styopa

This is what we did too. Skill gain rolls, etc everything was based on WHAT YOU LEARNED (ie excluding skill category mods, excluding base skill percents), not about the gross skill.

Yeah, I think the complexity for a thrown weapon comes down so many possible situational variants you have to go with logic/reasonability as the guide. For example, even though a javelin is 'technically' a 1h weapon, you couldn't (for example) throw two at the same time (one each in your left and right hands) like you could supposedly attack with two melee 1h weapons. I'd probably allow a character with reasonable preparations to have one 1h thrown weapon ready in-hand, and if the other hand isn't doing anything (and sometimes even if they are, like the dart+shield example), have 1-3 'ready' reloads available - with a commensurate penalty if they have to use that hand for something else and don't simply drop the spare reloads. Those are the ones for which the "3 sr between shots" applies.

Thanks, perfect.

FWIW and parallel to the subject of the thread, were there any rules-changes from RQ6 to Mythras? /curious

Er, I don't think so? FWIW: The LBBs said you should use Chainmail for combat - which, being a miniatures wargame, one minute combat rounds (called turns in Chainmail) were not that unusual. 10 rounds = 10 minutes = 1 turn in LBBs and AD&D, as far as I can see. Further, LBB3, confusingly states: So I'd say that the Chainmail/LBBs and AD&D were consistent at 1 minute rounds, Basic D&D may have gone to something else, but that was a diversion from canon.

Someone should tell these guys? (Actually, they only lost when they broke apart the shieldwall; until then they'd been basically impervious to Norman melee and cavalry...)

I don't think it was ever meant to? Remember, an AD&D round represented a MINUTE of combat, meaning it was all about rationalized hand-waving. That's an astonishingly long time in melee, if you think about it. Frankly, with that timescale, one might as well have had a totally synthesized amalgam of 'attack value' (considering weapon, skill, size, strength, speed) vs 'defense value' (weapon, armor, size, strength, speed) and roll once to determine the winner. Our "problem" with RQ was that it was IIRC the first* to try deliberately to move into simulationist territory, which is why we argue about this stuff and D&D mostly doesn't. *one could argue persuasively on behalf of C&S, which predated RQ by a year, I believe. FGU's C&S was practically an academic broadside against everything 'fantastic' in D&D...

Yep, I understand that. I'm looking forward to (if it turns out well enough) maybe produce a supplement that would allow people to use it for a latter Dark Ages Europe.

Hoping they hurry up. I have a number of players looking to play RQ and I'd love to run it with RQ4 mechanics even though it's not going to be a Glorantha-based campaign. :\

I think that cumulative "packets" of skills could be based on every stage of character development: Occupation: has a skill packet Cult: has a skill packet Homeland, Culture, history - each could also result in skill packets. Hell, you could even say that there are skills that result from picking/favoring certain runes at character generation, rationalizing that they represent the personality of the individual up to that point.

I think his criticisms are a little more than that (or example he goes on about the 'brittleness' of RQ which is certainly a thing) and the challenge in d100 systems in dealing with environmental differences, but yeah, he does credit RQ's innovation in a number of things that ended up in D&D3:

One might almost be inclined to drag out the RQ2 original mechanic of "defense" as an intrinsic thing, in which case you could simply say having a shield adds X% to defense, and leave weapon skills at a simplified single number. Certain weapons, like spears, might also add to defense against shorter weapons - a fairly 'clean' way to mechanically grant those weapons the advantages they had IRL, without bogging down the system with extra rolls. I don't know that it's a good idea, but it's certainly a different approach. Just brainstorming here.

I think we're basically saying the same thing, just at different points in the order of events. To your point (highlighted above): what "choices" do players really get? I'd argue that it falls into strategic (ie out-of-combat choices) and tactical. Strategic: - what weapon (or combination) to use - what defensive approach to use (of course, these choices are not ordinal; either can come first, but usually one informs the other) Tactical: - attack (and how; to called-shot, etc) - defend (and how) (arguably, you could add "cast a spell" to the tactical options here, but we're talking about how the system parallels realism) My point is that the conflux of these variables, plus a random factor, equals result. You call them choices, I call them variables, really - they're the same. Either way, we're both saying that the system should encourage players to realistically weight these (choices/variables). For example, a system that encourages shield use is preferable, as across most cultures, shields were incredibly common. In the cases/cultures where they weren't common, it might be useful then to distill as much as possible why, in order to mechanically incentivize a different weighting for players in similar circumstances.

As much as I love RQ's fundamental connection to reality - I'm not even sure I've *ever* seen an extended discussion on D&D reddit boards in which martial realism (however we perceive that to be) has been meaningfully referenced - I hope we can all recognize that there are some very substantial and core elements to martial combat that are utterly missing in LARP/SCA "play". Thus, the experiences drawn from such activities is useful, but only to a point. Hell, even the reasonably-full-contact HMBIA/IMCF is closer, but I suspect still miles away from the martial reality of men actually trying to kill each other. It doesn't take much watching to see that, even as a spectator. Is combat in a UFC ring much like *actually* using martial arts to fight for your life? Ask a soldier who's actually been in modern combat (there are some here) how much "fact" can be drawn from a game of Call of Duty, paintball, or even MILES simulation? Ultimately, we're only looking for a system that - given a set of inputs (skill, armament, armor) - gives us what we feel to be reasonably realistic results. Personally, as interesting as it may be, trying to model process too closely will just bog us down to something that may be technically accurate, but not entertainingly playable.

One point that I feel is lost (and will likely remain lost, because people hate encumbrance/fatigue rules so badly) is that weapon, armor, use and context has EVERYTHING to do with environment. It wouldn't surprise me at all if 2-weapon use was prevalent in India (I don't know their martial culture at all) and the midweast because...have you ever BEEN to India? Hot as hell. I didn't enjoy wearing a SHIRT, much less would someone be able to wear/operate with heavy armor - even a locally-acclimated native. In the Euro context, people *could* wear heavier armor, so they did, so weapons responded by being more about the hammering and puncturing and hacking than the cutting (the easiest thing to resist). It's chicken and egg about which development came first, but inarguable that it has everything to do with comfort - you might need that armor for a hours during a battle, but you've got to wear it and be effective for the span of a campaign. Unless/until someone comes up with a good rule for comfort/happiness, people will wear the heaviest armors that they can get away with. I'm curious how armor stacking will work in RQ4, for sure. What's rigid, what's flexible (is bezainted flexible? Could you put a plate over it?), and what are the penalties if any for experimenting? As far as the shield/dual-wielding thing, personally I feel that this is going to badly get in the way of the effort to 'simplify' melee by having a single skill for "Broadsword" instead of a separated attack and parry. The fact is that there is a complicated synergy between 1h weapon, off-hand weapon (which could indeed be a shield), and using a larger weapon with 2h. Having (what I'd call) ridiculously high parry values for weapons (ie shortsword 20AP, more than even a hoplite shield) almost negates the point of ever using a shield in melee. "Giving" any 1h weapon wielder the ability to freely pick up a shield and use it without penalty seems overly generous, while penalizing that 1h weapon wielder on their fundamental ability to hurt an enemy because they happened to pick up an unfamiliar shield seem overly hurtful. I don't have the answer, mind you, but it's a complex conundrum.

Moreover, I think there are so many nuances/difficulties to missile fire that in most rules sets, I believe archery is artificially empowered. I mean, any doofus, if given the choice, would rather shoot an arrow at an attacker than melee....if given the choice. But using a bow, for example: - intrinsically much harder to do than bash someone with a stick (even a sharpened metal stick like a sword). It took a LOT of training to handle a bow even adequately, to say nothing of expertly. - more difficult to make: making a bow was always an artisan's task, the arrows as much so. Even something as sophisticated as a (basic) sword - once the metal was refined, of course - was a nearly-industrial process. - far more sensitive to handling. Hell, if you bend your sword you just straighten it and keep whacking. Even a mildly damaged bow (to say nothing of the relatively-delicate string) can perform spectacularly badly (or even dangerously to the shooter, if you've ever seen a laminated recurve fail). - wet; I think it's easy for we moderns to deeply underestimate how much time even relatively-advanced medieval people spent being wet and miserable, particularly on military campaigns. A sword barely cares if it gets wet. A bow cares a LOT. - far more sensitive to conditions: sure, we all know 'english longbowmen could hit a man at 220 paces' but in the real world? With fluttering breezes and a target most likely moving? No, I think most games largely hand-wave away this stuff because we've all been raised on Robin Hood and Legolas. (Likely, I'd have to say and for the same reasons, the same way we sort of hand-wave away the complexities and impracticalities of two-weapon fighting.)

Was there ever any video shot of any RQ stuff at Gen Con? Any talks, etc?

IIRC it was either Johnathan Tweet or Skip Williams who told me in an email exchange that RQ had always been one of his favorite game, and definitely influenced a number of features he would bring into writing D&D 3e, which really resurrected the game. All the reasons they give are good ones, as well as jajagappa's #5; we see how pervasive religion is in today's world, how much more of a dominant substrate should it be in a world where the gods ACTUALLY ACT and whose power is demonstrable?

https://boingboing.net/2015/01/23/ancient-speed-shooting-archery.html This guy is pretty impressive, but in my gut I'm still trying to figure out if it's really applicable in real-world situations or just a gimmick.

The RQ2 arbitrary max damage of 4 points to me seems unjustified and archaic. Hopefully it will be gone in RQ4. That said, maybe because your fight was only moderately skilled individuals but I can *easily* see characters parrying 5x in a single fight, much less over the typical several combats in a dungeon crawl. Oh yeah, weapon breakage is a major issue. If they took a shield, it would be considered the primary parry thing. I like RQ3's rule here better, is that if the shield is overcome, it takes a 1ap 'damage'. We've had long adventures where several toons' medium and large shields where whittled down to a handful or fewer hp. We also houseruled that more than 2x the shield dam age had a resistance table (incoming dmg vs shield) to shatter said shield, with excess damage automatically going to the shield arm. Note, I've ruled that if you wield ONLY a shield (ie using 2h) and are fighting fully defensively, you get 3x base skill instead of 1x. (Thinking untrained peasant woman picking up shield and just trying to defend herself...). It's worked for us. Finally we ruled that if you impaled a shield with a missile weapon, subsequent parry with that shield is -20x(missile weapon enc; ie -30% for thrown javelin, -40% for thrown spear). Movement rate with that shield until removed is divided by weapon enc (ie /1.5 for javelin, /2 for spear). Subsequent impaled missiles are cumulative. Trivial missiles (arrows, bolts) were simply -1% to parry with the shield, no move penalty. Yes, slowly, see above. Off topic, see how much better we communicate if we get rid of all those silly other languages and use English?

So slash = smash? That's underwhelming. Good find tho. Never worked in a butchery, have you? I *totally* can see a weapon being hard to pull out, in some cases (ie if it wedges in bone). Work in a meatmarket for any length of time, you'll know. (BTW, severing a limb on a single blow? REALLY hard to do, and thats when it's immobile, prone (effectively) and you have the perfect tool.) I'm not convinced it's not just extra complication. What would it do that would be more than normal weapon damage but less than 2x AND still be meaningful? In which case I could certainly see having it simply be a special effect of a 'punch dagger' or what have you, that it has 2x the chance to be removed from an impale. One of those nice little 'custom weapon' sorts of character-adding things that aren't as powerful, nor as dull, as simply +5% to hit, +1 damage...zzzz. I like it.

First, IMG you *can* use shields to deliberately parry thrown missiles, but not mechanically 'shot' ones unless they are fired beyond effective range. There's no such distinction in RAW. RQ2 RAW a shortsword (AP20) is better for parrying than a shield (AP8-16), except insofar that it will take damage, where the shield won't. Hell, a throwing dagger (AP12) absorbs as much as medium shield.

Yeah, honestly, I use the AH RQ3 rules and I don't recall *anything* about slashing = bleeding, nor honestly that there was a RAW about blunt ignoring half of flexible armor. I agree with it, but I don't remember it in AH RQ3 RAW. Like you and pretty much everyone, I think we all agree that impaling is a pretty well-written mechanic - my only other amendment to it was that in RQ3 you had different hitloc tables for missile and melee, I'd use the 'missile' one for thrusting weapons too.

At least AFAIK RQ3: a shield can't be used to parry a missile weapon, but it can be used to cover 1 area (small), 2 contiguous areas (medium), or 3 contiguous areas (large shield)+the arm wielding it, in lieu of using it for active parrying. So, if you are under missile fire, you usually use your shield to protect your head, chest, abdomen (typically in that order) by covering them with your shield, adding the shield's AP to that location, generally making it missile-proof. This is the primary benefit of a shield, providing a melee-weapon user some protection vs missile fire. Secondarily, as mentioned above, you're using what amounts to an ablative shield to block incoming blows, instead of your weapon. Parry badly with your weapon, and you could not only take damage, but lose your ability to attack = double whammy. Third, RAW RQ3 a viking round shield has the optional ability to disarm on a special - although we never used that rule.

Very sorry to hear that. Good luck and best wishes.