styopa

Afaik the debate isn't STR roll vs resistance table, we're struggling with the choice of OPPOSED rolls using STR x5 vs resistance table. Frankly, since Jeff's comment rightly mentioning the more bell-curvy results you get from more dice in play, I'm inclined to use opposed rolls far more often whenever there are active agents opposing each other.... I'd still use the resistance table math for simplicity/speeds sake in simple things involving passive resistance like breaking open a door or lifting something heavy. So in the end, for me, arm wrestling would certainly be opposed rolls.

That I doubt. There will be different move rates per species, but unless there's a radical change from historical canon, I doubt there will be any variation in move rates between individuals within a species.

Nice find, lol. Not to throw gas on the fire, but it sounds a lot like a (clumsy) RQ3 version of an opposed roll to me.

Your point is simply logical, but probably was decided to be a bookkeeping headache and thus simplified. I entirely agree that a 16AP shield is 16AP, but has (itself) substantially more AP in terms of damage they can take. I don't think players would really mind tracking that.

Not if they're GIANTS!! (cf the thread title)

I'm also surprised how little you found in previous versions...particularly with the round-structure of a statement of intent otherwise constraining players' actions. I'd always assumed it was 3 SR (we play a variant of RQ3 mostly). Just shows how ingrained houserules become over time in the mind. Then again, we'd junked significant parts of the RAW SR system, so what we used only vaguely resembled RAW anyway. (As I've mentioned elsewhere in these boards, because of the odd 'capping' of DEX and SIZ SR mods at 0 resulting from the 'counting up' method, we reversed it and counted DOWN from the start of the round, and reversed the mods so more intuitively high DEX/SIZ = high mod = good.) (Also, because none of us liked the mechanical predictability of the fixed SR system, we also added a die rolled initiative in there. So it was initiative+DEX SR, highest total started the round. Weapon+SIZ SR only determined who struck first *when closing*.)

I'll probably follow the rq3 rule here: -1 ap if the parrying item is exceeded. Simpler, consistent rule in all cases. Further, with the significant reduction in armor values from rq3 but not weapon damages it will be lethal enough. It might be gloriously cinematic to have shields shattered but imo not terribly realistic.

I know you're not looking for my answers, but I'll volunteer my reflex views on your questions: Are you free to choose any SR after your normal attack SR, or is there an SR penalty involved in delaying an action? - I'd say you can delay to a specific sr if you declare it in statement of intent, otherwise it's a reaction which would (for me) be a dex sr penalty (5 sr is too punitive for me) If allowed to delay an attack/action presumably, its a matter of stating a trigger that will cause you to attack, rather then saying I'm attacking on a specific abstract SR? - either, as above Can you consciously attack simultaneously to a given trigger, for example an attack against you, or are you restricted to attacking after the "trigger"? - I'd say you always would go dex sr after the trigger, or at the end of the round if that pushes you past sr 12. RQG - Strike ranks. What happens if you are forced to parry/dodge on your attack SR, can you still perform an attack in the melee round? - Dex sr later Are you considered to have just delayed your attack, and therefore able to attack on following SR? - as above

We'll all have a nice bundled hardcopy print...in 5 months. ?

There's a lot scattered around, unfortunately.

Dodge has a niche: it's the thing you use when the damage is so overwhelming that any sort of parry you're able to put up would be nearly pointless. If you succeed, it is a PERFECT defense. You take nothing.

Except that's been revised, as a crit is now a special that ignores armor.

FWIW it IS a vastly-simplified rule set specifically for the scenario included. The whole movement thing is much more fleshed-out in the actual rules, I'm certain.

RosenMcStern's comment points directly to the age-old problem that RQ players have faced in RQ2 and 3: that at high levels of proficiency on all sides, and in particular high levels of armor and defense, combatants become astonishingly brittle. This is because at that point when their defenses fail to work - ie that crit that they didn't crit-dodge, etc - the damage taken isn't just a little bit, it's a blowout. Thus the 'de-scaling' of attack levels of success by levels of dodge works well (we did it too) because it at least turns that huge step into a bit of a slope.

Yeah, that's exactly what Spirit Magic was. Some people didn't want to carry the term Battle Magic forward because they felt it wasn't simply about combat...despite, well....ok, yeah, it 99% was about combat. RQ3 said that "Spirit magic is in many ways a quick mustering of life force to perform a task". It says a connection to the Spirit Plane is important, but the only part that's referenced is because that's where the spells are learned. Yes, you beat them, wring the spell from them, and then they go. Literally, that's it. (I don't know if even this mechanism will survive into RQG, I don't know personally a lot of people who actually played out the gaining of spirits through spirit combat...) So the name's a misnomer. Some people call it Common Magic, or Simple Magic, if you feel the word "Spirit" is throwing you off. And no, I don't insist 'only shamans can interact with Spirits'. That's the way RQ has, does, and (likely) will work. It ain't me lobbying for it, that's just how the game is. Rune Lords of various cults can get allied spirits bound into things, but in terms of spiritwalking, and interacting with spirits, that's what Shamans are FOR.

Because SPIRIT MAGIC (ala RQ, since forever) really has little to nothing to do with spirits, aside from the original mechanism you used to get the spells from spirits. Shamans are the characters with the skills to deal directly with spirits as something other than a potential victim. Where HQ went with 'what spirits do' is almost entirely a separate thing, mechanically, albeit with the same ontology.

No witnesses, no complaints. And you get to tell the story. Just like the real world.

Unless you're fighting something with catastrophically massive amounts of damage. Then again, think about it - were there REALLY that many people that went wading into battle IRL expecting to *dodge* their way through it? Nah...shields were ubiquitous in just about every martial culture for good reason. That was absolutely the case in RQ3, but AFAIK that's no longer true. For RQG it's simpler: either parry OR dodge can be used against any attacker, any time, with subsequent parries or dodges being at -20%. IMO it sort of leaves the parry OR dodge (in a single round) exclusivity rule as sort of pointless? Why not simply "if you move 1/2 your MOV or less, you get an offensive action and a defensive action. You may take additional defensive actions as needed with a -20% cumulative penalty." ...where 'defensive action' can be parry OR dodge, whatever suits you at the moment. You might parry first, then dodge (at -20%), then parry again (-40%) then finally dodge at -60%.

You're pretty much essentially describing the gameplay of a Shaman or Shaman-wannabe. That's pretty much true.

It's going to be a challenge, I've never found a game where it's SIMPLE. Encumbrance seems to be always a chore. We simplified ours pretty strongly - a player added: - the ENC for any non-wielded weapon (ie if it's in your hand, it's no ENC) - add up the armor values for all locations (this works surprisingly closely to the actual rules ENC values) So 3 points on each arm, 4 on the legs & abd, and 6 head & chest = 30 points of enc. - +30 if you keep your 'adventurers pack' on. You can drop it, but if you flee you lose all your "backpack stuff", etc = the total was the deduction from most AGILITY acts such as jumping, swimming, climbing, and dodge, but not boat or parry or throw. 2x for Swim if it wasn't your primary movement mode..

Yeah, I can't find any email in his page or his linked pages to his book. :| I'll try that.

I believe this is currently correct: (the ? values are I believe implied, but I'm not certain. There is no Counter2.) Attack vs DODGE Dodge Critical Dodge Special Dodge Success Dodge Fail Dodge Fumb Att Critical Att Miss Att Crit Att Crit Att Crit Att Crit Att Special Att Miss Att Miss Att Spec Att Spec Att Spec Att Success Att Miss Att Miss Att Miss Att Hit Att Hit Att Fail Att Miss Att Miss Att Miss Att Miss Att Hit Att Fumble Att Miss & Fumb Att Miss & Fumb Att Miss & Fumb Att Miss & Fumb Att Miss & Fumb Bold: defender avoids damage from Attacker. Attack vs PARRY Parry Critical Parry Special Parry Success Parry Fail Parry Fumble Att Critical Att Miss Att Crit, Parry3 Att Crit, Parry3 Att Crit Att Crit Att Special Att Spec, Counter3 Att Spec, Parry2 Att Spec, Parry2 Att Spec Att Spec Att Success Att Hit, Counter3 Att Hit, Counter1 Att Hit, Parry1 Att Hit Att Hit Att Fail Att Miss, Counter3? Att Miss, Counter1? Att Miss, Counter1? Att Miss Att Hit Att Fumble Att Miss & Fumb, Counter3? Att Miss & Fumb,Counter1? Att Miss & Fumb,Counter1? Att Miss & Fumb Att Miss & Fumb Bold: defender successfully parried to some degree Att Miss: attacker does no damage to defender. Att Hit: attacker does normal rolled damage plus damage modifier. Att Spec: attacker does special damage: Impale: 2x (weapon dmg)+STR mod, chance to impale (%?) Slash: 2x (weapon dmg)+STR mod Crush: normal weapon damage + STR mod + (max)STR Mod Att Crit: attacker does special effect, damage ignores armor (but not AP of a successful parry) Att Fumb and/or Def Fumb: Attacker and/or defender fumble, respectively. Parry1: Att rolled damage vs parrying item, if it exceeds parry item AP, parrying item -1 AP. Excess damage applied to defender. Parry2: Att rolled damage vs parrying item, damage exceeding current AP goes to defender AND is subtracted from parrying item AP. Parry3: Att rolled damage is subtracted from parrying item AP, excess goes to defender ignoring armor. Counter1: def rolled damage vs attacking item, if it exceeds attacking item AP, attacking item -1 AP. Counter3: Defending parry item does full damage to attackers weapon AP directly.

Not to veer too much away from Earth Elementals, but that's hardly much of a "limit"...? A "small" fire elemental is 27cbm, meaning they can engulf 270 SIZ points of victims or 20 average-sized humans at the same time. It's more or less RQ's 'fireball' spell but enduring, as they would all take 3-18 points of damage to general hp IGNORING ARMOR (ie on average killing nearly everyone), and that happens EVERY ROUND for 75 rounds. That's a 1 point Rune Spell, btw.

Nope. Dodge also has the cumulative -20% as parry. Shields can be used to block vs missiles, Iirc a small shield automatically blocks the shield arm and 1 location, medium is arm and 2 locs, large arm and 3. That's huge, esp in a game where missile fire is dominant over melee: a blocked location automatically applies it's ap to any missile rolling that hit location, no successful parry needed, and regardless of numbers of missiles hitting (until the blocking article is destroyed, I suppose). More importantly, I suppose is a very real life sort of impact: at least in previous versions, encumberance directly reduced (significantly) your Dodge skill. Every weapon, every piece of armor, that phat bag of loot? All directly made it harder to dodge...which very quickly made it the other question: why bother dodging? Finally, the last point is that dodge is more or less a straight dice contest: you have to equal or beat your opponents attack, to avoid damage. Parrying, otoh is much less sensitive to the attackers success level: Any successful parry will reduce the incoming somewhat or totally (granted, vs special or critical there's a lot of incoming damage so it likely won't block it all...but it doesn't have to: as far as the defender is concerned a useful parry is any that reduces the incoming damage to *an amount your armor can handle* or less). So in sum: Dodge is an all or nothing dice contest, significantly affected by encumberance (at least in previous versions) Parry is a limited finite defense than can be worn down but is also far more likely to be at least partially effective. Edit: and no, you typically can't dodge fired missiles.

Ie if the dimensions were in feet, not meters? Iirc rq3 solved that by simply setting the cubic volume, and not worrying about the dimensions: a small elemental was 3 cbm, a medium 6, and a large 9. Iirc this then also tracked very neatly to their stats, as a 3cbm elemental was generally 3d6 in STR/SIZ, a 6 was 6d6 and so on. Made it pretty simple. And while 3cbm still is pretty large vs the SIZ of a humanoid, it was a little more easily rationalized than claiming a completely amorphous predator the size of a bedroom can only consume the legs of a humanoid target.