Pete Nash

Loz is currently working on something to help with this. The main trouble with example combats, detailed combat examples I mean, is that they can become very tedious to read - and more often than not, actually lead to more questions and confusion. A large element of any combat is GM rulings on position and tactical situation, which cannot easily be explained in the context of an example of real life play. So Loz is coming up with a new approach, and one I hope will make combat examples both more interesting and easier to absorb. It will still take time to produce however, he's snowed under with work at the moment.

Ah, such sweet memories. I may be an evil bastard GM, but for some strange reason the players keep coming back for more...

I'll take that as a compliment!

I still have and treasure my copies...

You want a video of me being my normal evil self and psychologically abusing my players, whilst simultaneously twisting the RQ6 rules to whatever I want because I co-wrote them!?! Some folks must be real masochists! Loz has spent years suffering at my hands, whether sitting him down in a dark room, by himself, to watch a home made mind-**** movie as the prep to entering the game; to running a game in the sauna and saying that whoever leaves suffers instant death, no save. Believe me, you don't want a video of that particular experience... I truly am an evil, bastard from hell GM.

I have to agree. It was a poor conversion and I'm not even sure whoever did it even had the Legend rules, let alone read them. The TSGB appears to be using the MRQ1 version of Sorcery, and as Bilharzia said the weapon skills are MRQ1 version too. The new spells seem to be written using MRQ1 Rune Magic, despite there being no Rune Magic skill provided for any of the NPCs, let alone any of them using these new spells. What magic is available is an unholy mess of sorcery and rune magic (e.g. Disruption, Protection), both of which seem to be expected to be manipulated by the Sorcery Manipulation skills (despite mechanical incompatibility). What half dozen or so spells are provided are repetitive, unimaginative and provided at such low skill that it is severely reduced in effectiveness, for example Palsy at 42% which can only affect locations with 5HP or less (and some casters have it at a lower skill). Some of them don't (as far as I'm aware) even exist in MRQ1, MRQ2 or TSGB (e.g. Silence). I cannot tell if all the referenced monsters exist in Legend (since I don't own a copy of it), but I have the distinct feeling a few of them are D&D leftovers... and I'm pretty sure I saw a D&D Magic Item in the text too. And the converting magic to S&S is a straight copy-paste from the D&D version. Sadly, all the potential for making sorcery weird and scary was lost. As was the chance to insert some very true-to-genre Spirit Magic. Added to the loss of characterisation, TSGB was a lost opportunity. I sincerely wish Matt had let me do the conversion whilst I was still working for Mongoose, but the project was buried until well after I left. So we have yet another example of flawed conversion, which doesn't even manage to convert it correctly to a version of the game two revisions old! What really surprises me, is that nobody apart from Bilharzia has spotted the problem or raised a stink about it yet...

Thanks Nick!

Then you would like the RQ6 pdf which is thoroughly hypertexted, formatted for tablets and has all its tables available as a free download for easy printing of the relevant a GM might use...

The best way of thinking about the Blackjack method is this: Whoever gets the best level of success wins, but in case of a tie the highest roll wins. It helps make the numbers fade into the background.

Definitively, yes.

Would you perhaps take my word as someone who teaches this sort of combat, that there is no reduction in skill when performing these techniques? They are not only deceptively simple to perform, but also brutally effective.

No problem Frogspawner, no offence taken. I have a mental filter which automatically interprets most of your observations as being somewhat subjective. On the objective truth side of things axe-elf (and game mechanic balancing aside), surely you are aware that whilst wielding a two-handed weapon you can simultaneously attack and parry with the same movement? I haven't got time to give a comprehensive list of historical illustrations of the few available on the web, but here's a few from the Goliath Fechtbuch.... http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/78.jpg http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/83.jpg http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/94.jpg http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Goliath/106.jpg

Where on earth do you guys get the idea that samurai dodge and don't parry? Kenjutsu is full of parrying, and it is seen frequently in Japanese art all the way back to the Sengoku (if not earlier). Parrying is a fundamental part of any close quarters fighting style which uses weapons. This is another of those weird fallacies such as swashbucklers dodge and don't parry. A strange artefact of watching old movies and the mind remembering the flashy leaps down staircases or over furniture, yet blanking out the twenty parries between each acrobatic stunt. Go and look at an Errol Flynn movie or better yet the 1973 version of the Three Musketeers which has probably the most authentically portrayed fighting sequences of that particular period. After that go and watch a few Japanese samurai movies, ignore all the cutting down of multiple goon scenes (which is simply Hero gets initiative and hits first) and watch the bouts the main protagonist and chief antagonist, where the hero is matched against someone of close to his own skill. Even though stylised in older films, you'll still see plenty of parrying and very little dodging at all.

Probably for the most simple of reasons that its a real pain in the arse lugging a big shield everywhere, especially when you are tramping up and down rough, mountainous terrain all the time. The strangest thing of all, is that the dropping of the shield ushered in the period when the bow became considered the premier weapon of the battlefield and spiritual pinnacle of Bushido - exactly the time when the protection of a shield would have been invaluable. But it just goes to show that the historical adoption armour and weaponry is rarely based on technique or even economics. It can be something as simple as fashion, tradition or even faith - 19th C bullet proof Boxers anyone? Which just goes to show that social peer pressure can exert a far superior influence than logic... even in war.

Sorry, never played the Halo series...

Where they blew up, their explosive radium rounds growing increasingly unstable over countless millennia... "These rifles were of a white metal stocked with wood, which I learned later was a very light and intensely hard growth much prized on Mars, and entirely unknown to us denizens of Earth. The metal of the barrel is an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel which they have learned to temper to a hardness far exceeding that of the steel with which we are familiar. The weight of these rifles is comparatively little, and with the small caliber, explosive, radium projectiles which they use, and the great length of the barrel, they are deadly in the extreme and at ranges which would be unthinkable on Earth. The theoretic effective radius of this rifle is three hundred miles, but the best they can do in actual service when equipped with their wireless finders and sighters is but a trifle over two hundred miles." "They have had me down in the pits below the buildings helping them mix their awful radium powder, and make their terrible projectiles. You know that these have to be manufactured by artificial light, as exposure to sunlight always results in an explosion. You have noticed that their bullets explode when they strike an object? Well, the opaque, outer coating is broken by the impact, exposing a glass cylinder, almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minute particle of radium powder. The moment the sunlight, even though diffused, strikes this powder it explodes with a violence which nothing can withstand. If you ever witness a night battle you will note the absence of these explosions, while the morning following the battle will be filled at sunrise with the sharp detonations of exploding missiles fired the preceding night." Radium Rifle 2d6 10km/320km/480km 1 100 3 Ablating, Disintegrating, Weakness (half damage at night) 6 (Sorry it took so long... it took me a while to find and speed read my copy of A Princess of Mars)

Yes.

No problem! Words like logarithmic and complex formulae are the kiss of death in RPGs nowadays, when even simple mental arithmetic can bring howls of complaint down upon the authors of a game. You can only push the barriers so far.

It is deliberately hidden in RQ6. The one in RQ6 on page 14 is specifically for humanoids, as stated in the third paragraph of 'Height and Weight'.

For direct compatibility MRQ2 Vikings will be the easiest to use as it was written with the same stats and combat mechanics in mind, whilst the magic is a unique plug-in system which will slot right into RQ6. Mythic Iceland on the other hand will probably have far more historical and regional depth (unfortunately I don't have a copy to know for sure). Sadly I was only given a month to write Vikings, which is reflected in its broad overviews. Other considerations in Mythic Iceland's favour are a number of pre-written scenarios which will allow a GM to hit the floor running. However, as the pdf of MRQ2 Vikings is only $1 on DriveThru, I'd heartily recommend purchasing both!

What an embarrassing, yet insidiously attention grabbing thread. Whilst at school, the usual taunt was "for Nash get Smash!" sung in robotic voices, which will make sense to British forum members of the right age... So 'Nash the Smash' would actually be an improvement.

If you take a moment to look at the Moon Design site you'd see that there's an pre-order offer of getting both for only $50. The book is 456 pages long and the pdf is comprehensively hyperlinked (even the index) so looking things up should be simple.

Not quite true. They could if they had their own divine aid, as is portrayed most famously in the Iliad. Diomedes, aided by Athena, attacks and wounds two immortals, Aphrodite and Ares. "But man-killing Ares did see Diomedes. He let the body of huge Periphas lie there, where he’d first killed him and ripped out his spirit. He strode straight up to horse-taming Diomedes. When the two came to close quarters and faced each other, Ares thrust his bronze spear first, over the yoke and horses’ reins, eager to take Diomedes’ life. Athena, bright-eyed goddess, hands gripping the reins, shoved the spear aside, so its thrust was harmless, above the chariot. Diomedes, skilled in war cries, then made the second thrust with his bronze spear. Pallas Athena guided the weapon right to Ares’ gut, the lower part where his waist band went around him. Diomedes wounded Ares, piercing his fair skin, then pulled back on his spear. Brazen Ares roared as loud as the screams of nine or ten thousand men when they clash in war. Fear seized Achaeans—Trojans, too. They shuddered. That’s how strong that cry sounded as it came from Ares, insatiable for war." But there are other examples too... 'Dione, queen among goddesses, then replied: "Be brave, my child, hold on, though you're in pain. Many of us who live on Mount Olympus have been hurt by men in our attempts to bring harsh troubles on each other. Ares suffered when powerful Otus and Ephialtes, children of Aloëus, tied him up in powerful manacles, then kept him prisoner in a brass jar for thirteen months. Ares would've died there, with all his war-lust, if their step-mother, fair Eëriboea, had not told Hermes. He stole Ares secretly. Ares was exhausted. That harsh imprisonment was breaking him. And Hera suffered, too, when Hercules, the mighty son of Amphitryon, hit her right breast with a three-barbed arrow. She was wracked by pain beyond all cure. With them huge Hades also suffered from a sharp arrow, when this same man, this Hercules, a son of aegis-bearing Zeus, shot him in Pylos, among the corpses there, inflicting pain. Hades went straight to Zeus at home on Olympus—his heart enraged, in agony, the arrow buried deep in his strong shoulder. He was incensed. Paeëon healed him with pain-killing herbs smeared on the wound, for Hades was immortal. What a wretch he was, that Hercules, a trouble maker. He didn't hesitate to commit bad acts with that bow of his against the gods who dwell on Mount Olympus. But Athena, the bright-eyed goddess, prompted Tydeus' son to go at you. Still, he's a fool for not remembering that the man who fights against immortals does not live long."

Actually, the Mysticism rules as they stand will allow you to pretty much replicate all of that. All you need to do is decide on what combination of mystic talents you mix together to form each separate path.

Fair enough, although you have pretty much answered why low INT make playing a character rather tough. On the other hand I've never had a problem with playing characters with substandard physical stats. I even had a professional merc character last year with CON 6, which made combat rather chancy... and up until a few weeks ago I've been playing a small English boy thrown into a fantasy world with only a single characteristic in the 2 digit range. Anyway I digress. Something which should be taken into consideration is that most versions of BRP from CoC to Elric have assumed human level sapience starts at INT 8. Which sort of paves a rather major tradition to follow.