DreadDomain

It makes sense. When you realize someone is attacking you you need to commit to your defense (or take your chances) before you know it's successful or not. It also means that against several opponents, you might decide to focus your defense on some opponents and ignore others. Also, the bottom part of the Attack and Parry Results on page 199 would not be as relevant if you could wait the result of the attack before commiting.

In my mind, KAP, along with CoC and RQ, is Chaosium so I am very happy to see them involved in it once again. I am still awaiting my print copy for both Paladins and KAP 5.2 (from the kickstarter) but I will echo others questions. Will we see printings of current 5ed supplements? Can we expect enhanced production value for the line? KAP and Paladins are beautiful but Chaosium's latest publications are simply stunning.

I believe it is supposed to be: Declare how many attacks (split) Apply modifiers (prone, unaware, etc) Adjust for skills above 100%

Yes, that's why I was wondering. I could see both the seriousness or the humour of it. Thanks for clarifying.

Still unsure if the answer was meant to be usefull or humorous. Of course runes won't be used but is there a plan to replace it with a similar mechanic? I would vote for personality traits myself.

I wonder if this is the same file used for the print copy and if the print copy will have the layout mistake on page 164 (Agility Skills stroke out instead of underlined)

That's totally fair. The many threads on these boards have shown that the combat section is not written in a very consistent way and are befuddling at time. I remember a few years ago I decided to wait for the second printing of A song of Ice and Fire RPG (A Game of Thrones Edition I believe) because they fumbled on the errata of a whole chapter. I ended up never buying the printed copy. For RQG, I will wait and see what the verdict from the plebe is before I commit to the print edition.

Yup! Me too!

So the goal was to produce a RQ FE core book, is it still the plan (understanding that the plan might change again)? Would you mind to elaborate on what it would look like? In RQG the absolute stand out, I believe, is how the runes bring a character to life by defining his personality, his magical affinities, etc. Runes would not be adequate for RQ FE but I would be curious to see if something else would fill the void. Personality traits à la KA perhaps?

Agreed. Full disclosure, I was somehow expecting an illustration per creature (probably influence by the gorgeous Aventuria Bestiary for The Dark Eye) but the number of creatures in the RQG Bestiary just doesn't allow it. Most of the creatures without an illustration really don't require it. There are a few exceptions but I'm generally quite happy with the final product!

We are talking about two very different things. Both examples refer to gaining weight (muscle or fat) over the course of one's life. RQ doesn't cover that well if only because SIZ is not supposed to vary (excluding magical means) and because it doesn't make any distinction between gaining muscle (STR) and gaining fat (ENC). As Pentallion was saying, the SIZ chart is a guideline and can cosmetically be played with quite a bit. A player who was originally STR 13 and SIZ 13 (let's say he described himself as 5'10 and 180lbs) buffed himself over the years to STR 17 and now describes himself as 5'10 and 210lbs. Sure, no problem. It makes a lot of sense that he would gain a lot of mass after such an increase in strength. But unless you house rule it, according to RQ raw, he is still SIZ 13. However, what I was saying about Conan has nothing to do with buffing up and has only to do with how Howard portrayed Conan's physique. Now in all honesty I can be wrong on the figures (my Conan collected annoted hardcovers are somewhere in Canada in boxes) but if I remember correctly, Howard envisaged Conan at 6'3 and 220lbs which is pretty much SIZ 17 in RQG and when he was 15, he was already 6'0 and 180lbs (still growing at SIZ 14). Could we say Conan was SIZ 18 instead? Sure, why not? Could we instead approximate him at 6'9 and 300lbs? No, not according to Howard's vision of his character. Can my Conan by a Bison Rider in Glorantha with SIZ 20? Of course! Your Conan Will Vary.

I agree they are only guidelines but not to a +/- 3 SIZ range, that's a huge deviation! To be a purist, SIZ 20 is definitely not within the range of Howard's Conan but would be within the parameters of a Conan pastich for sure (which I believe is what you are talking about, approximating him to a Bison Rider).

I'd definitely like more cults and more depth on the Lunar cults. I'd also like to see a full Shargash write-up.

However Conan would "only" be a SIZ 17 in RQ terms so even with STR 20 he would still have a +1d6 damage bonus.

I might misunderstand your meaning but why would you give up on the d100 family? You can choose from Legend, OpenQuest, GORE and Mythras Gateway. Plenty of opportunities there.

I never thought about that but it's a very good observation.

I guess this is what frustrated us back then. The SR method offered so much tactical possibilities but were constrained to be "only" an initiative system (at least in melee). In RQG, making it work more like an impulse system basically requires removing constraints and "special" rules. An exemple of that is the distinction between how combat works within melee and outside of melee. Remove the distinction, only keep the flow as per outside of melee. Also remove the constraint on number of attack per weapon and you move closer to pure impulse. Doing so greatly diminishes the need for distinctive rules around dual welding and splitting attacks. Going back 30 years ago, removing similar constraints in RQ3 made fights simpler, more fluid and much more enjoyable to us. We found it very liberating. Choosing weapons were less dictated by how they could be used within the rules and more about the benefits they provided. Dual wielding provided flexibility and redundandy at the price of extra skills, 2 handed weapons provided extra damage and were favored by big burly warriors but they were vulnerable to losing the weapon and weapon and shield offered maximum defense.

During our RQ3 days in the 80s and 90s, we ended up house ruling combat in a similar way. RQ striked us as potentially very tactical but given the MR lasted for 10 whole seconds, after a while we ended up disliking the constraints it was artificially putting on attacks and parries. I am not sure how it came about but we house ruled that you could attack as often as your SR allowed and you could parry as oftened as you liked (I am a bit fuzzy on this but I believe parry was consuming 1 SR, so it wasn't a freebee and it did affect how many attacks you could do in a single round). The number of weapons you were wielding did not influence the number of attacks but were providing flexibility of choice has well as redundancy of weapon. What we used was in retrospect very close to the rules found in the BGB from p.199 to p.201 and it can easily be recreated using RQG.

Thanks everyone for the response. In the end, that is most likely the crux of if. I personally like both methods

Sorry, I wasn't clear, I know how it works in Stormbringer. My questions to @Jason Durall (and others) were: A) what does he mean by that: Sometimes they're a means of ordering attacks by first to last, sometimes they're an action point allowance. Both work in entirely different fashions. If I understand correctly, the former relates to actions raking place in SR order while the latter refers to actions being limited to a total of 12 SR. If it is the case, how does he see that as working in entirely different fashions? while Stormbringer has a simpler approach, DEX Ranks serves pretty much the same functions aren't they? What makes them work better then?

Can you expand a bit on this? I dont quite understand what you mean by that and how it differs so much from the Stormbringer approach.

Thanks for the "Fixes". To be fair, disarm and subduing at not really fixes but rather expansions. Would there be an opportunity to add such expansions in the GM Sourcebook in a "Combat options" chapter? In addition to disarm, subduing and an comprehensive combat example, I would like to see a closing maneuver (or change engagement range) where the wielder of a shorter weapon would try to get the advantage by slipping inside his opponent guard and the wielder of a longer weapon would try to reposition to stay at or regain optimal distance.

What you describe above (unengaged movement provides some kind of magical immunity to being hacked at while you dash past someone who is waiting for you) was not even an option I outlayed so we can agree to agree. I was wondering if: 1) All of Vivian's movement is all resolved during the movement phase but Jon will get to attack her (free, unopposed, during the movement phase) as she tries to zip pass him. or 2) During the movement phase, Vivian will move up to the "moment" were Jon will try to engage her. The rest of her movement will be resolved after the attack if it even occurs and if she is in condition to do so. I assume the intent of the rules leads to 2). In this case, let's assume that based on her speed and the distance between Jon and her, the GM rules she he get to Jon in SR 6. The movement phase is over and we are now in SR order. a) If Jon has SR 6 or less, no issue, he attacks her as she tries to run pass i) She may ignore him (not try to defend) remains unengaged and resume her movement after the attack if she still can ii) She may decide to defend (effectively getting engaged). If she continues her movement, she is now technically fleeing and Jon could get an unopposed attack but that would be weird within the context. b) If Jon has SR 7 or more, what happens? Is he too slow to get in position to attack Vivian? This is not about magically zipping by, it is about the opponent not being uick enough to react. Based on your answer above, I believe you would rule that, no, Jon gets to attack her. Correct?

In this scenario, would you rule: 1) the attack be a "free unopposed" attack (before SR starts) 2) the attack takes place during SR order If 2) what happens if Vivian would run past Jon before (earlier SR) than Jon could attack? One could assume that because Jon is not moving and stated he would wait that he would attack whenever Vivian runs past (her SR). The counter argument would be that Jon might be too slow to get in position to attack her. (It reminds me on a house rule we had in RQ3. We could rush an attack by 1 or 2 SR earlier at -25% per SR.) Edit: forgot to say what I would rule. The attack would happen during SR order. Vivian would get to Jon in SR dictated by distance travelled and speed of movement (I may be missing something but I could not find running or sprinting rules in RQG. I would assume runing at 2xMove but defense if attempted at half skill and sprinting at 3xMove but no defense allowed). If she gets at earlier SR than Jon can attack, tough luck, he is not quick enough (but would consider a rushed attack). This example also brings up a question regarding weapon SR. In this case, because Vivian is running to Jon weapon lenght just not have the same impact and Jon should not be slower if he has a dagger as opposed to a sword.

And if Jeremy was himself engaged with another opponent, he would need to "flee" which I believe would give an unopposed attack during the movement phase. Without a grid, a lot would come to what was described previously and the theater of the mind. 1) Can Jeremy intercept Phil on the way? 2) Will he meet him just as he reaches Tom and get to attack first (lower SR). 3) Will he get there just late (higher SR) but just in time so he can parry for Tom. Lastly 4) Maybe he can't intervene in time. I believe you are confusing Jeremy and Phil but in essence, it describes situation 1) above. Question. If Phil decides to parry, would he then become engaged and thus intercepted before he can reach Tom? I believe so. In situation 2) and 3) above, I believe Phil, Jeremy and Tom would all end up engaged irrespective if Phil tries to parry Jeremy or not since they all end up in close proximity. If any would try to flee, they would attract, I believe, an unopposed attack from their opponents during the movement phase.