styopa

53 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

Please don't ask us when a book will be printed and for sale. We don't have all the art yet, nor has it gone to layout. It is in final editing and proofing.

We would love to give estimates, but people get upset, disappointed, or sometimes even angry at us if we are late on an estimated date.

Just a point here for the cheap seats: when Rick says "we don't have the art done yet"...for anyone who doesn't yet have any RQG books, this is not a trivial/afterthought part of the publishing.  (For those who have the books, this should be obvious.) 

I daresay that for GoG book(s) the art will be in a sense even more critical to portraying a lot of the flavor of most of the gods/pantheons presented; I can't imagine this is going to be quick or easy.

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

For what it is worth, long before I was in charge of the revival of RuneQuest, I found RQ's combat system extremely simple once you get used to it. At worst you need to look up the Fumble Table from time to time. 

I entirely agree.  There may be more steps (for the player of D&D who's used to a to-hit roll then damage roll) but rather than unpredictably rationalizing parts of the chain of events, RQ has always just laid them out very logically and intuitively.  This, at its very foundation, is the reason for my 40 year love for this game.

IMHO: (at least this is my experience)

• RQ seems "complicated" for people who have internalized the rationalizations of d20 systems.
• RQ is *easier* to teach and far more intuitive to people who are coming at RPGs for the first time.

"You have a 75% chance to hit, they have a 25% chance to dodge, you hit them in W location, you did X damage, and they have Y armor resulting in Z harm to that location"

...really makes more real-world sense to anyone than

"You're level X (why?) and they have armor class Y (why?) so roll above Z (why?) to do damage to them."

6 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Until I see the print estimate for the set I cannot guarantee that $80 price.

I can guarantee it will be in the $80-$100 range though.

I wouldn't quibble, if I could get one.

3 minutes ago, Cgeist7 said:

Runequest is already a game of edge cases

You're not kidding.  For RQ3 the algorithms are mechanical and consistent, so my building a suite of tools for monster gen, etc was just a matter of writing a lot of formulas.  Bulk work but nothing particularly complex.

When I thought about porting these tools to RQH the reliance of everything on circa-1970s tables that regrettably don't have a mathematical rationale behind them made it...hair-pulling, at my level of programming competence.

On 11/20/2018 at 11:16 AM, Cgeist7 said:

About the Cradle of Heroes

The Cradle of Heroes is a fan created gaming tool that I developed to meet my needs as a GM and player. It's designed so that anyone can create and manage characters and creatures and to simplify the character creation process.

Tutorial videos are available on my YouTube channel.

The Cradle is also about community and I hope it can grow to become an informal marketplace for NPCs, creatures and ideas for Runequest.

Characters can also be added to the open roster by selecting the "Open" check-box when you are creating or editing the character. They can then be coped and modified by other users, making their lives easier and letting them take advantage of your work and creativity.

As more users share content in this way, it becomes easier for new and more experienced players to quickly and easily build high quality character for their Runequest games. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the app.

I've created a Trello board to help manage feedback and updates. Please note that this iteration of the app is still in BETA phase. There will be bugs and while I'll make every effort to keep and persist all user-generated content, it may not always be possible. If anyone wants to help make the app better, the code is up on GitHub. Any suggestions or improvements (especially to front-end JS) are very welcome.

--- ToferC

I put together a few tutorial videos on how to sign in and use theRunequest Character App effectively.

Intro: https://youtu.be/Lbf7bqYl9tM

Finding Characters: https://youtu.be/DpvZ3SkuQgg

Creating Characters: https://youtu.be/ARAqgnr3J5U

Editing & Updating Characters: https://youtu.be/ReEevV8_d5s

Adding Traits & Magic: https://youtu.be/7faq5XMcAz0

Copying Open Characters & Duplicating Content: https://youtu.be/pgy1SdlkTrU

Intro to Homelands, Occupations & Cults: https://youtu.be/-pnGjE_zIJo

 

NEW: Adding NPCs and creatures: 

 

Cheers!

C

Thanks for the app, looks great!

Where to submit bugs?  Just trying it out, step 4 of 7 shows:

Additionally, you can choose between the following skill choices.

I *believe* these should be exclusive between the spears (ie pick one) and missile weapons (pick one) but in this case i can check all 4 freely and it let me move to step 5.

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

Looks like there will be a limited number of the two volume set printed up for GenCon. My advise is to get there Thursday morning, or get someone to go Thursday morning for you.

Thanks Jeff.

I posted to FB as well, if someone is going, I'd happily prepay them the $80 plus something for their trouble, for one.

19 hours ago, Crel said:

@styopa, where do Grung mostly live in Your Glorantha? It looks like jungles of Pamaltela to me, but I was wondering if you imagine them in Genertela at all.

Northern Pamaltela is where I imagine them, certainly, but like the invasive supercolonies of ants in Spain, I could certainly see them in Teshnos.  They're essentially intelligent tree frogs, they could probably live anywhere yellow elves thrive.

In fact, that's one of the facets of their existence I haven't really worked out for certain myself: their relations with yellow aldryami. 

By default, the Grung should hate elves like everyone else, but I can't see Errinoru putting up with such an intelligent hostile species... unless we posit their toxins aren't effective against vegetable life (or at least are less potent) in which case they'd be a very natural ally

9 hours ago, Lord High Munchkin said:

I am one of the C&S5 writers - and no, RQG and C&S have equally about as complex combat as each other - C&S5 is, if anything, actually slightly simpler.

I'll note however that I wasn't talking about (nor have I ever seen) c&s5, my comment was based on my experience with c&s which was 1 and 2.  For example, RQG character creation only remotely approaches the complexity/length of c&s2 chargen.

(This is not my own creation, but my RQ conversion of a 5e creature I thought was interesting and filled a useful ecological / monster niche, the Grung.  Artist credit: Shawn Wood)

The Grung are a race of small, intelligent amphibians found in the depths of tropical rainforests.  Their bright colors and “cute” appearance belie martial ferocity and an inherently savage nature.  They survive in their very hostile environment by being extremely territorial and tenaciously aggressive to perceived threats, in particular other sapient races, verging on species-wide paranoia. Unfortunately, this means they are difficult to interact with as their solutions to any conflict run toward the genocidal. 

Grung society is based around small (<200 member) tribal clans, usually scattered across a handful of settlements.  Tribes tend not to cooperate unless the threat is massive, and rarely fight each other.  They are rigidly caste-based, and life roles are identified by skin color at birth:

• Green: Warriors, physical laborers, hunters.  ~60% of the population or more.
• Blue: Skilled workers, craftsgrung, administrators.  ~30%
• Red: scholars, shamans make up no more than 5% of the populace.
• Orange: elite warriors are about 10% of the fighting forces, or 5% of the overall population.  In conflict, Orange Grung may command any other Grung but Gold. 
• Gold: ruling caste.  No more than one per tribe.

Grung are widely feared for their potent toxic skin.  Any predator in their biome recognizes this coloration as a warning that even a lone Grung is not worth trying to eat.  The poison effect is immediate on contact with most living things, and is POT = Grung’s CON.  A Grung cannot refrain from affecting a touched victim.  If the poison is somehow washed from a Grung’s skin, it will regenerate to full potency within 24 hours.  Their skin color reliably predicts the effects of this poison (all sustained effects last 25r unless noted):

• Green: (vs target CON) – simple damage poison, resist for half.  Apply no more than 3 points to target’s hp per round, at the end of each round, until total damage applied.
• Blue: (vs target STR) – if success, that location is paralyzed and useless; special +1 adj location*, crit+2 adj location* (*ROLL for affected location; if non-adj location is rolled, then that extra paralysis is lost)
• Red: (vs target INT) – if success, target hallucinates; roll before each round, target must FAIL INTx5 roll to function in that round, otherwise considered Befuddled.
• Orange: Green effect andBlue effect, simultaneously.
• Gold:  Green, Blue, and Red effects, simultaneously.

Grung are immune to Grung toxins, regardless of caste.

There are several ways Grung employ this toxin to useful effect:

1. A Grung can touch attack a target.  Dex x5% to hit, dodge or parry completely stops a touch attack.  A successful touch on an armored location, the AP of that location resists vs Grung DEX to avoid skin-contact.  Natural armor, magical protections do NOT protect against touch attacks.**
2. A Grung can rub its weapon on its skin, giving that weapon the same effect IF it penetrates armor.  This costs the wielder 3SR.  The effect is volatile; it only lasts a single round whether it hits or not, and would need to be applied again in subsequent rounds.
3. The most likely technique used by trained warrior Grung is the grapple.  (Never used by noncombatants.) On a successful grapple attack, the Grung can “apply touch poison” in lieu of any application of damage.  Due to their ‘sticky grip’, they are extremely capable in this method.  A target trying to break the grapple must use some sort of available tool (and thus their effective STR to resist the grapple is halved) or if they don’t/can’t use a tool, the Grung gets an automatic ‘touch attack success’ (per above) on the limb used to push/scrape them off. (ie only the victim’s armor might protect them)
4. Squirt: once per day, a Gold Grung can squirt its poison from its eyes, targeting one victim (Grung SIZ/2)m away.

** some might argue this is unfair, but protective magics must be somehow permeable to simple contact or a protected individual couldn’t hold anything or touch the floor or possibly breathe, depending on interpretation.  Use your interpretation.

Other notable features:

• Grung never wear armor, and employ the sorts of weapons one would see in a primitive culture - blowguns, darts, javelins, light spears, knives.  They are well aware they're not built for slugging it out in melee...but knowing their inherent advantage they aren't afraid of it, either.  They will definitely use the intimidation factor of their toxic skin to their advantage, when they can.
• Grung will almost never be encountered in groups of less than 6: 5 'workers' and at least one warrior always watching.  War parties could be thirty or more.  Golds often lead large or important attacks - the importance of Grung survival is as big a deal to them as it is to any Green.  They just know they're an important piece on the board, but not irreplaceable.
• A Grung Red is likely to be Shaman or apprentice Shaman.  They are likely to have their full POW in spirit magic, including at least Spirit shield 2 - the Grung hate/fear spirits and will never employ them themselves.  Their village defenses will often be biased to protect heavily vs spirits.
• Oranges will have half their POW in spirit magic known, invariably combat magic, up to 3 point spells.  Golds will have their full POW in spirit magic spells up to strength 6.  Some may be worshippers of appropriate Forest/Jungle/Southern gods - Aldrya, Pamalt, etc and may have divine spells.
• Grung only move half human speed normally, but their sticky pads allow them to move on nearly any surface (including vertical or inverted) at full speed.
• In lieu of their move, a Grung may JUMP up to 6m in a round.  Dex*4 to ‘stick’ the landing if it’s tricky.  Trained Grung warriors will often open combat with this surprise jump into a grapple attack.
• Grung Orange/Gold have a “Chirr” sonic attack – once per 24 hours, they can ‘chirr’ piercingly loud.  Non Grung within (Grung POW/2)m radius must resist Grung POW vs their CON or be befuddled for 1r. 
• Grung are HIGHLY organized.  Warriors will coordinate their attacks intelligently; they will use feints, bait, tricks, and even traps to direct victims into killing zones.  They will seriously evaluate opponents, and wait for reinforcements in order to ensure overwhelming force.  Golds/Oranges will cascade their ‘chirr’ attack to (hopefully) befuddle targets for sequential rounds.  Oranges will lead small parties to flank/surprise targets.  Noncombatant Grung will certainly try to flee any combat BUT there will always be a follow-up war party launched to investigate (read: implacably pursue and destroy) any threat.
• Once all Green/Blue/Red Grung are incapacitated, any Gold will always seek to escape, and Orange to protect that escape.   All Grung will fight to the death to protect the Gold.  Golds, if no other option is available, may surrender/negotiate.  

STATS:

Random Common Grung: Blue, Red, Green (sorry, this is based on heavily modified RQ3; adjust to your rules flavor)

Random Elite Grung: Orange or Gold

GM's note: play the Grung as intelligent but paranoid sociopaths, interested in nothing but the safety/survival of the Grung collectively.  They can be dealt with (delicately) but are sensitive to the slightest offense or possible threat.  Utterly selfless in subordination to their tribe and the Grung generally, they're neither stupid nor reckless.  Their sole moral compass is the safety of the Grung.

19 hours ago, g33k said:

I'm pretty sure all the "unlimited storage" sites actually charge, these days.

Thus, copying to infinity has a cost.

😉

If you really want to be pedantic, Google offers 15g free with any account, so no, you could just open a series of google accounts and copy to infinity.

So...no?

Having run a rather long campaign, I thought it might be helpful/fun for new GMs to see some of the collection of "new" monsters my players have encountered over the years.  So as long as people care, I'll try to post one per Friday.  Some might be particularly interesting one-offs in the great tradition of Chaos beasties scuttling, strutting, or slouching across the face of Glorantha.  Others might be whole new species that aren't canon of course, but I find that leaving books and predictability behind is integral to keeping a campaign fresh.

Mana Flies

Known by many varied and colorful regional epithets across Glorantha, these in-a-way-harmless pests can prove devastating to the unprepared.  Mana flies are a pestilential swarming insect that feeds directly on magic.  They are nearly impossible to see until they've fed on mana, at which point they begin to glow faintly like insubstantial fireflies.  Believed to originate on the spirit plane, they have long since found the material plane to be a comfortable (enough) hunting ground.  They are often found near the scenes of past magical disasters, or wherever the barrier between the material and spirit realm is thinner than usual.  They will not come out in direct sunlight and can be (temporarily) driven off with bright enough artificial light.  They are unlikely to be found in populated regions, unless some recent magical event may have pulled some into our plane.  Relatively fragile creatures, they are easily destroyed but in larger swarms it is hard to kill them quickly enough to avoid serious danger.

A typical swarm will be 1d12+6 flies , but they can be attracted great distances by powerful magic like moths to flame.  A large party of heavily-enchanted individuals regularly wielding potent spells could find themselves the subject of a 5d12+30 swarm or more, descending on their quiet campsite in the middle of a dark night.

Once the population of a swarm is determined (and this generally should only vaguely be communicated to players) the swarm divides evenly across every mana-generating source in the group that currently has >0 MP.  This includes beasts, pets, and even POW crystals (but not MP crystals).  (Example: a swarm of 38 Mana Flies attacks a party of 4 characters, 2 pets, a mule, and one of the characters has 2 POW crystals - this would mean the swarm is divided by 9 total targets the first round - 4 to each target, with the extra 2 assigned randomly.)  Each target is attacked each round by 1d6 flies of this cloud  (up to the number attacking, of course) on the first SR and each fly drains 1mp at the end of that round.  This attack cannot be parried or dodged and is unaffected by physical armor, although some magical defenses will stop them (see below).  (Example: if 16 flies attack two characters, each have a 'cloud' of 8 flies attacking them.  Only 1d6 of this cloud actually land on (attack) each character each round.)

Once the round is complete,  the remaining (total) number of mana flies in the swarm is re-divided across potential victims anew.  (Example: using the original swarm of 38 mana flies above, at the end of the first round both POW crystals and one pet have been drained of MP entirely while unfortunately only 6 mana flies have been destroyed.  At the start of round two there are now 32 mana flies divided across 6 targets - now each target has a cloud of at least 5 attacking.)

Fortunately, they are easy to kill - using one hand, a Dex*5 success swats and kills one, a special success kills two, and a crit kills three flies (remember, this is out of the 1d6 actually landing on the character, not the total cloud of flies attacking the character).  A fumbled slap is treated as a non-damage natural attack.  Note that most humanoids can attack with each hand in a round if they do nothing else.  Generally trying to move and swat them is less effective, reducing movement by half and making the attack Dex*4.  Creatures not otherwise equipped with hands/limbs capable of swatting can still make one self-clearing attack each round by biting/scratching, etc.  Note that prone creatures moving would generally be considered to be using their hands to move, and would normally only be allowed the default one swat/round.

Any attack capable of affecting an area is very effective: consider each victim's cloud a single entity with 1hp vs AOE effects.  Of course, the victim likely will also be subject to that attack as well.  (Example: a massive swarm of 75 mana flies has attacked 3 characters.  Each then will have a cloud of 25 flies.  The duck happens to have a molotov handy, and smashes it on the floor.  The GM rules that the pool of flaming liquid will only cover him and one other character.  The 1d6 damage from the pool of flaming liquid affects each of the 2 characters, but is ALSO considered as an AOE effect against each of their 'clouds' of mana flies.  It will do at least one point of damage, so their clouds are completely destroyed that round, before they can drain any MP.  The third (uncovered) character suffers the normal attack from her cloud of 25, and the next round, those 25 remaining flies are divided across the 3 targets.  If the 2 characters remain standing in their flaming pools, their 'clouds' will be again destroyed, leaving the 8-9 on the (still uncovered) third character as the only ones remaining for the following round.)

Magical defenses are quite good against mana flies.  Spirit/Divine spells behave slightly differently than sorcerous protection:

• Protection/Countermagic/Spirit Screen & comparable effects: total the number of mana flies landing on that target; if they exceed the defensive spell value, the defensive spell is completely dispelled.  In any case, the attacking mana flies are destroyed and do not drain mana points at all.  (Think: bug zapper.)*
• Sorcerous wardings (vs damage, magic, or spirits) are reduced directly 1:1 for each mana fly attacking, which is in turn destroyed.  Wardings reduced to 0 are dispelled.  Any excess mana flies still attacking after the warding is reduced attack the victim and drain MP normally.*

 *complicated bit: POW crystals on a victim's person are attacked as a distinct entity as described above, but benefit from the defenses of the person carrying them.  (Example: a character carrying 2 POW crystals is attacked, she and the two crystals each by 1d6 mana flies.  She has Protection 1 when attacked.   As she and the POW crystals are all attacked simultaneously at the start of the round, the Protection 1 is considered a bubble around all three.  The 3d6 mana flies 'land on the bubble' of the Prot 1, annihilating the Prot 1 but also all being destroyed in turn without draining anything.  If she had instead a sorcerous warding of 10 points, the 3d6 mana flies would all attack THAT warding and if more than 10 flies land, the warding would be dispelled, with the remaining flies attacking normally, distributed evenly across the 3 targets - any remainder mana flies can be allocated according the the character's choice.)

The swarms are only semi-physical, and are not affected by wind.  The swarm has a flying move of 12, so some particularly fast-moving creatures might be able to outdistance them.

Any victim brought to 0MP by mana flies immediately falls unconscious.  If the swarm isn't dispelled, they'll simply hover on the target, eating any generated MP (before the character gets it, sadly) over time until either daylight drives them away or the target dies from all the sorts of things that will ultimately kill a person permanently sleeping on the ground.  So mana flies can never actually directly kill anyone.

Note that mana flies are considered delicious by a number of spirit plane life forms, and spirits (actual freely-moving spirits, not for example allied spirits in a beast or weapon) deployed to this effect can be quite effective to combat them.   Any spirit commanded to attack a swam will destroy 1d6 flies on the first SR of each round automatically (gaining that many MP simultaneously as well) and will drive away another 1d6 (which are not actually destroyed, but will not re-concentrate anytime soon).  The specific destroyed/driven-off flies may be selected by the character controlling the spirit, but must eliminate one victim's 'cloud' before moving to another (ie a spirit can't "shave" one fly off of multiple victim's clouds, for example).  Of course, a spirit deployed like this is a POW-generating entity, and will also be targeted as such by the swarm as any other entity and my be brought to 0MP likewise, which will permanently dispel it.  A fetch (uniquely) CAN be deployed in this role, but likewise then becomes vulnerable to the mana flies in turn, for the round in which it acts in that capacity.

The presence of a hellion is terrifying to mana flies and will immediately disperse an entire swarm, regardless of size.  They will not return while the hellion remains present.

Note to GMs: this is a lot simpler to run than it seems.  Generate the swarm, at the start of each round divide across targets.  Destroy any clouds subject to existing AOE damage.  From those clouds remaining on each target, 1d6 actually land.  Victim defenses activate/are reduced.  Victims each get to (hopefully) destroy some.  Anything left sucks some MP.  Next round, take what's left of the swarm, re-divide it across everything with MP left and repeat. 

Mana flies by themselves are generally just annoying considering at WORST they're only draining an average of 3.5 MP/round, with ample ways to reduce this.  Even if a party is overwhelmed, assuming they don't get eaten/robbed/captured while sleeping, sunrise will drive the flies away, and the first regen'd MP will awaken the characters.  The flies' nastiness is in their ability to burn defenses and chew down mana *particularly* if they are attacking during other combat.  Note however that they don't take sides - two groups fighting when attacked by mana flies would be swarmed evenly by all the flies.

Some rumors suggest that there may be magics that can summon or otherwise control them, but nobody is sure if that's true or terrifying/wishful thinking.

Yeah, those two kids are ... screwed.

Let me know if you have any questions.

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

15 bucks cdn, That can't be much more than the original price back when the Canadian dollar was worth more that the American and disco was king. the late seventies early eighties. 

Turns out theres a cost difference between electronic versions where you can copy them to infinity and it costs nothing, to dead tree versions made of matter that has to be printed, packaged, stored, and shipped? 

If you think RQ combat is crunchy, C&S rulebooks will blow you away.  

58 minutes ago, klecser said:

So, clearly my comment above is considered "Sad" by people, and I don't understand why. I was just trying to be helpful. Why is it "Sad" to ask a designer to give insight on the design process? It's a rare privilege that we have from Chaosium designers. If you don't want me to be helpful here, I'll stop commenting.

Fwiw I'm looking forward to the answer, but I expect it will come from @Jason Durall, not Jeff.

1 hour ago, Ochoa said:

Pretty much the gold standart for me at this point.

Yeah, the fact that some of that was shared with the community was cool too, because it really gave us all insight into how much WORK goes into (apparently) every single illustration.

Neat.

4 hours ago, Ochoa said:

As an illustrator for RPGs, I am glad I've not had the honor of illustrating for RQ, after reading this thread. 

Wakboth forbid the curvature of a stressed spear in one of my pieces is wrong.

That's a shame because imo every illustrator brings a unique vision and perspective.  Jeff's art direction is imo irreproachably thorough and concise, allowing artists pretty free-range interpretation for the creative bits.

20 hours ago, jajagappa said:

It was a legitimate comment that this thread has drifted into irrelevant real-world examples - I don't see any personal attack intended within.

I'd simply request all to return to the thread topic.

Meh.  Everything we think is necessarily based on real world examples, just modified by magical circumstance.  I find the puerile "well this is a magic world with dragons, real thing X doesn't apply because I don't want it to!" rather conveniently applied.

On 7/4/2019 at 7:15 AM, Akhôrahil said:

Modern Western men of average height have difficulties holding Indian swords from the 18th and 19th century, due to the hilts being so small that your hand doesn't even fit.

I held the actual sword of Roger II of Sicily, and my pinky finger wouldn't fit (I'm 6'4") the grip at all.  It was only about 20" blade and extremely light, almost felt more like exaggerated cutlery than a combat sword.

doublepost

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

But then, tieing hit points directly to life energy is a rules mechanism that needn't be optimal. Before I started playing RQ, I used to play a similar skill-based, damage-reducing armor system that had two kinds of hit points - life points that were lost only on un-defended hits (or falls, or...) and endurance points which were lost on successful defenses (and which doubled as magic points). A system like that makes the fight and retreat scenario more likely. In the end, there are other places in the rules that may create a better simulation, and RQ and related systems don't cover all those options.

Terrific point, actually.

I never played it but Harnmaster had a system that I thought was quite clever.  Rather than the reductionist and rather simplistic "hit point" model that pretty nearly every game relies on, their s was a 'resist the wound' model where damage was a certain number of points...iirc (this was a long time ago, so I may be mangling it badly), those points were compared vs the target's size basically, to determine if that was a light, medium, serious or critical wound.  Could be more likely to be at that upper end in sensitive hit locations, I think?  Anyway, then the wound-level was resisted by the characters CON with an array of possible results.  Whatever the result, light wounds cumulatively added like +1, med +2, serious +4, and crit +8 to the roll against your CON so it was never really mathematically simple to know how close you were to being incapacitated, you would just know like a normal person that "I'm getting pretty beat up and am going to fail one of these checks pretty soon".

Not to mention, such a model made it easy in that game to apply debuffs based on injury level, so unlike other games where people are prancing around at 1hp without any consequence, by the time you'd lost half your hp you were struggling.  That had massive impacts on (for example) the choice of weapon was critical as were the ability to hit FIRST (as injury was like real life a negative spiral). 

27 minutes ago, Roko Joko said:

Seems like Orlanth Adventurous initiates would be on the elite side, more fighters than farmers... so she should have a sword.  Particularly with the new rules and fluff.  I wonder why she doesn't.

Edit: and the caption says she is in fact a rune lord.  So yeah, what's up with that.

She couldn't have lost it, because as far as I understand nobody uses disarm.

.

.

...I kid, I kid.

12 hours ago, Kloster said:

IIRC, this was the official RQIII rule.

Nope, for characteristic increases (where allowed) RQ3 was multiply stat x25 and after that number of hours of training, you get d3-1 to the stat.

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

The primary purpose of the rules for the game designers is to allow player characters (who are mainly human sized) to interact with NPCs (who might be small or gigantic), often through fighting. If the primary purpose of the rules for you is to model fights BETWEEN giant squids and whales, then I can't help you.

Personally I'd say a "good" system of mechanics for 'fantasy gaming' should scale?  It's a facet where RQ3 absolutely had a more rigorous approach (in HP, anyway).  

Likewise my previously mentioned issues with the SR system: it doesn't scale up at all.

Don't get me wrong, RQ2/RQG has a sweet spot and in that sweet spot (humans, with stats in a moderate range) everything does work perfectly.  If someone's whole game is about traipsing after lost/stolen cattle and breathless negotiations over the price of wheat, I agree, my 'edge case' issues totally don't matter. 

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Elephant bulls (and bulls of any other species) don't usually fight to kill their opponent, but to subdue him.

Agreed.  Yet fights between the smallest creatures are often to the death.  Then go back a step and ask why bigger creatures have evolved to NOT fight to the death that often?

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Yes, why not, if the difference in bulk etc. is compensated with armor points

Except that model (monster with massive AP and few hp) is brittle as hell...one crit and they die.  (Your solution was what they did in SPH for Bigclub...slapping massive armor on him hid the fact that he was fragile.  That's the exact opposite of the 'big creatures slugging it out for hours then retiring to lick their many wounds' model that we both agree seems to be how the biggest creatures often seem to fight.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Same for her gut. Obviously the plate is hiding the interior, but the impression that we get across is of a fairly bulky waist, that of someone with a lot of core strength, and the kind of muscle mass built up from, again, working muscles rather than idealized "amazonian" narrow waists.

Look at the true 'Strongest' competitions...like those Icelandic guys lugging rocks in circles.  None of them look like bodybuilders, more like massive potatoes.