sentence and been accurate.

At lower end games I don't consider that trivial in BRP, actually, nor do most people I've played with; the difference between 40% and 50% is pretty noticable. As long as you list the skill by the weapon normally used (and face it, most characters tend to use the same weapon the majority of the time) and only have to adjust when either changing to a new weapon or the random occasion when you've temporarily lots the old one, I don't see it as being any appreciable more work. All you have to do is actually remember that your listing of "Broadsword" does actually apply to the whole group on those relatively rare occasions when you have need to change. This strikes me as less work than having to remember the modifier during the course of a whole game, honestly.

Turns out Jason actually has a discussion of this, on page 258, and its essentially what a couple people have suggested. The only part I can disagree with is the "don't apply a penalty" clause, since that seems to be asking for people to always take skill with the higher base weapons and then change out.

I was thinking it sounded somewhat like the RQ4/AIG version from the summary. Of course since I'm rather fonder of that version than the RQ3 fatigue points, that's not an objection. To be honest, its more than anything else a case that as written the rules confused me; it sounded like the Encumbrance was intended to be used with and without the fatigue point system, and there really didn't seem to be any explanation of what it did without fatigue; there doesn't seem to actually be any effects or such listed except for the Physical Skill/Dodge penalty, and that seems completely independent of your Strength unless I'm missing something.

If it was an option, that'd be fine, but there's no guidance in the book on the subject at all; you essentially have to make the base up of whole cloth.

Several don't, specifically the polearms.

In other words, your take is that there is no by-the-book answer?

In practice, I think I'm going to suggest we use the RQ: AIG style fatigue (since its less niggly than the Fatigue Point system and deals with long term fatigue better), and encumbrance is already factored into that, so its probably not a big deal.

That's all fine and good, but it still doesn't tell you what the by-the-book answer to the question of what the base skill value for, say, 1H Axe is presumed to be; if you're listing that on a sheet, what do you list it based on? (And its not a trivial question, since that effects what the advancement roll will be).

Well RQ/BRP style encumbrance has never been more than pseudo-mass based anyway.