Pete Nash

I think the Luck Rune is rather apt.

You gain one CM per Level of Success you gain over your opponent. A few of the CMs can only be selected if you rolled a critical.

Once you've played it a few times the CMs fade into the background. Speed wise, CMs actually make combat quicker overall and can resolve a fight without needing to disect your enemy. The humakti draws his sword and lunges at you. Roll dice. Humakti fails, you succeed and chose and succeed in disarming him. Hold your blade under his chin. Fight over! Honestly, it can be pretty slick! It is a nice book. It has the Luck Rune on the cover.

Ummm, you got that very slightly wrong. If the attacker succeeds (Success or Crit) in his roll, his weapon hits. If the defender succeeds (Success or Crit) then he parrys the blow. The effect of the parry, as you rightly pointed out, depends on the corresponding sizes of the weapons. Then, if one or other succeeded and got a level of success above his opponent, they get one CM per LoS step between them. So it is quite possible to have the damage of your attack parried, but use an offensive CM to mess up the defender in another way. Just as its possible that a defender is wounded as he applies a defensive CM to discommode his foe. Its quite sophisticated, and allows a lot of real life situations occur in play. As both Deleriad and Rosen have indicated, there are lots of fun defensive CMs as well as offensive ones.

Opps, my jest fell a bit flat. I think I failed my witty repartee roll.

Ooh, better be careful using the balance word. It seems to have become rather contentious of late! :innocent:

I've been suffering withdrawal jitters... or perhaps I'm drinking too much caffeine?

Oy... Watch it, otherwise I might have to introduce cameos in future Glorantha books involving a poor unlucky froggy orientated character! As you correctly observed, base percentages for combat and common magic are presented in a seperate table on p12. Since Combat Styles are skills which cover the use of several weapons used in combination, there was little point assigning a base skill value to each individual weapon. Its simpler and saves space in the skills and equipment chapters too. Close Combat (Str+Dex) and Ranged Combat (Dex x 2) were specifically left off the common skills list so that people couldn't misinterpret them as an exclusive uber-skill which could be applied to all weapons.

Excellent!

Yes, but it happens less for roll high. As for amateurs beating professionals, that should be the exception, not the rule. Ah, what I meant was that the result is more predictable. Don't get me wrong, I still like some randomness... I just like to see a decent advantage for having a higher skill. Whereas I prefer it to be more skewed as it gives more value to each percentage point of the higher skill. It suits my interpretation of skill values in the real world. As Paolo implicates, its not a question of fairness - merely a question of how biased you want the probability outcome to be. :thumb:

I think it all comes down to personal interpretation of how much the % reflects the actual skill or capability. As the system stands a 20% skill difference represents a major increase in competence. I prefer roll high, with the increased bias, because if using the suggested Skill Ratings a neophyte should realistically have no chance of overcoming a master, and an amateur should be regularly overcome by a professional. I also find it helps me predict the outcome of a challenge better, rolling high giving a more consistent result. But that's just my preference and I don't have any conceptual difficulties with roll high/differing levels of success.

So did I Simon. I thought it was awesome. The acting was solid, I didn't care the storyline wasn't deep or original (heck 95% of all movies aren't), and it was visually beautiful. Well worth seeing in my opinion.

Yes it should provide a lot of cultural and social background, along with many interesting historical events on which to pin scenarios. It helps to squeeze in a higher word count! The quotes were formatted that way for emphasis, so that you can locate the passage quicker if scanning the page, and it breaks up the flow of the quite dense text. I like it because it captures the attention of a casual browser and sucks them straight into the subject with a paragraph or two. Tastes vary of course, but if this the worst of your nitpicks, I think I'm a very happy man indeed! Thanks for the comments Akrasia. Perhaps after you finish reading it you could post something nice about Rome on your blog? :thumb: Does anyone else have any (re)views which will help out the production team at Alephtar Games, or my own future projects?

No problem! I sincerely hope this version will rejuvenate some interest in MRQ, and perhaps gain some respect. Hell, that's one good reason not to use the roll all dice at once option! Bleaarg!

Back-tracking? :confused: Is that all the thanks I get for including a frog totem in the article... Yes, I did have you in mind when I wrote that part.

Yes, but I thought it was all good - especially the Yelmalio Rune Lord bit.

LOL! :thumb:

Spirit magic is now proper animism. Shamans use spirits rather than casting spells, although they can use Common Magic like any other person if they wish.

Sorry Atgxtg, we are not supposed to talk about it yet. But if you wait a few days, there will be an article in December's S&P describing the general revisions to the system. Hopefully it'll give you an idea what RQII will be like in comparison with its previous incarnations.

ROME will be available via Cubicle 7 from February, so hopefully it'll start to be distributed to some FLGS. With their bright vivid covers, both Rome and Merrie England should draw a lot of attention when displayed on a shop shelf.

Far more with a single handed weapon or a strapped shield. The former because you are usually only supporting one end of the weapon, so leverage comes into play (you need to parry using the blade nearest the hilt). The latter because strapped shields have very limited manoeuvrability and can be angled past easier (center-grip shields are better for foot combat).

That's a tough one to answer. It depends on a combination of weapon form, whether I'm armoured, and most importantly the skill of my opponent. As I've improved over the years, the more minimal my defensive movements have become. This allows me to parry and recover (or progress into a subsequent attack) quicker, and prevents me from being over extended if I've read my opponent's intentions wrong. However, it does mean that an unexpectedly powerful blow, or a fighter of superior technique can partially whelm my parry. If armoured this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I rarely ever suffer a bruise nowadays, even if full sparing with steel (not like my early days where I'd be literally black with contusions). If unarmoured, I consciously extend (commit) my parries out further to take into account increased risk; or change technique if facing a great weapon because there will be different types of attack and additional force. However it doesn't take much to turn a potential bone breaking blow into a mere sting. Since my defence is primarily based on skill and movement, I rarely partially parry unless I meet someone as good as me. Then any bypassing impacts start to become notable. I suppose the golden rule amongst highly skilled martial artists is "only commit your parry to what is required, nothing more" - I.e. prevent incapacitation, but don't waste time or effort to stop/ward/evade the entire attack. A lot of the time you want that slight 'contact' from a fully extended blow to enable you to step in, or bind their weapon, or do a dozen other nasty techniques whilst they remain open.

I'll answer concerning how easy it is to break a weapon in combat, rather than pick holes in AP values which are really just abstractions of length and mass in order to help deflect damage. After a heated discussion several years back about how difficult it was to cleave the shaft of a wooden hafted weapon, I did perform an experiment trying to actively damage a range of weapons. Although most of my original premises were correct, it did reveal some very strange trends - primarily that in direct combat metal weapons actually more susceptible to damage than wooden ones, and the larger the metal weapon the more vulnerable it became. The biggest problem when trying to deliberately break a wooden hafted weapon isn't whether the edge of a sword or axe can cut the wood, but rather that the target moves when you strike it, transforming the energy normally used to penetrate the material into accelerating the target away instead. The best result I could get using a greatsword or axe against an ash hafted spear for example was some minor scratching of the wood. Ironically, the edge of the greatsword suffered worse. Now if you are in a situation where the spear or polearm is wedged so that it doesn't recoil from the blow, it becomes a different matter. Even so, its no easy feat to snap an ash shaft an inch and a half in diameter, and depends on the length of the shaft presented between the two rigidly held points - the longer the length, the more the shaft flexes. In the press of combat, cleaving them is almost impossible. As for snapping swords, I've never actually managed that. But I use modern steel. Early Greek accounts of bronze swords record them as breaking frequently in close combat. This wasn't so much down to the weakness of the metal, but rather the design of sword itself. The failures occurred where the overly narrow tang entered the hilt, or the rivets holding the blade to the hilt ripped free, or the thrusting tip of the blade where it narrows snapped off (presumably from striking against/into a solid object). Early iron swords had the problem of being softer, so they frequently bent, and those blades could snap mid-way more easily because of the impurities introduced when forging the metal. By the late middle ages once smiths could reliably produce inclusion-free steel, swords (generally) stopped critically breaking. So how do you break a weapon during combat? Generally you don't during normal hack and slash. I have once managed to break a spear in full combat as a side effect of disarming my opponent. Driving the point of his weapon into the ground with my center-grip shield, I stepped in deep with my left leg and then deliberately kneeled down on the shaft. I was attempting to use the weight of my kneeling body to pull the spear from his hands. Instead I snapped it cleanly. However, it took my full weight plus armour to do it. The same trick can be used against swords if you can ward your opponent's to ground level, except you step on the mid-part of the blade. Not to be done unless you are willing to permanently deform someone's sword. My most recent weapon breakage was only three weeks ago when I was giving a lesson in 2H German Longsword fighting. As part of a faux attack I bound my opponent's blade whilst simultaneously stepping in close, then releasing my left hand from my hilt I grasped his blade, stepped and twisted it in an attempt to disarm him. Unfortunately he failed to release his grip, and although I summarily won the fight with a pommel strike to his face (don't worry he was wearing armour), the opposing twists managed to put a rather nasty bend in the blade. Despite the sword being full combat approved, guaranteed not to sheer, the steel was still vulnerable to severe deformations. I was rather surprised since my left hand is crippled and has half the strength of my right, but with correct technique, leverage and my body mass behind it, the longsword lost. That is why bigger blades are more vulnerable. I couldn't have done the same thing to a gladius for example. Thus based on my personal experience, weapons rarely break during combat. It can be done as a deliberate act (rather than bad luck, poor maintenance or flawed manufacture), but it requires a great deal of skill and hardly ever uses your own weapon to do it. In terms of game mechanics the way I view it is when a weapon 'soaks' a certain amount of damage, the excess doesn't damage the weapon itself. Rather the weapon is moved and the blow continues onwards. If its a shield, then the force of the blow smashes the shield rim into my face/body, or the shield torques my arm or shoulder. The weapon itself shouldn't suffer harm. Does that help? :confused:

I love the fact that the Victorian army has set up the SG in a better defensive position than those idiots in the TV show...

In my game the SG is a bronze looking ring of flames in which a larger than life-size statue of Shiva originally stood. A long lost secret of central India. It animated and attacked the party of course, who fought off the 'diabolical clockwork automaton' without initially realising it was the guardian set to prevent the gate being operated, to prevent the enslaving, horrific aliens from returning. Something they discovered in short order after destroying it with concentrated musket fire! Of course the heroic troopers of the 13th rescued the Colonel's wife-to-be from the Indian cultists, and fled the appearance of the alien-thingy which in a burst of some sonic weaponry, brought down the temple down atop itself and the ring, so they thought everything had ended well. That is, until they saw the SG again in the Crimea, being set up behind the Russian guns... >:->