Mugen

I'm not sure it's suited for ElfQuest at all, but I tend to use the following types myself : -Biokinesis (control living material, plants and animals alike), -Metamagic (control others' spells), -Psychokinesis (apply physical forces to an object or being), -Telepathy (mind reading). I tend to associate ESP powers to the categories above. Life sense would be Biokinesis, Mind detection would be Psychokinesis, and anything relating to space or matter would be Psychokinesis. Magic sense would be Metamagic.

But it's exactly the same. The only question is how many points are chosen by the GM and the player.

Sometimes you learn something you did not expect to learn. I've always thought that the two ways that exist in RQ3 to earn points in skills (experience and training/study) were mandatory in all BRP games. Nowadays, I prefer to give ticks rather than use traditional rules.

I understand why people don't like the complexity of Mythras. I, for instance, don't want Localized Hit Points. But Combat Maneuvers are just a way to have customized critical successes. Instead of having a list of effects that happens when you roll a Special or a Critical, you chose which ones apply, depending on the difference between success levels. I prefer to give a number of checks, but assign half of those according to the events that took place during the session.

Strange... The only edition I really read was the 3rd, but it seems I used a 5.0 bug for some reason...

That was also an option for NPCs in MRQ2. Mythras weapons also tend to deal less damage, and damage bonus also tend to be smaller.

Given my (and everybody's) experience with non-localized Hit Points BRP, I see no reason why this couldn't work. But it would result in a rather different game. The most obvious difference will be with combat special effects such as Strike Location, of course. The absence of Generic Hit Points in Mythras means being hit twice in the same location has more impact than being hit on two different locations. In first case, you're very likely to be dead or with a useless limb.

I don't know if Zombies and Skeletons are still a thing in RQG, but now I understand how they could be made less expensive in POW. "You will have eternal life, all you need is give me your soul !".

IMHO, using "Highest skill wins" is a really bad idea, as it gives a ridiculous advantage to the highest skill, even if it's only 1 point over the other. Say for instance you have 2 opposing characters with skills 49 and 50, in a very simple game with no criticals, only success and failure. The one with the 50% skill has 50% chance to win, as he just have to roll under his skill. The one with 49% skill has 24.5% chance to win, as he has to roll under his skill and hope the other doesn't. And with a 80 vs 79 skill, we have 80% versus 15.8% Of course, adding Criticals and Specials will change the outcome of the roll and reduce the difference between the two, and I voluntarily made it so to amplify the problem. But even with it, a huge gap remains.

You're absolutely right. But we can also get a glimpse of the whole system from the QuickStart pre-generated characters. For instance, it seems we can see two of those "Heroic abilities" on each character. One comes from the species (Ill Tempered for ducks, Adaptative for humans, etc.), and one seems to be freely chosen. With thelittle info we can see here, it's possible a watered down version of "Adaptative" can let you use AGL base instead of STR base for 1 WP. The connexion between abilities and base skill values seems also pretty strong, and pretty familiar to RQ2/RQG players... 7 to 8 => base 4 9 to 12 =>base 5 13 to 16 =>base 6 17 to 19 => base 7 I think the fact the halfling has 4 in all her STR weapon skills despite having AGL 19 is a good indicator that AGL has, by default, no impact on these skills.

As for myself, I would merge Fatigue and Hit Points into one single rule, where both Maximum Hit Points and Hit Points would vary with time. Maximum Hit Points would be reduced by Wounds and Exhaustion. Only hits above a given threshold would result in wounds. Exhaustion would come after XX hours of strenuous activity. Exhaustion would be recovered in hours, whereas Wounds would require weeks or months. Recovering Hit Points would only need minutes.

Characters with experience and no combat skills. No matter what D&D edition you consider, your 10th level wizard will not need spells to win a fight with a low level fighter.

It's a debate as old as RPG systems. In original D&D Strength was defined as the prime requisite for being a Fighting Man, whereas Dexterity only (slightly) affected one's ability to fight with bows. It really depends on what you put under the term "Strength". If it's only lifting power, of course it sounds silly to base weapon skills on it. But if you consider it's also a measure of how you can use your muscles, then it can also mean speed. In real life, it would be difficult to separate strength from agility, and tell one activity is solely based on strength and what other one is solely based on agility.

It's similar, unless your skill is superior to 20. With a skill of 22, you have 15% chance of failure against Difficulty Factor 5, but retain your 15% chance to get a critical success. Anyway, I think the biggest problem is it is not easy to create an "Ease Factor" in the rules which could be used for any kind of favorable occasions. A possibility could be to use numbers in the high range of the d20 and consider that any roll above this number is a success no matter your skill. That is, in a situation with an Ease Factor of 17 if I have a skill of 13, any roll between 1 and 13 or between 17 and 20 would be a success. But it's clearly not as simple as DF or modifiers...

Actually, roll-under Blackjack works perfectly for me, and I would play a game based on it with no problem. But I've faced many players that had problems with it, even when they understood the maths behind it. It's heartbreaking to see a player say a triumphant "YES !" when he rolls a 1 and have to remind him it's actually a mediocre result... As for Margins of success being "tiresome" : I'm quite good at maths myself, but to be honest having to make a subtraction after every single roll in combat can give me headaches after a few hours playing. And that's a burden you can't avoid with Margins of Success, obviously. And I really feel like it's an unnecessary one when BlackJack exists and have similar results.

I had in mind the fact Magic skills you know are randomly determined at character creation, and you can never learn a magic skill known to the Wolf Riders after that. My guess is it's the same for other magic skills : if you fail your initial roll, you can never try again

Combat is much more complex than D&D, especially 5e. Hit locations, different success levels, active defenses have no equivalents in D&D. And Strike Ranks do not compare in any way to D&D Initiative. But other areas are simpler. D&D "Vancian" magic is not intuitive at all. Spells must first be learned, then prepared each day, and you can only cast X spells of every level. In comparison, RQ Spirit Magic and Rune Magic are easy to learn and use. Sorcery is a completely different beast, but you rarely see it in play.

Note that there was once a RuneQuest "Lite" in the 90s : "RuneQuest 90s". But it was only released in Japan, and in japanese. Despite it's very "generic anime/manga fantasy", it was very gloranthan.

That's exactly what I had in mind. 🙂 Something I'd try to change is make Magic Powers less random at character creation. I don't know exactly how I'd do it, but I've always found a little frustrating that you could want to play a "magician" (well, more a psionic, given the nature of magic) but end up with just one magic skill.

As for myself, I think I'd rather remove rules from combat section rather than add new ones. 🙂 RQ3 style rules simply don't work for me anymore.

I personally think roll over is better than roll under for a simple reason : it handles skill opposition more simply and more elegantly. And skill opposition is an important part of any system for me. Roll-under shines when there's no modification to skill and no opposition : you just roll your die and compare it to skill level. It's quick, simple and effective. In comparison, standard roll-over systems require an addition before comparing with a threshold. It seems to me Savage Worlds doesn't require an addition, but it's an exception. They're equally good when facing a non-standard situation, requiring a modifier to skill for roll-under. But concerning skill opposition, nothing is as simple as doing it with roll-over : just compare the skill+dice roll, and the highest succeeds. In roll-under, the equivalent is margins of success, but it's heavy on subtractions, and tiresome. Roll-under blackjack works very well, but it's counter-intuitive, and many people don't get why they have to roll low but not too low. Other methods -such as giving victory to the lowest roll, or only counting levels of success- have flaws which make them not worth considering for me.

On a french RPG forum, I've read someone say that the "only one action per round" was a mandatory evolution, because "back in the days" rounds lasted 1 minute, and now they're down to 6 seconds. So, you don't have time to attack and parry in such a short time And another say that the system as a whole proposed welcome evolutions when you compare it to d20 System.

Which actually makes it even closer to Pendragon Defensive Stance, as it was in older editions. 🙂 TBZ mechanism only requires that you beat your opponent's attack to riposte.

I really don't see the point of not attacking if you have initiative, except if you fear dying from next blow. You just forfeit your opportunity to injure your opponent, just in case he succeeds his attack roll, hoping you'll succeed at your own Parry/Dodge roll in turn. And if he wins next Initiative round, your sacrifice of an action will be meaningless. Unless you're in a scenario where 2 or more characters are fighting one, of course. But it strikes me as being a very unfair scenario... EDIT : if I truly wanted to speed up combat, I would take inspiration from Tenra Bansho Zero, where a successful parry can be turned into an attack, just like in Pendragon. Right now, the DragonBane system sounds like Pendragon if the only options you had were the Defensive or Berserker Stances, but the one chosing to go Berserk had the initiative... We have 3 melee characters among the pregenerated characters, among which one has a power that lets him defend other characters, and none has a power that lets him deal with this.

Oh, I just saw something I utterly dislike, concerning Parry and Dodge : So, that means that if I parry or dodge, I can't do anything else in the round, and if I chose to attack early in the round, I'm a victim to anyone attacking me... That's completely opposite to the kind of resolution systems I appreciate these days, where combat skills are opposed and the best roll hits. Like in Pendragon and Tenra Bansho Zero.