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That is true for RQ3, but RQ2 allowed for some crossover between weapons that had a similar use, such as one-handed cutting (RQ2CE p. 26). The idea being that weapons that are used in a similar fashion have some overlap, and that someone who is a master swordsman is probably going to be somewhat dangerous regardless of what weapon he is wielding.

I think that is were the old similar weapons of RQ2/3 helped. Since both sword and Axe would be 1H edged weapons there would be some crossover. So someone with Sword 90% would be better than 15% with Ax, as there would be some similarities between the weapons.

No, just sites that focus on older RPGs like here. We're probably about as close as it gets to an RPG historic society.Remember, most of this stuff came out years ago in magazines that mostly had small print runs and were sold to a small group of fans, sometimes just a subset of fans, depending on what the magazine covered. No one back in the 70s and 80s were thinking of posterity or anything like that. They were just making, playing, and trying to sell games and game related content. Now add to that the fact that many gamers move on from gaming over time, and that many RPgs come out with newer editions, which tends to de-emphasize content from previous editions. For the most part the only people who care about RPGs from the 80s are people who played (or at least knew about) those games back then. It's kinda a shame because while much of it isn't relevant anymore, some of it is still very good, and all of it has historic and nostalgic value, even if it is just the history of a niche hobby. One of the things I have to give the current Chaosium crew credit for is that they do seem to value the older content. They seem to realize that this was something that happened once upon a time, and cannot happen again- at least not quite in the same way.

Yeah,like something that appeared in White Dwarf back when Games Workshop minis took off. It's possible the art got sold multiple times. While I get a British RPG/White Dwarf vibe from it, it also looks like something that might have appeared in STARDATE Magazine, which was put out by FASA. I'll take a peek at some of my old magazine to see if any of this pops up. All three illustrations look vaguely familiar, but looking for art in 40 year old issues of Dragon, White Dwarf, Different Worlds, Heroes Magazine, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Fantasy Gamer, Dungeoneer, Wyrm's Footnotes, any of the other gaming mags I have from that time is definitely a needle in a haystack sort of thing, and I probably don't even have the right haystack.

You might be interested in HARN's game mechanics, too. In HARN any roll than ends in "0" or "5" is a critical (either a critical success or a critical fumble). A nice thing about that, is that it could easily be expanded to have multiple success levels without any sort of table. For instance rolls than end in "1" could be criticals, rolls than ends in "2" or "3" specials and anything ending in "4" or higher a normal success/failure. Note that the actual ranges could be adjusted (i.e. "1" or "2" a critical) , as could the number of success levels , or the ranking flipped around (i.e. "9s" could be crtis instead of "1s"). The could really make it easier to do opposed rolls and success levels with d100 and eliminate a table at the same time.

Well it might have been the first RPG to fully flesh out the task resolution game mechanics in such detail. While RQ, Champions, Bond and several other RPGs did have a universal game mechainc for handling nearly everything, MT integrated extended tasks. RQ Vikings also did it with farming. So I think the idea had been around, just not codified as a thing, but instead applied ad hoc. That's the thing about experience, it can't be taught. 😁 Pendragon, despite it's simplicity, really isn't all that beginner friendly. The culture and literature are richer and deeper than what most people realize when they think about King Arthur and the Knight of the Round Table, and the timeline traits, passions and pacing can be hurdles even for experienced GMs. It difficult to really shorten that learning curve without overwhelming a new GM with too much. It's probably good that Greg did put something like that in the intro adventure, as it could get the wheels turning in the heads of new GMs.

Yes, and it has to do with a core game design concept, conflict. Conflict, when the stakes are high, and/or outcome is important to the player characters is interesting and exciting, so we usually want to draw it out. Meanwhile conflict when the stakes are low or outcome is of little to no importance to the player characters is boring and we usually want to resolve it quickly. Now, as combat is often a matter of life and death, it tends to fall into the first category and thus has detailed, action by action rules. Most games assume that other skills are normally in the second category and try to resolve them quickly. But is really comes down to circumstances and characters. If a task is important enough (finding the secret entrance to wizard's workshop, preventing the warp core from exploding, or even winning American Idol), then any task could be interesting enough to be resolved as an extended task over multiple rounds with multiple rolls. Even something as mundane as filling out your taxes could be an interesting extended task in game if the PCs were under investigation by the IRS and faced serious consequences for any discrepancies ("Five Hundred dollars to consult with a medium? Fifteen hundred to buy Deep One repellent? Twelves thousand dollars to charter a boat to keep Cthulhu from wiping out humanity!!?? The government isn't stupid Mr. Smith and your Pacific vacation is not deductible!") Nor are you the first. The idea of a task being resolved over multiple rolls goes back a ways. At least as far back as a Traveller supplement (or maybe MegaTraveller), and even the old James Bond RPG made some use of it, with accumulating Quality Ratings (think BRP success levels). It is a rule that exists in the core rules, for the horse race, it just not presented as a general rule for other types of tasks. Same with the Battle Intensity rules in the Book of Battle. Either could be turned into a general case rule.

Yes, but I think that has a lot to do with fencing weapons being light and easier to brush aside than, say an arming sword, mace, or great ax. I think it also why shields aren't as common/useful with fencing weapons as they were in earlier eras. From what I've seen fencers sort of slide their blades down each other and tried to angle their weapons while doing so in order to strike their opponent first. It does partially. At least for the 16th century or so until modern fencing changed things up again.

Actually it doesn't lack that, it just doesn't advertise it, probably because it doesn't usually need one. If you look at the horse race given in the initial adventure it uses a series of rolls to reach a set target number of success. The mechanic gets used sporadically in adventures, and supplements, and is really the underlying mechanic behind the battle system in the Book of Battle. But the nature of the game (knightly heroics) and the compressed time scale both work against the idea of extended tasks, in general. Usually a long drawn out task isn't all that heroic, knightly, or exciting, although there are exceptions. I have used extended tasks in some of my adventures. In one adventure the PCs had to play fidchell (a sort of medieval Irish Chess) against a dead king to get a magical item required to complete a quest, and since the game was so important I broke it down into an extended task to stretch out the drama.

It is the only D100/Chasoium game system based RPG that was designed around opposed rolls, and handles them better than pretty much any of it's relatives. Yes, it has it's own set of drawbacks, but it would handle a lot of what you are trying to do. Some of the nice stuff about Pendragon, which might appeal to you: it uses one basic game mechanic to handle everything. So if you know how to handle combat you know how to handle a singing contest, horse race, chess game, or whatever. melee combat is handle with one opposed roll rather than with alternating attack and parries. This eliminates the need to determining who attacks first, tracking strike or Dex ranks, is a lot faster, and is a bit more like a real fight where attacks and defense integrated into each other. multiple opponents is really easy to handle as everyone is free to split their skill against opponents as they wish. It would be pretty easy to use the Pendragon game mechanics and then port of RQ2 skill base chances, skill categories and category modifiers, on a D20 scale ( or even on a D100 scale). If you wanted to have more than two success levels (success, critical success) you could use the difference between the rolls. For instance the success level could get bumped up a step per every 5 points of difference between the die rolls. But I just tossed it out there so that you would be aware of it and could use it if it suited you. LOL! Blackjack is a card game at casinos where the winning hand is the one that gets as close to 21 without going over. People use it as a way to explain the Pnedragon game mechanics, since in Pendragon you want to roll as close as you can to your modified skill score without going over. For example, if you had a skill of 15, you would be better off with a roll of 14 (success) than a 16 (a failure because you rolled over a 15). The game mechanic was designed to allow for opposed die rolls without having to consult a table or do math to see who did better.

You might want to have a look at Pendragon. It uses a modified d20 game mechanic, nicknamed the "blackjack method." The way it works is that you roll under the character's modified skill to succeed. Most rolls are opposed and the higher successful (that is under the skill rating) roll wins. This includes combat, with the winner rolling damage against the loser. Some of the finer points of the game mechanic are: A roll of the modified skill score exactly is a critical success, and beats or normal success. A "20" is a fumble, unless the modified skill score is 20 or greater, in which case it is a critical. If the modified skill score is greater than 20, the amount over 20 is added to the die roll, increasing both the chances of winning and the chance of a critical success. For example,a skill score of 25 would mean the character would add 5 to his die roll, and any roll of 15 or greater would become a 20 and be considered a critical success.

You could but you don't have to go that route. CORPS just gave modifiers to the impairment level and fatality rates for the various locations. IMO it made more sense, as even a minor head hit is probably going to mess someone up more that a corresponding strike elsewhere. Likewise in CORPS you didn't have the problem of the one point foot hit killing someone. So there are other options.

I think that's my favored way of handling Hit points/injuries. Basically the location is good to see what body part gets hit, and what the effects are, but not for hit point per location.

Sounds similar to RingWorld's Impulses. Ringqorld didn't really have combat rounds per say, instead you got to act every so many "impulses" (read strike ranks) based on you DEX. So someone who acted on impulse 7 would act again on impulses 14, 21, 28 etc. Movement would bump when you'd act. So if you had to run across the room, and it required 3 impulses at your move rate, you'd act on impulses 10,17,24,31 etc. V&V 2nd edition had a cool method of doing that too. Basically you got to act every 10 or so points on the initiative count. So in combat you'd roll for intuitive add any stat modified and then act every ten points ts or so down the count.

Gee that sounds familiar. 😉

Not quite. It's just an abstract method to handle sequencing that just so happens to give effects very similar to the passage fo time. Technically we don't know how much time passes between SR3 and SR 8, we only know that things that occurring on SR3 happen before those of later SR's, and that in RQ3 movement takes place at "x" meters per Strike Rank. I wonder if there would be a downside to treating Strike Ranks as time though. I mean rule wise it would probably just simplify things, at least for RQ3. About the only problem with that that I can think of is with Strike Ranks resetting every round.

It would be for Chasoium RuneQuest, at least prior to RQG. Double a triple teams were lopsided by design. The designers used to note that it was poor tactics for a Runelord to fight multiple opponents as it neutralized his advantages. Yes, there are times when a Character has to face two or more foes, but it is always a big risk in RQ. As far as "balanced" goes, it's really not much of a thing in RQ based RPGs. You can't "balance" (i.e. rig) encounters in RQ the way you can in D&D, Foes in RQ always maintain a certain level of lethality to them that is lacking in most class & level systems, where it mostly is a matter of attrition.. A 12th level Paladin in D&D fighting a kobold, doesn't run the same sort of risk that Rurik Runespear does when facing off against a trollkin. No were not. We're arguing (arguing is probably too strong a word here), about if such an encounter is something that a GM should be designing for or that players should get into. It's like with ambushes. In D&D an ambush is usually a minor inconvenience, especially with "balanced" encounters. In a game like RQ there is a very real chance of one or more PCs being disabled or killed before they get a chance to act. Yes there is. I'm not so sure if it makes one method better than the other though. I will say that thesignle skill method does tend to make shield rather redudundant. Oh they are timings, just not time. A timing is ": placement or occurrence in time", or "the ability to select the precise moment for doing something for optimum effect". Strike Ranks s are the sequence at which events take place during a combat round. Which is timing. What Strike Ranks are not is time. That is 1 SR doesn't correspond to a unit of time or have any duration, it's just a way to denote in what order things happen. A spell that is cast on SR 4 happens before an attack on SR 7. It's also why an opponent who get disabled on SR7 doesn't get to attack on SR8. Except it could very well be a two places at once thing. That is the reasoning for the restriction in RQ3, and also why the actions that occur at the same time end up occuringon the same Strike Rank. It's not rounding errors, it's changes to the round rules. In previous Chasoium games results were rounded to the nearest whole number. IN RQ3 they are rounded off in the players's favor. That would indeed chance the critical, special, and fumble chances if applied. For instance a skill of 6% if rounded according to RQG rules would yield a 2% special chance. The table included in the game doesn't do that though and followed the older rounding conventions. So RQG doesn't even follow it's own rounding rules. Then we're comparing apples and oranges. RQG is very different that RQ2 or RQ3, so much so that the two vs one and three vs one situations will play out very differently. RQG has it's own special cases and exceptions that don't apply in the other systems. They both happen aft the same SR which is essential part. Your right, it doesn't take that into account.MAybe it should. Maybe the authors assumed that it takes a bit of time to parry and so would reuire the full Strike Rank to complete. Reallistically, there is a delay between when you parry with a weapon and when you can attack with it. It can be a very short delay, depending on the weapons used and the circumstances, but it does exist. Then why is RQG the case you are most cocenred with? The same SR rule doesn't apply there, does it? In RQ3 nothing says that a character whop parries loses his attack, only that he cannot attack on that same SR. Now considing how the rest of the SR rules work, it seems most likley that the parring character would have to dealy their attack by one SR, similar to what happens when someone moves in melee, casts a spell, preps a weapon and so forth. Where things turn deadly is with your three vs one encounter, but that isn't because of the same SR rule but because it is a three vs. one. In RQ3, which was the game hat has the rule, a three on one is always a bad situation to be in.

And how may game systems can replicate that effectively? In general RPGs don't go into much detail with weapon/shield/terrain/formation and how it impacts a fight. Most weapons are treated about the same with damaging varying by the size of the weapon, and that's about it. It's why spears and daggers tend to be inferior weapons in most RPGs. In most systems swords, axes, maces, etc. tend to be better than spears, either doing more damage, or being more resilient, etc. Daggers usually end up being slightly better than punching. But in real life there are very good reasons why spears and daggers have always been around, and why they are still in use today, in the form of the rifle bayonet, when most other melee weapons have been retired from military service. It's practically impossible to strike a spear wielding foe without first doing something about that spear. Gadius and Scutum is actually a very effective combination. The gladius is quick, and can stab more quickly that a larger sword or mace can be swung, without expose oneself as much or for as long. But few, if any, RPGs factor that sort of stuff in. I'm not sure that is an easy and playable way for them to do so either.

Which is funny because in game they play the opposite way. Most of the grimdark BRP games (CoC, Stormbringer)use general hit points, because it's more deadly than hit locations.

I prefer hit locations over general hit points. My reason are: It gives you more variance with the armor It allows people to be incapacitated without necessarily being killed. I also prefer fixed armor to random armor. At least to the current random armor which tends to protect less than fixed armor.

Wording is somewhat ambiguous. I could easily see a GM ruling that someone who is moving thier shield to parry isn't holding over a location. It is kinda moot though as you rarely get melee and missle combat at the same time. My main points though were that the shield APs aren't halved, and that with RQ3 missile locations arm+2 other locations locations is pretty decent. Especially if you've got some armor. Nope. The example is if someone took 4 points of damage the weapon is reduced by 45 points. Not that every parry only reduced the weapon by 4 points. I think you might be mixing up BRP/Elric rules with old RQ here. In RQ2, if you parried 12 points of damage you weapon took 12 points of damage off it's hit points. In other words weapon hit points work just like character hit points. Yes, he does get to roll damage, unless he is using one of the two exceptions I noted above. Thus if you are using a boradsword and parry an opponent who is also using a boradsword then if the successfully attack they do get to roll damage and will damage you weapon, doing whatever they rolled to your weapon's hit points. So if they do 12 points of damage your 20 HP sword is reduced to 8 hit points. Conversely if they fail their attack roll and you successfully parry, you get to roll damage on their weapon. Only because the troll is using a long hafted weapon. If he were using a mace or battle axe instead, he'd break your weapon after one or two parries. Only if the opponent is using a weapon that doesn't roll damage vs. other weapons, ushc as a long hafted weapon. If the troll was using a mace, sword, battle axe he's smash your weapon pretty quickly. Says you. Generally single combat is defined as combat between two people. That's not the same as a duel. It's combat. But you also state that people cannot kill an elehant in melee. Peopel have. It doesn't happen all that much these days, becuase people rarely have a reason to do so. In the past people would usually hunt in packs, because it is far safer and more effcient to do so. You're missing the point. In RQ@ only Runelords are supposed to have combat skills over 100%, yet many large animals end up with skills over 100% due to STR. The T-Rex in Gateway Beastiary with Bite at 180% being a prime example. Not surprising. Pretty much anything that has happened before the internet, film recording or such isn't going to be documented with accounts or people doing it. You probably aren't going tobe able to google any accounts of the Duke of York killing a boar on a hunt either. Or soldier accounts from the various battles fought against elephants. While some accounts might exist, they probably isn't that much that has been translated into modern tongues and posted on google somewhere. What makes you think Gloranthan elephants are magical? But, since the elephant stats are from Gateway Beastiary, then it is a "boring -ass" regular elephant. How do you know that? Has there been anything printed on magical Glrothan elephants anywhere? You just make it up out of thin ass and give it whatever abilties you wish. For all we know Glorthan doesn't have elephants, or if it does they could be just like the ones on earth. Elephants can't jump. They also run reals risks from falls. Mulitple large critters have the same problem. I think is is an oversight, not in terms of accidentally going over 100%, but that the authors didn't consider that situation until Gateway Bestiary. Which is why Steve and Sandy corrected that in RQ3. Not is isn't. Just becuase it big doesn't mean it is good. Want further evidentce, why do you think they capped the STR bonus to attack at +10% in RQ3? But you're contradicting yourself. On the one hand you say only RuneLords have skills over 100% then you say you like how T-Rexes have skills over 100%. It's the same thing. If elepahts can eaily hit people becuase the elpahnts are 50-100 times bigger, then humans should have the same benefits to hit something that they are 50-100 times the size of, like say a cat, mouse or rat. And hitting something they are thousands of tmes larger than should be even easier. No it doesn't. Humans are much stronger relative to an insect. A human can pick up an ant, but an ant cannot pick up a human. human can also outrun one too. Now if you want to talk about what would happen if humans and ants were the same size, well humans would be a lot stronger and tougher. Insects can lift several times their body weight only because they are so small. It's call the cube-square law, strength doesn't change as fast as mass. Some instects can. SOme can fly too. But not all instects, and even the ones that can move quickly, don't move all that fast. What about all the insects that don't make six foot leaps? Flies are't all that fast. Ant's and spdeirs crawl. Yet people do miss them all the time. And many many that you can't automatically do so when they don't want you too. Uh, no. Cats are small and agile but not superhumanly so. How much stronger is "way"? A jaguar the same size as a human isn't all that much better phsically, and yes people have killed them in melee. Probably not recently, but it was done. And a human is stronger compared to it's mass than an elephant (or ant). Depends on the location. Limbs that are disabled do not render the character unconscious. Even if a limb is mained or severed the character is still conscious and can heal himself (RQ2 page 20). That would be a problem. Yes I have and yes you can sidetstep one. The same way you dodge evertyhing else. Yes it gets a lot tougher when you are dealing with something so big that is is essentially doing an area attack, but...we back to my insect analogy. Of coruse you can. Yes, but that doesn;'t mean he cannot do it. Look when most people fight or hunt animals they stack the deck in thier fav or as much as possible becuase it is a dangerous thing to do. Even something like a wolf is dangerous. Doesn't mean that people can't kill them. You';re the one who said don't use the rule. Every rule you don't like is a joke. Every rule you do like is the best. It can do horror but that's not it's default. Check again, the caster has to overcome the spirit's magic points. Command Cult Spirit 2 points special range, instant, stackable, reusable This spell must be stacked with a divine Summon [Species]. If the Summons roll is a suooess, this spell affects the creature summoned. The caster may give the being one command (only) and the being must obey if its magic points are overcome by the master's. No command given by this spell may exceed 10 words in length. This spell is commonly used to forte a cult spirit into a Binding Enchantment, but can be used for other purposes. This spell is effective with cult spirits of any type, in- cluding elemenlals, ghosts, and similar beings. lt only works on beings of the same cult as the caster. But you still have to find the right spirirt and overcome it's Magic points. Spellteach notes that other than the rituaal it is exactly the same as learning a spell under spirrit magic. So the Priest would have to muddle aroun on the spririt plane to find the right spirit. Uneless your cult gives you a half off discount. Either way, getting tousands of Lunars in RQ2 is much easier than in RQ3. There is lot more money in those older adventuers.

Famous last words. Right up there with "I'd like to see you do that again." Yup. Of course fencing is possibly the worst case scenario for the "three random guys". The weapons are fast, react quickly, and shields mostly get in the way. Plus "right of way" rules really favor the combatant will greater speed and skill, and greatly reduce the chances of the lesser skilled fighter clipping the better warrior on the way out. Different weapons could go differently. If the three of you had had spears and shields she might have had a bit more trouble, and I wouldn't be surprised if she did get nabbed while getting to one of you.

It matters in a few ways. First it identify just what game you are referring too. It actually took a few minutes to figure out what you were referring to when you posted RQ CE. Secondly, it means your someone who prefers RQ2 to RQ3, which is a very old debate, and probably one we don't have to rehash. Thirdly, RQ CE is misleading. It like changing the name of a movie or book. Which is your option. My question to you is how is the name better? RQ2 is more accurate. It been RQ2 since it came out. Why change it? Oh, and to answer my own question, the only reason I can see for it would be to distance the game from Mongoose's RQ2 Since they are the ones who remaned it, yes they probably do. Not that it makes much of adifferece, as no one at Chasoium now had anything to do with RQ2. It's like someone at Lucasfilm today renaming Star Wars: A New Hope to Star Wars: Classic. It's just areprint with the errrata tossed in. Nope. Per page 63: Parrying a Missile Attack Thrown weapons can be parried if the parrier is aware of the attack and is ready to parry. Projected missiles cannot be parried. However, an adventurer may specify that he is holding his shield in one place, covering specific hit locations, and those hit locations will be protected with the shield. If a shield is slung on the back of a missile target, the shield will provide ‘1/2 of its armor points as protection against chest hits. The 1./2 value is oily for a shield slung on one's back, probably because it's just sort of there and not actuively being used for protection. Except it doesn't work the way you think. Once again, per page 63: an adventurer may specify that he is holding his shield in one place, covering specific hit locations, and those hit locations will be protected with the shield. That doesn't halve the armor value, nor does it prevent the character from parring, and although projectile weapons cannot be parried thrown and melee weapons can. No if you parry 12 your weapon now has 8 hit points. In RQ2 per weapon damage absorption (page 28 or 27 dfepending on which edtion you have), weapons take damage when used to parry a successful attack or are succefully pairred when making an unsuccessful attack. Short stabbing weapons which lack the mass to damage other weapons, (like daggers) and long hafted weapons that parry with the haft (like poleaxes) being the exceptions. So if you parry a 12 point attack with your 20 HP sword, you now have an 8 hit point sword, so you can't parry two 12 point attacks with it. Well, unless you roll a crititcal parry (which is an optional rule) or a special success (but that might only be in RQ3), No If the damage was 15 you'd be left with a 5 point sword, which would probably break the next time you used it to parry. He does if I don't just stand there and let him. Sure there is. Not that it is a good situation to be in. Yes, they are called arrows and are even smaller and thinner than spears. Elephants are big strong and tough, and I certainly wouldn't want to have to fight one, but they aren't invincible. Elepaht hide is thick (but sensitive) and isn't the same as plate. Look at history, the side with elepehants didn't neccesarly win a battle. You mean like a RuneLord with magic? Yes they are. It's just a qution of if or not they kill him before he kills me. Living organisms have lots of vulnerable places that can be used to kill them. The problem is how fast it kills them. Heck there is a big debate in the scientific community about T-Rex being a hunter or a scavenger. Apparently if it were knocked down by another big dinosaur, it would probably break some bones and then wouldn't be able to hunt. Uh, what makes you think that? The SIZ progression in RQ3 is pretty stable, and consistent. Not quite as good as Superworld, but not in a way that matters for most creatures. There are bigger things in the supplements. Plus I'm not bothered by Dream Dragons so much as they are intelligent. I'm bothered by big dumb beats that are suddenly master combatant-ants just because they are big. In RQ2, an elephant could pick up a sword with it's truck and do all sorts of fancy fencing maneuvers! I agree. Dream Dragon is an intelligent projection from an intelligent experienced creature. Pity that an RQ2 T-Rex can take one out so easily. That is exactly the sort of thing that RQ3 fixed. Pick up Griffin Mountain or Gateway Bestiary. Tyrannosaur 180%. There is a very good reason why the same people who wrote RQ2 capped the STR mod to attack in RA3. Or Gateway Beastiary, Girffin Moutain or any other supplement with a big creature. The stats in RQ3 were give a better scale and the attack bonus capped specifically because of the ridiculously high percentage in RQ2 for big critters. Techincally speaking a T-Rex 9180%) would have to be a Runelord of some cult in RQ2 just to have a skill over 100%. No it shouldn't. Look, people are much much bigger than insects. Proportionally much larger to insects than say the approximately 70 times larger T_Rex is to a human. Yet people can miss insects when they try to swat or step on them. We can miss small animals too. Just try to catch a mouse, cat or small dog by hand. Sure there is. Try swatting a fly by hand. It's alot easier for the small huma to hit the giant becuase it's so big. I'll look. The problem is that it's not a situation that people try to get into. I doubt it's happened recently, and if it has it probably was done out someplace where there wasn't cameras and reporters. And it's not a situation that a person wants to get into. It's like boar hunting or bear hunting with a spear. It was done and there are mentions of it, knights used to do it for sport! Still, no one has done it that way in years, or at least no one we hear about. Probably. It does depend on what part of you he steps on, but it's like having a hit location destroyed in RQ. Best case scenario is you loose a finger or two. You imagine poorly. Dropping to the ground is a bad way to dodge. You give up your mobility. Much better to try and sidestep, and get out of it's field of view. You have to remember than elephants structure limits them in ways than humans aren't. Being big hurts elephants in several ways. They legs are barely thick enough to supprt them, and if they loose thier footing and fall, they might not be able to get up again. Of coruse the same holds true for anyone they happen to fall on. Assuming you just stand there and let it. If you say, hack it truck when it comes at you (it might not pick you up. D&D has very different stats and game mechanics. Probably not worth trying to compare. Yes the armor works better, but then hit dice and Strength give the big animals more of a bonus, except that thier Stength socres tend to be nerfed. I'm not sure If it is barbaric, but it's not something I'd want to do do an animal. But the thing is the matador can kill the bull many times over. He can (and does) dodge the bulls attacks (whcih you say is impossible), and ultimately kills the bull. Does he stack the deck heavily in his favor? Sure. Could he do so without all the tricks and set up. Probably, but it would be a lot risker. It's not that the matador can't dodge a bull, but that if he messes up just once he could be killed or maimed (and yes, Matadors have survived such encounters). Me either. The bison is probably the clsest analog in RQ2. RQ3 has cattle and even aurochs stats. Why would you expect a animal that isn't war trained to have a higher combat skill? The thing is will bulls is that they don't fight, or hunt. They are aggressive, but theyt don't really have anything to be aggresive against. Comapre that to a lion, whih has to not only hunt, but also fight off rivals. Then I think you are missing the point. It might not seem honorable to you (or to me come to think of it) but it most obviously is honorable to people from those cultures. If you were to go to Mexico or Spain and tell them that there was no honor in bullfighting you'd probably have a lot of people disagree with you. And that's with people in the same century with roughly the same technology, let alone a culture on a very differernt world with very differernt cultures. if there is a Gloranthan culture than engages in some form of bullfighting, then that culture considers it quite honorable. You have to look at Gloranthan beliefs and customs the way a native would, not the way a 21st century person in a "modern" society would. It';s like how Chaos in viewed in Dragon Pass and Prax. To those people it's evil, pure and simple. Taking a more enlightened view is itself considered to be chaotic and thus evil. But that is how they look at things, and each of thier cultures considers itself to be correct. That even one of the readnos why MRQ Glorathan failed. Mongoose took a more tradtional FRPG approach to Law and Chaos that fit modern D&D much better than RQ. So you prefer 5% increments. Okay, you're probably in the minority there. Same with the faster character progression. Except it's not simplified success, since there is a slash and crush rule. You say they are broken, but the game designers certainly used them, and didn't think they were broken. There was a letter to Rurik where Steve Perrin agreed that crush rules were "unreasonable" and were supposed to be. And BTW, IMO would be a better way to handle bulls elephants, and T-Rexes that ultra high attack skills. . Oh, and critical parries are an optional rule, too. Uh Map Making is better than mapmaking? How? Sorry I don't see your argument here. Can you explain why you think any of this is "better", or is is just what you prefer. There is a difference. For instance if you think a rule better emulates combat or plays better that's one thing. But so far your agrument is that you prefer RQ2 to RQ3 so therefore RQ2 is better. Again that is totally your option. Most people who didn't want to play inexperneced newbiew just used the previous experience rules in the appendix. Heck half the rules in RQ2 were probably in the appendex (in what 6 point font. I suppose toy think RQ2 was better typeset too). Good for you, but how does you house rules factor into what RQ2 is compared to another game? If you are going to take about a given game being better then you only really have what is the game to work with. You can;t judge RQ2 by something that is in, say M-SPACE. Horror? What are you playingh RuneQuest or Call of Cthulhu? If your campaign is set in Dorastor or somesuch, okay, but other wise, RQ isn't really a horror game. Yup., and you disgree becuase you like RQ2 more. That's why when you say something is "better; you have to soemhow back up your point. Isn't in mine. In RQ3 you just have to roll the attacks and parries, while in RQ2 you have to subtract defense, sattack kill over 100%, and so on. In Old SB you could successive parries, each at 20% less skill than the previous. Masters (90%+) could also make an attack (riposte) after doing so. Ths meant that when two masters faced off, you get a wild flurry of attacks and parries between them, which was very cinematic. Yes you do. per spellteaching other than the need for the ritual, every was exactly the same as with spirirt magic. So finding a spririt with bladesharp 10 would require some work. Use yes, get... that's another story. I don';t see too many characters that sacrificed 10 points of POW to get a 10 point RUne Magic spell to beat up spirits, jus so they can learn a 10 point bladesharp spell. Can you give me page reference for that? I don't see it. How do you figure that! A 4 point spell typically goes for about 2000L. How did you determine that 2000L is worth a few years wages? How is is clearly not meant, when you are the one who intridcued it. I don't see any RQ3 characters with Bladesharp-10. I'd also say it's probably not all that great for a rune level characters either. It take up a lot of INT to know, a lot of POW to cast, a long time (like don't expect to have it in the first round) to get up, and gives benefits that probably aren't all that great for a rune level. If someone has Sword a 185% they probably aren't going to benefit all that much from raising it to 235%. I think a rune level character would be better off with say Bladesharp 4 or 6, and some protection and/or countermagic. Heck Protection 10 is much more useful than Bladesharp 10. Or half price or even free depending on what cult you join. Getting 5000L is also a lot easier in RQ2 than getting 5000p in RQ3. Depends on where you get it. In Gods of Glorantha the price varies based upon cult status. Yeah they do. There was a lot more treasure in RQ2, because the economy wasn't a fleshed out. You'll tend to find a lot more money in an old RQ2 dungeon crawl than in most RQ3 adventueres. Thousands of lunars, and magical crystals all over the place. And not-magic stuff is alot cheape rin RQ2. Mail hauberk 200L in RQ2, 1440p in RQ3. Chaotic Features- come up a lotin RQ2 adventures. I wouldn't say so. Only the damage that gets through is doubled while thier high db gives them a big edge on the damage out vs in. Only becuase you are taking it out of context. We weren't using the RQ2 book, we were using Cults of Prax, and that'ss becuase there was not RQ3 version of it. I think we might be taking cross arguments here. If you want to debate the merits of the game mechanics, then yeah, I'll say RQ3 is superior to RQ2 it was designed to be. Now if you want to debate how they handled Glorantha, well, then RQ2 wins hands down. RQ3's Glorantha support mostly sucked. The best glorathan stuff for RQ3 was updated RQ2 stuff.Mof of the other stuff lacked the sort of details that had made Glorantha so interesting. Where RQ2 focused on a small region (Sartar and Prax) in detail, RQ3 started off with covering a wider net, butin much less detail, and IMO was much less useful. I mean maybe Elder Secrets added something, but most of the rest was too sketchy to really use. But then the better RQ3 stuff was non-Gloranthan. Which pretty much covered everything, becuase of all the associated cults. If you Oralthi you got the whole patheon to choose from. Which you can only pull off in one cult. You can't be one in multiple cults due to be relationships and time/resorce requirements. Yes, but they either didn't need Runelord status anymore (becuase the 100% skill cap was gone), or they got something else instead (like a lot more spirit magic).

Well, I doubt there is anybody who can use an arming sword and heater shield at "world class" ability. It's something of a lost art. And yes, that is one of several valid points raised over basing RQ combat on SCA experience. Rattan weapons, and plastic armor being two more. Still, at least it was based upon some sort of combat experience, even if it's a mediocre simulation with a bunch of safety rules than prohitbit a lot of what would happen in a real fight so as to prevent/minimize actual injuries. Let's face it SCA and HEMA are more abotu having fun that actual combat, which is a good thing. No but then three random dudes (skill probably below 40% in RQ terms) won't beat a master swordsman in RQ. Three veteran swordsmen, maybe. But most people aren't elite, and real combat isn't the same as a match. For instance, if you knew there was a good chance of getting killed would you have drawn steel against that elite fencer in the first place? I'll admit though that RQ2/3 doesn't handle fencing weapons all that well, mostly because it was written to handle combat from an earlier era (bronze age). IN RQ2 your elite fencer would have very high attack and parry skills , probably an off hand weapon or shield, plus a really good defense skill. In RQ3 your elite fencer would probably have a main gauche and/or a good dodge skill. Strombringer would probably be a better system to handle fencing weapons, as it allows for multiple parries and has a riposte rule, which it odd in a way becuase I don't think we even see or hear of a rapier in any of the Elric stories.

No, but RQG is a very differernt animal from every other version of RQ/BRP. They made a lot of changes, and it introduced a lot of new problems because of it. Not with experienced RQ players. D&Ders, sure. In RQ you had to develope good tactics or else you died. You didn't get hit point advatages over your foes, or guaranteed "balanced" encounters or all the stuff that modern D&Ders take for granted. Except it didn't make gamable sense. The rules warned you about double a triple teams, and until fairly recently BRP players knew that to be the big no-no.Yes, occasionally circumstances might result in the group being outnumbered, but then they were supposed to fight in ways that could minimize that. Generally position themselves so as not to have to fight three opponents all by themself, maybe use magic to whittle down the foes. Boost thier DEX so they attack one SR earlier. It depends on the character and the situation. It's hard to give you a definitive answer because you just put the character into that situation. Heck if the guy has enough armor and protection up, he could just ignore the enemy attacks, hope they don't roll a critical, and hack away. As far as the player is concerned, they should avoid getting into this situation at all costs. Now if the GM sets them up into this situation, then the player should try their best but they will probably die. It's kinda like an ambush. In D&D ambuhses are fun to spring on the players because they keep the players on thier toes and inconvience them. But ambushes ususally aren't much of a threat that's to balanced encounters and increasing hit points. In RQ, however, ambushes are deadly. Chances are some of the players are going to drop before they even get a chance to do anything. I'll throw something else into the mix too. It's pretty stupid for a character to rely soley on one skill. Especially a 2H weapon skill. It is just a matter of time before the character drops the weapon, or take a hit to an arm that prevents them from using a 2H weapon, or they get shot at by missile weapons, or some such. No adventure lives in a vacuum and can rely entiely upon a single combat skill. Except it doesn't make that much of a difference. Even if they could parry one opponent they couldn't parry all of them. except in RQG. I don't think it fuging, just phsyics. Thier 2H can only be in one place at a time, so if it's busy parrying an attack, or in RQG three attacks, then it's not ready to attack at that moment/strike rank. But it could be later. I don't think it needs fixing, at least not in RQ2 or RQ3. I'm not familar enough with RQG to say. In Earlier RQ the three on one situation is telling, and the lone warrior is sort of expected to drop unless they got more going on. Sounds like it is a lot easier in RQG. But then RQG is a very different animal - even the crtical chances are different. RQG has been heavily influenced by HeroQuest and Pendragon and goes for a more larger than life/heroic style of play than earlier editions of RQ. Except SRs are timing.. Don't let RQG muddy the waters here. In earlier editions strike ranks were timing. Two events that happened on the same SR happened at approximately the same time. Two things that happened on the same SR and same DEX did happen at the same exact time. So while there wasn't an exact correlation between strike ranks and second, there was one between strike ranks and timing. Except you didn't get any number of parries in previous edtions. You got one, unless you used two weapons or could split your skill. That's the thing. In RQ2 or 3 if you are fighting two foes, one of them is essentially getting free attacks. Yes, if you were a Runelord you could split your attack skill, but that mostly worked against you as two attacks at 70% weren't as effective as one at 140%. Oh yeah, that could and did happen. Enemy runelord in iron armor with protection 6 or some such. The big equalizer there was the crtical hit, since it bypassed armor. The thing is, if the PCs are up against people who can ignore their attacks, then they are probably in over thier heads and are going to die anyway. That's why context is important. But without context the situation isn't really valid. For example, if a giant with a 22 DEX sneaks up behind a PC and can attack them with surprise with a firebladed dagger on SR 3, there is little the PC can do about it. Likewise, in your scenario, you, the GM, put the player into a 3 on one situation against oppoents who all just happen to attack at the exact time for this odd situation to pop up. And it is a very odd situation, just for the SR thing to work out. The character would have to have a higher DEX and weild a 2H weapon, yet still attack on the same Strike rank as his opponents, and let himself get maneuvered into a spot where all three can fight him. Actually it seems rather due to me. MAybe it a difference in play styles or something, but based on my experience with RQ2 and RQ3, I'd expect the lone warrior to go done and have no sympathy for him. Not for the "same SR" thing, heck I don't think we ever used that rule, but for the fighting three foes at once. In my experience that is usually some yahoo who sees "how good" he's gotten with a weapon and then bites off more than he could chew. I really want to stress that in RQ2/3 that sort of thing was considered suicidal. If you had mentioned it on the forums ten years or so ago, most people would tell you the guy got what he deserved. The exception would be if the GM set up the encounter in a way that it was unavoidable in which case most would think the GM was trying to wipe out the group. Really triple teams are that nasty.