styopa

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

at some point, skill training becomes undistinguishable from characteristic training.

For us it was a sort of light bulb moment when we realized we could merge the two.  In RQ3 at least, skill training was pretty reasonable, but characteristic training had a 'winging it' feel with a totally different approach/calculation.

One day I realized ...what if we just take the stat, multiply by 5, and THEN TREAT IT JUST LIKE TRAINING A SKILL?  (and then of course you actually a stat point increase when your 'training' crosses the next multiple of 5) 

Voila!  It's not the Grand Unified Theory, but it works great, is internally consistent and IMO feels right.

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Once you are within your category modifier of 100, it is linear with the frequency of checks. The returns stop diminishing.

Fair point, I was talking about the bulk of increase, but you're absolutely correct.

We've toyed with HR that skill over 100 requires a special to EVEN get a check, and skill over 150 requires a crit.  It makes those breakpoints much more significant, but then when adapting adventures, you have to keep in mind that those % iles above 100 should be deprecated....if the adventure says the boss has a 140% attack, that should really be scaled down to about 120 at most.  I could probably work out the function (something like everything over 100 divide by 5, and over 150 divide by 20) but winging it is honestly likely good enough.  Players don't honestly care whether the enemy has precisely 120% or 122%.

7 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

In RQ3, you could get 4 successful checks a season, maybe more. Adventure for a week, then take a week off to do skill checks. Then adventure for another week, then a week off, etc. If your adventures take less than a week you might be able to cram in more.

Maybe that belongs on the munchkinnery thread.

Of course one of the fundamental mathematical beauties of the RQ canon has always been the diminishing returns of the learning by experience system.  The smoothing function is really beautiful.

The ultimate difference between the skill gain speed for 4 checks a season and 1 check a season is probably less than you think.  The former is certainly not 4x the latter.  I used to have a sheet that would calculate the number of skill gain rolls needed to go from skill X to skill Y with a certain bonus mod, but can't put my hand on it right now.

5 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

I hate that picture. Donald Duck has no place in my Glorantha!

She's clearly hunting him down for public indecency, ie no pants.

So many ducks think that's just something everyone will just "be cool" with.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Nope, that's well-maintained bronze, just like her axe or the duck's sword. The cuirass appears to be hard leather or cuirboulli.

As to the load the spear carries - helmet and pot about 2 kg each, bed roll another 1 kg, water gourds between 0.5 and 6 kg depending on how much she already used.

The pot might be so big in order to cook broth to be carried in the large gourd, as a liquid meal.

Not to mention the spear's not carrying the load.  When you carry a load like that, much of the weight is largely on the back/shoulder.

I still really like that picture.  She's the epitome of a real warrior woman to me - strong, scuffed, sweaty and looking a little worn, and yet obviously feminine.

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Actually, this was a recommendation from Greg which I agreed wholehearted with. In RQ3, large monsters had an insurmountable number of hit points. Giants and dragons - creatures with a ton of armor and deadly attacks, gained too many hit points. The conclusion was that the total hit points per monsters made more sense in RQ2 and better reflected Greg and Sandy's vision of those monsters, than in RQ3.

Ie scary, monstrous creatures were....too scary and monstrous?  7000kg giant has only 2x the body hp of a 70kg adventurer?

That's the same sort of logic that gave D&D the DDG book with gods with hp.  I mean, why should they be frankly impossible to kill, they're only gods....?

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Many natural attacks don't get the full damage bonus, and then there is natural armor. Still, the duel between King Kong and the dinosaur might be over faster than in the movies.

When in IRL, fights between larger creatures like bull elephants or sperm whales and giant squid generally go on LONGER (and are more often immediately inconclusive) than fights between smaller creatures like shews or ferrets which are over pretty quickly.

I'll save you all the the replies: "It doesn't have to make logical sense because there are dragons and magic, duh"  LOL, RQ's equivalent to "A wizard did it"

9 hours ago, Uthred said:

 "Realism justifies my sexism!"

And here I was thinking that saying "men are usually bigger and stronger than women" was oddly, just a fact.  Are objective facts still allowed in 2019?  

Who knew that it was illustrative of my entire psyche?  LOL

Some people would wonder why the attempt to dehumanize (frankly: demonize) someone with whom you simply disagree.

4 hours ago, galafrone said:

that's interesting. but this way the siz will become drastically punitive for the smaller races 

in this way ducks will basically be unplayable (as trollkins, etc) while the "giant races" will be almost impossible to kill

If you think about it, an avian-boned small creature SHOULD BE FRAGILE AND EASILY HARMED.  Fundamentally realistic.

But then look at the (angry) responses to my previous suggestion that things that are smaller and weaker IRL should be smaller and weaker in game.   Crazy, I know.  But nope, abandon the unassailable reality of human dimorphism because "somehow" that deprecates women?  I'm shorter than Kareem Abdul Jabbar...I don't feel deprecated.

I think games should simulate reality as well as reasonably possible, not bend mechanics to fit...ideology I guess?    Barring magic, smaller things should be weaker and easier to kill than big things.  CERTAINLY magic in Glorantha can overcome disadvantages in size and strength, but to hand-wave-away reality because it doesn't fit what we wish it to...?

Granted, I'm coming at this from the position of DM'ing now for eek, 40 years, my immediate impression of new DMs is that they are far too slavishly dedicated to the written material.

Whether it's the precise layout of a map, to the placement/appearance of monsters, to the pacing of encounters, to treasure they find - I freely 'wing it' when I feel it would be more fun for the group.  This doesn't mean coddling them, it doesn't mean trying to kill them or save them from stupid choices (although I've been known to throw some shit in published adventures where I suspect someone might have read it and not be totally forthright about it...).  No, the dice have to be the arbiter of outcomes, or players will feel they're simply dancing on the DMs strings - IMO that's no fun.  It also deprecates their choices; if there really isn't risk, there can't be bravery.

Make that NPC a woman, get rid of that encounter because it doesn't make any sense based on how you set the adventure in your world, add some dogs because that 'smart BBEG' wouldn't be so stupid as to leave the place unguarded while she's away.  Throw in a piece of treasure that will really "work" for the player who last session got pummelled because he played in-character (if they find it).

The point is fun for your group.  Full stop.

17 hours ago, Mugen said:

 Using only the sword for attacking and parrying seems a no-brainer to me, because, until the sword becomes damaged enough that it's not really useful for parrying, the 35% loss is just too much risk.

Until someone shoots you with an arrow, then that extra 35% parry with your sword doesn't help you at all.

47 minutes ago, Julian Lord said:

Good stuff, though this notion of how she might carry all of that extra load is extremely unrealistic and I'm afraid looks pretty ridiculous, notwithstanding the otherwise fine quality and execution of the design.

She's carrying far too much, and there is NO WAY that a single person might even need such oddly huge cooking utensils.

AND that would just *kill* her left arm and shoulder, not to mention her back. But maybe she's packing all of the loot from her latest Quest ?

It's just silly to suppose -- traditional iconography notwithstanding -- that one would carry more than can be inside or else hang onto one's pack (and where's her sleeping roll ?) ; and also quite bizarre that anyone would fail to use his or her spear as a hiking staff, and so always ready in defensive stance. Even in a temporary workaround from being overloaded and needing to be for her own reasons, she'd want to keep the spearhead down not up, to hasten combat readiness as she could use gravity to let the load slide off the blunt end whilst bringing the business end into better position.

Or -- does she maybe just have 35% Spear skill ?

What?

I'd agree her spear staff is a little slender but I don't get at all what you're talking about "too much".

1) the shaft is not on her shoulder, it's on the plate/strap which would spread the load a little.

2) what's on that shaft is helmet, pot, blanket, small waterskin, and a bag of sundries.  Maybe what, 8-10kg TOPS?  She's not wearing it on her back because her shield's there.  I admit I'm surprised she doesn't have a pack but lacking one, you make do.  I have to say more than once I've done the same thing with a stick to carry more things than I have hands for into/out of a campsite.  The weight rests mostly on the back of your shoulder, not the shaft anyway.

3) point up/point down...that's niggling pretty hard.  Generally you carry a weapon point up and away from the people you're dealing with.

Sounds like you're trying really hard to be hypercritical, and none of your complaints make much sense anyway.   Not sure why you'd be that way, but you be you.

4 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Coming from someone who loves Mythras, I can see that. It takes a different mindset to get around combat styles and they are a bit unsettling at first. They break some kind of paradigm so theycan be confusing ( but clunky, not really). I personally like both appraoches.

I think conceptually the "archetype" skills work great for NPCs because they are quick to generate and "good enough" but they founder on edge cases (and the adjudication of each of those ends up being so niggly it's easier just to leave them separate). 

Does a 1H sword skill always come with "and with a shield" for free?  There are obviously ample martial 1h sword traditions that had nothing to do with shield use.  Could you have given a shield to, say, a samurai or a 14th century French rapierman and really expected they would automatically" be proficient with it?  Obviously not.  Is someone trained as a Tercio-era sword-and-bucklerman going to function the same if you hand them a massive scutum?  Would a Roman legionary be fine with a buckler?  

For NPCs this doesn't matter at all.  They're good with whatever they need to be good at, and likely they are equipped with that.

Characters generally want some freedom of choice.  I as a player, and the group I dm, find the choice of weapon use and (sometimes) idiosyncratic combinations interesting tactical choices.

Looks like he's got a proto-Vingan behind him too.

Ultimately:

1) we're all more or less speculating.  Some of us have some experience in martial arts, some in SCA (or it's more savage descendants Armored Combat League, etc) but let's face it: I'm pretty confident to say that there is nobody in this forum who has routinely relied on medieval melee weapons for their daily trade of war. (IIRC Sven alluded grimly to having been in pretty dark melee situations in military service so he's probably the closest but again...probably not a ROUTINE thing).

2) the goal in this system (other systems, and houserules etc may have different goals) is to be reasonably realistic AND PLAYABLE.  Vague words like 'reasonably' and 'playable' are indeed subjective and open to individual interpretation.

3) personally, I LIKE the separate attack/parry skills (but not completely unlinked), but one thing I've never harshed on RQG for is the overall simplification of a single combat skill for a weapon.  Makes sense to me, and is 'close enough' to my (speculation) of the real circumstances that I'm ok with it.  Personally, I think it works well enough.  Certainly still craptons better than D&D.

I've always rejected the seasonal thing as a needlessly intrusive from the designside.   Why compel campaigns to frame their gameplay like that? 

I know the 'imagined" world for RQG is meant to be much more "textured" than murderhobos stamping around running dungeons for loot, but I think there's a vast gulf of playable space between "you only get to do one thing a season, ergo maybe 40-80 adventures in the span of an entire character's life" and the daily murderhobo thing.

Then again it may not much matter: My players currently have been on the same adventure for IRL 6 months of bi-weekly play, btw.

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'd suggest reading a nice version of the Iliad or the Odyssey or Gilgamesh to get the Bronze Age vibe. There's Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze, Rosemary Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy (with art by Alan Lee), or David Boyle and Viv Croot's Troy. Or Ludmila Zeman's Gilgamesh Trilogy. Or get Mary Renault's classics like the King Must Die. Think ancient world, when gods interacted with mortals.

Personally, I'd say that a QUICKER way to get people into the 'vibe' would be to simply watch Hercules or Xena.  They're streaming pretty much everywhere and while kitschy they're decent shows and hew to the bronze age motif at least as closely as RQG does.

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

Opposed rolls come from Pendragon, not MRQ.

Fair point, neither were my metier.  Thanks!

4 hours ago, Imryn said:

Personally I think the whole "bronze age" tag is a bit misleading.

It is, and it's taken far too literally by some.  It's only useful as a rough tag, and it identifies that RQG is playing in a more 'mythic' setting (and environment, mostly), ostensibly less tech advanced than that of your cliche D&D faux-Medievalist European campaign.  That's all.  More than that any IMO you're veering into YGMV.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

And that is what Jeff is trying to say when he invokes Bronze Age. What he really means is stories and heroic interactions.

^this.

9 hours ago, Jeff said:

Flint Slingers and Bronze Fists at least.

As euphemisms, those are terrifying.  I've heard 'Flint Slingers' are agony, but I think everyone's been threatened to some degree by the Bronze Fists of Orlanth.

Pretty sure anyone in Orlanthi culture that violates a geas is forever after known as "Breaking Wind".

36 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

...and that is why I figured I would approach and poke you with a stick, sharp end first, (I aint as dum as I luk, luc,  seem!)  to see if you wold attack or... I mean you seemed reasonable despite the foamy mouth.

The danger of Eurmal isn't that he plays tricks on people.  It's that his curiosity is without boundaries.

Sometimes a guy just wants to see what happens if someone dumps a pot of ale on Ernalda's head with Orlanth sitting right there.  Whatever happens, the results certainly will be interesting. 

1 hour ago, pachristian said:

I identify average heights and weights based on ethnicity and gender, and then give everyone the same points to build with. I believe Chaosium did address the issue once, and their comment “It’s not worth the fights it creates”.

Ah, but sometimes that's the fun.  Not everyone wants to walk softly and avoid making waves all the time.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Does anyone really want to try to encode all that (and more, similar, minutia) into RQ-ish rules????

As a male, it doesn't bother me in the slightest to say women have higher average intelligence, and higher minimum.  Or give 'em a flat +1, I'd be fine with that too.  

I purposely avoided that +1 because I didn't want to suggest that at the top end either gender is smarter than the other.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to treat any human sex differently in terms of basic characteristics in the rules. 

Good thing this isn't an errata thread asking for a correction or ruling then.  Just offering an alternative chargen rule for people to toy with.

Just now, Quackatoa said:

Not in the slightest. Systematically disestablish violence as the principal mode of conflict resolution throughout the 40+ year history of modern roleplaying games, and what are you left with?

Yeah, put that way I'd agree on second thought. 

Then again, IMO moving the hobby away from nothing but tidal waves of blood and slaughter isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I appreciate the generally thoughtful tone of the responses.  Really, I do.

After reading them I guess my final comments in no particular order would be:

- I recognize it is an incendiary topic, but honestly can't figure out why.  If I say Billy is taller than Mary, nobody would reasonably construe that as an insult to Mary in any way.  If I have a class of college students (ie done growing), and say that on average the males are both bigger and stronger than the females in that group, again, I don't think most people would flame-on about that.  Yet broadening the assertion - with equal statistical reliability - to humanity...that's somehow denigratory to women?  I admit, I do NOT comprehend that difference.  Perhaps if I were a woman and had that +1 INT I'd get it?

- I think it is worth remarking that the reactions here (predictably, I have to admit) suggest that losing a few points of STR and SIZ seem to weigh more significantly than gaining a benefit in CON, INT (the most important stat in the game, IMO), POW, and DEX (to a net +0.5 in stats).  Is it really that everyone's campaigns just are nothing but constant fighting?  Or?  (Again, I'd mentioned that I personally would give female characters probably a further extra +1 POW at chargen but still with normal maximums for the reason stated.)

- I think the "well there's nothing that says gloranthan humans are like earth humans" answer is a bit of handwaving.  There's nothing in the RULES that say gloranthan humans have 10 fingers and toes, or only 2 eyes, or lack a gizzard for grinding seed either, but I think we all assume the human norm anyway.

- I entirely agree with the point brought up a couple of ways that players are extraordinary, that (some people would feel) such variations aren't fun, and besides don't players pretty much play the characters they want to anyway?  Agree on all points.  But then I'd semi-seriously ask: if those are all true, why even pretend to offer dice-variable stats? 

- I frankly liked Xena more than Hercules.  I have nothing against super women, ever.  Never had.

16 hours ago, g33k said:

Most of the hoary old propositions were there in the OP.

You say "hoary old propositions" I just say "facts".  Tomato, tohmahtoe.

16 hours ago, g33k said:

It was part and parcel of why most women didn't play, wouldn't play.

LOL, exactly what I meant.  I suggest a system that MATHEMATICALLY advantages women (on average my suggestion deducts 4.5 points (-2.5 in STR, -2 in SIZ), but adds 5 (+2 CON, +2 INT, +1 DEX, better POW result, and MUCH higher minimums in both CON and INT) and it's immediately regarded as somehow an attack on women.  

Hilarious if it wasn't so kneejerk.  Is it that the men here don't like the idea of women having an overall stat advantage?

In my experience, most women didn't play and wouldn't play in that era for A HOST of reasons from "having better things to do" to "personal hygiene of the players".  "A woman character not being as strong as a man" was hilariously pretty far down the list.

20 hours ago, Quackatoa said:

So we have two options: (i) keep physical violence in place, but artificially remove its consequences and context, such as removing sex-based characteristic modifiers; or (ii) to stop making and enjoying games where we solve all our problems by hitting them in the face with an axe, which has after all proven a pretty shitty activity to a lot of people over the ages. As we tend to valorise, idealise and infantilise violence to a considerable degree, and our understanding of the nature and consequences of conflict is fairly shallow, we plumb for (i). Unsurprisingly, really, as choosing (ii) would eradicate the hobby as we know it.

Eradicate the hobby as we know it?  That's a little...overstated? 

Someone please tell Selkana that her fascinating adventures - which DON'T revolve around dungeon crawling and waving sharpened steel at each other - are impossible, then. (https://www.chaosium.com/blogselkanas-saga-11-mad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know/) 

16 hours ago, Joerg said:

But then, how many of your characters are rolled up completely randomly, without selection bias? How much do the rolled statistics survive after the decision whether or not to keep playing that character?

Completely agree.  So what does it matter then if we say "Men have an average CON of 11, women have 13" if people generally pick (or lean toward) the stats they want to play?

And more interestingly, why do people get so very upset by someone noting that women are less physically strong than men?

15 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Without being nasty, alas you are on the wrong side of history as well as MGF here. If a woman wishes to play a Princess Diana of Amazonia why ever not. She shan't achieve said stats if she must roll as a member of the distaff side. Or say I wish to play tim the enchanter™, well I say...

...

You should see the women of the union local I work with and just how strong mentally as well as physically they are! It would amaze you

A.) of course she still can.  We all play exceptional people all the time.

B.) on the former, perhaps you missed that I suggested that women get much BETTER INT stats than men?  And physically, I have no doubt that there are strong women, but it's indisputable that for a random population of men and women, men are on average around 40% stronger. (of course there are a huge variety of ways how you measure strength)

15 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Wish I could cite the details but I remember reading Greg once replying,." We like women!"  to the question why Chaosium and RQ had such reverence  and place for women both as characters and players compared to other '80s games.

Cheers

Yeah, I personally like them too.  And I've never measured a woman's value by whether she could bench press 250lbs or no.  I think women play a central role in RQ, it's one of the more fascinating, genre-trope-breaking elements of Glorantha.  My question is why we need to pretend that they're exactly like men?  Last time I checked, they aren't?

12 hours ago, Crel said:

1. To most accurately model characteristic variety, why would we be slavishly attached to rolling D6s? For example, a roll of 4D4 has a range of 4 to 16, but a similar average to 3D6 (10 v. 10.5). 5D4 creates a fairly interesting spread for INT, with min 5 (for blithering idiots) and max of 20, and an average of 12.5 (near our current 2D6+6). I don't have a full array to suggest, but it seems to me that if we're looking to work from a simulation perspective, the best array of characteristic rolls would be developed by a series of small dice rolled many times--D3s and D4s--with a small additional modifier on top to denote sexual divergence. For characteristics with a great deal of variety, like STR, remain with D6s or go even higher.

I appreciate your thinking about it.  TBH, I don't know why we're slavishly attached to the 3-18 paradigm anyway.  It was just aping D&D in the first place (likely to make conversion easier?) and we're just aping that 40 year old mistake.  CoC7th I believe went to % for stats which makes a crapton more objective sense for all the same reasons a d100 combat system makes more sense.

12 hours ago, Oracle said:

Yes, this is a serious and valid question. But my main objection would be: player characters are not average characters. So with MGF in mind I would refrain from using these quantifiable differences in the character creation process. Unless the players want to do it, but I do not see, why they should ...

We generically represent (as objectively as possible) the stats for horses, dogs, snakes, and sharks.  Why not for humans?  What is it about humans that their representation in the game HAS to be filtered through political correctness (that is not just in question, but FACTUALLY CONTRARY to reality)?  

We don't say "my Fido was an *extraordinary* dog, therefore I refuse to use normal dog stats for any dog in my game".  That would be silly.

Would it be more palatable to suggest these stats for NPCs only?  Except to me, one of the BEST features of RQG is the same rules apply to PCs and NPCs.

Before I 'submit' on this comment to go to the page 2 replies...

What I see?  So far, it's 100% *MEN* commenting on these stats.  I'd love to see women's opinions on the idea that female characters (NPCs, if that's more palatable) generally have less STR, slightly less SIZ, better CON, better INT, higher DEX, and better POW to the net of +0.5 stats for females over males.  Most of the women in my life have proven time and again that STR and SIZ aren't the most important stats in the world, and Selkana has abundantly proved that rich, entertaining RQ campaigns don't have to be about murderhobos killing everyone they see.

18 hours ago, Crel said:

I don't think this successfully models the characteristic difference you're aiming for, because while both males and females on this model have the same maximum rollable INT (18), their minimum rollable varies drastically (3 and 8, respectively). Further, the difference between a 99.5-101.5 and a 100 average is minuscule; IQ isn't an objective measurement, but rather an average based upon tested subjects which occasionally needs to be controlled for a wide variety of variables. For example, a 100 IQ child does not exhibit the same cognitive functions as a 100 IQ adult. My understanding on IQ is that it is best considered in the context of a standard deviation, generally 15 points. So, substantial differences in functioning can be seen between persons of similar age and culture at IQ 85 and IQ 100 after brief conversation, but the difference between 95 and 100 likely isn't obvious.

I think you're getting into the weeds.  I threw the IQ in there as a cheap immediate number, but it isn't by any means the entirety of the position.

For example, I wouldn't for a moment suggest that either gender is inherently more intelligent than the other.  However, I think there are a few memes that are reasonably supported by my amateur perusal of the evidence:

- there tend to be both more genius and mentally challenged men, than there are for women.  (yes, I know that 2d6+6 ends up giving a flatter distribution for females; but solutions that gave BOTH identical top- and bottom values but flatter distributions for one were frankly overly complex)

- the (much) higher bottom end INT for females was an acknowledgment that females seem to be less afflicted with mental retardation than males generally, and the difference becomes more marked as one looks steps through more-profound conditions (although some of the cursory data I looked at had differing demographics, males were invariably worse). 

- ENTIRELY anecdotal; most men I know admit the woman they're with is smarter than them.  Even when she's not listening.

And neither am I writing some sort of dissertation on gender differences in intelligence.

1 hour ago, The God Learner said:

Surely there's no need for all those traps and protection spells and what not anymore?

 

And the patrols?  I mean, those are expensive and we could be using those funds for more important things.  Renewing those enchantments isn't cheap either.

PS your name checks out, of course.

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Zistorism is dead and gone, as is their deity.

Bwahaha that's what everyone thinks, don't they?

While reading the various threads/comments about limb hp, strike ranks, and realism questions I wonder why - with the effort to make RQ as reasonably realistic as one can be in a game setting with dragons and magic - we all sort of skip over with no comment the obvious unrealism of RQs lack of sexual dimorphism?  Why not represent women's stats distinctly from men?

I realize that even raising this issue will likely trigger some people.  Shrug.

Nevertheless, I pose it as a serious question: it's a quantifiable, proven fact that men are typically stronger than women of the same size.  They are also, typically, larger than women.  These two stats cumulate to a 40% strength advantage for the average man over the average woman.  

Further, I'd argue that the next clearest difference would probably be in CON - women live longer than men, and if you remove the deaths due to childbirth it's even more striking.  Clearly human females have on average a higher CON than human males.  I'd likewise believe it persuasively arguable that women have at least slightly better DEX.  My experience with most married couples would be they have higher INT as well.  Finally, I'd even argue a reasonable cause so suggest higher POW, depending on how you define it.  I mean, they can (with a little help) CREATE LIFE.

So my net suggestions would be:

STR: men 3d6, women 2d6+1 (this puts both the average and the max at about the statistical 40% difference)

CON: men 3d6, women 2d6+6 (women live longer, have better immune systems, probably higher pain resistance)

SIZ: men 2d6+6, women 2d6+4 (both are normally distributed, but women avg 62kg, men 78kg ie about 2 SIZ points)

INT: men 3d6, women 2d6+6 (IQ tests tend to put women around 99.5-101.5 vs men 100 in the developed world.  In my PRACTICAL experience, this understates the difference in real-world use.)

POW: both 3d6...personally, I'd suggest women's POW be considered 2-4 higher for MP recovery rate but that's obviously entirely subjective

DEX: men 3d6, women 3d6+1

CHA: (same)

Yes, this is going to create a likely-significant advantage to human males in combat vs females....but that's not unrealistic. 

Other races would likely be different; female mistress/dark/trollkin trolls would perhaps be better in every stat than the respective males?

Why not represent the differences between men and women reasonably within the game, or is any suggestion of dimorphism going to invariably be interpreted as some sort of denigration somehow?

On 5/29/2019 at 9:09 PM, g33k said:

I go back to my "rule of common-sense" -- if a rule is unclear, make the assumption that seems most common-sensical.

I don't have the rulebook d/l'ed to this device, so I can't check the RAW; but in the absence of anything clear I'd probably put a x0.5 (1/2) penalty on the Dodge:  it's not that you cannot roll/scramble away... but you aren't nearly as nimble as when you're on your feet!

YGMV.

 

We use the RQ3 rule that if you're prone you're -20% to attacks, and +20% to be attacked.

Getting up takes a full round - you can act again on your initiative in the following round.  If you are attacked while getting up, you can dodge/parry without penalty *but* if you do, that re-sets you as prone again.  Logic?  Watch any people in real fights...pretty much nobody tries to get up IN MELEE.  They try to skitter away and then get up.

We also generally rule that a dodge puts you randomly in one of 6 hexes (self plus 5 adjacent, ignoring the attacker's hex) but I've been sloppy about forcing that.  A dodge 1 success level better lets you pick from 2 rolls.  A dodge 2 levels better you can pick which of the 5 hexes you end in.