Mugen

ElfQuest was based on the comic books series, and let you play an elf from a tribe of wolf riders, just like the main protagonists of the series. Rules-wise, it was a strange mix of complex RuneQuest 3 combat rules and much simpler magic rules. As I said, the magic rules are basically the same as the Psionics in the BIg Gold Book from 2010. Skill bases a re all expressed as a characteristic multiplied by a factor. For instance, STR x3, DEX x1, INT x4 and so on. Bases depend on the character's origin. Elves from the Wolf Rider tribe all have very good Ride skill, for instance. Access to magic is very random, and character creation lists a chance to start with each possible ability, all based on POW. If you're lucky, you'll start with a handful of abilities. Otherwise, you might only have 1 or 2 abilities. As far as I remember, all elves have Telepathy.

I think it's worth mentioning ElfQuest Magic is the basis of the BGB Psionic rules.

Well, crits are considered as a 10, so a "0 "can be either a 0 or a 10, depending on the units result. And the higher your skill, the most likely it is to be 10 than 0. I also use Skill/10 as the chance for crits. As I said, it's the base damage value. Final damage works exactly as you describe, including the parry part. I also consider that when both fail, the highest die wins, but with a quality of 0. It results in damage to the defender simply equal to weapon-armor, which can be 0.

My first reaction was that your formula gives base skill far above 100% for giants. I think your idea makes sense, as long as weapon also influence damage. As for myself, I'd be in favor of using the tens of the skill roll as a basis for damage, treating a critical as a 10. As a result, a character with skill XY would do base damage between 0 and X.

If you restrict yourself to the most basic chapters in RD100, there's nothing fiddly IMHO. The "advanced" combat system is too much for my tastes (even though its initiative system is very close to one I designed a long time ago), and I won't use it. Magic can also be intimidating sometimes.

I quite like Revolution D100 approach : 12 to 16 skills, and "Traits" to help differentiate an expert climber from an expert jumper, which would give +30% to one or another. http://www.alephtargames.com/en/?option=com_content&view=article&id=96:revolution-srd&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=1 Traits can also be used to put a restriction on one's abilities : you could design an "Elemental caster" that is required before you can learn to cast FireBall or IceWall, for instance. Or you can't use your generic Craft skill for anything beyond simple fixes without a proper art/artesan skill. As for myself, I've been working on what was originally a simplified RuneQuest for several years now, and my original inspirations for my skill list were RuneQuest 3 skill categories and French game Légendes list of "Gifts". Respectively : Agility, Communication, Knowledge, Magic, Manipulation, Perception,Stealth. And : Combat, Magic, Art, Communication, Mechanisms, Nature, Perception, Faith I blended the two, and added a few ones, to obtain : Athletics, Aim, Communication, Education, Magic, Manipulation, Melee, Nature, Perception, Pilot/Ride, Resistance, Stealth Just like RD100, I have a mechanism which allows to be better at some aspects of a skill, and restrict one's ability to perform some specialized tasks.

It would be better to start in 510.

When I ran the GPC, I knew I couldn't play regularly, so I skipped a lot of years. Outside 510-518 and the end of the Campaign, I think we only played 1 year out of 2, and perhaps even less so in the end, as players became more and more tired of the game (mostly because there were only 2 of them remaining...). I even removed 15 years from the timeline, because I was not really fond of the idea of a 80 years old Arthur battling against a 73 years old Launcelot.

That's why I suggested to use a d10 or d20 instead of a d100, explicitly because it simplifies calculations a lot. Also, I personally prefer to have to re-roll a die once in 20 or 10 rolls than having a rule such as the one for skills over 100%.

In fact, it's very simple to have a good approximation for crits : re-roll on a 96-00 or 91-00, and just check if your roll is > Threshold+100. Of course, you'll have crit chance equivalent to Pendragon for skills >100, and not RuneQuest... Specials are more tricky, or even impossible to reproduce accurately. I tend to use Threshold+50 (or +10 with a d20, or +5 with a d10), knowing that it produces completely different results.

As far as I remember, Steve Perrin's Quest Rules also had this kind of "super-critical" on a roll <(skill/100). But it also differs from RQ canon, as specials are under skill/2 and crits are under skill/10. ***** This conversation is representative of the reasons why I prefer roll-over systems now. While roll-under works perfectly fine and requires less maths in "normal" situations, it tends to become much more complex when you have high or very high skills. Pendragon and HeroQuest being exceptions to this rule. In roll-over, a conflict between a character with skill 5 and skill 200 would not require a special rule. Just roll 1d100 plus skill on both sides, and compare those. If you want a bit more uncertainty, just add an "open-ended dice" rule, which would give a 1/100-ish chance to succeed to the 5 skill. And roll-over BRP is perfectly possible, even though I'd be tempted to switch to a d10+10s of the skill rather than a d100+skill, and keep the units just for experience.

As a matter of fact, my understanding was the same as yours before Jason Durall clarified things. To me, the text on pg 224 is a leftover from a previous version of the rules, which was closer to RQ2/RQ3. My point was in part about shields, but it was in fact a general reflection about the weapons you're used to fight with. I think a fighter who usually fights with a shield should end up having a better parry chance with his shield than with his sword. But I also think a character used to fight with just one sword should have better chance to parry with his sword. However, in the example I gave earlier, I mentioned 1H Sword and 1 H Axe as sub-skills of a Melee skill, and not fighting styles...

I wrote "efficiently", not "as efficiently as he is at attacking with it. That is, he should not have base chance of success. Later in my post, I say I consider a fighter used to parry with his shield should have a better parry chance with his shield than his sword.

That would be an excellent way to make parry with a shield far more interesting, but it's not how the official rule works. The malus is cumulative no matter what weapon you use to parry. Anyway, that was not my point here.

Yes, but the issue here is that you need two skills to fight with a shield, while you only need one when you fight with only one weapon, either one-handed or 2-handed. I agree that a character used to fight with a sword ought to be able to parry with it efficiently. I also agree attack and parry split is not a good idea. But IMHO, someone used to attack with a sword and parry with a shield should in general have better parry chance with his shield than with his sword. And it's tthe case in RQG only if your shield skill is superior to your sword skill.

Especially when you think there's a whip skill somewhere whose only use is to make noise with your whip, not attacking with it.

IMHO, all those games and Prince Valiant paved the way for The Forge and all the "narrativist" games that came since.

And, given the number of ties in RQG implementation of Opposed Rolls, that will be a common situation.

I think it really depends on how you're introduced to it. My experience with Glorantha surely differs from others here, as I started with the french edition of RQ3, based on translations of Avalon Hill boxed sets. The approach was very encyclopedic and global, and provided a lot of informations on areas of the world I was not interested in, and very few useful details on the area where I wanted to play. I tried to do a Gloranthan campaign, but it was obvious I couldn't grab the setting with what I had available. Surely, RQG is a far better entry point.

Yes, or RD100 traits made a little more complicated. As for your question, see my answer to Dragon above.

That's a very good question, and one I have no good answer for. Experience is the kind of system you need to test in the long run, and it's something I never managed to do. Obviously, applying RQ experience rolls don't work, and doubling the improvement rate is not a good idea. Perhaps make the roll using the sum of your skill and specialty, then divide the experience gain between the two. Round up for specialty and down for skill, or vice-versa. Of course, it means you'll gain experience faster if you use a new weapon or skill, but I like the idea that experiencing new ideas is the best way to gain experience. Not sure how to treat the case when a skill was used with different sub-skills. Either only keep the best result, or just +1. I would only apply modifications to skills after all the rolls are made, to avoid making priority between two experience checks a problem. For instance, if the character in my example fought with a sword and an axe, he would make 2 experience rolls, trying to roll over 70 and 50. His first roll is 72. He rolls 3 on his d6, which means his Sword is now 37%, and he has a potential +1 for his Melee. He then rolls 65, and 6 on his d6. His Axe is now 18. Depending on the rule, his Melee is either going to increase by 3 (if we keep the best increase between 3/2 round down or 6/2), or 2 (if we only add +1 per experience roll after the first).

Same for me, except for 4th edition, which I never read.

I do something similar. I have one Melee skill and one Missile skill, and each individual weapon skill (one per weapon class) is treated as a bonus to one of those skills. So, a character might have Melee 35%, 1H Sword +35% and 1H Axe +15%. He'll fight with 70% with a broadsword, 50% with axe, and 35% with any other weapon. I also apply the same logic for all other skills, using skill categories as broad skills. So, You might have Communication 25%, Bargain +15% and Orate +10%, for instance. There are of course skills that need training before you can use them, especially under Knowledge.

I'm assuming it's a question for me. Yes, if a character parries twice before he attacks, he gets a -30% to his attack. To attack more than once, you need to declare it in the declaration phase. The penalty is 30% per attack after the first and applies on all actions and reactions in the turn. So, if you have a character with 200% skill which decides to attack twice and parries once before and after his turn, his malus will be: First Parry : -30% (due to the two attacks) Both attacks : -30% (first parry doesn't change the modifier) Second parry : -60% (it's the second parry, so he gets another -30%) Again, it may be difficult to track without some kind of actions track. I could use the same rule for attacks and parries, and apply a cumulative malus for each attack after the first, and it's how I designed it in the first place. But I once had a bad experience in a RPG which made me change my mind. In this game, the GM played a monster with multiple attacks, each with a cumulative malus. While the first 2 attacks had a decent chance of hitting, the 4th and 3rd were just pointless, with less than 1% chance to hit. But the GM kept rolling those attacks, because it cost him nothing, and we lost time looking at him rolling his dice for nothing. Of course, in BRP it's easy to fix such an issue, as you can decide that a character with less than 0% simply can't attack. Of course, there's also the need for having a dedicated step for action declaration. A quick fix would be to require that the player says how many attacks he plans to do either at the start of his turn, or when he's first targeted by another character's action.

But in the case of the katana, you constantly switch from using 2 hands to 1 hand, because it either gives you more strength, or a better reach. And using one form or the other is part of the training. I mention the katana because it's the only weapon I have (very little) experience with, but I think the same is true for every weapon that is not too heavy to be used with only one hand.